ADDRESS TO THE G21 FORUM

Good afternoon everybody.

First of all, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land upon which we meet, I pay my respects to their elders both past and present.

It’s a great pleasure to return to this important forum. It's a great pleasure to be at one of the premier addresses in the state, if not the nation: Number One, Great Ocean Road.

I think it is fitting that the RACV has a presence here at what is one of the great motorways of the Australian continent. 
 
 But something else I was thinking about, the Great Ocean Road is perhaps the world’s biggest war memorial. 

Two hundred and forty-three kilometres dedicated to the memory of all those brave Australians who served, suffered and died in the First World War. It is a tribute, built by their brothers-in-arms. 

Over three thousand returned servicemen lived in tents, moving camp as the road they carved from the cliffs wound its way towards Lorne and beyond.

There were plenty of other schemes interestingly, for returned servicemen at the same time but not all of them perhaps finished as well.

It's hard to put ourselves in the shoes of that experience of 100 years ago. People returning from the war, processing that horror, the hardship and perhaps they had little knowledge of farming but they were sent off into unforgiving country from the Mallee right through to Maffra in our great state. 

But here, I think it's fair to say that the plan to support our returned servicemen has had a lasting benefit.

The men who worked on that project that I've read about, they found it serious work and fulfilling work. It was a fresh start. And even though it was very physically back-breaking work, they transformed the coast and indeed, our state.

 

The vast majority of this road wasn’t blasted with dynamite – it was built by picks and shovels and sheer effort.  

The pay was better than the trenches though, I've discovered. Apparently an enlisted man on the Western Front would get six shillings a day. But for swinging a shovel here on the Surf Coast it was ten shillings and sixpence. 
 
 It's interesting though when I think today about our challenges ahead of us, when I think about what it would have been like then - the people who built the Great Ocean Road served their country twice.

They went to war,  then they gave their energies into building this state.
 
 This road is a monument - and whilst I've been a Victorian my whole life and travelled it many times - I think it is quite inspiring for a whole lot of reasons beyond its natural beauty.

It is a reminder of what Australians can do when we work together. Working together perhaps seems to have gone out of fashion in Canberra but I think it hasn’t lost its ultimate value.
 
 I should acknowledge, I don't know if they're in the room yet, I haven't seen him but I know that Richard Di Natale will be speaking, I acknowledge him. Sarah Henderson will also be speaking as the local Member for Corangamite and I understand that we will be joined by my own colleague Richard Marles this afternoon.

So it's good that this forum is bringing people together. 
 
 It is interesting though, when I look back at this Great Ocean Road, it was a project approved by government, it was funded in partnership with private firms and it was driven by a leadership at the local level – one of the driving influences was the then Mayor of Geelong, Howard Hitchcock.

It connected-up formerly remote settlements along the coast, it created good jobs, especially for the people who needed them the most. 

It enhanced the beauty of this remarkable environment – and helped all people share it. 

And it was built to last. It wasn’t something cooked-up for an announcement in the week of the fortnightly Newspoll.

It wasn’t a last-minute bit of sandbagging in a marginal seat. 
 
 It wasn't Great Ocean Road 2.0. It was about looking over the horizon, it was about building something for generations.

So I think that is indeed the spirit which enthuses this forum: what are the long-term things that need to be done in this region?
 
 And I think that we could use that spirit of co-operation to help underline what we seek to do, here and in the future for this region. 

 

I think we should enthuse some of that spirit in terms of our infrastructure decisions: good local projects, from sporting and community facilities to better roads and public transport, creating jobs and apprenticeships

Digital infrastructure: a proper NBN, so that businesses in this region can connect to the opportunities not just throughout the nation but throughout the Asia-Pacific.  

Planning for the future in education and training, making sure that young people have the right skills for the future and that mature-age workers who’ve been dislocated by change, especially but not exclusively, the seismic shocks in the auto-industry and manufacturing, can use their existing skills and upgrade them with new skills for new jobs.

So there’s a lot to do with infrastructure and digital infrastructure and skills.

Planning for the future with renewable energy, so that we can guarantee cheaper, cleaner and more reliable power for homes and businesses as well as taking action on climate change.

And we know that that depends on predictability and consistency of energy policy, so that industry and investors can actually get on with investing in the energy decisions which are required to generate the new jobs of the future. 

Along with renewable energy, digital infrastructure, physical infrastructure and of course education and skills we need to be backing industries where we’ve got a comparative advantage, a competitive edge.
 
 From tourism to agriculture in this region, to high-quality services and advanced manufacturing.
 
 Geelong and the region, this region is good at doing these things and it's partly, if we can invest in this region it also helps prepare Australia more generally for the future ahead. 
 
 We want to make this region and other regions of  Australia competitive and successful in a changing economy 
 
 I think that when we think about the long term, and those priorities which I've articulated, we really have to decide what kind of country we want to be.

We can either chase our neighbours down the low-wage road, down the low-skill road - but I don't think that we do want to be in a race to the bottom on pay and conditions.

An insecure, casualized economy where people are just simply not certain from week to week of the amount of work they will have.

I say to you that the kind of country we want to be is the kind that pursues the high road. High-skill jobs, relatively high wages, moving our workers and businesses up the value chain.

That what we do here is what people want to pay for. 

Now the mining boom was very good for our nation. Its success still flows through in the increased volumes of what we produce and send overseas, so that helps bump up our terms of trade.

But I want to suggest to you today that our terms of trade is the luck that the rest of the world gives us. In other words, we have a lot of natural resources and the rest of the world wants to buy our commodities. 
 
 But to some extent that is the luck that the rest of the world makes for us – they want what we have, we just happen to have it.
 
 I'm interested in how we produce our own luck in this country.
 
 And I want to suggest to you that the foundation of the luck that we produce in our own country is education, it’s skills, it is more training. It's the industries where we can compete and win especially with our links to Asia to our north. 

Education and skills is the luck we make ourselves. And, of course, from Deakin University and other facilities down here you're already doing that. 
 
 I think that Government fundamentally has a role to make the luck of our future. To build a new growth story, to set Australia up for future generations.

In the 1980s and 1990s we opened up our economy, we floated the dollar, we made hard decisions. 
 
 We now need to see what are the decisions we make for the next generation, what is the luck we make ourselves?
 
 In this process though, of making our future we need to fundamentally recommit ourselves to the goal of including people in this path to change, not leaving people behind.
 
 You cannot make a successful, sustainable growth plan for this country if you have widening inequality.
  
 Now this proposition that I advance – that we need to have a fair tax system, we need to have a strong safety net including a proper industrial relations system, that we need to have a system that doesn’t reward the property investors over the first-home buyers, or a system which rewards those who have their income split in discretionary trusts over the pay-as-you-go taxpayers and small businesses of this country.
 
 Tackling inequality is part of the luck we make ourselves, having a proper floor so that we have an emerging middle class and people aren’t slipping through the cracks. 
 
 The Government, has said that this makes me a dangerous socialist. They have called me a communist, ‘socialism in the sun’ was what was suggested, I have a Cuban model for Australian economics. 

 

But it doesn't really matter what the Government says about us. I believe, fundamentally, in helping people, helping communities, providing opportunities to Australians, regardless of their financial circumstances, the postcode they live in, the God they worship or the school that they went to, providing opportunities regardless of one’s gender. 

This is fundamental to me. It isn't an ideology, it isn't an ‘ism’, it isn't some sort of dangerous threat to the Australian fair go.

Helping workers and helping their families is the reason why I got into politics. It's the reason why the Labor Party gets up every day and does what it does.

I have seen, indeed even in this region, what happens when you leave people behind. I have seen what happens when factory gates close and there is no plan for these people. I have seen the unfairness that is caused when the jobs go.

I don't believe that you need to leave these people to the forces of the market. That there is nothing that can be done. I think that we need to be smarter and more generous than that.

When I was with the Australian Workers Union I used to come down here a fair bit. 

But I look at the roll-call of some of the businesses who worked very hard to survive. There's the refinery, there's Gatic, BHP Wire, Geelong Cement, Blue Circle, Kinnears, Alcoa, The Wool Scourers, Cheetham Salts, Winchester

All of the people who worked at those businesses and some of them are still going but many of them are not. I can attest from management right through to the cleaners, right through to everyone who worked in that business – they worked very hard. And they worked and they changed and they downsized and they were up-sized and they embraced enterprise bargaining.

 

They did whatever was asked from them. Ultimately, though, these businesses, many of them closed. 
 
 What frustrates me is the lack of planning for what's next. That's why today's forum is so important.

These businesses I've mentioned, they were iconic landmarks, they were local champions in the national economy. The people who worked there were skilled problem-solvers, they were proud of their place in the team.

 

No one needs a lecture in Geelong or the region about the hard edges of economic change: you’ve seen them, you’ve lived them, from Alcoa at Point Henry through to Ford.

In places like Norlane and Whittington, you know how important it is for people to get the support they require when they’re out of work.

 

It's not good enough to collect taxes off these people while they're at work and then when they're not at work put them in a separate bin and say these people are somehow second-class.
 
 It's not good enough for a Government to say that the future lies in putting all these people on welfare but not even giving them cash. Putting them on programs where we control what they spend but when they were working, they were good enough to pay taxes.

 

We need to have a better and smarter plan for people when change happens.

 

We need Governments who are prepared to listen.

 

I don't know how many of you see it, but as a member of Parliament, people come up to me -  men and women in their 50s and 60s who've been displaced by change, many of them are very well dressed when you see them on the Saturday in the supermarket.

 

And they'll have that plastic folder, they'll have their CV in it. They do the interviews, the employment services, such as they are, sending them to interviews which I'm not sure are the right interviews to send them to.

 

You just see the frustration, the sense of alienation, these people want to work, but our system hasn't been good enough at planning on the macro level, or indeed at the micro level to explain to people where they fit in when change happens.

 

Of course, there are the success stories. I look at Avalon Airport.

 

It's not just about flying in and out, of course that's good for tourism. But how fortunate are you to have an airport within your local region?

 

The expanded freight, the logistics, the industry and the region with benefits. It's a job creator for Geelong - hundreds already, and hundreds more in the pipeline of jobs.

 

These are opportunities and potential success stories, but broader than even Avalon.

 

Today I’m not here today pretending I have all the answers.

 

Today for me is doing the work of Opposition, which is to hear the good observations and to work out how we turn that into good policy.

 

I think anyone who comes to your forum today and says they have all the answers is kidding themselves and probably you.

 

What I understand, is Canberra works best when we've deployed local knowledge.

 

There's nothing better that I look forward to than when I get a meeting with groups like the G21, councils who come with a well-organised plan about priorities.

 

Whilst Canberra makes decisions, politics is only 5 per cent in Canberra. It's 95 per cent out here, at gatherings like this and the work which is being done here.

 

That's one of the many reasons why we get out and about.

 

Look at the G21 plan. You've put together your "Pillar Projects".

 

It's a blueprint for:

 

-      Job creation and economic development

 

-      Tourism and infrastructure

 

-      Sport and recreation

 

-      Education and training

 

-      A cleaner environment and healthier waterways.

 

When Richard Marles isn't banging on to me about the Cats, he is certainly on my case about backing these projects.

 

Time doesn't permit me to go through each of the individual items on the list, but rest assured, we're assessing them for the next election, because well-prepared regions will always outperform poorly prepared regions.

 

I want to talk briefly about elections for a moment.

 

We came very close at the last election – I'm conscious of course we didn’t win. Trust me, I’m probably more conscious than most people about that.

 

During the campaign, that eight-week campaign by our Prime Minister, if I went down the shops for a coffee, there’d be a whole squad of Federal Police.

 

As soon as it was over, now I go down, I've got perhaps a random child on a bike and a couple of bulldogs. I always take my plastic bag when the bulldogs are going. It's a humbling experience.

 

But it was a close election, and the reason why I make this point about it being a close election, is that it's put politics into an unusually febrile state.

  

Normally oppositions are not so relevant when a government has a big majority. But this Government doesn't have a big majority, so things are very relevant.

 

It's given Labor a unique opportunity, that if we have well thought-out ideas, and we put them out in the market place, they don't get ignored. We don't have to wait for an election to be heard.

 

What this has allowed us to do in more recent times is put forward some policies which have to be spoken about by the Government.

 

And that's good news for the G21 agenda.

 

Right now, if we adopt an idea that the G21 agenda puts forward, the Government has three options.

 

They can choose to reject it, which is what they normally do. Initially, and then they work out how re-badge it as their own idea.

 

So they can reject it and close it, or the second option is they can decide to match our commitment, which they do sometimes.

 

So that means that if they reject our idea, and how you think it's an idea and we think it's a good idea, well then it is an issue for the next election. Which is good, because that means there's a contest of ideas.

 

Or they choose to adopt our idea - well that's even better because it just happens and we don't have to wait for an election, you can get on with policy.

 

Or the third thing they can do is try and outbid us, but that's also good for you, because then that forces us to reconsider.

 

What you currently have in Australian politics, is you have two buyers, with one seller. You are the seller, you sell your ideas, and that competitive dynamic means that there is a chance there's good policy debate and things to move along.

 

People look at a close margin and say it's all gridlock - it's not actually. What it means is that all of a sudden, everyone matters. So your well-prepared ideas matter.

 

So that will mean, your ideas, as you advance them now, have a potency both in terms of the local context and at the national level.

 

I'm going to pick one area where I do think we need to have that leadership now and that's energy policy and I'll conclude my remarks after this.

 

First of all, we get that energy prices is a big issue for households and for business.

 

We also get that the greatest drag in terms of resolving pressure on energy prices is a lack of policy certainty. We understand that if industry knows what the rules are, they'll get on and make it happen, and there will be a degree of competition then.

 

What industry requires is certainty, it’s predictability - not chopping and changing on energy policy.

 

We also recognise here, some of the policies have nothing to do with the Government; it's got to do with the greed of the power companies.

 

It's got to do with the fact we have rampant privatisation, and this myth somehow that everything that's privatised will miraculously deliver high profits for the owners, and lower prices for the consumers.  That formula doesn't always work, and it's not working the way it should in energy.

 

So most recently the Prime Minister had another meeting with power companies. The power companies emerged - this is on about Wednesday I think - and they said they're going to talk to their customers about offering better deals.

 

I don't know what happens in your households of an evening, but you can't go home without the phone ringing with some power company offering you a better deal already.

 

It's always amazing when you get the bill from your power company which has gone up, they then say on the bill: "We've got a better deal for you". You think, when?

 

What the Government has effectively done is they've offered business as usual. The power companies emerged from their talkfest and said: "We are going to continue writing to you about great deals." Business-as-usual, marketing 101.

 

What they can do is write to you and say: "You've just got to change companies" and we've got a better deal. But those companies that you changed from then write back to you and say "Come back, we've got a better deal".

 

But somewhere along the line the power company profits keep going up, and your bills keep going up. And Australians can't afford business as usual.

 

I think that any benefits that are going to come in the short term are minimal.

 

I do think that we need to get to the basics: the supply and demand equation for energy has gone out of balance.

 

It now disproportionately favours the suppliers of energy. And due to our demand for energy, that equation is not working for us.

 

The supply is going overseas in the case of gas, and the prices keep going up.

 

We need to get the supply and demand equation back into balance.

 

It's why Labor has led the debate, two years ago we were calling for a national interest test for the sale of gas.

 

As of today, September 1, the Government has finally put in a set of rules which means if the Government feels gas supplies are going overseas when they should be kept for the Australian market, they can put in export controls. As of today.

 

I think it is a farce that Japanese industrial companies can buy Australian gas cheaper, than Australian companies can buy Australian gas in Australia.

 

If we're going to have a long term plan, sometimes you've just got to make a decision and say it as it is. Asking energy companies who are making more profits, to write more letters to you, fixes nothing.

 

But the Government could today, and indeed with our support, say to the gas companies who are exporting Australia's gas supplies, that you've got to make sure you have sufficient to deal with supply in Australia.

 

That would actually get that equation of supply and demand back into a better position.  

 

Today what I would say to you is the approach taken by this group in this forum is the right one. Working together, going for the long term.

 

Those issues which I have spoken about are issues which, as a template, fit very neatly with the G21 pillars: infrastructure and NBN, education and skills, energy. These are the things which I think are the right forum, industries where we have a comparative advantage.

 

But what we also need to do is just deal with issues straight. Go to the heart of matters, which I've tried to do in talking about energy prices.

 

And, as I've also endeavoured to talk to you today about, politics is more febrile.

 

So I'm saying, the Australian people, and well-organised regions and communities have a little bit more purchasing power in the political equation than previously, because the political race is so close at the moment.

 

Labor has not one shred of complacency. We are determined to work on the best possible policies to present a social and economic program for the betterment of this nation and its citizens at the next election.

 

We are very much in the mode of respecting and listening to local agendas.

 

You in this room, know what this community needs. You in this room have done the hard work, and you've got a fair idea.

 

You might not agree with exactly every bit of emphasis, but you are quite a well organised community on everything from Stage 5 at Simonds, the convention centre, through to the opportunities with ag, value-ad and services, bringing businesses and areas of speciality to Geelong following upon the TAC and the NDIA.

 

 You are a well-organised community. I'm encouraging you to use your preparation and planning and your view about the long term.

 

Because the Labor Party certainly intends to do as well as we possibly can at the next election, and the way we do that is by listening to communities, advancing what this and other communities want, and doing so in a manner which makes Australians believe the Labor Party understands what's going on out there in the real world, that we've got some practical policies which will help working and middle-class Australian families better their lot.

 

Thank you very much.