Annette Hurley, Senator for South Australia
First Speech - 9/08/2005
Senator HURLEY (South Australia)
(5.48 pm)—I preface my speech by congratulating
you, Mr Deputy President, on
your reappointment. I also want to pay tribute
to Geoff Buckland, my predecessor.
Geoff served with distinction in his former
work as an industrial advocate in the Northern
Spencer Gulf region. Then, in 2000, he
took up his position as senator for South
Australia. Geoff continued to live in Whyalla
during his term and was assiduous in serving
regional South Australia during that time. I
too believe that this country cannot be truly
strong without a robust rural and regional
economy, without harnessing and supporting
the strengths of the people of country Australia.
So I hope to emulate some of the
straight-talking, practical style that Geoff
brought to his representation of the region
and of South Australia generally.
In many respects, our country has stood
still for the last decade. Australia has been
content to sit back and reap the economic
benefits of the changes that swept through in
the 1980s. These were the years of modernisation of industry and finance, changes in
our trade structure and a very outwardlooking
foreign policy. It is true that those
changes worried many in Australia at the
time and, indeed, caused some hardship as
Australia realigned its financial systems and
its work practices. I was working in the
banking sector in the early 1980s and was a
strong supporter of Treasurer and later Prime
Minister Keating as he pushed through reforms
in banking and in monetary deregulation.
I believed then, and continue to believe,
that if we had not done it of our own accord
and in our own way then reforms would have
been imposed on us in an ad hoc manner
from outside markets. A country so reliant on
exports and trade would never have been
able to continue as we had.
The key issue for me today, as I look back
over a decade of missed opportunities, is that
market reforms that were then undertaken
needed to be followed up with infrastructure
and with research and development reforms
to ensure the emergence of a truly strong and
vibrant country. Research and development
advances were begun in the mid-1980s in the
form of the 150 per cent research and development
grant, and there was a renewed push
for export support. I was working in an industry
at that time, Amdel Ltd, that made use
of these reforms and wholeheartedly supported
them. Amdel was a company that was
developing instrumentation involving physics,
electronics and software, and selling it
worldwide to the mineral processing industry.
A number of very talented scientists, engineers
and technicians were employed in
this work and in its analysis units. It was exciting,
high-value technology that enhanced
Australia’s reputation for innovation and
reliability.
Statistics reinforced the success of government
support for research and development.
According to a major OECD report,
and relying on Australian Bureau of Statistics
figures, business expenditure on research and
development in Australia rose steadily
through the mid-1980s and for the decade
right through to 1996, peaking at 0.7 per cent
of GDP in 1996-97. This reflected a stronger
level of commitment to research and development,
but the rise ended with the election
of the Liberal government in 1996 and has
never recovered.
The introduction in 1990 by the Keating
government of the cooperative research centres
was a significant advance and produced
effective research and development as well
as commercialisation in many instances. It
gave an additional source of jobs for the science
graduates coming out of our universities.
When I graduated in science from the University
of Adelaide in the mid-1970s there
were few jobs available. I worked briefly as
a research assistant at the Northfield Agricultural
Research Centre and was then fortunate
enough to find a niche in the pathology laboratory
at Alice Springs Hospital due to a fortuitously
timed visit to my sister during an
outbreak of salmonella poisoning. This was a
legacy of Prince Charles’ visit to that city
and the inadequacy of the chiller truck that
brought up the chicken for lunch.
After the Liberal government’s 1996 election
win, support wavered for research and
development generally and there was little
increase in private investment. There have
been many studies and reports on the state of
research and development but with little resultant
change in policy outcomes. There has
been a noticeable lack of coordinated, strategic
national planning. That has been the
negative hallmark of government policy over
the last decade. Australia now continues to
trail badly behind other OECD countries
such as Finland, Japan, the United States and
Canada.
As I come from a background in science,
it saddens me greatly that at a time of long
standing relative prosperity the federal government
has not done more to enhance Australia’s
record of success and innovation in
science and technology. For example, the
company I worked for, Amdel Ltd, had its
origins in South Australian government research
into mining and geology. That investment
spawned a number of commercially
successful advances in mining, analysis and
instrumentation.
Comparison can be made to the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in the
United States, famous around the world as
simply MIT. MIT also began in mining and
technology in the early days of its state. Well
timed support transformed MIT into a crucible
of creative thought and remarkable discoveries.
It was heavily involved in pioneering
X-rays and radar and is today working on
atomic lasers, artificial intelligence and biotechnology.
It still attracts the elite of the
world’s thinkers and researchers. Imagine if
some Telstra sale money had gone into developing
one of our university research centres
as just such a powerhouse of technological
excellence.
Just like the financial reforms, so choices in
advancement cannot be deferred forever. In
the end, they can be made by action or inaction.
If we continue the current relative inaction,
our country will be overwhelmed by
those countries that are willing to invest in the
future. Whether we like change or not, the
environment in which we operate is being
transformed inevitably by the information
age, nanotechnology, robotics and biotechnology.
In our own region, countries such as
Singapore and Malaysia have recognised this
and acted accordingly. In such an environment,
education is more than ever the key to
opportunity and success both for the nation
and for individuals. This is no time for governments
to be making education more difficult
and expensive, this is no time to be neglecting
skills training and this is no time to
be complacent about research and development.
Even as this government makes free trade
agreements, it neglects the fundamental requirement
to look into the future and see
how we will fare on the other side of that
equation. In the future will we have the
tradeable commodities that allow Australians
to maintain their standard of living and their
values? Much of our current economic prosperity
is driven by the increased price we are
being paid for our mineral exports. Can we
continue to rely on other nations’ growth
requirements or should we use this windfall
to help position ourselves at the cutting edge
of knowledge, value adding and advanced
manufacturing outputs?
Another essential component of that trade
equation is already at crunch point when we
as a nation have to decide between action
and inaction. That component is infrastructure.
In the last decade, the government has
frittered away opportunities created by the
sale of government assets and by the production
of budget surpluses. Perhaps the states
may not have paid proper attention to infrastructure.
But we are, after all, a federation,
and infrastructure manifestly crosses state
boundaries. At the very least, some leadership
is required from the federal government.
In some parts of the country we are close to
crisis point in the management of utilities
and infrastructure. Productivity in many areas
is severely restricted by inadequate water,
power and transport.
The previously mentioned skills shortage
is also a significant factor. Over the past decade,
the government has moved on this only
very reluctantly or not at all. In a nation as
geographically large as Australia and with our
reliance on trade, it is astoundingly shortsighted
for a federal government to have focused
on parish pump and minor business
grants. This state of affairs has greatly hampered efforts to lift productivity, particularly
in the more populous cities and in the regional
cities.
The government has finally noticed that
Australia’s work force productivity is slipping.
The Prime Minister noted that Australia’s
GDP per hour worked is 83 per cent of
that of the United States. In 2003, that figure
was 97 per cent for Italy, 93 per cent for
Germany and 87 per cent for the United
Kingdom. Obviously, if we are to remain
competitive, that figure has to improve.
However, the government noted that productivity
figure not to berate itself for slipping
back on research and development or infrastructure
enhancement but to attack the employment
conditions of the working population
of Australia, and specifically the unions
who represent them.
There is great inequity implicit in this position
when Australians are working longer
and harder than ever. There are other new
senators who are better qualified than me to
expand on this theme, and I will not dwell on
the government’s industrial relations proposals
at this time. I simply want to reinforce the
point that a country cannot go forward with a
government that is looking inward or focused
on its own radical internal philosophies.
It is true that there are great challenges
that we all face today. There are new security
issues not only from terrorism but from other
threats such as organised crime and drug
trafficking. One serious threat that has not
had the attention paid to it that it deserves is
the possibility that we could face an unprecedented
natural biological outbreak of a
disease such as bird flu or the SARS epidemic.
Our society must meet these challenges
with determination, unity and vigour,
but we cannot let them overwhelm the other
responsibilities we have to our larger longterm
future.
Our country and the government it elects
to represent it should be capable of dealing
with the opportunities that we have as well
as the threats that we have—the opportunities
that will ensure we maintain our standard
of living, our values and above all our sense
of fair go. We could now face the reality of
the country we have, the population we have
and look realistically into the future. We
need to make important choices. We can decide
to rely on those who are already advantaged
and therefore leave many behind, or
we can take a chance on equity and change.
That leads me inevitably into the area I
have been given to concentrate on, citizenship
and multicultural affairs. As Nick
Dyrenfurth says in a recent article:
Australian citizenship has been the (at times uneasy)
admixture of ideals and practice, inclusion
and exclusion.
Neither social inclusion nor a cohesive national
identity has ever been easy in Australia.
From the early days of Aborigines, convicts
and jailers, through the influxes of migrants
during the gold rush and postwar
years to the new wave of migration, Australia
has had to make difficult adjustments. Let
us be completely frank: we never did have a
homogenous, white, god-fearing Christian
country. We did have a sense of helping each
other in difficult times—mateship. We did
have a willingness to give everyone a fair go.
We did think we had a society where anyone
could make it if they worked hard.
This is no time to be excluding anyone
from full citizenship of our country. I want to
take a chance on equity and change. I want
this because I believe it is the way of the future.
I believe in equal opportunity in education,
health and employment, because that is
the way we are going to create a strong, vibrant,
economically advantaged country, because
that is the way we will make use of the talent, ability and dynamic ambition of every
citizen of this country.
There have been periods when established
citizens of Australia have wondered about
opportunity and the value of immigration.
The great wave of immigration after World
War II was one such time. There was concern
about the fabric of society and the value of
bringing in people from diverse backgrounds
who had often been through turbulent times
and sometimes did not speak English or follow
the customs of the country. Yet today the
contribution of the postwar migrants—the
‘new Australians’—to society is all around
us. There are transport empires and construction
and retail companies that were started by
immigrants who began with nothing. In the
primary industries, we had the German and
Italian influence in the wine industry, the
Croatian and Greek influence in the fishing
industry and now, in another new migrant
community, the Cambodian and Vietnamese
involvement in market gardening. We have
benefited enormously from first and second
generation migrants going into medicine,
engineering and the arts. I am confident that
this new wave of migrants will continue that
kind of contribution to our country.
This is no time to be excluding anyone
from full citizenship of our country or from
the benefits of citizenship. We are still a
wealthy country and have no excuse for excluding
anyone from full participation in our
society because they are poor or disabled.
Let me say plainly that I believe we must use
the determination, unity and vigour with
which we deal with threats to also create opportunities
in this country. We should absolutely
ensure that every citizen is given the
ability to take up those opportunities. If we
are to maintain the standard of living and the
shared values we have come to take for
granted, we cannot do it by leaving some
behind because they are a little difficult to
look after.
The government has an essential role in
society—that is, to invest in its people and
give people the tools to make the most of the
opportunities available. To me this means the
government must ensure that everyone has
fair and equitable access to education, health
services and employment. This is a fundamental
principle of Labor Party philosophy
and fundamentally opposed to a user-pays
society where those who have more money
and power get better service and greater advancement.
Another essential role of government is to
equip the nation with the ability to make the
most of its opportunities. This means looking
to the future and leading the way forward.
Over the past decade the government has
failed spectacularly in preparing us for future
growth. It has managed us down into a safe,
backward-looking country. But that is in fact
both mismanagement and incompetence.
Australia is now unprepared for the future.
The pillars of growth, education and skills
training are looking shaky. The tentative
steps into health reform are looking woefully
inadequate and now there is an extreme
agenda being developed to downgrade employment
conditions for ordinary workers.
Where are the forward-looking, strategic
plans to coordinate growth, investment and
advancement to allow our citizens to become
part of the global world?
This is at a time when we should be the
strongest, most united and vibrant we have
ever been to deal with the challenges before
us. This is at a time when I, in taking my
position in the Senate of Australia, hope to
work with the Australian Labor Party to take
up the fight and to hold the government to
account for the mismanagement, incompetence
and lack of forward policy. Despite the
challenges of a government with an absolute
majority in both houses, I will work hard to
ensure better opportunities for the citizens of
Australia, and particularly South Australia.
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