‘Reconciliation’ plan

Press, 17 February 1983, Page 1

‘Reconciliation’ plan

NZPA Sydney Australia’s Opposition leader, Mr Bob Hawke, yesterday offered Australians a plan for national reconciliation, immediate tax cuts for six million low-income and middle-income earners, more jobs, lower petrol prices, and a universal health scheme.

In his election policy speech at the Sydney Opera House, Mr Hawke

• Committed a Labour government to tackling inflation and unemployment together, and working to restore economic growth by increasing demand.

• Flatly rejected the wage freeze.

• Pledged that Labour would rebuild Australia's manufacturing base. • Said Labour would reform Australia’s tax scales to make them more progressive.

Mr Hawke said Labour would also lift the general tax threshold to $5OOO, increase the spouse and sole parent rebates and increase zone allowances 25 per cent for people living in the outback.

Mr Hawke did not provide extra details of Labour's costing of its campaign promises or say exactly how

a Labour government would recover the “untold millions” he said the Federal Government had lost through tax avoidance.

“The new path for Australia after March 5, 1983, will be national reconciliation, national recovery, national reconstruction,” Mr Hawke said. He said there would be no new capital gains tax under Labour and promised that Australian companies would be involved in consultation on Labour’s plan for price surveillance before the plan went into effect.

.He gave a commitment to raise the basic pension rate from 22 per cent of average male earnings to 25 per cent over three years, with indexation of pensions after that time to maintain this proportion.

A review would be made of the Petroleum Products Pricing Authority to ensure adequate Commonwealth supervision of petrol pricing.

He promised rationalisation of consumer protection laws and pledged to maintain the A.N.Z.U.S. treaty and treat Australia’s defence and security needs as “paramount.” Mr Hawke .attacked the

Fraser Government’s economic performance. “Seven years of Fraserism have produced the highest number of Australians thrown out of work in our history, and the highest unemployment rate since the Depression 50 years ago, with one in 10 Australians out of work, a figure no Australian would have believed possible a few years ago, and which no Australian government should be forgiven for creating,” he said. “Its policies have produced the highest level of sustained inflation in Australia’s history and the highest numbers of personal bankruptcies on record. “For the first time in more than 30 years the Australian economy has stopped growing. In the Fraser years of government, the average growth of incomes per head has been 1.6 per cent compared with the average of 2.3 per cent in the industrialised west.”

Mr Hawke asked why Ausralians should trust the Fraser Government when “the very circumstances of calling this panic election reek of fraud and deception.” “The extraordinary series of scandals which broke last year relating to ‘bottom of

the harbour’ tax evasion, medifraud, the Asia diary scandal, the meat substitution racket, and all the rest demonstrated just how deep the malaise now runs in Australia’s public administration, and how much of it has been due to failure of Ministerial leadership at the top,” Mr Hawke said.

The Labour Party leads the Federal Government by 11 percentage points in the lead-up to next month’s General Election, according to the latest Morgan Gallup poll. The survey, published in the “Bulletin” magazine, suggests a swing against the Government of about 6 per cent, a 4 per cent rise in Labour support and more than enough to put Labour in office should the swing be uniform.

The poll was conducted at the week-end of February 5 and 6 after Mr Bill Hayden announced his stepping down as Opposition leader and the Prime. Minister, Mr Fraser, announced the early election. The poll also shows that Mr Hawke’s personal popularity slipped 9 per cent to 53 per cent compared with Mr Fraser’s gain of 1 per cent to 39 oer cent.

“Dovish” Hawke, page 8