Well Madam President, Rene Hidding, the leader of the Tasmanian Opposition, my Federal and State parliamentary colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. Again it is my pleasure to address this annual meeting of the State Council of the Liberal Party in Tasmania. I start my address by expressing my gratitude to all of you for the support and loyalty that you've extended to me and to my federal parliamentary colleagues and to our national political movement over the last year.
It's been a momentous year in the history of Australia. It's been a year that has been a further reaffirmation of the strength and the durability of the Australian economy and the standing respect of our nation around the world, not least in our own region. It has been a year in which an Australian-led Pacific Island intervention group have saved the people of the Solomon Islands from falling into chaos and bad government. It's a demonstration of the leadership role that this country is playing in our part of the world. I congratulate Rene Hidding on the excellent job that he's done in leading the Opposition here in Tasmania. The skilful, patient way in which he has held the Labor Government of Tasmania to account in relation to the failed and shameful vice-regal appointment of recent times speak volumes for his political ability.
Very soon the Australian people will face a choice, a choice about the future of this country, a choice about the government of this country for the next three years. This will be an election not about the past but about the future. Let Mr Latham argue about the past, John Howard will tell the Australian people his plans for our collective future. Our nation has over the last eight-and-a-half years acquired a strength, a self-confidence, a standing, a respect around the world that is a consequence of the government taking difficult but necessary decisions. Not only to strengthen our domestic economy, but also to pursue and support causes that are important to the long term security of our nation, our region and the world. The next election will be a decision about who best can manage the Australian economy in the years ahead. A Coalition Government of John Howard and Peter Costello and John Anderson, or a Labor Government of Mark Latham, Simon Crean and anybody else you care to name. A Coalition Government that has delivered the strongest economy Australia has had since World War II. An economy that is not strong by fluke or accident, but an economy which is strong because of determined and resolute decisions. A strong economy characterised above all else by the lowest interest rates this country has had for more than a generation. And if there is one thing you can be certain of in political life in Australia, Labor always delivers higher interest rates. Whitlam started it when overnight rates for the first time in our history went above 20 per cent, they went high under Keating, they went high under Hawke and they go will go up again, painfully up again, under a Latham Labor Government. So nothing is a greater metaphor for our political success and our economic achievements over the last eight and a half years than the way in which we have saved Australian home buyers hundreds of dollars a month in interest payments. Many in this audience will remember the painfully high housing interest rates of 17 per cent under Mr Keating and Mr Hawke. Farmers and small business people will remember the bill rates of 20 and 21 per cent that they endured during the government of those two men. The philosophy of a future Labor government will deliver the big spending budget deficits of past Labor governments. And inevitably in a climate of rising pressure on interest rates around the world those policies will deliver higher interest rates. So on that issue alone there is no doubt what the choice will be. If you want lower interest rates you need a Coalition Government. If we elect a Labor Government we are voting for higher interest rates, the track record is there, the policies have not changed, and the outcome will be precisely the same.
This election will also be a decision about who best to manage our national security and our defence. When I became Prime Minister and I faced the reality of a budget deficit left to me by Mr Beazley and Mr Keating of $10 billion and an accumulated national debt of $96 billion, I said to my colleagues that one area and one area alone should be quarantined from expenditure cuts, and that was the area of defence. Because I knew that defence had been neglected under Labor governments and I knew instinctively that this nation would need to invest greater sums in the defence of Australia. And the time that has gone by since has not only vindicated that decision, but have added new challenges requiring even further investment in defence. In March 1996 nobody foresaw the terrible events of September 2001. Nobody foresaw what would occur in East Timor or the need for the intervention in the Solomon Islands or the need to commit additional resources to help in the stabilisation of Papua New Guinea. Nobody foresaw the need to join in our national interests the coalition of the willing in Iraq. All of those things have added to the importance of defence and national security. The war against terrorism requires resolution and commitment. The war against terrorism requires governments that don't equivocate and don't delude themselves that if in someway you are accommodating of terrorism you buy protection and immunity. Evil people do not respect weakness, they punish it even harder and that is the reality of dealing with international terrorism. And there can be little doubt my friends that when it comes to national security and defence, Labor equivocates, the Coalition remains resolute. Just as in the past on issues Labor has been weak and equivocal, so they will be weak and equivocal in the future. Isn't it strange that whenever we make an announcement about the further defence of Australia, as we did two days ago with the missiles, the Labor Party finds a reason to side with those who criticise the decision. Whenever we have a difference of opinion the critics are always right and Australia is always wrong. This proposition that in some way we offend our neighbours by legitimately arming ourselves is an absurd proposition, particularly when the armaments in question have been well and truly telegraphed in public several years earlier in the defence capability plan. The reality is that there is an automaticity on the part of the Labor Party, they side with our critics, they never look at it first and foremost from a point of Australia's national interest.
It has been truly said ladies and gentlemen by one of my predecessors that if you change the government you change the country. Australia changed the government of this country in 1996 and that has changed this country. It's changed us for the better. We now have the strongest economy by the standards of the industrialised world that you can find anywhere around the globe. For the first time since 1968 we have the golden double of unemployment below six per cent and inflation below three per cent. When I became Prime Minister there were 35 federal electorates in Australia that had unemployment levels of double digit or more, there are now only four. In that period of time we've created 1.3 million new jobs. In that period of time we've seen real wages rise by 13.8 per cent in eight and a half years. Yet in the previous 13.5 years they rose by only 2.9 per cent. Now isn't that interesting that the Coalition is the party that has delivered the greater gains to the workers of Australia.
It is the Coalition that is proving to be the better friend to the Australian worker. Just as it is the Coalition that is proving to be the better friend of Medicare than the Australian Labor Party. Who would have imagined that just a few months ago that the Labor Party with all its protestations of concern about Medicare and the health system would be the one party in Australia pledging to weaken Medicare because by promising to abolish the safety net introduced by the Coalition earlier this year the biggest single structural strengthening of Medicare we've had in 20 years Labor is actually promising to weaken Medicare and Labor is doing this because of its blind ideological views about aspects of Medicare. Labor does not believe in the safety net and by promising to abolish the safety net Labor will hurt hundreds of thousands of families in Australia to whom the safety net is a valuable welcome and increasingly important addition. As the months go by the 220,000 Australians that have already benefited from the safety net will grow, and grow, and grow.
So here you have the paradox that Labor is actually committed to weakening Medicare and just as we have proved to be the greater friend of the Australia worker over the last eight and a half years so we are proving to be the greater friend of Medicare and not just Medicare but also the health system generally.
Labor does not believe in private health provision. You look at the equivocal comments that my opponent makes about the private health insurance rebate. He can never quite bring himself to say - I guarantee it will stay in the same form. We are yet to know what the detail of his policies are. We still don't know what his tax policy, his economy policy is, his detailed health policy is, his detailed education policy. We do not know indeed what he stands for and one of the differences of him and his predecessors is that you had a reasonable idea of what he stood for.
I didn't agree with Paul Keating of many things but I knew what he stood for. I didn't agree with Bob Hawke on a lot of things but I knew what he stood for and in end I sort of understood what Kim Beazley stood for. But I have no idea and nor do the Australian people of what Mr Latham stands for. People know what I believe in, they don't always agree with it - I understand and I accept that but that is the nature of political life and the nature of national leadership.
You are never elected to office to please everybody - it's a task impossible. You are elected to office to take difficult decisions in the long term interests of your country and you must endure in the process of taking those decisions the disapproval, the displeasure and the criticism of those who disagree with you, but in the long run your commitment and your solemn obligation is to take decisions that provide greater security, greater strength and greater reassurance to the Australia people and that has been the hallmark of the last eight and a half years and that will be the hallmark of the Government over the next three years.
There is my friends a notion that some have encouraged by our opponents, perhaps gullibly accepted by some commentators will make little difference but somehow or other the Australian economy is now going along of its own momentum, that it's on automatic pilot that it's not been driven by anybody, it's just happening and it doesn't know who is in the driver's seat, all will be the same - nothing could be further from the truth.
If we do change the Government we will change the country. We will change the country's direction, we will risk higher interest rates. We will also, because at least for a period of time, we will have Labor Governments without interruption, let or hindrance, check or balance all over Australia. For the first time I think in our history if a Labor Government is elected at the next Federal election we will have Labor governments everywhere. Now that will present to the trade union movement of Australia an unparalleled opportunity with coast to coast, island to continent Labor governments, the opportunity of turning back the clock on industrial relations. And that will be an historic tragedy for this country because industrial relations reform more than anything else has driven the productivity improvements of the last eight and a half years.
Why is it that our real wages have gone up by 13 per cent but we haven't had an outbreak of inflation and interest rates have come down and employment has risen? Because those real wages have been based on productivity improvements, and that is the only sure foundation to increase the wealth of Australian workers, is to (inaudible) higher productivity, pay them higher wages because they deserve a share of that higher productivity. It's a simple principle of the Australian fair go. And that's been a direct result of the industrial relations policies of the Coalition and yet Labor would turn all of that back. At a time when only 17.5 per cent of the Australian workforce in the private sector belongs to a trade union the Labor movement would want to hand back 100 per cent control of industrial relations to a union dominated industrial relation system. They will abolish Australian Workplace Agreements, they will breach the secondary boycott protections out of the Trade Practices Act. They will give unions greater rights of entry irrespective of the wishes of employees. They will require companies doing business with the Federal Government to disclose the identity of their sub-contractors. They will expand again the number of items covered by the awards system so that once again the complicated, detail driven awards system dominates the negotiation of wages. Enterprise bargaining will become a thing of the past with very costly consequences to the productivity of this country and to the operations of small business. The burgeoning small business community of Australia will once again be shackled with the over-regulation of an outdated, outmoded, unwanted, unproductive, unhelpful industrial relations system. And all this in the name and an ideology which is gradually gathering dust in the history of Australia. There may have been a role for a centralised wage fixation system in the past, but the modern competitive outward looking globally engaged Australian economy wants a return to that kind of system like the proverbial hole in the head. Because we are an economy of the future, not an economy of the past. And just as this election is about the future of Australia so it is that we should have an industrial relations system which is about the future of Australia, not about our past.
So my friends, a change of government will change the country. A change of government will not be some kind of benign adjustment at the margins, it will represent a significant change of direction. It will risk higher interest rates, it will certainly bring a return to the industrial relations domination of the trade union movement. It will introduce uncertainty into our alliances, it will send an uncertain signal to many in our region. And of course it will bring a return of many of the other desirable features of Labor governments. The prosperity that our Government has delivered has been spread around the nation. The Tasmanian economy now is stronger than it was eight and a half years ago because the Australian economy is stronger than it was eight and a half years ago. We are all part of the whole, a national weakness pervades everywhere, a national strength spreads everywhere. And that is precisely what has happened over the last eight and a half years. We have of course a special challenge here in Tasmania. We need to wrest some House of Representative seats. We need to get Michael Ferguson elected as the Member for Bass. We need to pick up a further Senate seat, we need to try and wrest other House of Representatives seats from the Labor Party and I want to simply say to you that as in the past there will be on this occasion when the election comes, there will be a package specifically designed to address some of the particular needs of the State of Tasmania and the Tasmanian people.
But can I remind you that Tasmania has been, as a state, very well treated by the Coalition Government. It's a fact not commonly understood, but 60.4 per cent of the total revenue available to the Government of Tasmania, 60.4 per cent of the total Tasmanian Budget comes from proceeds of the Goods and Services Tax and Commonwealth Government specific purpose payments. No state enjoys a higher level of support and that level of support is significantly above the level of support enjoyed by other states from those sources. And it tells a story of a tax system and of a Commonwealth Government that has been generous to the states. It tells the story of a tax reform that was designed to enable the states of Australia to put more resources into public hospitals and public schools and the police and all the other basic services that states provide. And it puts into very sharp relief the complaints and so forth of state premiers and not least the Premier of Tasmania who despite all of that financial support whenever something goes wrong is ready and willing to blame the Commonwealth Government. And all of these things when the time comes will be debated by the Australian public and by the people of Tasmania. As you know in the years I've been Prime Minister and the years before that I've had a very long and close association with the states, I've been a regular visitor, I've tried to listen to your concerns, we haven't always agreed but mostly we have. And I've understood there will always be particular challenges because of the size of the population and the remoteness and all of those issues and nobody is happier than I that in recent years because of our national economic strength, and it's flowed throughout this federation, because of that national economic strength the Tasmanian economy is enjoying more buoyant times.
So when the time comes I ask all of you to work your hearts out for a Liberal victory. There is a lot at stake, if we lose this election Australia will change. If we lose this election the economy will be weaker, interest rates will be higher, our defence and national security postures will be more equivocal. If we are victorious we can take the Australian nation forward. We can implement the plans we have for our nation's next decade, a decade that can see us build on the gains of the last eight and a half years, a decade that can see us further develop our economic relations and our strategic associations with the nations of the region. A decade that will see the reinforcement of our important and critical alliance with the United States. A decade that will see Australia's respect and repute around the world continue to grow. So let us all together make sure that we shape that decade, let us make sure that the decade ahead of us is shaped by the Coalition in the way which the decade which has just passed has been shaped by the Coalition. And in doing so continue to deliver great benefits to the people of Australia.
Thank you.
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