)lJo

PRIME MINISTER

FOR MEDIA .  ,  SUNDAY, 22 AUGUST 1982

ELECTORATE TALK

With the tax cuts and relief from interest rates provided in  the Budget, the Budget offers an opportunity which Australians  cannot afford to miss,  to obtain community-wide support for  wage restraint and co-operation. The combination of personal

tax cuts and the new tax rebate on home interest rates will  improve the position of Australian families dramatically. The Budget also addresses the wider needs of Australian families  with increases in family allowances and through the new family

income supplement of $10.00 a week for each dependant child  for low income families. .

The Budget also improves the position of other needy groupsÂ·  substantially and the efforts of Australian industry to achieve  greater competitiveness will be helped by specific Budget measures  which build upon the industry package announced on 19 July.

The kind of co-operation which Australia needs today cannot,  however, be achieved by Governments alone, it cannot be imposed  as a matter of Government policy. The Government has done what  it can in giving a lead, and providing a basis for co-operation

to prevent any new wage push, and I believe the community  will want employers and employees,  management and unions, to  heed the Government's call for moderation and co-operation.

It is important to realise that the ACTU has not yet given  its real response in a practical way to the fact that many  things in the Budget are consistent with what they have been '   advocating. But it is encouraging that the ACTU has welcomed

the tax cuts in the Budget as a contribution to stability in  industrial relations, as satisfying ACTU demands for "tax  indexation and an equitable redistribution of the income tax  burden away from the lower income earners and families"., and .

is alleviating "the need for unions to apply income tax increases  into claims for. cost of living -adjustments".  ...  . . . .  -  Â·  Ã¢ÂÂ

This degree of acceptance represents a major advance. VJhat the  public now expects is that the union movement will respond  positively to the basis of co-operation which the Budget has  established, and I am confident that it will do so in practice. A good deal has already been achieved and I have referred

previously to wage and salary settlements well below.the level  of inflation and to recent successful examples of co-operation  in the shipping and.coal industries. .

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What we need is a willingness of groups within our community not  to push demands which are out of line with these recent  settlements and to take account of the enormous, costs in terms .   of employment and Australia's long term economic prospects which  would flow almost.inevitably from significant wage rises at this

time. Â·

When we look at the urgent need for co-operation the Labor Party1s  talk about prices and incomes policy is total irrelevance.  Labor,  has not got a policy on prices and incomes.  The whole proposal ‘   is utterly vague and ill-defined, it provides no basis for .   effective economic management in difficult times. But there .

is no doubt that in practice, a so-called prices and incomes Ã¢ÂÂ  "   policy would mean support from the Labor Party for higher wage  rises than the economy can afford,. together.with Government  provided benefits which would increase Government spending massively  and fuel inflation as a result.

It is also clear that after 12 months of detailed discussion, Labor has not got real ACTU commitment to practical and  realistic policies. That is not surprising because Labor's  policies are vague in the extreme and Labor has certainly got .  . no agreement to a prices and incomes policy from the employers,  because it has apparently not yet seen fit even to consult them.

People should also remember that in any case a deal with the  ACTU would not be a deal with all the unions. What do the  metal trades unions., the air traffic controllers, the Bass  Strait oil workers, the railway workers, in Queensland, the BLF

and the Shop Assistants' Union, for example think about all of  this? What would they be prepared to do? The Labor Party  never has and never will be able to get the Australian community  to work together. The time when Mr Hayden was in Government and  when Mr Hawke, was President of the ACTU and of the LaborÂ· Party,

tells the story of Labor's economic and industrial incompetence  in Government, because at that time, when they had the chance  to show what they could do, Australia's industrial relations were  disastrous. The almost 6h million working days lost through

strikes and disputes in 1974 is more than 50% greater than the  number of working days lost last year.and as we all know last  year was not a good year for industrial relations.

Labor would again pursue divisive policies. Labor:' s .  policies  remove all incentive to co-operate. Labor would give special and  unreasonable privileges to the trade unions, which would give the  unions every reason to be immoderate in their demands. Labor's  distrust of the private sector means that business will never  have confidence under Labor, that its interests will never be taken

into account.

Labor would deliberately favour sectional interests, especially  through practices such as trade union preference, which would  not provide a basis for the community as a whole to work together.  Wherever Labor has had a .chance to govern, it has always caused .

economic chaos through mismanagement and wrong policies and .   this does not happen by chance. It happens because Labor's  socialism means that Labor Governments try to drive Australians  where they do not want to go and this prevents Australians from  working together or co-operating. Australia cannot afford that.

It is only with responsible, practical economic policies and by  working together,  that we will be able to keep building this country  and overcome present economic problems.  .

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