Bob HawkePrime Minister, Ministers, Senator Button, Ladies and Gentlemen:
As you know, Thursdays are always a rather busy day for me because we have Cabinet and Cabinet Committees Thursday morning and in the afternoon we answer questions in the House of Commons where clearly, they are not so eager to hear me as you appear to be here! That is judged by the volume of noise we get over there. So I was not able to be here to hear Bob Hawke 's keynote speech for which I am very sorry because I am told it was marvellous and I am even sorrier that I was not able to be at the Mansion House last night when he should get into the Guinness Book of Records for being the first person who has persuaded the dinner guests to sing “Waltzing Matilda” during the middle of a meal (applause). Whether or not, if I go to Australia, I have to do the same with something like “Do You Ken John Peel” and the band going faster and faster I have not yet discovered, but it really has been a visit that should get into the Guinness Book of Records for its success, for its informality, for its warmth and for its sense of achievement and the sense that we are very much more together in the future by wish, by common heritage and by determination to take those best values into the future. [end p1]
As I just looked at the two flags together, which you can see at the front here, it occurred to me very much that there is a lot of reason as well as feeling for Australia and Britain to be close together. We do not value enough the democracy which we both enjoy and I think that we should pay a tremendous tribute to countries like Australia, Canada and the early Commonwealth independent countries for the example they set, which has led to many countries the world over knowing what good administration means, knowing what a sound rule of law means because when we go to visit Communist countries the first thing we have to explain to them is that under our system any citizen can take the Government to court if it feels that the Government has acted wrongly—they do not understand it! Also, the enormous value that though we might not in a democracy get everything right and we certainly will not avoid criticism we have a means, a process of solving some of those problems through Parliament and also through regular elections which are turning out to be absolutely invaluable and the events that have happened recently mean that those of us who have this system, who helped share in its creation, have done the world a great service as parts of Africa have taken it up and I think we can both take a great deal of pride that the largest democracy in the world is India and that she is still a democracy, which proves that you can have a really good democracy even though you are one of the two largest countries in the world. Others would contest that but because India has been so good and stayed a democracy, we have something to prove it. [end p2]
John Button has just told us about the overall conclusions of the Conference and Bob HawkeBob has made some very warm remarks with his usual sense of humour—tremendous sense of humour.
I have known Australia for several years, been over there several times. When I went over for the Bicentennial Year, it was just quite different and the way in which the Bicentennial was handled was absolutely terrific, but it was not the end of the first two hundred years—really it was the beginning of the new age because as one went about there was a totally new vitality; there was also a new sense of being Australian and that mattered and it mattered very much.
We sat down and talked very easily together. How can I define it? Let me put it this way: the atmosphere was so good that when you were doing tough debates you did not have to think on the other side of the table: “How! Shall I be tactful or truthful?” You knew you did not have to be tactful because the friendship was good enough to be truthful and both to get to grips with the real problem.
It was truly an epoch-making year and it was then that I thought we must have continuous close relations with Australia. We were not to foresee what has happened in China, but I did know very well that we relied so much on Australia to be the flagship for keeping those values flying in that enormous sea, the Pacific, so much larger than the Atlantic, and this was such an asset that we [end p3] have as well as our shared history that we must meet more frequently and not just meet just quickly coming through London, but meet in between pairs of Ministers, sharing their views and hoping that way to have a bigger influence together on the future as we were able to sort out our problems and make a contribution to the world into which our young people were coming.
So we had this great occasion not only here, but with all Ministers coming, and I cannot say how well it has gone. It has been marvellous. I cannot speak too much about how well it has gone because it really has been wonderful and it started in Australia and it started because of those great qualities in Australia.
I hope that this Conference will ensure that more opportunities are taken up for investing in Australia. I know we have done it for many years, but its potential is terrific. Bob Hawke has, of course, heightened that and made one or two very broad comments about the CAP. May I tell you it was this Government which started to bring sense to the CAP and that was not easy either! (applause). When someone suggested that we have to decide just precisely what is our attitude towards harmonisation of things like tax and harmonisation in Europe, I can tell you precisely what our attitude is: if you want enlargement of trade, then you should diminish the restraints upon it; you should have those regulations [end p4] which are necessary—and some are always necessary. Yes, you have to have safety standards; yes, you have to make certain that people do not make cosy cartels so that you keep competition going; yes, you have to have a framework of laws within which you can operate, but if they get too complicated they will not produce more trade—they will produce less. But when you produce a framework in which people can operate with enterprise, you will get precisely what we have had in this country, the best record for creating wealth in the last eight years of anyone across Europe, and with creating that wealth it is creating jobs. I do not believe that you need to harmonise tax. There is a thing called the “market” . That will do it very well without specific regulations and if the Value Added Tax is different from one country to another and too high, you get a regulator to deal with it and you know what he will do: he will bring the lowest tax up to the topmost! You get the market system and it will take the topmost tax down to the lowest and do it much more quickly.
We are not in doubt about that. Deregulation within a framework of the regulation that the Government has to set gives you the minimum but essential regulation. The rest becomes up to the entrepreneur—and you have most of them here—and that is why we have in fact been able to have a higher standard of living here than anywhere else. So have you got that, Senator Button? You got it? (applause) [end p5]
Therefore, I hope that you will increase your investment in Australia. It will be part of this great move forward which started with the Bicentennial and that you will think even more of the fantastic opportunities that there are there, opportunities which I sometimes envy. I just do not think any politician can fail in Australia with all of those opportunities, but doubtless they do not quite see it as easy over there. It is always easier to govern the other people's country than it is to govern your own!
I also hope and want to make it clear that Australian investment is immensely, enormously welcome and they are very entrepreneurial and they do in fact go straight for something and they are not tactful either, so we know that they are fully friendly as well!
There have, I know, been one or two cases where mergers and so on have been turned down. It is no different from what has to happen to people who are here. The same law is applied to anyone, but we welcome and want more investment here so we want the actual cross-investment from here to Australia and from Australia here.
I have looked at a number of things of which you have spoken in this Conference. I think it has been tremendous and I hope people will take advantage of what you have said. [end p6]
It is also very important that we get the future generation right. Now I find—and I am sure you find the same in Australia because I think democracies are finding it the world over and perhaps some countries who are not democracies—the ambitions; once we have got up to this rate of success, both of us, you do not think: “Well now, we have got that far, we can stop!” You find that people's ambitions are rising also very fast.
Ambition, of course, is something that is linked to personal effort but you also find something else is happening. People's expectations are rising fairly fast and expectations are sometimes things that people have of getting advantage from other people's efforts rather than their own.
One thing we have learned here very much—and indeed, every successful democracy has—is that before you can distribute wealth, you have to have people who will make it and therefore we find that there is the opportunity to make it and both the ambitions and the expectations are rising. Not surprising! You climb one peak and just when you are really rather satisfied new peaks ahead have started and so we have to plan and think about policies on a scale much larger than ever before for young people, to satisfy and give them the opportunity of expressing their own talents and ambitions and also out of the wealth they create to give more generously to people who are unfortunate through no fault of their own. [end p7]
This is a tremendous task and one in which we would like to make a token arrangement between us on preparing just a few young people to come here and a few to Australia. I know that Bob HawkeBob mentioned his proposal, that the Australian public and private sectors would finance quite a number of post-graduate studies in Australia for our young people to go there—very good indeed, it will be a marvellous opportunity for them. And I have to thank Sir Owen Green of the BTR Company and the British taxpayer for the creation of ten annual scholarships funded by BTR and the British Government for Australian post-graduates to study in British universities. It is just a token of what we can do, but the opportunities are opening up and we particularly want to make certain that that generation which inherits so much—inherits a democracy, inherits a high standard of living—has the scope to give back in its own effort and enthusiasm what has been created and to do so much more for future generations.
I would like to thank Bob Hawke for the fantastically successful visit. Undoubtedly, you and all your team came into Whitehall and brought a breath of fresh air into Whitehall. That takes some doing! A real breath of fresh air. We enjoyed it enormously. You took the friendship further; I hope you will take the investment further, because it is the future that we are helping to shape. [end p8]
May I thank you for coming, for enthusiastically taking part, all of those who have taken the Chair and contributed to the papers which you have heard and the study groups and wish us all greater and greater success for our joint efforts in the future.
I am going to hand over to David Young who also has been part of this great deregulation movement with tremendous success and will you forgive me if I have to creep away—and so does Bob Hawke—because we have other things to do before another great occasion this evening. Thank you very much! (applause)