Thank you very much Steven. My other Federal Parliamentary colleague Margaret May. To Bob Quinn, the Leader of the Queensland Liberal Party, Ron Clarke, the Mayor of the City of the Gold Coast, Mr Wallas, the Headmaster of All Saints Anglican College and my fellow Australians. It's great to be back at this school. I recall some years ago coming here and opening the international section of All Saints and I have watched the school go from strength to strength.
And being on these school premises, let me say immediately to you Headmaster and to all of those associated with this school who've been kind enough to make this magnificent centre available to us for this gathering this afternoon how very committed I am, and my Government is, to the principle of unconditional choice when it comes to the right of parents to decide where they will educate their children.
As somebody who is the grateful beneficiary, and I was a grateful beneficiary of the fine public education system in New South Wales, I very strongly support an education system where both streams are strong, both streams are competitive and where parents have the right to choose desirably between outstanding Government schools and outstanding independent schools. And it will always be the policy of any Government I lead to maintain that very strong choice.
The Gold Coast is, of course, a special part of Australia. I'm spending most of this week in Queensland. I started in Innisfail yesterday morning and saw the incredible transformation of that town from the devastation I witnessed two days after the cyclone. The transformation has been truly remarkable and it is a reminder of the great Australian spirit, it's a reminder that when Australians combine to tackle a common problem, our great spirit of national mateship comes out in a quite spectacular fashion. And then to Townsville last night and this morning and now to the Gold Coast this afternoon.
And in being here, I want to commend to you and I know it's probably a view that's widely supported in this audience and well beyond, commend to you the tremendous work that my two colleagues do on your behalf, Steven Ciobo and Margaret May. Each of them brings different and special talents to the Federal Parliament. Each of them is anxious and persistent in the cause and the interests of the city of the Gold Coast. Each of them understands the growth demands of this part of Australia. Each of them understands the population mix, the need to have facilities for a maturing population, but also the need to maintain the particular attractions of this area of Australia as one of the great tourist attractions, not only of our nation but of the world. And also the wonderful home it has become to a variety of growing and burgeoning service industries, not least in the university and entertainment sector. They understand the challenge of growth and the challenge of success and the challenge of opportunity in the Gold Coast and both of them represent those concerns and those interests very effectively.
As Steven said in his very generous introduction, a gathering like this is an opportunity for us in Government life and public life to pay tribute to the tens of thousands of Australians who in an unsung, often unremarked and regretfully on occasions unacknowledged way, make life a little easier and a little happier for those less fortunate. We are living in Australia in very good economic conditions. We are a wealthy, fortunate, happy, successful nation by any measure, But there are nonetheless within our midst, some people who, through no fault of their own, are missing out. And in a sense, the greater the collective wealth and success, the harder it is to live with adversity and the challenge of falling between the cracks would sometimes occur. And therefore I have a special word of gratitude and thanks to those in the audience who work in so many different ways, through the churches, through service organisations and just in their daily lives to make things a little better for their less fortunate fellow Australians.
It's no exaggeration to say that our country has an esteem and a respect around the world that we haven't enjoyed for a long time. We were always well regarded and I am not so immodest, I am not so absurd or presumptuous to suggest that the reputation of a nation rests upon the performance of an individual government or an individual prime minister. There are strengths and there are decencies about the Australian nation and the Australian character which will proclaim themselves to the world, no matter who happens to be the prime minister or who happens to be in government.
But I have had the opportunity as Prime Minister to travel on behalf of the nation to do my best to represent the interests of this country abroad over the last 10 years. And it is apparent that we are regarded with increasing respect. Our economic strength is widely admired and respected; the willingness of Australia to stand up for what it thinks is right when it is sometimes unpopular to do so. The extraordinary capacity of the men and women of the Australian Defence Force, the great duality of personality, if I can put it that way. They are not only great war fighters when that is necessary but they are also wonderful peace makers and reconcilers. And to see them as I did only a couple of weeks ago in East Timor walking amongst the civilian population of that country, being welcomed not as some kind of group of intruders or invaders or bogeymen, but rather as people who had come to offer comfort and security and hope and friendship to the people of that country. They are qualities that make all of us feel proud. They were the qualities exhibited by their forebears in the ADF, some of whom were kind enough to welcome me here this afternoon and they are qualities that are being carried on in a quite remarkable fashion at the present time.
But we are regarded also for our great performances in areas such as medical science. The capacity of this country to punch above its weight when it comes to scientific research, particularly in the medical area, is something by which this nation is widely known and widely understood. It's easy to get a little lyrical about the good things that this country has going for it. Its economic strength, its international reputation, its very low levels of unemployment and its great economic prosperity.
But like any nation at any time in her history it is important to understand that Australia faces challenges and the greatest challenge we have is to understand that if we are to maintain what we have, we cannot stand still. Today's prosperity is a product of yesterday's change in innovation and reform and if we are to have prosperity tomorrow, if we are to have continued progress tomorrow, we must be willing to undertake the changes that are needed to bring about the continuation of that prosperity and that strength.
And we do as a country face challenges above and beyond those that are needed to be met in order to maintain our economic prosperity we face in common with the rest of the world the modern phenomenon of high energy prices. Everybody is worried about the price of petrol. All around Australia people are worried about it and I can understand why; it's burning a hole in everybody's pocket. And it's burning a hole in everybody's pocket in Europe, I've got to tell you, an even bigger hole. Those of you who have been recently to Europe, and many of you probably have, will know that the price of petrol in those countries is bigger. The only compensation I suppose they have is that the countries are smaller; they don't have to drive as far. But the prices are horrific, even by our standards. They're burning a hole in people's pockets in North America and all around the world.
And we have to, as a nation, understand that this is a challenge that is going to be with us for quite some time. And it's incumbent upon us to look at all of our energy alternatives. It may not be very popular to talk about looking at such things as enriching uranium, or whether or not this country should have nuclear power stations, I think we have to be courageous enough to examine those issues. Twenty years ago, if I'd have been Prime Minister, of course I wasn't twenty years ago, if I'd have been standing here. Was this platform here twenty years ago? Not quite? I see, well anyway you get my meaning. Twenty years ago I mightn't have said to you that nuclear energy, nuclear power should be an option that we should examine for Australia, but I think we have to in the new environment in which we live.
I'm not saying it's economical tomorrow, what I'm saying is that in a world that is growing short of energy because, amongst other things, of the enormous economic growth of China and India which is placing incredible demands on the available energy sources and therefore driving up the price of everything including petrol and natural gas and coal. And there are great advantages for Australia in that because we are the largest exporter of coal in the world. We have enormous reserves of natural gas and we also have 40 per cent of the world's proven uranium reserves. Now in those circumstances it would be folly indeed for this country not to examine those options and not to look at all of the things that might be possible.
And the other great challenge of course we have, and I know this will have been on the minds particularly of Queenslanders over the past few days is that we are a very dry continent. It's hard to get your head around it when you've been in Innisfail and the only complaints you get is that it has rained just about every day since the Cyclone, and that has impeded the cleanup. And it was a magnificent Far North Queensland day yesterday and everybody said you've brought the good weather with you Prime Minister, when most of my time when I am in Canberra, or elsewhere in the southern part of the nation, bringing good weather with you is to bring a downpour with you. But we are a country that faces enormous challenges in relation to the conservation of our water supply, and the availability of the water that we have and we need. And in those circumstances it is one of those issues that has to be faced. It has to be dealt with and it will involve some very difficult processes of adjustment for the whole community. We can't go back to the days when we could just assume that whatever water we wanted, at virtually no cost, was available on demand. And I don't pretend to have every single answer to that issue but I do know that the answers are going to involve over time a process of change and a process of adjustment and a process of accepting things that we might a few years ago have thought unacceptable, indeed totally unimaginable.
And finally of course we need to have as the years go by, have policies and responses that adjust to the very welcome fact that as a nation we are living longer and we are living healthier lives for longer periods of time and that is something that is a source of great pleasure to the community but it is also in itself something that throws up particular challenges regarding the funding of aged care facilities, the funding of health services and the arrangements within communities to ensure that there is a fair and equitable distribution of the burden of those funding arrangements under different generations.
It's very good of course to note that unlike most countries we appear to be reversing the decline in our fertility rate and some of the policies that the Government brought in, in not the last Budget, but the Budget before, and the Budget before that, seem to have been having some modest success. And I think that's very good because we need more Australian children, we need a higher birth rate in order in slow the ageing of the population and also to reverse the trend that became apparent in this nation really up until two or three years ago. And it seems that we are having rather more success on that front, which is a very welcome thing, than other comparable countries. And whatever the cause is, sorry, whatever it is, I think I got that badly wrong. Whatever it is, I think I know what it is, but whatever the cause of what it is, I just want more of it. That process should go on and even though at All Saints in years to come we'll need to have an even bigger hall.
But my friends, it's a huge privilege, a privilege beyond description and beyond comprehension and understanding to be Prime Minister of this country and there is no greater part of that job and that responsibility than the opportunity it affords to me to travel around and to meet large numbers of Australians in our different communities. To talk to them, to hear their views, to receive their advice, to try and answer their questions, but most importantly to communicate as best I can with them the feelings I have and the hopes I have for our future. Thank you very much.
[ends]