Well thank you very much Ken, my other Parliamentary colleagues, Jim Lloyd, the Member for Robertson and Minister for Territories, Local Government and Roads, Chris Hartcher, the State Member, Bob Graham the Mayor, ladies and gentlemen. This is the third occasion in the company of Mr Ticehurst that I have visited this Club and it seems to get bigger and better and more friendly every time I come. But can I join Ken in congratulating the choir of the Lakes Grammar School - one of the new Anglican schools on the Central Coast - for that lovely rendition of the national anthem and the contribution that you are making to providing choice and diversity when it comes to the education of the young in this country.
The Government I lead has always stood very, very strongly for choice and diversity when it comes to education, and we believe in an education system where there are good public schools and there are good independent schools and people can make the choice that they think is suitable for the education of their children.
This part of Australia of course is growing and growing very, very rapidly, and like all areas of Australia that have experienced, and continued to experience growth, it does put some stresses and strains on infrastructure. And one of the problems of the Central Coast of Australia, in common with many other parts of our country, is of course the problem of the shortage of water. And the announcement I made this morning of the $2.6 million Federal Government contribution to the Porters Creek Wetlands Project, which is designed to harvest stormwater, to improve the environmental flows of the area of Porters Creek, we are contributing $2.6 million. The Wyong Council came to us with a project. We thought it was a good project and we decided to augment it. And it's going to benefit the area to the tune of about 5.4 gigalitres, and that is a significant contribution to challenging the water problems of this area, where the Mayor told me the dam's down to what 14.9 per cent capacity this morning. We need in this country a lot more recycling of water. We need to have more aggressive policies to capture stormwater and we need to understand that there is no one-size-fits-all silver bullet solution to the problem of water supply. It needs to be tackled according to the needs and the capacities of individual areas. And this is a very important, practical, grassroots, on-the-ground way of tackling some of the water difficulties and the water shortages on the Central Coast of New South Wales.
Now as I talk to you this morning, I talk against the background of an Australian nation that has every reason to feel positive and optimistic about not only its present, but also about its future. We have a 30-year low in unemployment, it's now down to 4.8 per cent, and we haven't had levels like that for over a generation. And as I move around Australia and I visit all parts of the country, and I talk to people in large businesses and small businesses and in local communities, the universal refrain that they have is not about letting staff go, it's all about how to find the staff to fill the jobs that they have available. We are living in an employees' market like never before in my lifetime. And although our conditions in Australia economically were very strong in the 1960s, in many respects they're stronger now because our economy is more self-sustaining, it's more competitive, it can stand on its own feet and in that way be a great deal more effective. And we can look forward to the future with a great deal of hope and a great deal of optimism.
But that doesn't mean to say that we don't have challenges. And I know that one of the biggest bug-bears of the situation at the present time is the high price of petrol. And we Australians love our motorcars, we drive a lot, it's a big country, we drive all over the place. We not only drive from the Central Coast up to Newcastle or beyond, but down to Sydney and inland, we love driving. And nothing is going to stop us driving, so therefore we all feel the impact of high petrol prices. And I know that, I hear it everywhere I go, I wish I could wave a magic wand and get them down, but you won't do that until the price of oil - which is set by world demand - falls. It goes up and down a bit and I was looking at all the prices as I was coming up...driving up through the North Shore area of Sydney and up onto the Freeway and the prices, you know, they vary a bit, they're a little lower, because what, it's Wednesday, and they seem to go up a bit later in the week, and I follow all of that, and the ACCC follows all of that, and we might see it come down, we might see it go up. But fundamentally, until there is a big turnaround in the world demand for oil, it's not going to back to the levels of 75 and 80 and 90 cents a litre that was the situation a few years ago.
I think when I first came to this club in November of 2001 - which was on Melbourne Cup Day - it was on Melbourne Cup Day in 2001 and the place was agog. I think people were more interested screen than they were in me but I was quite prepared to take a back seat on Melbourne Cup Day. I think the price of petrol then probably would have been sort of about 85 or 90 cents a litre, and it does seem, perhaps even lower, it does seem a long time ago.
Now we're not going to go back to those days, but we might go lower than where we are now maybe some time I hope in the not-too-distant future. But one of the things we ought to remember as Australians about this, and it's not of much comfort to the motorist - but I think it's a point worth making - that one of the major reasons why petrol is very dear now is the huge demand that is being made by China as she grows and gets stronger, and a much bigger economy, the huge demand that China is making on the world supplies of energy. Now the relevance of that is that Australia is one of the few countries that is getting a big benefit out of China's increased demand for energy, because a lot of the things that we have, like iron ore, and like coal, and like gas, are the things that China desperately needs to fuel her economic expansion.
So one of the ironies of all of this is, yes, petrol prices are going up and we don't like that, but one of the reasons is China's economic expansion and Australia is a great beneficiary of China's economic expansion.
I guess the other thing I'd like to say about petrol is that there are things that the Government can do at the margin, and one of the things that we are doing at the margin is providing people with an incentive if they wanted to convert their cars to LPG. And we announced at the beginning of last week a subsidy, $1000 for a new car if it's got an LPG capacity, and $2000 to convert an existing car to LPG. And you put one of these tanks in the boot - they take up a bit of room - but they also save a bit of money.
And one of the things I learnt, and I went out to one of these LPG places out in Granville with our good friend and colleague Pat Farmer, he used to, before he went into Parliament, he used to fit LPG tanks to cars and he knows all about the business. And one of the interesting things that I learnt out there was that the older the car, the cheaper the retrofit. And I thought that was very interesting because people had been running around since I made the announcement, saying oh, this subsidy is only for the better-off people who can afford it. And I was told that if you had a really old car it would normally cost only about $2000 - that's even a bit less for the fit - and if the subsidy's $2000 it means that you might recover virtually all, if not all of the costs of the refit. And when you take into account the savings - because although LPG is not quite as fuel efficient as petrol - it's much cheaper as you all know when you go past those service stations, and there are about 3200 service stations around Australia that sell LPG, it's quite a good deal.
So whilst nothing compulsory about it, it is nonetheless a very valuable, practical way of helping people get through some of these difficulties and some of these challenges of very high oil prices and which are causing these very high petrol prices.
The final thing that I do want to say to all of you is how very important the maintenance of a strong health system is for this country. And we need a health system that balances the strong Government safety net of Medicare, and Medicare is something that Australians love almost as much as a motorcar. Australians are very fond of Medicare, they want to keep it and they want see it strengthen. And that's what my Government has done over the years. And part of the safety net under Medicare is of course the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. And yesterday Tony Abbott announced that a wonderful drug Herceptin, which treats breast cancer, has been placed on the PBS list with effect from the 1st of October, and it will reduce to an affordable level the availability of that wonderful drug which will be of benefit to up to 2000 people around Australia in the years ahead. It will cost $400 million, but when it comes to a drug of that nature, this country can afford that and this country should afford that. And the time that was taken to decide the list that was not related to cost, it was related to being completely satisfied of the medical and helpful qualities of this drug through the process that involves the experts. And I mention this drug and I mention the decision announced by Mr Abbott to remind all of you of the great importance of the safety nets that we have in place in this country.
I'm very proud of the fact that Australia has managed to strike the right balance when it comes to social security between the sometimes harshness and indifference of the American approach, and on the other hand, the sometimes unaffordable paternalistic approach of some of the European countries. And we seem to have got the balance right. We have a safety net where it is really needed. And when it comes to life-prolonging or life-saving drugs, every Australian -irrespective of his or her economic circumstances - is entitled to the same level of treatment and the same level of assistance. That has always been the Australian way and that's the principle on which Medicare is built. It's the principle on which the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is built and that's why we remain as a Government very strongly committed to that scheme and very strongly committed to safety nets when it comes to our health system.
Now I don't really want to say anymore, long speeches are not the order of the day at these gatherings, there'll be many people here who keep the local community going, who are volunteers in so many ways and I want to thank you, all of you, for your wonderful contribution to our country. And the very last thing I'll say is what a wonderful bloke Ken Ticehurst is as your local member. He really is. That old saying given to us by a fly-spray manufacturer of, 'when you're on a good thing, stick to it' and he's a wonderful example of that and he's stuck to you, you stick to him, he's a good bloke, he was, you know complaining about he wanted this money that I announced this morning, he's always on my back chasing things and that's what a good local member in a thriving community is all about. His blood's worth bottling.