hmm...

[highlyeccentric]

Howard's latest speech, as edited by the SMH. Full text also available for download.

 

People have asked me: why do you want to be prime minister again? Surely you've achieved all you set out to achieve? I want to lead this country again because I believe Australia can now set its sights even higher. Because the new Australian synthesis of aspiration and fairness is everywhere in progress, but nowhere complete.

If the Coalition is entrusted to govern again, my five goals are these: to keep the nation strong, secure and united, engaged in the world and at ease with itself; to build a new era of growth, prosperity and opportunity at home; to embrace a sense of aspirational nationalism to guide relations between different levels of government in Australia; to ensure a rising tide of prosperity lifts all boats, with every child getting a solid start in life, and to get the balance right on the big challenges around climate change, energy security and water scarcity.

Nowhere is the need for strong leadership more vital than in securing and defending the nation - my first goal and the first duty of government. Under a future Coalition government, Australia will stay on the front foot to ensure threats to our security are met before they reach our shores. Strengthening our bilateral relationships in the Asia-Pacific will remain a key focus. I hope to accelerate work towards free trade agreements with our two largest Asian trading partners, Japan and China.

My second goal is to lock in a new era of growth, prosperity and opportunity in Australia. The decline of class-based tribalism, higher levels of education, new technology and younger generations less attracted to collectivist ideology have all helped to foster a more entrepreneurial culture. The key to embedding this culture of aspiration and enterprise is further economic reform - both to preserve the prosperity we have and to lay the foundations for a new generation of wealth creation. Today I commit the Government to maintaining, as appropriate, budget surpluses of at least 1 per cent of GDP in future years with the surpluses locked away in a fund so that only the earnings would be available for investment in economic and social infrastructure. Contingent on the macroeconomic outlook, further tax reform will be part of this Government's agenda.

We should be aspirational nationalists, and applying this spirit to the governance of the Federation will be my third goal. Sometimes that will involve leaving things entirely to the states. Sometimes it will involve co-operative federalism. On other occasions, it will require the Commonwealth bypassing the states altogether and dealing directly with local communities. The old rigid state monopoly models for health, education, employment and welfare services have become increasingly obsolete.

My fourth goal is to ensure a rising tide of prosperity lifts all boats, and to help every Australian child get a solid start in life. All the evidence shows that the best path out of poverty and towards individual and family independence is a steady job. Long-term unemployment is now at its lowest level since this series was first calculated in April 1986. Allied to this, we have tilted the tax-transfer system very heavily in favour of low- and middle-income families.

This goes to the heart of Australia's new synthesis of aspiration and fairness: one based on a flexible labour market, strong family support and work incentives, mutual obligation and a highly progressive tax-transfer system that directs more in relative terms to the poorest 20 per cent of the population than virtually any other OECD country.

This model is a singular achievement of Australian liberalism.

My fifth goal is to ensure Australia properly responds to the great interlinked challenges of climate change, energy security and water scarcity. We will set a long-term target for reducing Australia's greenhouse gas emissions next year. The emissions-trading system we have committed to designing over the next three years will take full account of Australia's resource industry advantages and be flexible enough to adapt to different technology scenarios and the extent of action taken by other countries.

Australia can be an energy superpower in a carbon-constrained 21st century. We have abundant reserves of coal, gas, and solar energy resources, enormous geothermal potential, great promise in other renewable energy sources and the world's largest low-cost reserves of uranium. It is both naive and foolhardy to assume that nuclear energy should have no role in powering Australia in a carbon-constrained future.

The job is not yet done. We have transformed Australia, but the Australian renaissance is a work in progress.

This is an edited extract of a speech given by the Prime Minister yesterday at a lunch held by the Millennium Forum, a fund-raising and networking group attached to the NSW Liberal Party.

hmm. Intersesting things to note:

it's all very economy-focused, obviously. That's his forte, after all. I'm intruiged by his declaration that the states can't handle heath & education, and the out and out hostility thereto. On the one hand, it's true. I don't know what federal labour have been saying, but Labour has for some time now been seen as better at "mummy" politics. The general mess of state health & education ought to be a perfect opportunity for the labour party to promise nationwide reform- working with the states, of course. So Howard's stealing a march on them by declaring the states utterly incompetent and therefore not worth working with. But I note that he doesn't actually say much about what he's going to do.

The climate change, energy security and water scarcity section does talk about what he's going to do, and a plan with more loopholes I haven't seen since last time I tried to organise something ;) And water scarcity doesn't get a single practical mention- at least not in the SMH edited version.

and do we really have a highly progressive tax-transfer system that directs more in relative terms to the poorest 20 per cent of the population than virtually any other OECD country? I know nothing about economics, but it looks like a suss claim to me. Does the having of this tax-transfer system result in actual improvements in the lives of working-class people?

Note the neat sidestep around workplace relations in the 'rising tide of prosperity' section, as well.

In conclusion- WALTROT!

Comments

[flamearrows.livejournal.com]

Transfer system means the redistributive nature of the taxation system. Put bluntly, we tax the rich and then push the majority of it back into the economy via infrastructure, welfare and so forth. And yes, Australia's personal income tax system is quite good as far as OECD nations go (on equity grounds), and our company tax is also higher as well. So, yes, the system does result in actual improvement, on a massive scale.