The Hon.
Nicholas Minchin, Senator for South Australia
First Speech - 30/08/1993Thank you, Mr President, and in particular I thank the officers
and staff of the Senate for all the help and advice I have received in recent
weeks. As a committed federalist and supporter of upper houses, I am honoured
to have been elected to the Senate. I reject the view of the honourable member
for Blaxland (Mr Keating) that the Senate is composed of unrepresentative swill.
I do, however, share our Prime Minister's interest in and affection for pigs,
as my father was a pig farmer when I was born. Thus I have no objection to swill,
but I do object to the notion that this chamber is unrepresentative. I am
proud to represent the state of South Australia and acknowledge the support of
the voters of my home state who so overwhelmingly endorsed the Liberal Party on
13 March this year. As the Liberal Party State Director and the Campaign Director
in South Australia for the past eight years, it was gratifying that my final campaign
saw my party win eight of the 12 House of Representatives seats in South Au
stralia and three Senate seats. The task of winning three lower seats and
a Senate seat from Labor was never going to be easy, particularly in view of the
formidable trade union campaign waged against us. Winning an extra Senate seat
in South Australia had the happy consequence of ensuring the continuation of the
Senate career of my friend Alan Ferguson, who was no. 3 on the Liberal Senate
ticket. While as a professional campaigner I must congratulate the Labor Party
on its victory on 13 March, I note that a clear majority of South Australians
voted for a change of government and for the policies of the Liberal Party. I
have no doubt they will also vote for a change of government at the impending
state election in South Australia. The state of South Australia is suffering
significant economic problems which are bound to sweep away the incumbent government.
The $3 billion South Australian State Bank debt is the disastrous proof of the
wisdom of my long held view that governments should avoid involv
ement in
the ownership and operation of business enterprises. The government's role in
the economic life of the state and nation is to set the rules and act as umpire,
and to avoid being one of the players. The conflict of interest inherent in
performing both roles invariably produces disastrous outcomes as we have seen
not only in South Australia but also in Western Australia and Victoria. This government,
to its credit, has at last accepted the need to privatise federal business entities.
However, I urge it to move with the greatest possible speed towards extricating
itself from the improper role of commercial player. Modern politics is in
many ways a debate about the proper role of government. It is gratifying that
in several areas the Labor Party has, albeit reluctantly and slowly, accepted
the Liberal view of the role of government in relation to privatisation, the deregulation
of the financial sector and opening up the Australian economy to international
competition. It is to be hoped that this
government, which clearly is as
surprised by its victory as anyone, will accept the need to press on with structural
reform of the economy, including reform of the labour market, as has been advocated
by my party for many years. The need for economic reform is no more clearly
highlighted than in Australia's horrifying level of unemployment, which is a matter
for national shame in a country with our assets. Unemployment is acute in my state
of South Australia, which frequently records the highest jobless rate of any mainland
state. Federal policy must surely have as its overriding objective a massive reduction
in the numbers of people who cannot find a job. A situation in which almost one
million Australians are unemployed must be unacceptable to every member of the
Commonwealth parliament. Every practice and policy of government should be
critically assessed against the backdrop of mass unemployment. The poverty, depression
and human misery occasioned by unemployment are intolerable in a country like
ours. The millions of Australians affected by unemployment are no doubt frustrated
and angry that while they suffer, the national political debate is dominated by
discussions of Mabo and the republic. Jobless Australians must wonder how on earth
all the talk about native title and changing the constitution will help them get
a job. As a Liberal senator, I believe my responsibility is to argue for policies
which will get Australia back to work. My responsibility is not to be ideologically
correct but to seek out practical solutions to our number one problem--mass unemployment.
My support for giving managers and workers greater freedom to negotiate their
own industrial relations arrangements is based not on ideology but on a desire
for good outcomes. The current level of unemployment sends out one clear message
about our industrial relations arrangements--they are simply not working. The
federal parliament has a responsibility to do everything possible to ensure that
our industrial relations arrangement
s operate so as to maximise employment.
That responsibility applies to every facet of federal activity. In my view
every piece of legislation should be subject to an employment impact test. If
the proposed law is likely to restrict employment opportunities, then a heavy
onus rests on its proponents to say why it should be passed. Indeed, such a test
should certainly be applied to the proposed increase in the wine tax. Real job
growth can only occur when businesses are sufficiently healthy to be able to employ
more people. I am an unashamed advocate of pro-business policies for that
simple reason. A strong, growing business community will employ more Australians.
That growth will be a function of the internationalisation of the Australian economy.
I am firmly committed to ensuring that international trade is as free as possible,
again for the practical reason that trade among nations is the great engine behind
the rise in world living standards and the creation of new jobs. I pay tribute
to the cour
age of a great South Australian Liberal, Bert Kelly, who has fought
so hard to demonstrate the benefits of free trade. Australian businesses must
be given every opportunity to penetrate overseas markets, which provide the potential
for continuous growth in our living standards. I am pleased to see this government
move towards a reduction in our own barriers to international trade, and I urge
it to resist the pleas of the protectionists. Our foreign debt problem, which
is such a hurdle to sustainable job growth, can only be overcome by making Australia
as efficient and productive as possible in order to maximise our export income
and our national savings. It cannot be solved by resurrecting the barriers.
Another great economic principle to which I subscribe is that of competition.
Competition in the marketplace is the means by which excellence is achieved, productivity
increased, living standards raised and jobs created. The great virtue of opening
up Australia to the world economy is the increase in t
he degree of competition.
One has only to look at a great South Australian industry, car manufacturing,
to see the virtues of a more open, competitive market and export orientation.
The quality of the cars now being produced by Mitsubishi and General Motors in
South Australia is a great tribute to everyone involved in those enterprises,
and they deserve the support of Australian motorists. Taxation is another
area where real reform is required if we are to maximise employment opportunities.
The tragedy of the recent election campaign is its effect on the great cause of
tax reform. Almost every objective Australian with an understanding of our tax
system believes we must broaden the tax base by replacing our wholesale sales
tax with a value added tax on goods and services and commensurate reductions in
income tax. No-one has argued the case better than our current Prime Minister,
who was unfortunately ambushed by the unions in 1985. To his credit, John
Hewson put policy virtue ahead of political re
ality in convincing my party
to advocate such a proposal prior to the last election. As a professional campaigner
I was not at all surprised that our political opponents made the GST the centrepiece
of their campaign, and effectively diverted attention from their record in office.
However, as an Australian concerned about our country's economic future, I despair
that the 1993 election means more wasted years of struggling under the burden
of a hopelessly inefficient tax system which is a barrier to higher employment.
The 1993 election confirmed that an opposition will almost certainly never
win by promising a new tax. The only way we will achieve sensible tax reform is
by an incumbent government, with bipartisan support, biting the bullet. I hope
this government will have the courage to put the national interest first and replace
our ramshackle indirect tax system with some form of broad based, value added
tax as advocated by the Prime Minister in 1985. It is absolute madness for Australia
to tax its expo
rts in the way that occurs under our current tax system.
Any discussion of unemployment must address the impact upon the supply of labour
in the 1980s caused by high immigration and the increase in the number of women,
particularly women with dependent children, entering the paid work force. Net
immigration from 1982 to 1992 was just over one million people--an increase of
nearly 50 per cent on the previous decade. In the past decade the female work
force participation rate has increased by 40 per cent. Since July 1984 the number
of married women in the labour force with dependent children has increased by
27 per cent. Government policies have played a big part in the significant
increase in the supply of labour in the last decade which puts an even greater
responsibility upon the federal government to have policies which result in a
high demand for labour. Immigration has declined to a net 62,700 in 1992-93 and,
in my view, should stay within that figure into the foreseeable future. Women
are now rea
ping the benefits of years of struggle to achieve equal opportunity
in the paid work force. However, I have a particular concern for those women with
dependent children who have been forced by economic circumstance to seek paid
employment when they would prefer to be concentrating on their role as mothers
and homemakers. I raise this subject as someone intimately involved with women
who have worked for a living. My mother was the second woman journalist to work
in the Canberra press gallery and my wife's journalistic career has included service
in that same gallery. My interest lies in seeking to restore a realistic choice
to those women with dependent children who want to devote themselves to the jobs
of mother and homemaker which, for far too long, have been undervalued. The nurture
and care of children should be celebrated and those who undertake this task need
all our support. In a survey conducted in 1990 by Dangar Research for the
magazine Family Circle, 86 per cent of mothers agreed that the fi
nancial
situation has forced a lot of women out to work who do not want to; and seven
in 10 women would support the government giving much higher child allowances so
more women could stay at home. Our social order is a function of the upbringing
our children receive from their parents. Mothers who want to be with their children
in those critical preschool years should be given that choice. I believe the
Federal Government should introduce a single universal form of child rearing assistance
to replace all existing child care and child rearing allowances and subsidies.
This single method of assistance could take the form of a tax credit or benefit
paid to all mothers with dependent children. Recipients could, of course, choose
to spend the allowance on child care or use it to make it financially viable for
them to be full time mothers and homemakers, especially during their children's
earliest years. As a firm believer in policies designed to maximise choice
and equity, I find it unjust that families in
which the mother sacrifices
her earning potential to be a full time mother and homemaker end up subsidising,
through their taxes, the costs of child care for mothers who have paid employment.
Equity demands that mothers with dependent children be treated equally by way
of a benefit replacing all other child related allowances and subsidies. The
economic pressures on Australian families caused by unemployment and declining
living standards are a cause of considerable concern to me. Those pressures are
a significant factor in family breakdown, divorce, domestic violence, disturbed
children, youth suicide and rising crime. Government policy should, in my view,
do all it can to minimise the degree of family breakdown. My parents divorced
when I was eight years old, so I bring to this parliament first-hand experience
of the impact on children of family breakdown--and I trust the impact is not too
obvious! I wish to turn briefly to an area of great interest to me, that of
electoral matters. Consistent with m
y strong support for maximising individual
choice, I hold firmly to the view that Australians should be free to choose not
to vote in federal elections. I am delighted that the Liberal Party of South Australia
is committed to the introduction of voluntary voting following the next state
election and I look forward to the federal coalition adopting voluntary voting
as policy. I am pleased that our federal council has just reaffirmed its support
for voluntary voting. A truly liberal party cannot, with any philosophical
integrity, maintain a commitment to compulsory voting. My 14 years full time work
as a senior official of the Liberal Party has convinced me of the need to end
compulsion. It is a distasteful anachronism that should be abandoned in the interests
of the health of our democracy. I regret that while our political opponents continue
to believe that they gain an advantage from compulsion, we are likely to continue
being one of the very few countries in the world where a voter can actually end
up g
oing to gaol for choosing not to vote. I would like to take this
opportunity to note that I am only the second state director of the Liberal Party
to be elected to the Senate. The first was Sir John Carrick, a former Leader of
the Government in the Senate and a man for whom I have the highest regard. Sir
John's devotion to the development of a culture of cooperation in Australian workplaces
to replace our culture of conflict is something I admire and share. I happen to
believe that the skills and experience acquired in full time party employment
are an appropriate background for a parliamentary career. Unfortunately, the
culture of my party has been a little hostile to its professional staff seeking
a position in parliament, as witnessed by my being only the second state director
in 50 years to enter the Senate. The Liberal Party is more favourably disposed
to granting Senate preselection to its former state presidents, five of whom currently
serve as senators in this place--all with great distinction
, I might add.
I do note that the Labor Party has a very different approach to this issue, as
is evidenced by the fact that five former national and state secretaries of the
party are currently serving in the Senate. While my career to date has been
political, I have virtually no political antecedents. My great great grandfather,
Sir Stewart Donaldson, was the first Premier of New South Wales--the state in
which I was born and raised. Sir Stewart remained Premier for only three months;
I trust that my tenure in the Senate lasts a little longer than that. I had another
great great grandfather who was the first director of the Adelaide Zoo--an occupation
not unlike that of director of a political party but one which is no doubt viewed
by the public as much more worthy. I hope in my time in the Senate to do as
much as any individual politician can to improve the esteem in which the institution
of parliament and its members are held. The low regard for MPs in the community
should be of concern to all parl
iamentarians. Liberal democracy is a fragile
thing. Its continuation is dependent upon the public's confidence in and trust
in the people elected to parliament. A bipartisan approach to the restoration
of faith in the parliamentary process is a worthy goal to which I fully subscribe.
The opposition's role in that process is to provide a constructive contribution
to the business of government with a constant eye to the national interest. That
contribution must embrace a critical examination of government policies and legislation
to safeguard this chamber's true role as a house of review. I look forward to
playing my part in our common pursuit of the advancement of the Australian nation
and its people.
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