Thank you very much Madam Mayor Baker, David Fawcett, the Federal Member for Wakefield, my other parliamentary colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. This is not the first time that I have been to the city of Playford. I did come here a number of times last year and I certainly hope that it won't be the last time I visit this particular part of Adelaide. I am of course very pleased to be in the electorate of David Fawcett - he's a new member of parliament, he's a terrific member of parliament and he's already in the short time that he has been your representative, made quite an impression on the parliament and on his parliamentary colleagues.
I visit many parts of Australia and I do it very regularly and one of the most constantly stimulating things that I find in the job of Prime Minister is the opportunity as I move around this country to meet an astonishing variety of my fellow Australians in gatherings such as this and a gathering like this that brings together people who are in the local Council, people who are still at school, people who are teaching our children, people who are returned servicemen and women who've served our country, people who are in the various service organisations, Ministers and Priests of religion, volunteers who work so hard to keep our communities together and so the list goes on. People who give leadership and participate in a great national cement of Australia's sporting endeavour and I can spend quite a bit of time naming the various groups but collectively a gathering like this is a metaphor for the strength of our country.
The greatest asset Australia has is our capacity because we relate to each other so readily and so easily, is our capacity to work together as a community to solve our various challenges and problems. And the reason why this is such a peaceful, harmonious, free country is that we are not a pretentious people. We don't divide ourselves into classes or into different strata of society, that we treat each other according to their character and according to the contribution they make to the community and in that way we have built a unique community and unique society here in Australia.
Like all areas of Australia the city of Playford has its own particular characteristics and its particular challenges. It does have a young population and it has struggled with high levels of unemployment in the past. And I am particularly pleased that the government has been able to nominate the city of Playford as the location for one of the 24 Australian technical colleges we committed ourselves to build and to create at the time of the last election.
This country is desperately short of skilled tradesmen, this country is suffering like all other developed countries from a shortage of people who have undertaken the traditional trades skill. There are all sorts of reasons why that should be so. In a sense it's not the reason but rather the solution to the problem which is most important and in the election campaign I made a statement which I have to say to you drew more applause than just about any other statement I made in the whole campaign when I said that I wanted an Australia in which a trade qualification was as highly prized as a university degree and I mean that very genuinely.
I think we went through a period of time in this country where we went overboard about the need to get a university qualification. We said that unless you have a university degree, you weren't going to have a career. Now I would be the last person to denigrate a university degree and people who have the aspiration and the ability to go to university should be supported and encouraged and given the choice to do so. But we must never again denigrate the quality of skilled tradesmen and women in our community and we are now paying for the fact that [inaudible] we didn't give it enough prominence some years ago and it's everybody's fault, not just the fault the government. It's the fault of parents who thought that unless little Johnny or Jilly went to university, they weren't going to get anywhere in life. Now the reality is of course that many of the people who didn't go to university and who became plumbers and so forth, they ended up making a lot more successes at their career than many of the people who went to university and that has certainly been my experience when I go to school re-unions the plumber has always got the latest Beemer and I can assure you and basically what we are seeking to do is in different ways to encourage people back into the trades. It'll take time and it will take a lot of effort and building 24 technical colleges of itself is not going to solve the problem.
We increased the migrant intake by 20,000 this year so that we could attract more skilled tradesmen. I have just come from a luncheon attended by a number of businessmen drawn from this area and all around this area and quite a number of them spoke of the difficulties in finding skilled tradesmen and women. And so therefore collectively we have to tackle that problem and one of the things we have sought to do is to build these technical colleges and to work in different ways with the state government, with the trade union movement, with everybody, to try and find a solution to the shortage of skilled tradesmen in our community.
There are just two or three other things that I want to say to all of you and I think they are comments that are relevant and important to all Australians and to our country's future. We are a very fortunate country at present. We have a very strong economy, we have the lowest unemployment rate we've had, overall, it varies from area to area, the lowest unemployment rate we've had for more than 30 years. And the outlook for the country is good. Yesterday Australia's best known company declared the biggest profit that this country has ever seen. Now some people might say gee, that's too big a profit. I don't say that because when big companies are successful, the country can be successful, providing they all pay their share of tax. And I'm quite sure, I'm quite sure that particular company will pay its share of tax. Some of my colleagues had dinner with the Board of BHP Billiton last Thursday night and they were complaining about how much tax they were paying. And I said that's very, very good because when companies make profits, they pay tax.
But we are fortunate, we do have a strong economy, but we must remember of course that there are many in our community who are missing out. And whilst as Prime Minister I'm very proud of this country's economic performance, I'm also very conscious that through no fault of their own, there's some in our community who are missing out. Even though our unemployment rate is very low, it's still too high. And there are some who, through a combination of reasons, are doing it very tough. And that is why I want to pay a particular tribute to those people who are here today representing the great welfare organisations in our community - Churches, organisations such as the Society of St Vincent DePaul, the Salvation Army. I know the RSL does an enormous amount of welfare work and so the list goes on. And it's the combined efforts of people in those organisations working with the Government and working with the local community through what I call the social coalition that provides the capacity to look after people who might be missing out on the good fortune and the success and the good luck of others.
The other point I wanted to touch on very briefly, and it's something that your mayor alluded to when she introduced me, and that is that we don't live in the safest of all worlds. A few weeks ago we marked the 60 years since the end of World War II. There are many people in this audience I know who are returned soldiers from World War II. And it was an opportunity for me on behalf of the nation and others in different ceremonies to express our enormous gratitude, not only to those men and women for what they did to defend our country and save it in World War II, but also the extraordinary demonstration of patriotism and commitment to Australia in the decades that have passed since the end of World War II.
The challenges we face now, the challenges of terrorism are very different from what they were in World War II. In World War II your enemy was the country that produced the army that rolled across the border, and you knew who your enemy was. It rolled across a border or it attacked you, or attacked another country. Now we are dealing with an entirely different enemy. It's a shadowy enemy. It's a borderless war. We don't actually know when it started, and you won't actually know when it finished. This country is not immune from the possibility of a terrorist attack, although I think the likelihood is less in Australia than in many other countries.
And there are a number of things that we can do to make ourselves safer. We can try and make sure that every part of our community feels included and accepted and part of the great Australian family and the great Australian nation. Earlier this week I had a meeting with Leaders of the Islamic community in Australia. It's only three or four hundred thousand strong and the overwhelming majority of them are as concerned about, and as hostile towards terrorism, as every person in this audience.
And in extending the hand of friendship to them, I reminded them as I must any other section of the community, that we all have responsibilities. We have responsibilities as Australian citizens and we have responsibilities if we believe that there are any within our community. And this applied particularly to the people that I spoke to earlier this week. If any in that community have tendencies towards supporting or encouraging or glorifying terrorism or any of their deeds, they have responsibility as Australian citizens to do what they can to counteract that.
We are fortunate. We have great freedoms in Australia. We want to keep it that way. But we also have to understand that there are some around the world who despise us - not because of what we have done, but because of what we believe in and what we stand for. They despise democracy, they despise western society, they despise our values, they despise our tolerance of different religions and indeed of no religious belief at all. And we here in Australia have to strike a delicate balance between, on the one hand, not infringing the great freedoms that we have, but on the other hand, playing our part along with our allies and friends in fighting the challenge of terrorism around the world.
Ladies and gentlemen can I finally say to all of you, thank you very, very much for coming. Thank you very much for the contribution that you have made to the Australian nation, and particularly to those people in all the various organisations in this community. I know the city of Playford has its own particular challenges and characteristics. You've achieved an enormous amount and I hope the technical college becomes a focus of great activity and makes a very major contribution in this part of Adelaide towards tackling this great problem the Australian nation has of a skills shortage.
Thank you all for coming along and in commending again David Fawcett to you as your Federal Member. I hope that both of us have an opportunity over the next little while to meet as many of you as possible. You've been very kind to come along and I thank you very, very much for the courtesy that you have extended to me by being here today.
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