Address to the New South Wales Country Conference Mark Latham - Federal Labor Leader

Speech

Transcript - Bathurst - 20 June 2004

Let me say how pleased I am to be at this Country Conference 2004. I’ve been coming to these conferences for 17 years now, starting at Murwillumbah in 1987. They’ve become one of the great institutions of our party, especially now with the success of Country Labor. I want to thank everyone who has been involved in Country Labor. It has been tremendous in revitalising our prospects, our profile in regional NSW. You’ve done a tremendous job. But it is also a reminder of our party heritage – how 100 years ago we were essentially a rural and regional party representing rural workers, especially in the shearing and pastoral industries. We know that here in the city of Bathurst the basis of Ben Chifley’s political success as the member for Macquarie in the Federal Parliament.

I’m pleased to be here in the great Chifley city of Bathurst, knowing that his legacy is alive and well within the Labor Party. Ben Chifley believed in the power of education. In some respects he was self-taught but he was also fanatical about adult and community education, putting himself through the equivalent of TAFE courses. We honour his legacy with our commitment to education for all Australians, affordability and accessibility in our education system. Ben Chifley also believed in social mobility, climbing what I call the Ladder of opportunity in life – the powerful combination of hard work, good family and community and the essential role, the civilising role of Government services. Chifley also believed in public service. While he was Treasurer and Prime Minister he actually served on his local council – the Abercrombie Shire Council - and in between terms in Parliament, in and out of the Parliament as he was, he served as a party official and accepted Government appointments. So he was working class through and through but also a servant of working Australians, the great legacy of the Australian Labor Party.

The Tories, of course, have tried to misrepresent the Chifley legacy but we know the truth and we’re acting on it today at this conference, we’re acting on it well into the future. We still believe in the light on the hill, making Australia a fairer place, a more decent place, a more tolerant society. And that, Delegates, is what I aim to do after the next Federal election. This is our mighty crusade to restore decency to Government in this country. After eight years in office the Howard Government has got just two tactics – they’ve only got two tactics left to them after their eight years in Government.

The first is the last minute spending spree, including spending a lot of taxpayers money in what amounts to political advertising, over $100 million that is being spent on quasi political advertising. The second tactic is to try to scare people about foreign policy and the economy. It is a fairly miserable existence in public life when all you’ve got is the scare tactic. Mr Howard has become a whinging and negative Prime Minister. He has nothing left to offer the country so all he does is talk about and complain about the Labor Party. This is the great role reversal in Australian politics today. All the Government wants to do is talk about my past. All I want to do is talk about the country’s future, delivering opportunity to all Australians.  

It’s the great role reversal – it’s like the Liberals have become the Opposition and we’re the Government. I say to Mr Howard and his crew, ‘you’ve only got a couple of months ahead of yourself – you won’t have much longer to wait in terms of those respective roles.’ Delegates, we’re about to go into the election campaign where for the first time ever the Government is more negative than the opposition. Mr Howard campaigns on fear; I campaign on hope and opportunity – opportunity for all Australians. That’s the big difference as we go into the next election campaign. The Howard Government has become very reactive. It’s become inward looking. It’s forgotten about the little things that make a big difference in people’s lives. The practical, tangible changes for the better that we in the Labor Party believe in, and that’s the great thing about conferences like this and the work of our rank and file – people in touch with the tangible differences we can make for the benefit of our nation.

For instance, last week the Labor Party announced our intention to ban junk food television advertising. Mr Howard said, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t do that; it’s all the responsibility of parents’. It’s true; dietary habits of children are the responsibility of parents but for goodness sake parents need assistance. They need assistance from Government on the practical things that can help them in the challenges of raising our children. They need assistance and a real partnership with governments that know their circumstances and care about them.

The Government these days also disparages my campaign to ensure that in all Australian homes we’re reading books to our infant children. Peter Costello, if he wants to say something negative in the Parliament, says, ‘Oh, that’s not worth a children’s book.’ That’s how he tries to put people down these days – Costello saying ‘That’s not worth a children’s book.’ I say children’s books are worth a lot in our society. They are worth everything, if they open up literacy and opportunity for the young.

So it’s a Government that’s out of touch and out of puff. It’s lost touch with the circumstances and challenges of Australian families – parents in particular. For parents around the country it is commonsense to be reading to our infant children. Learning doesn’t start the first day of school; it starts the first day of life. Parents want governments to address this challenge to help them with the home learning environment – policies that make a practical difference, more adult literacy classes, books for newborn children and encouraging library use. Outside the home they want quality child-care and pre-school programs – something more than child-minding, early childhood development, and they will get that from a Labor Party Government in the future.

I say that Australia needs a fresh approach. We need to move beyond this Government that’s grown out of touch and out of puff. We need new policies and new investment in the education and health care of the nation, new investments in the future. Some people in the media point to the age difference between me and the Prime Minister but, Delegates, it’s not his age that I’m worried about; it’s the age of his ideas, the age of his politics.

Mr Howard has been in Parliament a long time, so long that he’s become a political insider – always looking to buy his way out of trouble, always looking for the next political fix to get himself past the next election, always looking for a new way of avoiding responsibility, a new way of blaming someone else – anyone but himself – for the failings of his Government. So how many times can the Prime Minister say nobody told him? How many times can he blame the Public Service? How many times can he say that he knew nothing? He’s only the Prime Minister but nobody ever told him anything. How many times can he maintain this fraud on the Australian people?

The Australian people have grown tired of Mr Howard’s excuses. They’ve had enough of the buck passing and the blame shifting. They’d like some straight answers for a change. Just once they would like Mr Howard to take some responsibility for his government. It’s not that hard to do. It’s not that hard to say, ‘It’s not my fault. I can’t blame the Public Service any longer,’ or to say, ‘I was wrong; there are no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,’ or to admit people earning less than $52,000 a year work hard as well, they deserve a tax cut – that’s right they do deserve a tax cut – or to fess up his own future. For Mr Howard to say I plan to retire in the next term of Parliament and hand over to Mr Costello; why does the Prime Minister find it so hard to be honest and open with the Australian people? Having almost retired when he turned 64 last year, he must know what he plans to do in the next parliamentary term. He’s taking the Australian people for granted by refusing to tell them the truth. I say that, in a democracy, people have got a right to know who they’re voting for; they’ve got the right to the truth about the future. Mr Howard should bring the people into his confidence and tell them where he stands.

The Government likes to talk about risks – they like to talk about risks on this subject and that subject. The biggest risks in the coming election campaign is there will be some people who think they are voting for Mr Howard but they are going to end up with Prime Minister Peter Costello – someone they don’t want, someone they didn’t vote for, someone who is part of a Government that hasn’t been honest and frank with the Australian people. Now, that’s what I call a risk. Delegates, that’s the biggest risk of the coming campaign, the risk of being led down the garden path, the risk of being deceived by a Government that’s forgotten how to be honest with the Australian people.

As the alternative Prime Minister today, I want to talk to you about what we can do as Australians working constructively for the future of our nations. We’re a prosperous nation, to be sure, but surely we can make better use of our prosperity. I want prosperity for a purpose, a purpose of a fairer society where everyone is rewarded for their effort and their contribution. The starting point is ensuring that the benefits of our prosperity go to the whole country, the whole nation, not just pockets of affluence in the major capital cities. That’s why we need a regional Ladder of opportunity, that’s what Labor is standing for in non-metropolitan Australia, the regional Ladder of opportunity.

Since becoming Labor leader last December, I have been taking my opportunity express bus, getting out on the road, getting out among the people, away from the spin doctors and control freaks in Canberra, and out into regional Australia. We visited places like Lismore, Tamworth, Port Stephens, Cooma, Merimbula, and Tweed Heads here in New South Wales. What I’ve been hearing is a tale of two Australias. People have been telling me that some communities in regional Australia have been doing okay. But many have missed out on the prosperity that the current Government brags about. They’ve missed out on the tax cuts in the recent budget. They were so targeted that in some regional communities 90 per cent to 95 per cent of workers received no benefit, no tax relief at all, and they’ve also missed out on basic social services. Half a million Australians, most of them elderly, and many in the country, are waiting in queues just to get their teeth fixed up because we lack a national dental program in this country.

They’ve also missed out on a fair school funding system where the big increases in school funding have been going to the wealthiest non-Government schools in the cities, where only the descendants of the squatters can afford to send their kids. They’ve missed out on fair funding of regional universities and TAFE; institutions that find it hard to compete with the Group of Eight universities in capital cities. In many country towns they’ve been saying to me it’s absolutely impossible to find a bulk-billing doctor or find an aged care bed for their elderly parents within a decent distance. Also they’ve had to suffer the basic services that have been lost, with bank closures and the Government’s failure to improve telecommunications services. It’s a Government that’s more interested in selling Telstra than making it work for the community, making it work for country Australia.

When in Government, Delegates, Labor will rebuild the Ladder of opportunity for regional Australia. We will restore the basic services that are essential to the lifestyle and economic success of country communities. This is what the Howard Government has forgotten most of all – that the success of rural and regional enterprises relies heavily on the standard of health and education services, the capacity of the country town to attract the managers, to keep its work force, to ensure the people have got not only good working opportunities but good services in their lives, for people who want to live and work hard for the benefit of regional Australia.

Our plan is quite simple. Our plan is to cut waste and mismanagement at the centre of government and push the resources out to families and communities on the edge of our society. This is what it means for country Australia: extra doctors, financial incentives and Medicare teams to return bulk-billing rates to where they used to be – 80 per cent nation wide. The Government talks about a safety net, but you only need a safety net if you’ve turned Medicare into a high-wire act and the family is at risk of falling off. Labor believes in Medicare and we believe in bulk-billing and we’ll never surrender in the task of restoring the bulk-billing rates to where they used to be, to make them available right around the country.

And we’ll also establish a National Dental Program to fund 1.3 million extra public dental procedures to eliminate the current waiting lists and provide decent dental care for those who need it most.

A Labor Government will also introduce a needs-based school funding system to lift up country schools to a high national standard of resources and achievement. We’ve also got our plan, our announced policy, for 20,000 new TAFE places and 20,000 new university places – targeted at the communities that need them most without the need of lifting student debt, and we’re going to reverse in Government the 25 per cent increase in HECS that we’ve seen from the Howard administration.

We’ve also announced our policy of a Youth Guarantee to tackle the crippling problem of youth unemployment in regional Australia. We’ll provide the opportunities for young Australians to be either learning or earning – no third option of dropping out of society and doing nothing. We’ve got to take seriously the problems of youth and regional unemployment and our Youth Guarantee will do that.

Delegates, this Ladder of opportunity applies to communities, not just individuals. I want to give regional centres and country towns the services they need to lift themselves up through their enterprise and hard work. Public good like investment in modern transport – rail, road and air infrastructure. Things like investment in communications. Under Labor, Telstra will remain in majority public ownership, where it belongs – majority public ownership.

We want Telstra to be serving the people, providing every community, no matter its location, with affordable phone, fax and Internet connections. Action to create new jobs and new industries through policies to boost regional tourism, repair our damaged environment and continue the move to renewable energy. The truth is, Delegates, if our alternative fuel industries are to have a future, they need a five per cent mandatory renewable energy target, not the two per cent target set by the Howard Government. That’s an energy statement – that’s a real energy statement.

Delegates, as part of our regional development strategy, a Labor Government will also ensure a decent level of banking services to country Australia. That’s why today I’m announcing our banking policy here with this Country Conference. Labor opened up the financial sector in Australia in the 1980s. This has been crucial in building Australia’s economic success over the past 20 years, but we also regard banking as an essential service. It’s not just a profit making venture in the economy; it’s an essential service to the people of this country. In our opinion too often consumers have been short changed. Since 1996, over 1,600 bank branches have closed, including 450 in rural and regional Australia. At the same time, fees and charges have soared, and we’ve seen from the banks’ record profits $10.5 billion last year alone, including $8.7 billion in fees and charges.

Last year, households in Australia paid an average of $400 in bank fees. So they’ve been making the profits; where’s the return to the community? Where are the Government policies that ensure that we’ve got these basic banking services throughout the nation? No wonder there is a feeling that the banks are profiting at the expense of ordinary people and struggling communities. Despite the public pressure, banks have not stopped the fee rises and the closures. This has been a big issue for people in our outer suburbs; that’s true. They’ve been burdened with rising fees and charges and worried about all of the job losses, but it’s an even bigger issue, Delegates, for country towns.

Everyone knows that, for country towns, the loss of the last bank is more than just a business closure. It could mean the closure of the town. It can be the beginning of the end. That’s because country banks are more than just holes in the wall dispensing cash. Their continued presence is a vote of confidence in the town’s future, a source of employment, community leadership, hope, a source of investment capital for farmers, small business people and home buyers. Delegates, I don’t believe in overregulation, but I do believe in a thing called social responsibility. I believe in social capital and if our banks, the chief beneficiaries of our nation’s prosperity, invested just a little more of their financial capital in regional communities we’d all be better off, including the banks themselves.

So today I want to outline a new policy that puts our economic prosperity to a good social purpose. A Federal Labor Government will ensure that Australia’s banks meet their social obligations, especially to country Australia. Labor will amend the Banking Act to demand banks give six months notice of branch closures. They will also be required to give community impact statements justifying their decisions. Labor will also amend the Act to require all banks to offer a basic banking account. It will be available to all health card holders and benefit up to five million Australian people. There will be no account keeping fees, no minimum account balance, an unlimited number of free deposits to these accounts and a reasonable number of withdrawals without fees. A basic banking account to give some fairness and equity in the financial sector in this country.

Labor will also direct the ACCC to monitor bank fees and charges to improve consumer awareness and, before increasing a fee or charge, the banks will be required to notify the change to the ACCC and justify any increases. We will also ask the ACCC and the Reserve Bank to investigate penalty fees, such as late payment fees, to determine whether they’re excessive. In cooperation with the States, Labor will amend the uniform consumer credit card code to require card issuers to include a summary box containing all relevant fees and charges. We need not only greater competition in this industry but greater transparency and fairness for the benefit of consumers and, most importantly, Delegates, Labor will ask APRA and the Department of Regional Services to conduct an audit of banking services in communities where they’ve been removed.

Banks will be given 12 months to address shortcomings in access to banking services. If at the end of this period, banks have not made sufficient progress, Labor will establish a Community Obligation Fund. Its size will depend on the needs in the stock take and the finances will be recovered from the four major banks and St George. Money from this fund will be used to restore and expand banking services in communities where they’ve been removed. So the banks under us will be on notice. After 12 months, if they haven’t restored the services identified in the stock take, we’ll establish the Community Obligation Fund and raise the money to do it for them, and ensure we’ve got some decency in the provision of banking services around this country.

It’s time, Delegates, that the banks met their obligations to the community. Through these new policies, Labor will ensure banking services address market failure and help the whole grow the whole community. This will be a big step forward, a giant leap forward for rural and regional Australia. Banking services matter. We’ve got to respect that. We’ve got to have the policies in place that do a lot better for the future.

Delegates, when I became leader of our great party last year, some people said it would take four years to defeat the Coalition. That’s what they were saying to me, in part, last December – that it will take four years to defeat the Coalition. I say today: ‘Let's do the job in the next four months. Let’s get rid of this Government in the next four months.’ Because, Delegates, the Australian people, especially people in country communities, can’t wait any longer. They can’t wait any longer to save Medicare and restore bulk-billing. They can’t wait any longer for a National Dental Program an end to the aged care crisis. They can’t wait any longer for early childhood development and fair funding of our schools. They can’t wait any longer for a decent TAFE system, for universities that students can actually afford. They can’t wait any longer to restore the basic services of their community, especially telecommunications and banking services. Delegates, only Labor will do these things for rural and regional Australia. Only Country Labor cares about community services.

At the conclusion of this conference, as we head into the next campaign, let’s double our efforts. Let’s build on our new momentum in the months ahead. Let’s give country Australia what it truly needs – the election of an Australian Labor government. Many thanks.

Ends.