Mr President, my fellow Liberals and fellow Australians. In many ways the defining moment when I look back on it, of the last election campaign was the Saturday afternoon before the Sunday on which I announced the election campaign and I quite literally wandered around the gardens of the Lodge trying to crystallise in my own mind the central message through which I would define when I announced the election the character of the choice that the Australian people would make on the 9th of October. And as you know I resolved to confront the Australian people with a choice based on trust. Who did you better best trust to manage the economy, who did you better trust to keep the budget in surplus, who did you better trust to keep interest rates low and so forth. That I was able to define the choice in those terms and to present it with conviction and with creditability in those terms was in no small measure due to the magnificent work over the last nine and quarter years of the man who's just introduced me, Peter Costello.
Because it has been the strength of the Australian economy and so much credit is due to Peter for that, that has underpinned all of the choices that we have put to the Australian people since we were elected. And as we gather here this morning to bring to an end this Federal Council meeting, which has commemorated the 60th anniversary of the foundation of our party, it is important that we use the few moments available for this traditional leaders address, to really strip away all the excess comments and recognise what has been the bed-rock of this party's success over the last nine years. And that bed-rock in my view, my friends, has been overwhelmingly that we have cared for and nurtured the families of middle Australia. It is because we have strengthened the living standards of average Australian families-not that we have won some PhD in ideology or zealotry, but because we have cared for the needs and the aspirations of those millions of Australians whose aim in life is to earn a decent wage, to buy a home, if they want to, to start a business, to have children, to raise them, to educate those children and to pass on to them an even better start in life than they had. That has always been the great Australian dream, it always will be the great Australian dream, and if this party ever lose sight of that fact, this party will lose the faith and the trust and the support of the Australian people.
And when you look back over the last nine years, the record speaks for itself and the record tells us why we were successful on the ninth of the October. It wasn't an accident, it wasn't because-good though it was, the advertising campaign was excellent and it was, it was that fundamentally when they went into those polling booths on the 9th of October, the millions of people who comprise middle Australia said to themselves, this crowd have done a good job, they've looked after us, they've given us a chance, they've kept our mortgages low, they've given our children jobs and more apprenticeships and they've given us higher wages, and we don't really know what the other mob stands for, so we'll put them back-and that is in essence what occurred on the 9th of October. And when you look at it, it's not surprising they came to that conclusion, 14 percent real increase in wages over nine years, 1.6 million more jobs, the lowest interest rates in a generation, huge reductions in personal income tax, and that was why I was able to say, as you saw on the video last night, when I opened the Liberal Party's campaign in western Sydney, that this Government has been the best friend that the workers of Australia have ever had.
And it's our responsibility, our mission, the aim or our policies to maintain that condition. Everything we stand for is posited on supporting and promoting the living standards and the security of families of Australia. And you do that in a variety of ways. You do it by good taxation policy, you do it by the policies of the family tax benefit, which over the last nine years have given far more to the low and middle income families of Australia than they have to the wealthy families of Australia. And one of the things of which I am immensely proud is that when these economic analysts to do their work and they look at what's happened to the various segments of the Australian population, they all conclude that yes the rich have got richer, but that happens in any successful society, and we should never decry it, because the basis of competitive capitalism is to have a society where people can, if they do it fairly and they pay their taxes, they should be able to accumulate and generate wealth, and I will never lead a political party that tries to play politics of envy against that sought of outcome.
And the more enduring message from that analysis is that the lower income section of the population has gained proportionately more from the policies of this Government, and on any comparison, on any basis, that is something of which all liberals should be immensely proud. So as we look ahead for the next year and the next several years, our message and our mission is very simple-we must maintain our concern for those millions of Australian families. We must understand that they trusted us with their future on the ninth of October and that is a solemn trust that all of us take very seriously.
Over the last week I have to say, ladies and gentleman, that there has been an extraordinary amount of hype, almost hysteria generated about what is going to happen the 1st of July this year. I've read about absolute monarchies, I've read about elected dictatorships, I've read about all these descriptions which are saying that somehow or other the world is going to come to an end, democracy as we know it is going to collapse and unbridled, unprecedented power is going to fall into the hands of a power drunk autocrat. Now this is not surprising because a lot of it comes from people who were bitterly disappointed at the outcome of the election on the ninth of October last year. But let me seek for a moment to try and put into perspective what is going to happen on the 1st of July, or more particularly on the 9th August when the parliament meets after the winter break-I'll tell you what's going to happen, life is going to go on quite normally. There is not going to be a decimation of living standards there's not going to be a destruction of the democratic rights of the Australian people, there's not going to be an abusive power by this Government. What will happen on the 1st of July is not that this Government will gain unbridled power, no government in this country has unbridled power, no government in this country should have unbridled power. We are an accountable democracy, one of the great accountable democracies that mankind has seen. But what's going to happen on the 1st of July is that we're going to see the final consequence of the decision of the Australian people on the 9th of October last year, that's all. We're going to actually see in a sense the final votes in the election counted, that's all that's going to happen on the 1st of July, nothing more because we have this constitution that gives fixed terms to our Senators. But the decision was taken on the 9th of October, it's not going to be taken on the 30th of June and we will have a majority of one in the Senate. Our majority of one is a thin majority, but it' a majority and it's better than the condition that it's going to replace. But friends let us all and let the entire political community and the Australian community get a sense of perspective about what has happened. What's happened is that the Australian people took a decision, they decided to give us a majority in both Houses, and the person in terms of counting towards that majority, that gave us that majority, is one of ours, Russell Trood, the Queensland Liberal Senator, who's here today. The greatest piece of advertising I've ever heard, Queensland beautiful one day, perfect the next.
But friends what will happen is simply the ultimate working out of the decision of the Australian people. I think it's important that we get a sense of perspective-the Australian people voted for us in sufficient measure on the 9th of October to give us a majority in both Houses. Now there's a message in that for us and there's a message in that for the rest of the Australian community and for our political opponents. The message for us is to be, as I said at the opening of my acceptance speech at the Wentworth Hotel on election night that I was truly humbled by the extraordinary expression of confidence that the Australian people had displayed in the Coalition. And I was and I remain humbled by that. And if all of us remain humbled by that and remain conscious of the solemn trust we have, we won't let down the Australian people.
We will use the majority we have; we'll use it as I said yesterday soberly, wisely and sensibly. We won't use it capriciously or wantonly or indiscriminately, and I make that solemn promise on your behalf to all of the Australian people. But in giving us that majority the Australian people were not only trusting our past stewardship, but they were also placing confidence in our future administration. And what that means is that they expect us to legislate for things that we believe in. they expect us to do the things we said we were going to do, and they will be let down and very disappointed if we don't do those things. It's not a complicated proposition, you enter into a covenant with the electorate of the time of the election, that if they support you, you will do certain things. And when I look ahead at some of the legislation that we'll be presenting can anybody doubt for a moment that industrial relations reform is something that we believe in, that we have been campaigning for, that we have been striving for and why have we been campaigning for it, not because we hate the trade unions of Australia, millions of trade unionists voted for this party and this Government at the last election. Not because we are embarked upon some ideological exercise just because many of us have campaigned for industrial relations reform for the last twenty years, of course we have. But that's not the reason we are going to legislate for changes, the reason that we are going to legislate for changes is that further reform of the industrial relations system will further enhance and support the opportunities and the living standards of those millions of Australian families of which I spoke in the early part of my speech. That is the only reason why we are changing the industrial relations system. We are not changing it to break the power of the unions, we don't wish to do that, we just simply want them to occupy a proper place on a level playing field.
We are further reforming the industrial relations system because we believe those further reforms are needed to maintain the momentum of productivity growth in this country and we have higher living standards in Australia now because we have higher productivity and if we are to protect the current higher living standards and further build them we must win further productivity gains. And we live in a different world than the world we inherited in 1996, it is vastly more competitive than what it was even ten years ago and its dramatically different than what it was back in the 1970s and the 1980s and I spoke yesterday morning of that never ending search for the finish line in economic reform and its true, you have to keep going it's a never ending process, and if you stop and ref reflect and think for a moment the job's been done, if you adopt the mantra of Mr Beazley of saying its all been finished, I saw him again this morning saying oh the Australian Labor market has been deregulated, that's very interesting, let me give you some examples of how the Australian labour market and how the Australian work system has been deregulated according to Mr Beazley. He talks a lot about skills, and skills in industrial relations reform are directly linked because it is often the rigidity of the award system, it is often the approach taken by trade unions to training and skilling of the work force which is responsibility for many of the rigidities that we have.
I mean as we speak, the CFMEU is still trying to resist the effective insertion of awards for skills based apprenticeships into the federal building award by seeking to have conditions imposed on those apprenticeships that would render them unworkable. But I ought to remind the Council that as we speak we have a situation in this country that a young Victorian student, who gets a hairdressing qualification to an academy in Victoria, cannot get a licence in NSW without first doing an apprenticeship through TAFE. A young person by contrast who has a hairdressing qualification from a training organisation in Victoria can't practice in NSW without completing a full apprenticeship but that same person can practice in London. Let me give you another example, I know of a brickie, I do, who recently migrated from New Zealand to Queensland after working in the trade over there for the last ten years. When he tried to get a job in Queensland, he was told that he would have to undergo a full TAFE course and seek licensing before he would be allowed to practice his trade.
Now these things are reality in the Australia of 2005 and one of the reasons they are a reality in the Australia of 2005 is that we have a union and award dominated TAFE system operated at a state level. That we have awards in many parts of Australia, not all parts of Australia, and I do exempt some states of this criticism. We have an awards system that frowns upon school based apprenticeships and the reason they frown upon it is of course, many unions in this country regard school based apprenticeships as incompatible with their traditional notion of apprenticeships. I mean it seems to me a monstrous anachronism for a nation, that is striving to remain competitive with the best and the brightest around the world, that the very question of whether you should have a school based apprenticeship, is a matter of debate before the industrial relations commission of this country.
Surely that's something that the elected government's of this country decide ought to happen, and the very idea that you've got to argue for it, and establish a right for it before the industrial relations commission of this country, is an absurdity. So when I speak about our industrial relations agenda, when I speak about the commitment we have about improving the skills of the Australian workforce, when I talk about the desire to generate even more apprenticeships and our commitment to build those 24 Australian technical colleges, so that we can live in an Australia where a technical qualification is as prized a degree or certificate as a university degree, I am talking about further expanding the horizons and the opportunities of the working men and women of this country and their families.
We will see over the weeks and months ahead, we will see an attempt by our political opponents, and the trade union movement of Australia, to typify and describe our workplace relations reforms as a lurch down the road of extremism. It is nothing of the kind. It is not an exercise in ideology gone mad, it is the next logical step to further reform of our workplace relations systems to further boost and maintain productivity and to provide additional opportunities for the working people of this country. We won't be abolishing awards despite what the union movement says, we won't be abolishing minimum wages, we won't be abolishing the Industrial Relations Commission, we won't be denying people the right of collective bargaining, we won't be preventing people from joining trade unions, we won't be tilting the balance against organised labour, we'll be tilting the balance in favour of the individual worker.
These two issues of industrial relations reform and improving skills base of the workforce are intimately linked. Progress on one cannot be achieved without progress on the other. Progress together can build an even better and brighter world for the employees of tomorrow. And as we think about the changed nature of the Australian workplace and the challenges that are involved, let me remind you of a statistic that came out just a few weeks ago which tells a story and it tells a story of which every Liberal should be proud, and that is that according to the last ABS set of statistics, the number of self employed people in Australia now exceeds the number trade union members. One point nine one million self employed people to 1.84 million members of a trade union. Now that speaks of an empowered small business community in Australia, it speaks of an Australian nation that has been transformed particularly over the last ten years. It speaks of an Australian nation that is optimistic and hopeful and creative and it speaks of a capacity for individual effort on behalf, on the part of our fellow Australians of which we should all be immensely proud.
My friends, I've chosen today to speak very much of some of the immediate challenges and issues on the domestic political theme. It's not because other considerations are irrelevant but because it is important at a national gathering of our great party to remind ourselves of the ingredients of our past success and to draw strength from that success and also to establish signposts for the future. We have been successful because through a combination of hard work, great team work, good policies, and a resolute commitment to the fundamental values of our party we have kept faith with the mainstream of the Australian community. This is a nation that rejects extremism, this is a nation that has no truck for excessive zealotry in politics, this is a nation that believes in a fair balance but this is also a confident nation that recognises that we must change to continue to achieve and succeed in the world of the 21st century. We are as a world, vastly different from what we were a generation ago. Globalisation is here forever, anybody who imagines that the forces of globalisation can be turned around and avoided, is deluding themselves. The successful nations and the successful political parties within those nations are the nations and the parties that martial and implement the policies that harness to the best benefit of their nation, the products and the fruits of globalisation. And just as nations in Asia have prospered through embracing the opportunities of globalisation, while other nations have not prospered because they have tried to tilt against the forces of globalisation, so it will be with the policies that are applied in this country by this Government.
The last decade has been a wonderful chapter in the history of this country. Its been a wonderful chapter in the history of our party and as I conclude, can I express my enormous gratitude as I did last night to all of you, for your tremendous loyalty and support, to Peter, to Robert, and Nick and to all the other members of the Cabinet and the Parliamentary party, and to Shane, and to Brian, and all of the others who've played over that ten year period - I think of Andrew Robb and Lynton Crosby, and Tony Staley as former National Directors and Party Presidents. Can I express to all of you my profound gratitude and can I also on a personal note again acknowledge the incredible debt that I owe Janette and my three wonderful children. The greatest thing you can do in life is to build an affectionate relationship with your family, it leaves everything else for dead, we all know that and I am incredibly fortunate that I've had by my side, somebody who has shared my zeal and enthusiasm and thirst for political debate and for political involvement. It has enabled me and sustained me through all the years that I have been in public life and I again thank you Janette for the wonderful partnership we've had and the wonderful support you've given me over all of these years.
But as we depart from here, we may feel confident but not cocky or exuberant about our national political position, but let us remember that there are eight Governments elsewhere in Australia to be slain, there are eight State Government's to be tackled, for all of their weaknesses and their imperfections, for all of their complacency and smugness and for all that they have taken their electorates for granted. This is a national political party, it's a party that strives to win Government federally, but must always continue to strive to win Government at a state level and our great mission as an organisation over the next year is to lay the foundations for the battles that will come probably first in South Australia and Tasmania and then not too long after that, in the other parts of Australia and all of us are interdependent on the other's success. Our success is your success, your success is our success, and as a great national movement, let us leave this conference and this Council with those goals very much in our minds, thank you.
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