Ja,v AUSTRALIA../^

PRIIVSE M INISTER

___________________________  m  ______________________ _

FOR MEDIA .  SUNDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 1980

ELECTORATE TALK

Last Thursday I announced in the Parliament that there will be  a general election on October 18. The result of this election  will shape Australia's future for many years to come.  That is  why,  in a difficult and demanding worId,  the decision to be made

by voting Australians is a critical one.

It is a decision to select a Party for Government which is  capable of successfully meeting the challenges faced by Australia  in the decade ahead. Our record over the last five years and  our policies for the future entitle us as a Government, and as a  nation, to great confidence.

For five years ago we inherited an economy which threatened  Australia's future security. Yet today Australia's economy is  the envy of much of the industrialised world. Inflation, while  still too high, is lower than the average of major industrialised

countries; and much lower than the level of inflation in America  and Britain. And the claim of any Party t o .Government in the  80s must be based, above all else, on its capacity to contain  inflation and secure sustainable economic growth. Because  everything we want as a people and as a nation depends upon that.

This we have done; this, the Labor Party failed to achieve in  the 70s and, on the eve of this election,  they still have no  anti-inflation strategy. It is because of the success of our  anti-inflation strategy that business confidence in high and

overseas investment is being attracted to Australia. As a  result, in mining and manufacturing alone, $29 million of  investment is either under way or about to go. One needs only  to remember the investment collapse that occurred under Labor

in the 70s, to realise the extent of our investment achievements  in the last five years. .  .  ..... . .

Our rural industries are looking good again; and rural exports  last year were the highest for a decade. Of course, the  Government is aware that significant parts of Australia are now  in the grip of severe drought conditions. It is because of  these unpredictable seasonable variations, faced by Australian

farmers, that the Government has consistently provided incentives  and support for rural industries including comprehensive drought  relief programmes. And these will continue.

This is hot the time for a Party in Government which is  unsympathetic and hostile to rural interests. The most pleasing  barometer of Australia's improved economic health has been the .   remarkable growth in employment over the last year.

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While unemployment is still too high, in the 12 months, to July  this year, employment in Australia rose by 212,000, the highest  annual increase for 10 years. And a recent survey by the  Bureau of Statistics shows that expected investment for the  year ahead is 40 per cent higher than expectations which existed

at this time last year. It is our ability to sustain these  expectations on which we base our claim to Government in the 80s.

For it is only through the creation of national wealth that any Â·   community or government can meet its responsibilities and provide  for those in need. Because of our success in strengthening the  economy over the last five years, and in spite of much needed  restraint in many areas of Government expenditure,  we have been  able to maintain our pioneering commitment to those in bur  community who, through no fault of their own, need our assistance.

$600 million has been spent on man power and training programmes  for the unemployed.. 570,000 Australians have been assisted by  these programmes in the last four years.  Over 230,000 will be  assisted this year. We have built 500 new self-contained hostels  and nursing homes for the aged and this programme is to continue.  And our. assistance to families, the handicapped, migrants.  and  Aboriginals has provided new and imaginative benef its. .

The Government's energy policies, in particular our oil parity  pricing policy, are making sure that Australia will maintain its  energy independence in the future. Expenditure on exploration  and development.is five times what it was in 1975. During this  year, 50-60 on-shore wells are likely to be drilled compared with

6 in 1975. And in the last four years, one billion barrels of  petroleum liquids have been added to Australia's economically  recoverable reserves. Momentum such as this, which has been  generated in so many areas of national activity, must be maintained

Yet our Opposition, the Labor Party, because of its policy and  platform commitments to date threatens our hard won achievements;  and challenges the very foundations that have so painstakingly  been established. At a time when international, academic and ,   business commentators point to the absolute priority that must be  given to containing inflation, the Labor Party have announced  massive spending programmes which would dramatically increase the

national debt, fuel inflation, promote unemployment and threaten  the national confidence and capacity that have been so successfully  generated in the last five years.

In only six areas, Labor have announced policies to spend more  than $2,500 million of taxpayers' money - of your money. And,  almost unbelievably, there are more than 250 other programmes to  which the Labor Party is committed,  and which have not yet been

costed. What Labor never understand is that governments have no  resources of their own. When the Labor Party promises massive  spending programmes, they are effectively promising to take money  from you - your neighbour and from all Australian taxpayers. They  are promising something of yours.  It needs to be understood that  what governments spend cannot be spent by Australian families. .

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The productivity, the production of this' country is limited. It is finite. In any one year if government consumes more,,  families must consume less.  That is. why, quite, deliberately  of course, Labor avoids costing these programmes. Indeed  Mr. Hayden is on record as saying, "we have to present our

policies in an attractice and digestible form ... now this  requires us to be selective." This simply means that Mr. Hayden  will hide some of his commitments from the nation, in the weeks  ahead, because he knows they would mean a colossal drain on

taxpayers' money.

They would plant inflation, once again, deep in the national  soil. These consequences must be resisted and rejected..  . Economic responsibility will continue to be the watch-word of  my Government in the 80s. Because it is on that economic

responsibility that your standards of living can, and will, rise.

We will continue to restrain Government expenditure. .  And by the  containment of inflation we will continue to encourage the.  development of all Australia's natural resources;  including the  great and proven creative resources of the Australian people. We will continue, as in the past, to work with all Australians,

to see that we secure the.bright prospects that now lie before us

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