WPRIME M4INISTER
CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY
SPEECH BY THE PRIME MINISTER
WA ALP STATE CONFERENCE
PERTH 15 JULY 1989
Delegates,
At the outset I want to take this opportunity to offer
publicly my congratulations to Peter Dowding, and to his
team, and to you, for your magnificent win in the State
elections of 4 February.
It was an inspiring, fighting win that demonstrated again
one of the fundamental facts of Australian political life of
the 1980s.
That fact is the fact of Labor's ascendancy: Labor's
capacity, Federally and at the State level, to carry out the
responsibilities, and meet the great challenges, of
government. As well as your tremendous victory here in Perth, John Cain
was re-elected in Victoria, Michael Field has restored
Tasmania once more to Labor rule, and within a year our
Federal President, John Bannon, will, I am sure, win a
renewed mandate from the people of South Australia.
Throughout Australia Labor is in Government.
Throughout Australia, while our opponents indulge in the
sterile debates and divisions of opposition, Labor is being
put to the acid test of government making the decisions
and setting the priorities that directly affect the well
being of the Australian people.
And throughout Australia, whenever the people are asked for
their verdict on our performance, they are returning Labor
to office to carry on with our historic mission of ref ormn
our crucial mission of governing for all the people.
Could anyone imagine a contrast more stark than that which
characterises the Australian political scene today?
Five Labor Governments, Federal and State, determinedly
and confidently getting on with the hard work of
Government;
And five Liberal Oppositions, disunified, directionless,
repudiated repeatedly by the electorate, and seemingly
more capable of public boasting about leadership coups
than of formulating credible alternative policies.
A fascinating statistic is that during their years in the
wilderness, four Liberal Oppositions in Canberra, Perth,
Adelaide and Victoria have gone through no less than ten
Opposition Leaders.
That's of course counting the recycled Peacock twice.
But, delegates, there are two non-Labor Governments in
Australia. Their records are worth looking at more closely.
Queensland we know all about a shameful proof that where
Governments operate without fear of electoral
accountability, mismanagement and corruption will inevitably
follow. Later this year Wayne Goss will offer Queensland the chance
to enter a new era with an honest, credible, and clean Labor
Government. So that leaves New South Wales.
Now delegates, I didn't come all the way to Perth just to
give Nick Greiner a serve.
I can do that pretty effectively back in the eastern states.
But I did come here to give Liberalism a serve.
And the Greiner Government is our only tangible example, the
sole embodiment, of what Liberalism in action is all about.
New South Wales is the one state where our political
opponents are actually in office the one place in
Australia where stark Liberal actions, not pious Liberal
slogans, have revealed the true preferences and priorities
of Liberalism today.
Before Nick Greiner was elected, I warned that he and his
colleagues represented the dark side of politics.
I didn't want to see that statement proven.
But I could not have been closer to the truth.
Because Liberalism as implemented by Nick Greiner has meant
a direct assault on the budgets of ordinary families.
Bob Carr has estimated that New South Wales families are
paying up to $ 1000 a year more as a result of increases in
State taxes and charges. Some are paying more.
Electricity charges, water rates, hospital bed charges,
public transport fees they have all been dramatically
raised by the Greiner Liberal Government.
All this from a government that promised do you remember
thiszGreiner promise? not to. increase charges faster than
the rate of inflation in any one year.
In fact, most of the increases are two or three times the
CPI.
When he was on the campaign trail, Greiner was a profligate
maker of campaign promises.
Now as Premier he is a unrestrained breaker of those
promises. I recognise that circumstances sometimes change, and that
Governments sometimes have to modify their actions in the
interests of good government.
But Greiner has broken nearly 150 promises in just sixteen
months. That is not good government. That is cynical government.
That is deceptive government. But above all, that is unfair
government. That is Liberal Government in Australia today.
It's not surprising to see a report this week that Greiner
is offering advice to Peacock on political strategy. His
advice is: " Andrew, keep it vague!"
But we all know enough about Liberals to see through a
deliberate Peacock strategy of vagueness.
We know precisely what the record of Liberalism is.
The Greiner record reveals Liberalism as the politics of
broken promises and spiralling taxes and charges hurting
all families and especially those on fixed incomes.
The Queensland record reveals Liberalism as not only
incapable of stopping the rot of corruption overseen by the
National Party but willing partners, deeply implicated in
all that has gone wrong in that State.
The Tasmanian record reveals Liberalism as a patent threat
to the nation's environmental heritage, completely incapable
of managing with responsibility the legacy of our
environment that we want to pass on to the next generation
of Australians.
And at the Federal level, the tragic record of Liberalism's
last days in 1982/ 83 was the unique economic disaster of
double digit inflation and unemployment.
Let's not forget that Andrew Peacock was a part of that
Government.. His actions then and the actions of his Government then
speak far more loudly than his vague words today about
creating a more compassionate society.
Of course Andrew Peacock has still not managed to finalise.
or release any of his most important policy prescriptions.
But he has said enough about his plans and intentions to
allow us to comprehend the kind of disaster Liberalism wants
once more to wreak upon this land.
Remember that the Liberals turned to Peacock, in
dasperation, looking for a leader who could effectively
communicate the Liberal message. There has been no real
change in the substance of that message on the central
policy issues facing Australia.
Liberalism today with Andrew Peacock at the helm is the same
philosophy of social inequality that it has always been
the same doctrine of division and despair.
Peacock offers the same Tory recipe that Howard offered in
' Future Directions' and that Fraser implemented between
1976-83: social strife and confrontation; a return to the
industrial jungle; a trampling of the security of the less
well of f; the very antithesis of fairness.
First and foremost, Liberalism under Peacock stands
fundamentally opposed to the great achievements of the Labor
movement represented by the Accord.
Delegates, never forget this. More deeply than anything
else, the Liberals resent the fact that this Government has
built a stable, constructive relationship with the trade
union movement through the Accord.
The Accord has been critical to the economic reforms of this
Government. The Accord processes of consensus and
cooperation have yielded benefits for. the whole nation.
It has been central to the creation of nearly 1.5 million
jobs and to pushing unemployment down to 6 per cent its
lowest point for seven and a-half years; to the achievement
of massive increases in the social wage; and to the
undertaking of the historic processes of award
restructuring. In the April Statement, the Federal Government increased the
real disposable income of Australians with tax cuts costing
$ 4.9 billion, a $ 700 million package of new family
assistance measures, and a 6.5 per cent increase in wages.
It AiF a package that could only have been delivered by a
Labor Government by this Labor Government working
through the processes of the Accord.
No wonder the Liberals abhor the Accord. The Accord
represents an achievement that is utterly beyond their grasp
an achievement that defies their blinkered reliance on the
tactics of confrontation and division.
So when Andrew Peacock says as he does on every possible
occasion that he wants to decentralise the systems of wage
fixing and industrial relations, he is speaking from the
deepest wells of Liberal resentment of our political and
economic successes.
What would result from decentralisation is simply this:
instead of the 6.5 per cent wage increase of the April
Statement, a wages breakout that would smash the
Australian economy, and bring with it mass unemployment;
instead of the 59 per cent reduction in industrial
disputes that has occurred under the Accord, a return to
confrontation in the workplace;
and instead of the essential and historic micro-economic
reforms of award restructuring, a stab in the back for
Australian productivity.
Peacock Liberalism parades itself under the slogan of " A
Fair Go For All".
No one who knows anything about Australian politics can ever
accept that Liberalism and fairness have anything to do with
each other. They never have in the past'. They didn't under
John Howard. ind certainly, under Peacock, they never will.
Compare the records of Labor and Liberal in the key area of
tax reform and see who has proven commitment to fairness.
When this Government came to office in 1983, we inherited
from the Liberals tax scales--set at 60, 46 and 30 cents in
the dollar. Now, under Labor the top rate has already come
down to 49 cents in the dollar and will fall further; the
bottom rate is only 21 cents in the dollar.
Against those Labor tax cuts detailed, delivered, already
paid for, fair the Liberals have yet to produce even a
single detail, not one figure, about their tax policy.
Here we are more than two years into the life of this our
thiri? term of Government and the Liberals' tax policy
consists of nothing more than uncosted, unspecified,
unreliable pie in the sky.
But there is one unambiguous tax commitment by Peacock.
Typically, it is the promise to overthrow Labor's Capital
Gains Tax and the Fringe Benefits Tax.
How credible is Liberalism's sham conversion to the cause of
fairness when the Liberal leader wants to do away with these
fundamentally fair tax reforms and go back to the days of
the rorts the expense account lunches and executive salary
packages, the subsidised school fees and overseas holidays
where the ordinary taxpayer foots the bill.
Another Peacock promise another piece of textbook
conservatism is to cut the size of Government.
Peacock is talking about " substantial" and " bold" spending
cuts totalling more than $ 1 billion.
As you know this Government has already turned around the
prospective $ 9.6 billion deficit that the Liberals
bequeathed to us and created two consecutive budget
surpluses. I've sat in the Cabinet room for hundreds of hours and so
have Paul Keating and Peter Walsh and Kim Beazley and John
Dawkins and others. The fact is you can't cut another $ 1
billion without cutting deep into the essential elements of
Australia's system of social security, or into road funding,
or into school funding.
If Andrew Peacock wants to do that, so be it. But he should
at least have the gumption and the leadership to tell the
Australian people that's what he intends.
Instead, all we see is the incredible sight of Liberal
shadow ministers running around the Press Gallery briefing
journalists that the cuts might come from somewhere but they
certainly won't come from their own portfolio area.
Under Peacock, the search for spending cuts has degenerated
into a Shadow Cabinet brawl. Quite frankly, John Howard,
wouldn't have allowed it.
Anyone with any experience of Liberalism in government could
have a pretty fair guess about where the Liberals will look
for savings.
As usual, it will come from the welfare area. It will be
taken out of the pockets of the least well of f.
And what's fair about that?
One of my Government's proudest achievements is to have
brought two million Australians under the health insurance
umbrella of Medicare.
But let me quote from a recent Peacock radio interview:
" In terms of cutting Government expenditure we've got to
look at restraining the costs of Medicare. Medicare
will remain for the aged but we want to encourage people
through the tax system to move over to private
insurance."
So the Liberals have learned nothing from the disastrous
days of the Fraser Government. Remember? SiX different
health care schemes in seven years. And since then five
Opposition health spokesmen and six failed health policies
to date.
Because of their ideological obsession against Government
programs that directly help the less well of f, the Liberals
want to hand Medicare's members over the private health
funds and the A. M. A.
If Medicare was dismantled, the average Australian family
would be paying about $ 20 a week more for health insurance.
0 And, incredibly, the Liberals are also considering
terminating Labor's Family Assistance package.
Under Labor, hard working families on low incomes get
unprecedented cash assistance to help make ends meet.
From 1 July we have lifted F. A. S. payments again. For each
child aged between 13 and 15, payments are up by more than
$ 3 a week, to $ 34.10. Payments fbr all children are now
indexed to CPI movements so they retain their real value for
all time.
The effect of these increases, combined with the April
Statement tax cuts, is dramatic.
A single income family with two children on $ 20,000
effectively pays no tax. Their tax payments are totally
offset by their family assistance payments.
You recall I pledged in the last election campaign to
eliminate the financial need for Australian children to live
in poverty.
The Brotherhood of St Laurence, which is one of our
country's most respected social welfare organisations, had
this to say about the Government's action to meet that
pledge. " This pledge, the most specific social commitment of the
century, has been the subject of an historic package to
provide a guaranteed minimum income for poor children
whose parents earn less than about $ 300 per week.
" We congratulate the Federal Government on its work on
child poverty, which represents an historic breakthrough
in the national attack on child poverty. The Federal
Government has now built a solid foundation of income
security for Australian families."
But the Liberals are not happy with that outcome.
They want to meddle by abolishing cash assistance and
offering tax rebates instead. Again, no-one on the Liberal
side has been prepared to stand up and say who would miss
out and how much assistance would be withdrawn.
But I can tell you that because any Liberal tax rebate would
be paid to the breadwinner usually the father the change
would be a deliberate slap in the face for the women, the
mothers at home, who receive Labor's cash assistance.
So when you take it together when you add up the Liberals'
wages breakout, the regressive abolition of capital gains
and fringe benefits taxes, the spending cuts, the carving up
of Medicare when you imagine what would happen to family
assistance you have a picture of an Australia under
Peacock Liberalism that would be the absolute contradiction
of fairness, a complete perversion of a fair go.
Delegates, For six and a half years we have been working to make
Australia a more productive, competitive economy.
At the same time we have carried out social reforms to
improve substantially the position of families, the elderly
and welfare recipients.
Despite the 1985-6 collapse in our terms of trade we have
managed to keep pursuing those central goals of economic
management. The benefits of our policies hL-ave Abeen
economic growth
jobs
record spending on targetted welfare and social programs
Medicare tight controls on Government spending
a fair taxation system where business and the rich pay
their fair share and where ordinary taxpayers have
received major tax relief.
At present we have a special problem because economic
activity has been so strong it has spilled over into a
demand for too many imports.
To reduce that demand it has been necessary to have tight
monetary policy high interest rates.
The alternative to the Government keeping interest rates
high would be to let international money markets make those
decisions for us by dramatically forcing down the value of
the dollar. Interest rates and prices would then skyrocket.
Until demand comes down and it will we need high
interest rates for the good of the Australian economy.
But they do not have to and will not stay higher a day
longer than is necessary to get that result.
A government with our record of, and commitment to, economic
and social achievements is not going to allow all of the
positive developments of the past six and a half years to be
squandered. That is why we must have the policies that we
now have.
Any snake-oil salesman who pretends that interest rates can
be lowered without causing pain is trying to take you for a
ride. That's just what Peacock is trying to do.
Because for all the Liberals' posturing about interest
rates, their policy prescription for this period of economic
buoyancy and especially their encouragement of a wages
breakout would put interest rates through the roof, slam
the economy into recession and lengthen the dole queues once
more. You would see not a " hard landing" but a " crash landing"
that would be reminiscent of the last Liberal recession of
1982/ 83 and quite possibly worse.
And this is the policy prescription of a man who proclaims
his conversion to fairness!
Delegates, It's become something of a media game to speculate on the
odds of the Federal Government being re-elected at the next
poll. I'm not going to play that game.
I'm just going to assert that we will win.
We will win because we deserve to win.
We will win because we want to continue the vital task of
economic reform we have undertaken and because, for
Australia's sake, we need to continue it.
We will win because the Australian people have too much good
sense to gamble with their future by embracing that recipe
for disaster that is Liberalism.
What is most objectionable about the Liberals' strategy
today is their obvious belief that if they sit pat, and hold
their breath, and not tell the Australian people the truth
about what Liberalism will mean for them and their living
standards, then Government will just fall into their hands
by default.
More than anything else this is reminiscent of those
offensive words of John Howard before the last election when
he said: " The times will suit me".
Well, Government did not fall into John Howard's hands.
And I am determined it will not fall into Andrew Peacock's.
I know that Labor MPs and Senators, that delegates to Labor
conferences such as this, that Labor branch members and
supporters throughout the nation, will work to ensure that
never happens.
11.
Delegates, the dedication of Labor to its goals will not
falter. Our basic message to the Australian community will not
waver-We will stick to our guns, confident in the knowledge that
our policies are working and will continue to work in the
best long-term interests of all Australians.
We won't be in danger of losing office unless and until the
Opposition can credibly make a similar claim.
That will never happen.
Because when you look at the performance of Liberalism
throughout the nation, and when you analyse the vagueness
and the posturings of the recycled Opposition Leader, the
man Laurie Oakes calls " Slippery Sam", you understand why it
will never happen.
So take that message back to your branches and your local
communities.
Tell our people the truth.
Tell them there are no easy solutions; there are only the
right solutions.
And tell them Labor has found those solutions and with
consistency and compassion, we are implementing them to
build a better, and a fairer, Australia. a~ c Jlud( 4