Labor party policy speech 1977  The following is the ... of the policy speech ... yesterday by the Leader of the  Labor Party, Mr. Whitlam, .... He delivered a shortened version at the Opera House. The task before us is to get Australia back to work, to give our young people, our unemployed, our small business people, our migrants a new hope, hope for decent jobs, hope in their future and the future of their country. The deepening economic crisis, the ... created unemployment call for .... I shall be putting forward proposals to ... through, once said for all, the ... which ... unemployment and inflation. We reject the ... and despair which says to Australia’s young people that their lives ... be ruined if inflation is to be .... Our proposals will call for Australia’s resources of cooperation, good faith, ... and responsibility- cooperation from the States, good faith from business and maturity and ... on the part of the people of Australia. Given those things, we can get Australia working again. The task before us is to restore Parliament as an ... for program and reform. The task before us is to unite Australia and the Australian people. The task before us is to end rule by division, by confrontation; the setting of ... against ..., section against section, region against region; to end the rule of the great divider. He has broken promise after promise to the Australian people. He is breaking up his own party. He must not be allowed to break up our nation. The reason for this ... election is ...: the economic ... even further next year unless policies are changed. And there can be no change of policies unless there is a change of government, a change to a Labor Government. Ask ... this: if they ... anything they ... about Australia’s ..., why are they having an election now? Our first task is to get Australia working again. Under existing policies and because of these policies, half this year’s 200000 school-leavers will not be able to find jobs. Thousands of others are being forces to take jobs below their training and qualifications. This is the best educated generation Australia has produced, the first traits of the transformation of Australian schools after 1972. This generation must not be thrown on the economic and social scrap heap. We pledge ourselves to ... the ... tread to higher unemployment. And we shall end the use of unemployment as a weapon in the war of industrial confrontation. The Fraser Government and the ... government prolonged the Victorian power disputes. The last thing they, the men who promised to turn on the lights, wanted was light to be turned on Australia’s record and deepening unemployment, or light on the Liberals land scandals! Who turned the lights on in Victoria? Not Fraser, not ...; it was Bob Hawke, committed to industrial order and justice by negotiation and arbitration, committed against industrial ... through confrontation. And that is the commitment I make again for the whole Australian Labor movement. Since April 1975, the level of industrial disputes has been falling. It has fallen to its lowest levels for a decade because employers have overwhelmingly ... by the wage indexation guidelines, established by the last Labor Government, undermined by this government- yet another broken promise. Our wage indexation promoted industrial peace. We will restore integrity to the wage indexation guidelines. Equally, the success of wage indexation was the only way the inflationary effects of the disastrous devaluation of November 1976 have been partly contained. Inflation in the year to September was 1 per cent higher than in 1975. Only the legacy of Labor’s wage indexation has stopped the Fraser-style inflation even being higher.  Uranium. Unemployment is being used to divide our country. Industrial laws are being used to divide our country. And so is the great question of the future of Australia’s uranium being used- deliberately, deceitfully, needlessly- to divide our country. The plain fact is there is no need for Australia to take an irrevocable decision in 1977- a decision to lock Australia into the ... economy and the most ... industry in human history. There is just no need to make a final decision before there are safe methods of disposing of nuclear waste which stays ... for a quarter of a million years. There is just no need to make a final decision before there are adequate safeguards against the spread of weapons for nuclear war. And there is just no need for an irrevocable commitment for years to come. There is no moral justification for it. Even on the most cynical level, there is no economic justification for it.  Unemployment. The Fraser/ Lynch policies have ... the Australian economy in to over-deepening depression. Because of these policies, unemployment will reach 7 to 8 per cent of the workforce early next year. Unchecked, it will ... the half-million ...- an ... under any pervious government, Liberal or Labor, since the war. The last Labor government held office during the world’s deepest economic ... since World War II. Yet in those years, Australia was ... to achieve growth even when the rest of our partners experienced falling production. Now, industrial production has been falling every month this year. Economic activity is ... than at any time since 1972. Every important indicator- production, retail ..., the ... of small business, building ..., ... vehicle registrations- point to an economy ... to its ....  Inflation. Yet, despite the ... economic and social cost- jobs lost, careers ..., young people ..., families disrupted, the waste in lost production, small business ruined, the human waste- the fight against inflation has not been won. Let this simple fact be grasped and never forgotten by the people of Australia: in the year to September 1975, Australia’s inflation rate was 12,1 per cent; in the year to September 1977 it was 13,1 per cent. And, unlike Australia’s economic performance two years ago, our position has now ... in comparison with our trading partners, the other developed countries and most ... countries, the ... of the OBCD. That is why Australia, under Fraser and Lynch, ... a balance of payment problem and has a weakened dollar.  Priorities. This ..., the urgent ... is to get Australia back to work again. For the ... every resource of the Labor Government, in resources of ..., its resources of experience and, above all, in resources of ... and concern for plain Australians, will be turned ... towards this first fundamental task. Any policy which places the whole burden of the fight against inflation on the ... and on the youngest in the community is no policy at all. Yet this is what the Fraser/ Lynch policies are all about. There is now a complete difference between Australia’s economic difficulties two years ago and the new economic crisis. It is now a crisis made in Australia, by the present Australia Government. Therefore, its solution calls for Australian solutions, by a new Australian Government, a Labor Government. From the beginning of this campaign, let me be quite precise about our program for recovery. The only additional spending we propose before the 1978 budget is for the direct creation of jobs overwhelmingly in the private sector. And the ... is precise: additional spending of $800 million. The ... cost will be $500 million- as more and more Australians go off the ... and ... the .... It ... a 1,5 per cent ... in Australia’s money supply. Let there be no misrepresentation on this .... Australia’s economic ... depends on the private sector which provides jobs for three-... of the ....  Payroll tax. We will seek to end the tax on jobs- the payroll tax. It discourages employers from engaging more staff. It raises the cost to employers of ... ... by an average of $10 a week. It stops people getting jobs. It increases prices. We therefore propose to ask the ... to agree to force the collection of payroll tax. In return we would give the ... ... general purpose grant equal to the ... they .... We would than, in order to make up the ..., ask thee Australian taxpayers to trade-off the changes in personal taxation proposed in the last Lynch budget in return for this job-creating, inflation-... , .... Our proposal would directly and immediately relieve the private sector of ... of its greatest burden, give a ... to jobs and ... .... The Lynch proposals represent the most ... of wealth, away from lower and middle income earners- the vast majority of Australian taxpayers, who earn less than $...- in favour of the highest income earners, over ... in Australia. They were proposals that would give a person ... income $40 a week, but the average Australian wage earner only $3 a week. We ask the overwhelming majority of Australians to forge nothing. For the ... of our proposal on ... the ... employment and reducing prices, will, in real, direct and lasting ways more than ... for the ... in the last Lynch Budget. What we ask of the Australian taxpayer is not an act of sacrifice but an act of maturity. And, for its full ..., it ... an act of national compensation. Freed of the burden of the payrolls tax, with the added labour costs, employers would have the incentive not only to employ more labour, but to hold prices down.  Unemployment subsidy. We propose a further new initiative to make an immediate impact on unemployment. The next Labor Government will introduce an employment subsidy scheme. Not additions to employment after the ... payday in November will be subsidised at the rate of $... a week. The subsidy will be paid from the beginning of 1978 for six months. It is a proposal to pay employers for providing jobs and to relieve the taxpayers of the burden of paying the jobless. The scheme ... that all enterprises will be encouraged to increase their employment, because ... $50 a week to the cost of engaging additional people will be paid by the Government. The cost to Government ... the taxpayer will be .... Most of those newly recruited to the workforce would otherwise ... .... The scheme is simple. I shall give an example. If an enterprise has 100 employees on the last pay day in November and 110 employees at the end of January, it will be eligible to receive the subsidy for 10 people for the month of gunnery. As long as the employment does not fall during the six months to the end of June, the enterprise will continue to receive the subsidy. If ... employment increasing in February and March its subsidy will increase. Payment of the subsidy will ... at the level at the end of March until June, unless its employment falls.  Job creation and training. Further, Labor will implement the program ... in August, increasing spending on capital works, expanding ... and job training and offering funds for local employment advancement programs. In august, ... the Budget, Bill Hayden and I presented the ALP proposal to get Australia working again. Yet the Budget ... the economy even further along the downward. Our proposal is needed now more than ever. It will cost a ... $500 million. To revive Australia’s construction industries, part of this amount will be directed to urgently needed improvements to increase the safety and efficiency of public transport and the rod system, for urgently needed housing, on ... facilities and ... in underprivileged areas, for the ... and additional water projects ... or ... by the Fraser Government. Labor will immediately increase support for ... and other training and make special provision for increasing ... for ... and authorities. With cooperation and planning between Federal, State and local authorities, high labour ... levels can be achieved on projects of ... benefit to the community without any lost of efficiency. Whit a ... in favour of regions worst hit by employment, local initiative programs will produce both ... and opportunities for longer-term employment. A quarter of the ... spending under our proposal to get Australia working again will be allocated to local employment advancement programs next year.  Economic development. We will establish a Department of Economic Development to develop a over-all economic strategy to achieve Australia’s national economic goals. It will be lead by the architect of the recovery of 1975- the recovery which was underway until it was stopped dead in its tracks in 1976- Bill Hayden.  Exports. The last Labor Government was concerned about the future of manufacturing industry. So I appointed the leading ..., Mr Gordon Jackson, to lead an inquiry. The principal recommendation of that committee was that manufacturing needs to export to grow. In the last full year of office, the Labor Government provided export ... grants and tax ... totaling ... million. The present Government had budget for $32 million for export incentives and grants this financial year. A Labor Government will provide assistance to industry for structural change. We will act on the major recommendations of the Jackson Committee. Labor will adopt an ... strategy for manufacturing industry. Let us get Australian industry working. The next Labor Government will provide additional assistance during the next year to help firms locale markets, 2 distribution and provide incentives for improved export performance.  Migrants. Migrants have been hit worse than any other section of the Australian community by the Fraser Government’s deliberate creation of unemployment. The Australian Bureau of Statistics puts the number of unemployed migrants, last month, at 1000000- a rise of 40 per cent in a single year. The bureau says that for every two Australians who lost their jobs in the past 12 months, three migrants lost theirs. Labor’s job restoration program will immediately benefit most ... industries on which most migrants depend for their jobs. Our retraining programs will give special emphasis to the needs of migrants, particularly of migrant woman, with their added burden of ..., loneliness and isolation. We shall adopt the two ..., which the Fraser Government ... last February and ..., that ... and ... services be made available in government offices, especially the Commonwealth Employment Service. The next Labor Government will: continue the work it begins in 1973 towards eliminating all forms of discrimination against migrants; open migrant education ... in all ... and ... provided .... The last Labor Government ... offices in Adelaide, Sydney, Perth end Brisbane. ... the Education Commissions as a matter of priority, to make positive recommendations on the recognition of overseas post-secondary qualifications and the provision of post-secondary education for migrants. Provide ethnic radio stations and ethnic television channels in the capitals, initially Sydney and Melbourne, to ... existing ethnic and community radio ... by the last Labor Government, and reduce the residential qualification for citizenship from three years to two years. These are an estimated 50000 illegal migrants in Australia. Labor will grant these amnesty and, unlike the Fraser Government, honour it completely.  Children’s service. The nation’s most precious resource is its children. There are hundreds of thousands of Australian children with special problems and needs which ... not being met, adequately ... all, by existing government or volunteer services. Many families, because of inflation, poverty, illness, special handicaps are unable to provide the proper environment for their children. Further, the majority of Australian children are inadequately served by existing TV programs, library services, community facilities and recreation .... We therefore propose to establish a Department of Children’s Services to develop special programs, to encourage the ... and existing resources and to ... community projects designed to improve and enrich the environment for our children.  Education. The last Labor Government transformed the outlook for education in Australia. For the first time, Australia achieved a continuing national commitment to schools, all schools, Government and non-Government alike. All that has now been placed in jeopardy by the prejudices and the ... of the present Prime Minister. More important even than adequate national funding to implement the ... of the Schools Commission is the independence of the commission itself. The Fraser Government is undermining the independence of the commission. It is undermining the needs principle which is the basis of creating equality between the systems and within the systems. It has coerced the Schools Commission into reallocating funds to a handful of the very top private schools at the expense of needy Government and non-Government schools. The next Labor Government will restore the independence of the Schools Commission. We will preserve free tertiary and technical education- a principle bitterly opposed by the present Prime Minister as Minister for Education in the earlier Liberal Government. In the years ahead, it will become increasingly important to ... a balance between the numbers of students in technical ... and the number of trained teachers. A Labor Government will ... recommendations of the ... Committee on Education and Training, due to report ... in 1978, to set clear ... for the future of technical education in Australia.  Social security. The next Parliament must ... planning for this fundamental change in the balance of our society and must begin ... of a national superannuation plan. In the next three Budgets we will maintain the principle established in the last three Labor Budgets- to protect pensions against inflation and to ensure that pensioners share ... national prosperity. We ended the humiliation whereby pensions were varied according to the economic or political pressures existing at each Budget time. By making twice-yearly adjustments, tied to the value of average weekly earnings, we ensured that all pensioners would share in any improvement in the general standard of living. Social security dependants’ allowances will be indexed against inflation. We will end the discrimination against lone fathers and make the lone parent benefit equally accessible to all lone parents.  Australian assistance scheme. We will re-establish the Australian Assistance Plan, the pioneering initiative which enabled local authorities and voluntary agencies to take part in suggesting and administering a wide range of projects based on special community and regional needs.  Medibank. Of all the promises broken by the Fraser Government, none has been so blatant as the present Prime Minister’s pledge to maintain Medibank. The changes to Medibank, introduced in October 1976 have disadvantaged most Australians. In its full year of operation, Medibank cost $50 million to provide full cover for every person living in Australia. It now costs $54 million to provide cover for one-third of Australians. We will not however, merely reverse all these changes since we do not wish to disadvantage the few who benefited or cause renewed confusion by further changes. Our basic aim will continue to be to provide the best possible health care irrespective of people’s ability to pay. We are committed to the restoration of Medibank. It has, however, been so mauled by the men who promised to maintain Medibank that the task of restoration will be long and difficult.  Rehabilitation. The Labor policy accepts the unanimous view expressed by the National Advisory Council for the Handicapped last June that it is imperative for the Federal Government to retain and expand its direct involvement in the provision of services to the handicapped.  U.R.D.. The urban and regional programs of the next Labor Government, again under Tom Urea, will be placed firmly in the context of economic priorities- above all, the priority of job creation. The abandonment of the national sewerage program, with all the jobs and private contracts it provided, is a typical example of the damage done to the quality of Australian life and the health of the private sector itself by the Fraser Government’s doctrinaire hostility to the public sector. We will once more give its proper place in national priorities to the Department of Urban and Regional Development which piloted the creation of the growth centres at Albury-Wodonga- Australia’s first major new inland centre since Canberra- Bathurst Orange and Macarthur. We will honour the growth centre agreements we entered into with the States, agreements dishonoured by the Fraser Government.  Housing. As part of its special $500 million net job program, Labor, will move to reduce the growing backlog of projects awaiting funding under the Aged Persons Hostels Act and the Aged and Disabled Persons Home Act. We will renegotiate the Housing Agreement with the States to provide funds to begin to meet the housing needs of the 100000 families on the waiting lists of the Housing Commissions. We will re-establish the Australian Housing Corporation. As national priorities and economic conditions allow, we shall restore our original scheme for the tax deductibility of mortgage interest, which Mr. Fraser promised two years ago would continue. A Labor Government will make grants to the Land Commissions in each State to buy substantial tracts of land for housing blocks to enable them to be subdivided, services and sold at cost. We shall bring into operation Part IV of the Financial Corporations Act 1974 which was intended to safeguard deposits with permanent building societies and to encourage advances by them.  Local government. The next Labor government will continue to seek reforms in the working of Australia’s Federal system. The first requirement is that the national Government should accept its proper national responsibilities and cease goading and grinding the States into having to impose double income tax. We shall seek an amendment of the Constitution to permit the federal government to take over local government debts 50 years ago. Meanwhile, we shall ensure that local government receives sufficient finance to maintain essential community services and to restrain rate increases. This finance will be provided both on a needs basis and on a basis that takes into account the respective population densities of local government bodies. Not less than 30 per cent of the total amount allocated under the Local Government (Personal Income Tax Sharing) Act will continue to be provided on a per capita basis. In addition, Labor will restore the direct access of local government to the Grants Commission.  Resources. The Commission will consult and co-operate with the State Grants Commissions which have now been established. These measures will ensure that local government’s status as a genuine partner in our federation is restored. Without it, local government will continue to be subject to the dictates and whims of state governments. The restored Australian Assistance Plan will operate through local government. If we are to concentrate upon and maximise our strength, we must plan for a proper balance between the great sectors of the economy- rural, mining, manufacturing and services. Many current problems in primary industry stem from the way in which former coalition governments encouraged Australian farmers to produce goods for which markets were fundamentally insecure, in the belief that Britain could be indefinitely deterred from joining the European Economic Community. This was irresponsible- even cruel. Labor has shown that only a Labor Government can secure harmonious trade relations with Europe, Japan, North America and ASEAN. Labor established, for the first time, the principle of Australian ownership and control of Australia’s resources. The next Labor Government will encourage the growth and expansion of the Australian capital market so that Australian companies can mobilise the capital required to take part in new resources ventures. We shall promptly establish an inquiry to examine the options and make proposals. We shall guarantee an minimum of 50 per cent Australian equity in new resource development projects and 75 per cent Australian equity at the development stage of existing resources discoveries. Mining and petroleum companies with access to Australia’s resources sometimes make enormous profits as a result of rich deposits or high world prices. Since the resources they are extracting belong to the Australian community, such excess profits should be taxed so that the benefit can be shared by everyone. Labor will introduce a secondary profits tax on excess profits. The secondary profits tax will only apply to companies which make excess profits. Normal profits will be untouched. The costly investment allowance has failed as a measure to achieve economic recovery. It will be phased out. Enterprises already eligible for the allowance because of commitments already made will continue to receive the tax deduction to which they are entitled.  Environment. The next Labor Government will insist that all new mining projects satisfy the requirements of the Environment Protection (Impact Of Proposals) Act 1974. We shall proceed with the Environment Protection (Marine) Bill, which was awaiting the High Court judgement on the Seas and Submerged Lands Act- a judgment reserved on April 16, 1975, and delivered on December 17, 1975. The Labor Government will not permit the killing of the whales assigned as Australia’s quota by the International Whaling Commission and we will use all our influence to end the indiscriminate slaughter of whales by Japan and the Soviet Union.  Energy. The next Labor Government will establish a National Energy Conservations Program in co-operation with the States. The National Fuel and Oil Commission will be responsible for the development of the program with emphasis on Australia’s future transport needs, the development of solar heating, the proper use of Australia’s vast coal deposits for both home use and export and their conversion into oil and the future of natural gas. The next Labor Government will give wholehearted support to the development of the North-West Shelt gas field to ensure that adequate supplies will be made available to Australian homes And industry by the end of the next decade. The next Labor Government will act on the reports of the Royal Commission on Petroleum appointed by the last Fraser Government. Petrol prices in the Northern Territory , where Federal laws apply to sale and distribution, are the highest in Australia. We shall pay a subsidy to ensure that nowhere in the Territory is the cost of petrol more than 2 cents a litre above the cost in Darwin, at present 20-and-a- half cents. We shall make a grant of the half cost of setting the same maximum in any State where the State Government co-operates with the Federal Government in ensuring the economic sale and distribution of petrol and in paying the other half of the cost.  Railways. Great economies in operation and great savings to State Budgets would be achieved if the non-metropolitan railways in New-South Wales, Victoria and southern Queensland were part of a single system. The next Labor Government will accept the transfer of those railways as it accepted the transfer of South Australia’s non-metropolitan railways in 1975. The Government will carry out the intention of the Constitution by bringing into operation the Inter-State Commission Act 1975 in order to co-ordinate all forms of inter-state transport by rail, road, air, water and pipelines.  Telephone charges. Telecom, the highly successful Crown corporation established by the last Labor Government, will correct an injustice suffered by telephone subscribers in the western parts of Sydney metropolitan area. People in the Windsor, Perth, Camden and Campbelltown zones are charged at trunk rates for calls to Sydney telephone zone, because the centre of that zone is not situated in the centre of the metropolitan area. By moving the centre of the Sydney zone westwards to the centre of the metropolitan area, all residents in the metropolitan area will be able to make metropolitan calls at the local rate, as is the case in the other State capitals. Those at present charged at the local call rate will retain that right.  Aborigines. The Fraser Government had eroded the new hopes given Australia’s aborigines by the Labor Government that at last they could achieve their full rights as Australians. The Aboriginal Councils and Associations Bill and Aboriginal Land (Nothern Territory) Bill was passed by the House of Representatives in November 1975, but not by the Senate. The Aboriginal Council and Associations Act 1976 has not yet been brought into operation. Mr. Fraser over-ruled his own Minister for Aboriginal Affairs when the Bjelke-Petersen Government objected to the Aboriginal Land Fund Commissions buying land in Queensland. He also agreed with the request of Mr. Bjelke-Petersen himself to stop the trachoma program among Queensland Aborigines. The West Australian Premier Sir Charles Court, attempted to change the law before the by-election ordered by the Court of Disputed Returns, following the harassment of Aborigines, who had enrolled, by Liberal lawyers who deterred them from voting. In the light of the 1967 referendum no Federal government should tolerate these assaults on the rights of Aborigines. The Labor Government won’t tolerate them. In 1961 a House of Representatives Committee was appointed to consider the voting rights of Aborigines. In recommended that, for the time being, the enrolment of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders should be voluntary but that voting should be compulsory for those enrolled. It is now to reconsider what the committee described as the temporary provision for voluntary enrolment. We shall ask the new parliament to appoint a new committee to inquire into and report on extending and guaranteeing Aboriginal voting rights for the Federal, State and Territory Parliaments. ABC. A Labor government will end the unprecedented pressures to which the Fraser Government has subjected the Australian Broadcasting Commission.  Electoral reform. We shall proceed with the Electoral Bill passed by the House of Representatives in February and August 1975, but twice rejected by the Senate, which provided for government subsidies to political parties and candidates in Federal election campaigns and the limitation and disclosure of the amount and nature of assistance by corporations and individuals to these parties and candidates. Australian election campaigns are now probably the most expensive in the world. Government subsidies are paid for campaigns in the United States, Canada, Britain, Austria, West Germany, France, Italy and throughout Scandinavia. In Australia, public assistance is limited to ABC time. Australia is one of the few democracies where party donations are neither disclosed nor restricted. Donations are supervised in the United States, Canada, Britain, India, New Zealand and Japan. We shall ask the House of Representatives and Senate to implement the recommendations of the report which was tabled on September 30, 1975, from the Joint Committee on Pecuniary Interest of Members of Parliament which was chaired by the honourable Joe Riordan. The relevance and necessity of this action are emphasised by the family companies of the deputy leaders of the Liberal and National Country Parties. The pecuniary interests concern not just the Prime Minister but the Australian people. The Prime Minister even refused to say whether he considers it appropriate for his ministers to make investments or hold interests in companies in such a guise that the public cannot discover them. I emphasis that we present a three year program and seek a full three year term in which to carry out that program. It is not we but our opponents who have de-stabilised and disrupted Australia’s political and economic system by putting Australia through the turmoil of elections every 18 months or 2 years. The only spending we will initiate before the next Budget will be on the urgent creation of jobs. Men and women of Australia: our message is one of hope and faith – hope for the young, the anxious, the uncertain, the deprived; and faith in the future of Australia’s parliamentary democracy. Working together, we can get Australia working again, we can get the Australian parliamentary democracy working again. For nearly 11 year now it has been my privilege to lead Australia’s greatest party. There is one great and continuing theme throughout the seven national election campaigns it has been my honour to present – the program of the Australian Labor Party to the people of Australia. That theme is a profound and unshakable belief in the Australian parliamentary democracy as a mighty instrument for progress, reform and national unity. We come before you as a team matured by experience, wiser through adversity, yet reinvigorated by bright new talents in our ranks, touched with the idealism of youth. We present a new team- a new program. In 1972 we responded to your overwhelming demand to clear away the backlog of 23 years. That is what we promised; that is what we performed. And at the same time we had to ... with the world’s worst economic crisis since the war. Now, in 1978, we must seek Australian solutions for the Australian-made crisis of the past year and a half. Despite the savage doctrinaire destruction of so many of our programs, in ... of the ... pledges given to you only two years ago, there are fundamental changes we made which must never be .... The new standing and independence we gave Australia among the nations. National responsibility for schools and the end of ... division about schools. National involvement in the affairs of the places where most of our people live, the capitals and provincial cities and towns. A national commitment to Aborigines, and their right to land. The preservation and enhancement of the national ... and national heritage. The Australian demand for an greater control of our own national resources. The guaranteed protection of pensions. The right of migrants. The rights of women. The enrichment of our arts and culture. And above all, the continuing drive towards more equal opportunities, true equality for all Australians. These must ... endure as part of the Australian way. These are the things we want to secure for Australia. We offer new policies in place of stagnation, in place of division and confrontation. We offer a government which will strive, once again, to unite the Australian people for the great tasks ahead- a true government of the people for all the people.  Promise means an effective tax increase, Willis says.  The Leader of the NSW Opposition, Sir Erie Willis, laid yesterday Mr. Whitlam would have to he the first man in history who hoped to win Government by promising to increase personal taxes. By seeking to put of an expected cut in income tax he is effectively promising an increase that’s keeping with his track record because income tax collections trebled in his abort term of office, Sir Erie said. The proposal shows that Labor hasn’t learned a thing in the wilderness about how people are touchy on taxes. It’s clear how Labor would finance its extravagant programs from the pay packets of Australian workers. His proposal doesn’t appear workable without a massive tax hike.  Court Warns of recession.  PERTH. - The West Australian Premier Sir Charles Court, said yesterday the Labor proposal to pass over the proposal the tax cuts was the clearest sign yet that the ALP was determined to plunge Australia back into economic recession. They simply have not learnt their lesson, he said. The major income tail reforms introduced by the Fraser Government have been desperately needed. In fact, we need more of them."  Policy would hit taxes, recovery: PM.  MELBOURNE. - The Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, said the consequences of Labor's policy statement would be to endanger economic recovery and increase taxation substantially. He said that on a quick estimate the cost of abolishing payroll tax would be $1.700 million; re-introducing free Medibank $760 million: a national sewage program $120 million; and national superannuation about $2000 million. Promises over the past two or 3 months would cost an additional $3000 million. A detailed breakdown of the costs would be made today. On payroll tax. Mr. Fraser said that with concessions and exemptions, most small companies had substantial relief from such payment, anyway. By abolishing the proposed income tax changes next February, Labor would be taking from a person with it weekly income of about $6. It was rather odd, therefore, that the Labor Party was now proposing increased personal taxation, so that payroll tax could be forgone by big companies. On Labor, commitment to full wage indexation, Mr. Fraser said that even Mr. Whitlam had admitted that when wages rose too quickly, it took jobs away from other people. That is just what he is proposing once again, he said. It means a policy of very high expenditure. It would not add to the number of jobs around Australia because of the increasing inflation. Interest rates would again move to higher levels and employment in the private sector would fall. Mr. Fraser said the policies sounded like a re-run of the years 1972-75, when Government expenditure increased by 46 per cent and unemployment rose by 190000 persons. Mr. Fraser said the proposed $49,30 subsidy to employers was part of a policy of mirage and myth that held out false hopes to people. The cost of employing a person was about $240 each and it was not to be expected that by reducing the figure to about $190 employers would alter their staffing decisions. Mr Fraser recalled a speech by Mr. Whitlam in July in which he had stated that Australian industry vas excessively protected by tariffs. Mr. Whitlam is opting for less industry operating in Australia and greater imports, he said. The effect would be a wholesale exporting of Australian jobs such as occurred following the 25 per cent tariff cut across the board in 1973.