Helen Coonan, Senator
for New South Wales
First Speech - 16/10/1996Thank
you, Madam President. I rise this afternoon, as the last new senator of the class
of 1 July 1996, to make my first speech. In so doing I am conscious that our terms
as senators will expire in year 2002, and that we will have had the privilege
and enormous responsibility, with others, of defining and shaping Australia's
direction across the dawn of the new millennium. I have listened with interest
and admiration to the speeches of my colleagues and have been impressed by the
diversity of perspective, talent and unique life experience which each one brings
to this place. I have no immediate predecessor to acknowledge. In the 1996 election
my seat was the only numerical change in the composition of the Senate, being
a gain for the coalition. Until 1990 my seat was held by a distinguished former
senator Chris Puplick, currently President of the New South Wales Anti-Discrimination
Board and Chairman of the Privacy Committee. In these capacities he continues
to make a significant contribution to public life. I am immensely
proud to represent the people of New South Wales-the premier state. In May 1788
in Sydney, New South Wales, Governor Arthur Phillip laid the foundation stone
for the first Government House, the seat of colonial power in the Pacific. This
profoundly significant act has different meanings to different Australians. To
some it marked the birthplace of a nation; to others it meant invasion. For many,
it means a turning point in history and untold opportunities to build the nation
together. It is an opportunity given to me by the people of New South Wales and
I will not waste it. I have no doubt that as the present custodians each of
us wish to leave our community a better place than we found it. As I see it, the
most compelling challenge facing us as a nation today is how to reconcile the
need for fiscal responsibility with the provision of a meaningful and adequate
safety net for the genuinely needy in an era of rapid technological and social
change. To borrow the words of US economist, Arthur M. Okun from his essay `Equality
and Efficiency: The Big Trade-off', the dilemma is how `to put some rationality
into equality and some humanity into efficiency'. Perhaps at no time in Australia's
history has the need to balance these competing notions been so important or so
compelling. To respond to this, we need to step back from the siren calls coming
from simplistic feelings of fear, prejudice and misunderstanding. What Australians
demand of us as legislators and what the community is entitled to have is an examination
of the concept of what the community aims to be and wants to pass on to our children.
In a fair society, those aims find expression in access to minimum standards of
education, employment, health, housing and a decent standard of living for its
citizens. The problems that face Australia today and over the next decade are
intertwined. We need to take a holistic picture of the Australian community of
the future. What education do citizens need? What level of education can we afford?
What jobs will be available? What will be the requirements of a physically
and socially healthy community? Inappropriate solutions for education now will
necessarily aggravate the problems of lack of employment opportunities and lack
of employment impacts on community health. It is only by devising appropriate
solutions to all these problems that we can achieve a fair society. Let us
start with education. Are our policies well designed to ensure that the students
of today are getting an education that will best enable them to obtain employment
in areas where jobs will be available? In order to ensure that we train students
appropriately, it is necessary to determine the likely employment picture of the
future. The future of work and how we deal with unemployment and the unemployed
are critical to our vision of the future--about the place we want Australia to
be. Unemployment, lack of security, declining living standards and pressure on
resources profoundly affect the balance of equity and efficiency. In addition,
the social cost of unemployment on families and relationships is often overlooked
or hidden. It affects not only individuals but all too often third parties who
are the victims of crime and drug abuse born out of hopelessness and despair.
Profound shifts in employment patterns and in traditional modes of work not
only impact on labour market policy but pose many questions for any forward looking
job strategy. What will work mean at the close of the century? What sort of jobs
will be available in the year 2020? Who will do the available work? What hours
will they do it in? Will there be a physical workplace to go to? What happens
to those who do not have any work? On these answers depend future strategies for
appropriate education, training, employment, urban planning, infrastructure and
industry policy. Not only does Australia currently have close to one million
people unsuccessfully seeking paid employment but, as well, unpublished ABS figures
show that almost a quarter of those in employment work in casual jobs. One in
four casual employees would undertake more work if it were available. At the other
end of the spectrum, those with full-time jobs are working longer hours than ever
before and those having two jobs to make ends meet have significantly increased.
In his recent series in the Australian Financial Review, `Revolution in the Workplace',
Stephen Long describes the great divide in the Australian workplace as `between
the overworked and the out of work; between the well paid and the poorly paid;
between career jobs and fringe jobs'. The composition of the work force has
also changed dramatically. Staying in one job for the whole of one's working life
is no longer a reality. In its final report in May 1996 the Commission for the
Future of Work identified the increase of women in the work force from 51 per
cent to 62 per cent in the last 15 years as providing the most significant change
in work force participation. The increase, however, is predominantly in part-time
or casual work, which no doubt reflects the relentless need of most women to juggle
work and family responsibilities as much as it reveals the type of available work.
The real brunt of unemployment, however, falls unequally on the young. Figures
published by the commission show that almost half of unemployed people are under
30 and young people aged between 20 and 24 years of age comprise the largest group
of long-term unemployed. Of most concern in sharing the burden of unemployment
equitably is the long-term rise in Australian families that simply have no `breadwinner'
at all. A recent National Institute of Labour Studies report has predicted
that the best official unemployment figure to expect by the year 2000 is 7.2 per
cent. Downsizing, restructuring and outsourcing have eliminated thousands of jobs.
If these trends continue, there are profound implications not only for wage policy,
taxation, superannuation and welfare, but for health, education and our ability
to deliver equity goals. Even if it were possible to achieve a more equitable
distribution of jobs by making greater efficiencies, that will only affect the
pool of work currently available. To be able to provide appropriate education,
employment and health care for future Australians and help for the genuinely disadvantaged,
it is essential that we identify and provide opportunities for growth and the
creation of new jobs. It is right, in my view, to emphasise the importance
of labour market flexibility and productivity related reforms. There is also much
to be said for ways of organising the workplace, including multiskilling, job
sharing, perhaps self-managing units, work units tied to productivity outcomes,
job pools and programs to directly assist matching of skills to available jobs
for the unemployed. Concerns that deregulation of the labour market might result
in increased productivity but lower wages can be met by encouraging growth of
those businesses capable of creating a large volume of high wage and high satisfaction
jobs. The 1996 OECD report `Technology, Productivity and Job Creation' identifies
knowledge, especially technological knowledge, in industries such as telecommunications,pharmaceuticals,
new materials, environmental technologies, computers, education and software as
the main source of economic growth and job creation in member countries. If
finding better ways to do things is the source of future jobs and higher living
standards, what sort of education and training will best equip the work force
of the future to understand and use knowledge? One thing is certain, and that
is that the better educated will have an advantage in accessing the new world
of electronic commerce. This may lead to widening inequalities between the skilled
and unskilled, unless ways are found to train workers in the new technologies
and to remove barriers to entry to new jobs. However, there are new and exciting
possibilities here to provide, for example, electronic access to teachers, trainers,
libraries and programs to meet needs of those in rural and remote locations or
for those who would otherwise have no access to such training. Creating new
demand for new products inevitably creates the need for more highly skilled and
better paid workers. One only has to consider, for example, the effect of new
products such as mobile phones. The Standard and Poor's Industry Profile predicts
that the telecommunications industry, worth $19.3 billion in 1994, will reach
$30 billion by the year 2004, with the mobile phone sector growing in excess of
50 per cent per annum. Mobile phones, which barely existed 20 years ago, now in
Australia alone constitute a $1 billion industry with some 2.5 million subscribers.
If this is the way forward in Australia for job creation, the policy implications
go beyond making the labour and product markets more flexible. As Dr David Clark
of the School of Economics, University of New South Wales, points out, job creation
also depends on addressing those factors which inhibit business investment. The
role for government is not only to foster
conditions for emerging markets,
it is also to develop and implement strategies coordinating initiatives across
a wide range of relevant policy areas including business, taxation, industry,
training and employment. As a means of job creation, Australia's trading relationship
with east Asia, the fastest growing region in the world, is of critical importance.
In his recent speech to the 25th Annual Conference of Economists, ANU Professor
Peter Drysdale suggested that, on an international comparison, Australia is becoming
less relevant in the booming Asian markets, having lost export opportunities worth
$12 billion between 1985 and 1993. This cannot be allowed to continue. The
need for increased competitiveness in existing and new import markets, especially
in value added so-called `elaborately transformed' manufactures and services,
should not only arrest the decline but generate more high wage export manufacturing
jobs. Despite Australia's welcome commitment together with APEC trading partners
to reduction of tariff protection for local industry, care will be needed to ensure
our own industries are not wiped out in the process. Whilst the distorting effect
of subsidies through tariffs, rebates or tax breaks are well understood, when
and how to cut business welfare and by how much is a difficult balancing act.
The community as a whole is affected, simply because business responds by increasing
prices or by reducing investment. The role for government in identifying and
encouraging new growth opportunities is, in my view, to promote those policies
which boost productivity and to provide the settings for long-term efficiency
and equity. In Remaking Australia, Professor Hugh Emy described the process thus:
Infrastructure, research, knowledge production--these are the realms of government,
so there is more scope for government to intervene to improve the resource base
or provide the enabling conditions likely to attract and/or advantage globally
competitive industries within its own territory. A clear example is the need
to provide a regulatory environment in telecommunications and the multi-media
which allows competition to deliver the very best results, while protecting community
safeguards and ensuring that the fruits of such competition are widespread throughout
the community. To achieve an education system that prepares a motivated work
force for the type and range of available work and to enlarge the pool of available
work will enable an appropriate response to the problems of those who, by reason
of health, age or disadvantage, require a social safety net. Few community
needs can be as compelling or deserving of our national attention than the need
for access to health care at an affordable cost. We have an ageing population.
Not only that, but we are living longer than our forebears and the ratio of those
working to those retired will be 40 per cent in a short 35 years. Australia spends
8.6 per cent of its GDP on health services. This is expected to rise to 10 per
cent by the year 2000. Unless the health system undergoes fundamental reform it
will not survive in its present form. More particularly, unless the private health
insurance system, which currently meets about 12 per cent of health care costs
and takes some pressure of the public health system, is overhauled, it will disintegrate.
The inquiry by the Productivity Commission is timely. The questions seem to be
how much of this cost can be shifted equitably to those who can afford to pay
and how the costs can be contained. Although no measure in isolation is sufficient,
the principle of community rating, with everyone paying the same premium irrespective
of age or state of health, results in the young and the healthy simply opting
out of health insurance, leaving only high risk users, the old and the chronically
ill, as a customer base. Inevitably, premiums increase to cover the increase in
claims. We need to be much more imaginative in how private health insurance
is structured and underwritten. Funds must be permitted to offer innovative products,
such as lifetime community rating with lower premiums for those who join young
and perhaps no-claim bonuses or 100 per cent cover to eliminate the gap between
benefit paid and cost to the patient. Additionally, the place of risk rated health
insurance for trauma, sickness, hospital and medical gap and income cover needs
to be explored rather than shut out of calculation. Ultimately, the most effective
measure to contain health costs is to maintain a healthy population. It requires
a fundamental shift in attitude to devise strategies to keep people well, especially
as they age and become consumers of health services. Maintaining good health for
the ageing should be as much as an investment for the future as education is for
the young. There is a sense of genuine bewilderment amongst a lot of Australians
that, in spite of an expenditure in the vicinity of $10.329 billion in the last
decade, there has been no substantial improvement in the health, housing, education
and general living conditions of Aboriginal people. This has led many to conclude
that the cause is hopeless, and further expenditure at such scale is unjustified
and, at a time of economic stringency, unwarranted. Instead, Australians should
conclude that the way we have been doing it is wrong. Australia was right in concluding
that the conditions of indigenous Australians were shameful and that if we were
to hold up our heads and face ourselves in the mirror of our consciences we had
to eradicate these conditions of shame. Obviously, that needed money. Obviously,
not all the money was well spent. Why? How can we do it better? Instead of giving
way to strident calls of prejudice and misunderstanding, it behoves us to rectify
our system for delivery of what most fair-minded Australians believe all members
of the community are entitled to. Is eradication of treatable disease, provision
of running water and adequate housing really too much to ask? That indigenous
Australians are less well off than other Australians is incontrovertible. Socioeconomic
indicators measuring the health, education, income and housing status of indigenous
Australians paint a clear picture of systemic disadvantage. According to the 1994
survey of indigenous Australians, infant mortality rates are four times the rate
of the total population whilst the life expectancy of males is 18 years less than
the national figure and 20 years less for females. Overall average income in
1994 was 30 per cent less than the $20,000 average of the total population. At
the last national census, 40 per cent of indigenous Australians aged 15 and over
earned less than $8,000 a year. Long-term unemployment of Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander people ranges between 60 per cent and 70 per cent compared with
46 per cent of all Australians unemployed. To continue to be proud to be Australians
in the year 2000, we must confront the problems of delivery of assistance. Reconciliation
will follow, in my view, as a matter of course. It may be unrealistic to expect,
at least in the short term, that indigenous Australians will be able to create
a sustainable wealth base from running cattle stations or other commercial or
community business ventures. Certainly, there are outstanding examples of Aboriginal
people's involvement in successful commercial ventures. It will be important
to long-term relations between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians that
incentives are given to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to make self-determination
work so that they may better help themselves. Far more important than attributing
blame is the need to reassess our priorities. We all have a stake in the outcome,
and in the end we are all accountable as Australians, whatever our race or origin.
The call against immigration is another manifestation of our loss of national
purpose. Contrast the conditions today with the economic and social conditions
which obtained at times of strong migrant inflow. Historically, Australia has
been a great migrant nation greatly advantaged by the intake of skill, labour
and social diversity. One could go back to the days of the gold rushes or Queensland
canegrowing, but, rather, look at the more recent past. In the 1950s, migration
gave us the mighty Snowy Mountains scheme. There was a great need in those days
for hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers, and a great number of such people
were anxious to come to this country. The large number of new arrivals in the
1960s and 1970s were seen as meeting an important economic need. Conditions
have changed and our migrant intake needs to reflect this. At a time when there
is already serious unemployment in Australia, bringing in more unskilled workers
can cause resentment. Even in skilled areas--for example, doctors--there are arguments
against unconditional migration. We must first look after our own. Yet doctors
are an example of an unfulfilled need. There is still a great need for doctors
in rural areas which Australian graduates to date seem reluctant or unable to
meet. Instead of erecting a mindless Fortress Australia against newcomers,
we should look to a pattern of migration which, as it did in the past, advances
properly thought out national goals. Opposition to immigration is in part a reflection
of the deep malaise and anxiety felt by many Australians. Until more wealth is
created and there are more jobs on offer, tightening family reunion requirements
and expanding skilled business migration makes sense. It is difficult to see how
newly arrived migrants can be expected to share the values, goals and aspirations
of Australians if in coming here they remain dispossessed, poor and on the margins
of society. Little wonder there has been a decline in public confidence about
immigration and the value of multiculturalism. The question, however, remains
as to what level of immigration is in the national interest. Our population is
unlikely to grow sufficiently without immigration to take advantage of the opportunities
made possible by our proximity to the south-east Asian region, nor will it be
conducive to maintaining our national integrity. Fortress Australia is a mentality
we cannot let prevail for long. There is a pattern of non-discriminatory migration
which will serve the national interest and receive community support. Getting
the balance right must be a national priority. I enter political life laterally,
so to speak, against the background of a professional career in law spanning over
20 years. Practice of many facets of law in Australia and in the United States
has given me some insight into the human condition. It has heightened my awareness
of the need to guard against injustice. It has strengthened my resolve to be a
voice for the oppressed. The law can be a powerful instrument for social and political
change. It is the machinery which maintains and regulates legal relationships
and social activity in a free and democratic society. It remains an abiding
concern that many Australians cannot afford access to justice. The Attorney-General
(Mr Williams) has referred to the Australian Law Reform Commission the question
of changes to the adversarial system of litigation and alternative dispute resolution.
The problems of delay, technicality and expense are well known and clear. The
need to find a solution to provide the Australian community with an affordable
and efficient dispute resolution system is yet another manifestation of a fair
and just society. I am grateful to those in the Liberal Party of New South
Wales who saw in me a candidate worth fostering--one who would continue the great
traditions of Liberal senators from New South Wales. I mention my friend Peter
Collins, Leader of the Opposition in New South Wales, who for many years encouraged
my interest; Rosemary Foot, former Deputy Leader of the Opposition and the first
woman in New South Wales to hold that office, who started me on my journey; and
Jessie Bartos, who helped along the way. I also acknowledge Chris McDiven, President
of the Liberal Women's Council, who has excelled at identifying and encouraging
women political can didates from all walks of life. I am grateful to have the
love and support of my family and friends, some of whom have travelled to be here.
I especially acknowledge my father, Bill Lloyd, now in his 85th year, here with
me today; my late mother, Mary Lloyd, who would have loved to be here; my husband,
mentor and friend, Andrew Rogers, who has so generously encouraged my personal
aspirations; and my son, Adam, who is my inspiration. I am immensely proud
to be one of the 26 coalition women in the federal parliament and to be part of
the march to government on 2 March 1996, which gave expression to the Liberal
Party's commitment to the advancement of women into parliament. I am also proud
to take my place alongside the women representatives from other parties. Together
we now constitute 20 per cent of the national parliament--an historic first. Never
before has the national parliament been as representative of the people it serves.
If that is the sort of society we want Australia to be, we need to confront
the choices which will deliver equality and efficiency. This is not an improbable
mix of the practical and the visionary. It is about democratic values, opportunity,
progress and the relentless search of the human spirit to do better. Oscar Wilde
described it thus: A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth
even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always
landing. And when Humanity lands there, it looks out and, seeing a better country,
sets sail. Progress is the realisation of the Utopias. Putting rationality
into equality and some humanity into efficiency is within our grasp. And I look
forward to taking part in its realisation. 
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