Australia truly is a great country.  What a mighty future we have, if we have the right sort of Government.  A Government which puts its emphasis on people.  A Government working as a team not just concerned with  the image of one man.  A Government with depth - with strong, capable and responsible Ministers.  A Government you elect not tied to outside powerful forces, not subject to big union direction, not answerable to a non-parliamentary executive in its policy processes, not wavering towards the Socialist Left in ideological commitment.  A Government consulting with and working for all Australians and their families.  As we launch our campaign today, I could promise you the world: tell you that if you vote for the National Party you will live happily ever after.  That's not the case - you know it, and I know it.  What I can do is give you the commitment that the  National Party will work to make Australia a better  place to live, to work, and to play.  We know that small government is the best government;  and that government intervention in the lives of men and women reduces their initiative and lessens the ability of individuals to choose in their work and leisure, in education, health care, investment and spending.  Halfway through a normal Parliamentary term, Labor is taking us to the polls.  Before this inordinately long campaign began, Labor tried to head off criticism by conditioning Australians to accept an early poll.  Saying it would happen does not make it right. In Government, the Nationals will press for the Coalition Government to go its full three-year term.  When we were in Government last we made some mistakes.  But we've learnt from those mistakes.  But in only 18 months, Labor too has made mistakes.  It bas put the nation in reverse.  The family standards and social values on which Australia's heritage and traditions were built have been forgotten.  The integrity of the High Court, the final Court of Appeal in the land, is threatened by the indifference of Labor to the findings of the Senate Inquiry into Mr Justice Murphy.  The investigator, and not the accused, is being made the butt of Labor criticism in comments about the report of Mr Frank Costigan, QC, into the Painters and Dockers’ Union.  Hard drugs and crimes associated with their distribution and addiction must not be ignored.  Labor's uniform Aboriginal Land Rights legislation threatens to divide white and black communities. Mineral rights must remain with the Crown.  There will be no uniform legislation with the Nationals  _-_ and the Northern Territory legislation will be amended.  Yesterday in the United States, the conservative leadership  of President Ronald Reagan was swept back into office.  Americans can stand tall again - so could Australians.  Americans have confidence in their conservative Government's emphasis on individual initiative and enterprise and fax cuts.  So should we.  In the UK, lasting economic recovery is under way under the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher.  So too, lasting economic growth and recovery in the private sector will take place under the conservatives in Australia.  Like the Democrats in the United States, so Mr Mondale's ideological running-mates, the Australian Labor Party, should be swept from office, to give Australians a go.  What holds many Australians back is the high level of Personal taxation, funding the biggest-spending, biggest-taxing, biggest deficit government in Australian history.  Under Labor, our national debt has increased dramatically.  Under Labor, the interest bill exceeds the education vote, nearly equals the defence vote, and worse lies ahead.  Big spending means more taxes.  Big spending and a renegotiated Prices and Incomes Accord, dictated by the ACTU, mean more taxes for all Australians.  Labor's first fax on capital - on lump sum superannuation is already operating.  We'll abolish it.  We all know the union emphasis on capital taxes and wealth taxes - as well as death duties, which of course includes the family home too.  The Nationals will not have a bar of any of them.  They are on Labor's fax agenda.  They will never be on ours.  Our tax reform starts with those who need the help the most - the families where one partner works and the other stays home to look after the children.  For fax purposes, we will give families with children the option of splitting the breadwinners' pay, up to a determined limit.  Under this reform we would expect a one-income family on the average income of about $350 a week to save about $8 a week in tax.  That means a holiday away, new clothes, a new lounge suite, help with a deposit on a new home, or a chance to save.  Our second family tax cut option is for families with children where both parents work, and for one-parent families.  Where both parents work, we will give them a tax rebate on the cost of child care.  For one-parent families, the sole parent rebate and the new child care rebate will be adjusted to give the same level of help.  The saving will be comparable with that available under income splitting.  If you save, it means banks have more money to lend to others.  If you spend more, it means business picks up.  Either way, it means more jobs.  Most of those jobs will be with small businesses:  not just with big corporations or with big government.  We always read about big business, and of course, it plays an important role in the development of the nation.  We hear little, however, about the thousands of Australians who have decided to have a go and set up on their own in business, in trade, or a profession.  Some 60 percent of our workforce is in small business.  Small business is big business.  We want to see it get bigger, to provide permanent jobs to help our young people and those now unemployed because of changing economic circumstances.  Labor's attack on unemployment has been directed to employing more public servants in Canberra: a 4.3 percent increase in the last 12 months, compared with only two percent over the whole seven years of the previous Coalition Government.  But who will pay for Government if we are all employed by it?  We need less government, not more government.  Labor has maintained the Coalition's Community Employment Program - and we will continue this scheme.  But Australians need permanent jobs.  Certainly we need education and skill in our workforce, and training for the unemployed, but we need to help the private employer so that he can provide jobs.  The Nationals will work to reduce the size of government, to eliminate unnecessary red tape which so wears down initiative and individual enterprise.  We will reduce the tax rate too on private company income to help fund small business growth.  Among our most efficient small business men and women are Australian farmers.  Labor is making it harder and harder for them and their family business to survive.  Family farms are facing huge problems.  Overseas markets have contracted, with hardly a  protest from Labor. We will pursue them.  Costs have risen alarmingly. We will attack them.  We will initiate a major new trade drive in association with agriculture commodity groups in markets in Japan, Korea, South East Asia, the Middle East, America and Europe.  We will give more than just a sympathetic car to the difficulties in Australia's great beef, wool, wheat, grains, fat lamb, poultry and horticultural industries.  We'll push ahead with the brucellosis and tuberculosis eradication campaign, and bring it to a successful conclusion.  Charges for export inspection, where necessary to gain access to overseas markets, will be eliminated.  We recognise the worries of fat lamb producers and other farmers about the level of imports from New Zealand.  We will enter immediate discussions with industry organisations and under the CER, with the New Zealand Government.  For the sugar industry there are enormous difficulties.  Labor says, "Buy Australia's sugar overseas."  The Nationals say, "We will support the sugar industry as it has supported Australia by ils export earnings for  so long."  Me will ensure unemployment benefits are available to cane growers, subject to their preparedness to accept work and their income being below a determined level.  We will allow them to remain on their farms pending job availability.  In conjunction particularly with the Queensland Government, adequate funds will be provided under Rural Reconstruction for carry-on loans and debt reconstruction.  Our cane growers and millers and those whole communities dependent on sugar, with Government's, can then determine permanent solutions to the industry's problems without premature and heartbreaking bankruptcies and financial collapse.  Immediately after the election, we will begin talks with all sections of the industry and the Queensland Government on the progress of the Sugar Industry Review and the prospects for a new International Sugar Agreement.  We will initiate consultations between the industry and customer countries who are parties to bilateral sugar agreements with Australia.  A few years ago crude oil prices increased sharply.  Today they have eased.  Fuel prices for agriculture and fishing must come down.  Heavy tariffs are adding to the already high prices for imported headers and big agricultural farm machinery.  These will be replaced by bounties.  Recurring drought is a worry; although 1 suspect few today in Tamworth, or in some other parts of Australia, would realise that was so!  The Nationals will introduce a new drought policy.  Where necessary, financial assistance will be provided on a continuing basis and not terminated where drought continues at the end of each financial year.  We will introduce too a bicentennial water resources program.  $10 million will be allocated at a dollar for dollar basis with the States for an on-farm water and soil conservation and  tree regeneration.  A worthwhile Income Equalisation Deposit scheme will be reintroduced.  Tax averaging will be maintained,  For those who have been plagued with uncertainty through  Labor's action in seeking to locate army range and  exercise areas on productive agricultural land, there  will be the recognition of landholders' rights to private ownership.  Crown land will be sought first.  No measures will be taken without consultation with people affected.  Productive land will not be used for these purposes.  Australia's great mining industries, so important for regional development and in generating export earnings, face slack world markets and low prices.  Increasing costs threaten their competitiveness.  The Nationals will work to reduce the red tape of unnecessary bureaucratic regulations which stifle the development of new mines.  We will work to make Australia more competitive in  processing our raw materials.  Uranium exports will be permitted subject to strict safeguards - and not just from ore produced in South Australia.  The major source of jobs is in the manufacturing sector.  Rapid technological development, wage and labour on-costs out of line with our competitors, have reduced seriously our industrial capacity.  Manufacturing must be allowed to be internationally competitive.  Our tax and wage policies will help.  We will introduce measures to allow manufacturing to become more export minded.  We will pursue tariff reduction and work to free world trade.  Research and development are vital to our industrial development.  The CSIRO will be funded to ensure the maintenance of its programmes and in all industry sectors.  We will ensure it is able to maintain research in the many primary industry fields where the benefits of its work has been so invaluable and unique among world-wide research establishments.  We will help the CSIRO diversify into other areas of high tec. and industrial research.  We recognise the importance, too, of basic research in tertiary institutions, through the NHMRC and in private industry.  Incentives will be introduced to ensure Australia maintains its place in the technological race.  Research and development within the Defence vote will be concentrated, wherever possible, in private industry to encourage Australian procurement and the development of new industrial capability with both defence and civil applications.  The election of a Labor Government in New Zealand with policies identical to those of many within Australia's Labor Party, threatens the survival of ANZUS.  We will enter into immediate negotiations with New Zealand on the future of ANZUS, and failing their successful conclusion, pursue the negotiation of a bilateral defence agreement with the United States.  Our relations with Indonesia over Timor and with ASEAN countries in general over Labor's initiatives with Vietnam have deteriorated under Labor.  That cannot continue.  We will restore responsibility to Australia's foreign relationships. We will play a continuing positive role within the western alliance and with our regional and oceanic neighbours.  At the same time as Labor has sought a more independent and non-aligned role, isolated from our friends and allies, it has allowed Australia's defence capability to slide.  Remember the HMS Invincible non-dry docking fiasco and the effect not only on our relationships with the United Kingdom but with the USA?  In Service numbers and in training opportunities, the last 18 months has seen a serious defence decline.  Conditions of service too were affected by tax decisions affecting lump sum defence superannuation and by taxing half Reservists' pay. Even for the use of recreational facilities built by servicemen and women in their own time, Labor has threatened to charge.  These will be reversed.  In our first budget we will provide an extra $80 million for defence, over and above the considerable increased spending committed under the Five Year Defence Plan.  In defence, our first priority will be to correct the identifiable deficiencies in the Australian Defence Force.  Particular emphasis will be placed on northern defence.  Our initiative to build a RAAF base for a new FA/18 squadron at Tindal near Katherine in the Northern Territory will proceed.  New procurement necessary for modernisation will be funded.  Modernisation of the arms and equipment of the Operational Deployment Force at Laverack Barracks in Townsville will be given priority.  Training and exercising will be maintained to ensure operational standards.  The Reserves will be given an identifiable peactime role. Establishment levels and training days will be set at levels adequate to sustain required levels of efficiency.  Events of the past few weeks highlight the threat of terrorism and the fragility of peace in so many areas of the world.  No party has a priority on abhorrence at the possibility of war - nuclear or conventional.  Me will maintain our defence relationships.  The joint facilities with the United States in Australia are a positive contribution to ensuring war will never occur.  These we will maintain.  Australians have a great future with the right Government.  Our Government will not attack the elderly.  And we will abolish Labor's assets test.  Have you seen the forms?  The worry they bring, the "Pay As You Die" scheme,  the attack on those who have saved hard all their lives - we condemn this test.  Our aged pensioners, our returned Servicemen and Servicewomen have lived through two World Wars, depressions and recessions, and they deserve better from Government.  We will ensure people are not disadvantaged where they endeavour to protect themselves for their retirement.  Nothing gives Australians more pride than the international successes of our sporting men and women.  Remember the feeling that swept Australia when Australia II won the America's Cup?  Or the pride when Dean Lukin lifted that great weight  to win the Olympic gold medal at Los Angeles?  In Government, the Coalition developed the Institute of Sport. It will be expanded.  Help will be given too, not just for the best, but so that all men, women and children will recognise the value of keeping fit.  Fitness is a good investment - healthy people do not need hospitals; healthy people do not need doctors.  A healthy nation will save the taxpayer money.  For those who do need health care, Medicare will be revised.  Gap insurance will be re-introduced.  Agencies for Medicare will be established so that every town and suburb will enjoy access for processing patients’ claims.  The 35-day limit for the chronically ill will be lifted.  You once more will have a choice, your doctor or the hospital's - whichever suits you best.  Australia's high standards of medical and hospital facilities must be maintained.  Private nursing homes will be given appropriate status in the nation's health care system.  The medical profession will not be discriminated against as it is under Labor.  Education is a right for all Australians.  We will give the choice: between the government or the independent school System.  All parents should have the right to choose the education they wish for their children.  All children will have the right to some Government assistance for their education.  Whatever the school they attend, we will ensure they get it.  School cadets with the backing of the Department of Defence, once more will be funded.  $15 million will be allocated as a separate line item in the first Coalition Budget and within the defence vote for this purpose.  Access to post-secondary education, technical and academic, is essential.  TEAS levels cannot be allowed to continue so much below unemployment benefits.  Regional education centres with great institutions like the University of New England, and regional Colleges of Advanced Education, must be funded to allow them to grow and develop alongside their city counterparts.  The impetus given TAFE Colleges by Federal funding under previous  Coalition Governments will be maintained.  Residential colleges in tertiary institutions, under Labor next year, would lose their federal support.  We will implement the recommendations of the Tertiary Education Commission to ensure students forced to live away from home can receive a tertiary education, without being disadvantaged through excessive residential college fees.  Good communications are essential to us all. We will ensure your telephone works and that competition is available in the Systems able to use the telephone network.  The Commonwealth Bicentennial Road Programme was a National Party initiative. It has led to significant highway development in the last two years. It will be maintained. In conjunction with State Governments and Local Government we will ensure the construction and maintenance of Australia's overall road network is funded.  In 18 months of Labor, the directions of Australia subtly, and sometimes blatantly, have been changed.  The breaking of the drought and the surge in national income that resulted have concealed a continued underlying increase in real levels of unemployment.  They have absorbed a malaise of a burgeoning national debt, excessive deficits, too high taxes and overspending.  Unless the 'no' is given to Labor's big spending, interest rates will increase and taxes go up. New capital taxes will be introduced/ and inflation will again spiral.  On December 1, you will vote not just for the House of Representatives, but in each State for half an expanded Senate.  A vote for our Coalition team in New South Wales, and for the National Party team in each other mainland State, will ensure that proper and adequate scrutiny is given to all legislation.  The importance of the Senate is not just in the area of legislative scrutiny, but in the significance of the reports of its Committees.  The Report into animal welfare, now nearing finality, the National Party awaits with interest.  Effective, balanced consideration against the aggressive arguments of vocal minorities, such as ... animal liberationists whose views so often are based on emotion, not common sense, is essential.  That, your National Party Senate candidates will bring.  You will also be called to vote on two referenda.  The first, the so-called Simultaneous Elections question, is itself a misnomer.  The intention is, of course, to make the term of Senators subject to the whim of the Prime Minister in the same manner as the terms of the Members of the House of Representatives.  Were this to pass, it would threaten the independence of the Senate in passing proper judgement on Government legislation.  It would lead to more elections, not less.  It would threaten the very review process which is the strength of Australia's two House Parliamentary system.  The second question on the reference of powers from the States to the Commonwealth, equally we reject.  When Labor is in office in four States, the prospects of a greater concentration of power in Canberra are apparent.  There is a process for Constitutional transfer of powers already available.  It should not be changed.  To this referendum question we also recommend you vote ‘no’.  Above all, we ask you, on December 1, to think of your future and that of your family.  The Nationals will take a stand for you and Australia.  Join us and vote for the Nationals.  PRIME MINISTER  EMBARGOED UNTIL DELIVERY CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY  ELECTION CAMPAIGN POLICY LAUNCH SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE - 23 JUNE 1987  Fellow Australians,  Never in peace-time has Australia's future depended so much on a single decision - your decision on the llth of July.  Never have you, the Australian people, been called upon to make a more fundamental decision for yourselves, your families - your children - about the way you want your country to go - about what kind of a country you want Australia to be.  It is a decision about what kind of a people we are.  It is a decision about what kind of a nation we are going to be.  Are we to continue to unite together in the great task of national renewal, reconstruction and revitalisation, for which we have been working so hard together, and on which the success of our country depends?  Are we to go forward with strength and stability - stability in government, stability in our society?  Or are we to take the other course, the path of our opponents - inflicting upon the nation itself all their own divisions, all their own disunity, all their own instability?  On behalf of the Australian Labor Party I ask for a resounding decision, a decision that will show the world just what kind of a people we are  - a strong, united, stable, confident, forward-looking people  - responding to the leadership of a strong, united, stable, confident, forward-looking government.  We come before you as one, united team.  We come before you with one pledge - that as one, united team, we will continue and intensify our undivided efforts in the task of national renewal and revitalisation of our economy, our industry, our society.  Fellow Australians,  This election is about our faith in Australia's future. It is about our faith in ourselves.  And it is about our belief and faith - my faith, our government's faith in the character and calibre of the Australian people. And it is a belief and faith based firmly upon experience.  Four and a half years ago I pledged a Labor government to seek national reconciliation instead of confrontation and division - to create 500,000 new jobs in three years.  Our opponents said it couldn't be done. That was their judgement about the Australian people.  But together we did much better. We easily exceeded our 'o target.  In four years, we have created 800,000 new jobs - and in the past six months alone - 100,000 new jobs.  Two and a half years ago we called for a continuation of the economic restraint so necessary for the reconstruction of our economy and industry, which is the key to our future.  Our opponents mocked the concept of co-operation and restraint. They wanted - as they still want - a return to confrontation in industry. That was their judgement on the working men and women of Australia and the business community of Australia.  But, building on the basis of restraint and responsibility, we have saved the steel industry, transformed the motor vehicle industry, set about the reconstruction of Australia's entire manufacturing and services base.  Exactly one year ago I put to the people of Australia the greatest challenge of all. ^  I told you of the disastrous drop in the prices of our exports ~ a collapse in world trade that has now cost every Australian family $2,000.  I said then that this meant a year of the toughest decisions imposed in peace-time.  Our opponents said that the Australian people would never cop it.  They said the Australian people would never understand why the loss of $9 billion in our national income meant that we all had to adjust - that it was not just for the farmers and the other exporters to carry the loss - we all had to shoulder the burden.  We said we would not shirk the hard decisions needed to ensure a bright future for us in this generation and for our children in theirs.  I told you I would rather risk electoral defeat than take the soft options that would mean we mortgage our great future.  And it is because we backed our judgement of the Australian people - took the tough decisions, made the hard choices -that we can now stand before you, confident and proud of what we have achieved together, but more important, confident and proud of the great things we can achieve together, for our families, our children, for our country, in the years ahead.  Yet our opponents', who are incapable- of governing themselves, now seek to govern Australia on a grab-bag of contradictory proposals drummed up on the run - proposals which could only have one result: They would wreck utterly the efforts we, the Australian people, have made together over the last four years and in particular over the past year.  They have not only got their sums wrong.  They have got Australians wrong.  Friends,  The real danger from our political opponents is this:  All that has been achieved by your restraint and responsibility would be wasted. The benefits you have foregone and the sacrifices you have been called upon to make would have been in vain. ;  It is only because we have made the tough decisions, and put them in place in the last Budget, the May Statement, and two successive Premiers' Conferences, that we can now give these undertakings:  Interest rates are again falling and under Labor will continue to fall.  Inflation is again falling and under Labor will continue to fall.  Employment is growing - at twice the rate of the rest of the Western world - under a government which has created 800,000 new jobs in four years; and under Labor, employment will continue to grow.  In the completed Budget in September there will be no new taxes and no tax increases.  But we shall never jeopardise Australia's future by irresponsible promises.  We make our future undertakings on the firm basis of the c achievable, the credible, the responsible.  And let me emphasise: 0  Everything in our program is affordable, achievable and economically responsible.  This Labor Government has achieved the most significant C reform of the taxation system since Federation.  And the fundamental reason why our our opponents could never achieve any tax reform in all their years in office is that they never had the courage to act against tax avoidance. And they let it become Australia's biggest growth industry -and that's the description given by their own Royal Commissioner.  We have smashed the tax avoidance industry.  We have cut out wasteful privileges and windfalls for the few.  That is why we are able further to reduce income tax. Following the first round of tax cuts in December, new tax scales will operate from 1 July, 1987. They will bring the top marginal rate down from the Liberal legacy of 60 per cent to 49 per cent.  And the rate for taxpayers on average earnings will have been brought down from 46 per cent to 40 per cent.  And it is because of our tax reforms that we are able to undertake that the September Budget will continue the full indexation of pensions.  This is what a Labor Government means for the next three years: genuine reductions in taxation, lower inflation, lower interest rates, higher pensions, more jobs.  Yet our opponents invite you to throw all this away, for a tax bribe nobody believes in - least of all, its discredited authors - and something which, if ever seriously attempted, would destroy the economy and rip apart the social fabric -the basis of the Australian ideal of a fair go for all.  They invite you to turn your backs on the meaning of everything we have been able to achieve together over the past four years. .  They invite you to turn your backs on the real meaning of Australia's future -  a future founded on the great ideals of fairness and justice in our society - a fair go for all.  Indeed, my friends, it is almost impossible to judge which is the more dangerous  - their economic vandalism,  - or the wholesale vandalism they propose against the social framework of this nation.  They have long been the parties of social division. Now they stand as the parties of social devastation.  The whole basis of our call to the Australian people at the election in 1983 and again in 1984 was an appeal to this great truth about the Australian community - the truth that the legitimate aspirations of the diverse groups and interests which go to make up the nation can best be achieved, not by fighting each other, not by setting group against group, Australians against Australians, but by working together, recognising and respecting each other's rights, fair expectations .and fair hopes and aspirations.  That was the basis on which we sought a mandate and that was the basis on which the mandate has been twice given.  And it is on that basis - the people's response - the recognition of this great truth about Australia - that we have been able to fight back together against the huge difficulties imposed upon us by events abroad.  The toughness with fairness we have applied to the affairs of this nation and the response of the Australian people now enable us to set new goals - realistic, responsible achievable goals for Australia's future.  We seek to create an Australia where there are no second class citizens.  And we will achieve that only by refusing to accept - as a Government, as a society, as a people - second rate policies.  In this highly competitive world we cannot settle for the second rate in industry, in technology, in education.  *  We must continue - now as a matter of urgency - the work of modernising and revitalising our economy and industry, so that we can compete with the world - on the world's terms.  That is the only way we can restore and improve living standards for all.  The greatest resource in Australia is not something that we can grow or dig up from the soil. It is the capacity of its people, our great human resource. And above all - the resource of the future - the children of Australia.  For our next term, we are setting achievable new, goals for Australia's future in the world.  And at the head of those goals is the future of all our children.  So we set ourselves this first goal:  By 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty.  And to this end, my Government will establish a new program of family help - a program designed to lift more than 1 million Australian children into security and to help the more than half a million Australian families in greatest need, the hardest pushed, the most disadvantaged.  Labor's new Family Allowance Supplement will be paid, to mothers, on the basis of family income and family size.  The Family Allowance Supplement will total $22 per child per week - with an extra $6 a week for children aged between 13 and 15.  Where those families are in privately rented accommodation, they will also be eligible for rent assistance of $15 a week.  The Government will further recognise the special costs faced by families with children who are disabled. They will receive a Child Disability Allowance of $112 a month, free of, means testing.  This government sets the welfare of the Australian family as its top priority.  But for us, the family is not about statistics and abstract averages. It is about real people and real needs.  Friends, it is just impossible, with any credibility, to proclaim concern for families and then proceed to smash every part of the social infrastructure that determines the welfare of Australian families. Yet that is the measure of our opponents' hypocrisy.  For us, the family means jobs. It means bringing inflation down. It means housing. It means bringing interest rates down. It means child care. It means education. It means health care that every Australian family can afford.  We will continue to put the health of Australian families first. With the introduction of the Medicare program, Australia now has, for the first time, a fair, affordable and stable health insurance system covering all Australians.  We will continue the work of improving Medicare, as a system of universal health insurance, and even more important, the fairest means of delivering the best achievable health care ±>oU to all Australians.  Our opponents propose a return to the pattern of their years in Government, with five separate confused and confusing schemes in seven years. They propose to consign more than two million Australians to a life-time of insecurity in the face of ill-health.  They propose to tear Medicare apart. c You pay more - you get less. That's what they are about.  I ask for your renewed mandate for Medicare. There is no more vital issue for the families of Australia.  We have boosted the purchasing power of the pension by eight per cent since coming to office - compared with a two and a half per cent decline during the Fraser/Howard years.  The next Labor government will take two further initiatives which ensure that temporary changes in circumstances will not lead to a loss of entitlement to fringe benefits or the pension. The details of the measures are set out in the comprehensive Policy Statement I have issued today.  We have improved greatly the availability and quality of care for the aged and disabled at home. We are shifting the emphasis away from unnecessarily putting the aged in nursing homes and towards home and community care. And that's the preference our senior citizens themselves have expressed.  But I repeat - for us of-the Australian Labor Party, our commitment to the families of Australia rests on our concern for their jobs, their housing, and the education of the children of Australia.  And we mean education for life.  So that no Australian child need go through life frustrated and diminished by not having had a chance to develop his or her full talents.  And by making sure that we do that, we will at the same time lay the strongest possible foundations for the challenging task ahead -  . mobilising all the skills and talents of this nation  . harnessing the new technology to lift Australian industry into the 21st century  . making Australia more competitive in this tough and competitive world  . placing Australia foremost in the ranks of the world community.  Our approach to education and industry policy is designed to build upon our strengths to enable us to capture a larger share of the most dynamic areas of world trade.  We are determined to give Australian children their flying start in life.  When we came to office, barely a third of our school children stayed on to Year 12.  We have boosted that proportion to half.  Our goal for 1990 is to have two thirds of our school children staying on to Year 12.  We will maintain the 8-year funding scheme for all schools, which has guaranteed unprecedented stability and security in funding and planning for all schools - government and non-government. ,  But we are now taking major steps to ensure that training and the development of skills does not stop at the school gate.  And I now announce the initiatives foreshadowed in the May Statement.  A new skills training program will be introduced to upgrade the skills of Australia's workforce.  Vocational training opportunities for young people will be expanded through continued support for apprenticeships and the introduction of a new youth training program for 15-20 year olds who have been unemployed for at least six months. The adult training program will be restructured and expanded.  Our ability to provide jobs for our people will depend increasingly on the competitiveness of our industry. This is the most urgent challenge we face.  The wage restraint exercised by the trade union movement coupled with the depreciation of the Australian dollar, has made Australian industry more competitive than in recent memory.  Under the Labor Government, Australian workers will continue to receive wage increases as large and as prompt as Australians economic circumstances can afford. The Liberal/National Parties have opposed any wage rise in 18 of the last 20 National Wage Cases stretching over a decade. Their policy now for Australian families is for a wage ' freeze.  There will be no wage freeze under Labor.  Wage restraint and price restraint 90 hand in hand.  The continuation of our policies will reduce the inflation rate to seven per cent by Christmas and six per cent by the middle of next year.  We will extend the already successful network of Price Watch Committees to every regio in Australia.  We will continue to give the highest priority to housing.  We will continue our First Home Owners' Scheme which has assisted nearly a quarter of a million young Australians to buy their own homes.  One of the few matters on which the warring factions of the Opposition agree is the total abandonment of Commonwealth responsibility for public housing.  And the only consequence which all their conflicting policies have in common is that interest rates would go through the roof - a fact recognised by independent commentators, here and abroad.  And one of the most critical factors in this election is this: the return of our Government and the maintenance of our policies, is essential if interest rates are to continue to fall.  But let's be very clear.  We can make all the right decisions about the economy, the right and responsible decisions about taxation, the right decisions about education, the right decisions for the security of the old, the sick, the underprivileged.  But in the end all that will be in vain if we don't live in a world at peace.  And under my Government, Australia will continue to make the maximum contribution towards ensuring a peaceful world.  And we have done that not by shouting, not by waving banners, not by bandying slogans - but by the hard, undramafcic, grinding work, addressing ourselves to the real issues.  Our alliance relationship with the United States, whose close and constructive nature has been reaffirmed in the / past two days, has given us a position of influence from which to work positively for peace.  As befits two great democracies, this fundamentally close relationship does not depend on absolute uniformity of views. For example, without calling into question the integrity of the United States in developing its concept of space defence, we have made it quite clear that Australia will not participate in the Strategic Defense Initiative.  Our voice on the vital issues of peace is heard and respected in Washington, in Moscow, in Western Europe, in Beijing, in Tokyo and in the great region to which we belong.  The prospects for real progress in disarmament between East and West are better now than for years. We can all take great encouragement and some pride from the likelihood of an agreement between East and West on intermediate nuclear arms before the end of this year  - encouragement, because this will surely provide a stepping stone towards cuts in strategic nuclear weapons,  - pride, because Australia's voice has been at the forefront of those urging the super-powers towards meaningful negotiations.  I was gratified.when the Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament said to me in January this year that Australia now played a leading role for the cause of peace and disarmament and that those causes would be better served if other countries followed Australia's example of strong political commitment and technical expertise.  We have taken the initiative to develop the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone. It is a testimony to our determination not to leave the great issues of peace and disarmament to the super-powers but to do what is within our capacity to shape our destiny and to associate ourselves with the aspirations of our South Pacific neighbours.  Under Labor. Australia has been a leader at the United Nations in seeking to outlaw all nuclear testing by all states in all environments for all time through a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Such a Treaty is the first requisite towards ending the nuclear arms race and ultimately ridding the world of nuclear weapons.  Side by side with our unremitting efforts for peace, we have firmly and faithfully discharged the first duty of any Australian Government - the defence of Australia.  We have embarked upon the largest defence capital program in Australia's peace-time history. We have set the course towards a decade of development, towards self-reliance in the defence and security of Australia.  And, for the first time in Australia's history, we are ensuring that the defence of Australia, through our defence-related industries, promotes the industrial and technological base of Australia in peace-time.  And that is an outstanding example of our Governments r fundamental approach - an integrated, comprehensive, ° coherent and consistent approach - with all sections of industry, all departments and levels of government, making the maximum contribution to our national goals.  My friends, Now we are in mid-course - and we are on course.  Let's make absolutely sure that Australia is not blown off course.  Let's see it through. And let me emphasis this:  We of the Labor Government have never believed that sound economic management and the economic growth we have been able to achieve as a result, was the supreme end in itself.  We have never believed that the only values in life - in the life of our nation, in the life of our families- - are the ones with the dollar tag upon them.  The matchless beauty of our land has a value beyond dollars and cents. That's why we stopped the Franklin Dam. That's why we have made mining illegal in Kakadu. It's why we are protecting the special forests in Tasmania. And that's why we will save the Daintree.  The enrichment of the arts and culture and leisure opportunities of our people goes to the very heart of-our future together - our national identity - how we see ourselves, how the world sees us.  Above all, we of the great Australian Labor Party are deeply committed to our vision of a generous and open Australia, a fairer, more just Australia -  - an Australia where true equality of opportunity for all is the reality for all - not just in education, job-training and the development of skills, but in all the opportunities life in this abundant country can offer.  There are people from something like 130 lands in our country ~ all capable of making their contribution to the common good - the future we can all share.  With this rich diversity, we have at the same time a deep underlying unity and stability.  If we make sure that we keep hold of that unity and~-stability, then that is what is going to make Australia a truly great and unique nation.  Fellow Australians:  We stand together on the threshold of the third century of one of the most remarkable experiments in nation-building ever attempted in the course of human history.  No beginning could have been more unpromising.  And sure, we have Australian achievements - splendid achievements - to celebrate.  But we Australians have mistakes to rectify, amends to make and wrongs to put right if Australia is to achieve its full promise of what it can be and should be - simply the best and fairest nation on earth.  So let's use this election as a springboard to the future -towards the promise of the future.  It is a promise of what can be achieved in our time, for this generation and for the generations to come  - By a free, proud, independent, intensely individualistic, uniquely diverse people  - Yet a united people  - A people who want a fair go for themselves and their families  - But just as much, a fair go for all their fellow citizens, for all their fellow Australians  - For their own children, their own families - but for all Australian children, all- Australian families  - For all members of this great Australian family. This is the promise of Australia. This is the Australian vision. This is the reality of the Australian dream.  Together, let us begin a new century of Australian i achievement.  - A new century of opportunity - of even greater equality of opportunity for all.  - To make the best country in the world an even better, fairer Australia.  Australia will win through. Let's see it through -Together.  1987 FEDERAL ELECTION POLICY SPEECH BY IAN SINCLAIR, FEDERAL LEADER, NATIONAL PARTY 0F AUSTRALIA : CESSNOCK TOWN HALL, JUNE 21, 1987  My friends.  This day 200 years ago those hardy and unwilling souls who were to be Australia's first European settlers were braving the tempestuous Atlantic as they pitched and rolled towards the uncertainties and hazards of their new home.  Ashore, the original Australians with their elemental culture faced an even bleaker future.  Today under the Hawke Government we who are their successors can be no more confident of what lies ahead for us.  Like the passengers in a boat on a mighty river our course is set by the helmsmen.  When the weather was fine and the water clear and calm the task was easy. As the water have grown darker and deeper and rougher the vessel's progress has almost stopped. Ahead we can sense the rumbling and the roar of a mighty waterfall.  If we steer on the same economic course, we are headed for disaster.  We cannot just trim our course a degree or two - that will only delay the inevitable.  We roust make a decisive change - and now.  It takes courage to make that change, determination to carry it through, and understanding to know what the course must be.  Our present helmsmen say our economic course has been good enough: stick with it, they argue; and the threat of that ominous precipice will go away.  But the rush of the economic flow, accelerated by the indulgences of the past, is such that decisive change is vital.  This premature July 11 election gives you the chance to make that change.  When you vote, you will be doing much more than giving a political party the right to govern for the next three years.  You will be given the choice to change the future of Australia, and most vitally, that of your family and yourself.  We've had over four years of hard Labor.  And I ask you are you better off today?  What has four years of Labor done?  - It's given us the biggest-taxing Government in peacetime history;  - It's given us the biggest-spending Government in peacetime history;  - It's driven the dollar lower and interest rates higher than they've ever been;  - It's tripled our foreign debt to $105 billion gross or over $80 billion net;  - It's pushed inflation to four times the level of our overseas competitors;  - It's given us new taxes like the capital gains and fringe benefits taxes;  - It's given us a health System which pushes costs out of control and creates massive queues for treatment at our public hospitals;  - It's allowed education standards to slip and opportunities for tertiary education to decline;  - It's cut family living standards by over $31 a week;  - It's pushed bankruptcies particularly among small businesses to new record levels;  - It's pushed farmers off the land and put thousands more on the edge of disaster;  - It's left more than 23% of young people and 8.2% of the total workforce unemployed;  - And it’s let the union bosses virtually control the country as this week's seatbelt dispute affecting the whole motor vehicle industry so clearly demonstrates.  I could go on but it would take all day. Labor's policies have been tried. They have failed.  Lahor has pursued tired old socialist rhetoric perhaps more subtly under Hawke but equally as comprehensively as under Whiblam.  It has allowed a burgeoning bureaucracy to stifle individual initiative. Big government and big unions have flourished. Ordinary Australians have been forgotten.  On July 11, you have a choice  You can follow Labor to economic disaster, to a future of high interest rates, high taxes, high inflation and massive debt, where the Banana Republic prophecies of the Treasurer are confirmed.  You can follow a party that jumps to the strings of its union maskers, scorns the flag and the family, destroys our health System, poisons our education System and refuses to accept its responsibility for national security.  But you have a choice - a real choice.  In the Senate and the House of Representatives on July 11 you will be given a chance to alter the course of this nation and restore hope once more for your family, your friends and yourself.  Your living standards are the issue of this election. To get living standards up again for ordinary Australians, decisive steps must be taken, and now.  We have to get government spending down, the budget deficit down, interest rates down, and taxes down.  THE ECONOHY  To improve living standards net after tax profits and net fake home pay for the individual Australian must increase.  Greater productivity will mean more jobs and greater personal reward. To achieve this we need lower government spending and tax cuts.  The size of the Government's take under Labor has been a real disincentive. Keating's four deficits have left a national shortfall of nearly $27 billion over four budget years.  These deficits, the explosion of Australia's overseas debt, and our uncertain industrial record, have led to the loss of our Triple A credit rating and a real threat to our international competitiveness.  To restore interest rates to continuing comparability to those of our overseas competitors, Government deficits must be cut.  The National Party will seek a balanced budget by 1989/90 and urge State Governments to do the same.  Expenditure cuts will be achieved by the termination of some federal functions, reduction of others and wherever possible the elimination of overlapping responsibilities with the States.  Amendments will be made to the Audit Act to facilitate financial delegation and enhanced awareness of the costs and savings possible by more effective financial management within the public sector.  Further personal and corporate tax reductions should then be pursued so that the maximum rate of tax would be no more than 25 cents in the dollar.  The "bonus for working" concept involving the introduction of a flat 23% tax rate for increases in taxable income from one year to the next should be carefully assessed and if achievable PAYE scales amended accordingly.  Fuel is a major cost item for all Australians. Automatic fuel indexation should be terminated as soon as possible.  For farmers, fishermen and the forestry industries there will be a full rebate of excise on petrol and diesel used off-road.  An exemption of sales tax on lubricants used in these industries will be provided.  For most taxpayers in primary industry the cyclic effect of variable incomes has meant large tax payments and penal provisional tax rates in a year of drought or other financial exigency.  The National Party, therefore, will seek once more the re-introduction of full tax deductibility for Income Equalisation Deposit Bonds, in the year of deposit with tax payable in the year of withdrawal. Interest rates on IEDs will be at lower than market rates.  Australians for too long have been encouraged to be a nation of spenders, not savers.  The National party recognises the worth of achieving greater Personal savings. If a scheme could be developed to allow for all taxpayers a deduction for up to the first $5,000 of interest earned it would increase enormously the domestic funds available for investment in this country.  Were this possible without facilitating tax evasion and within deficit priorities it would have the strong support of the National Party.  THE FAMILY  Over the past four years it is not just the individual but the traditional Australian family that has suffered.  Our tax policy is designed to give significant assistance to single income families with children.  Existing family allowances will be maintained and the dependent spouse rebate kept at $1,000 a year.  We will seek to make child care expenses incurred by working parents treated as a business related expense in the tax System.  Bodies such as the Constitutional Commission, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, the Commission for the Future the National Health and Occupational Safety Commission, the Prices Surveillance Authority, the Coal Industry Tribunal, the Advisory Council on Prices and Incomes, the Economic Planning Advisory Council, and the Schools Commission, to name but a few, will go.  Redundant public sector assets will be sold. These funds, however, will be used predominantly to reduce our national debt.  Significant cuts in public spending have now been separately identified by the National Priorities Project, by the Liberal Party and by the Queensland National Party Senate candidate and former Secretary of the Treasury, Mr John Stone.  Some of these proposals are acceptable, others may not be. Even Treasurer Keating with the immense resources of government behind him has been unable to accurately assess the yield from his capital gains and fringe benefits taxes.  I accept, therefore, that with any detailed list of cuts in Opposition, complete precision may prove difficult. Suffice to say after careful examination I am convinced that necessary cuts and tax changes can now be legislated simultaneously in our first budget.  Experience shows that tax reform without simultaneous legislation to implement related expenditure cuts could lead to rejection of the latter and a deficit blow-out.  This, of course, would be totally unacceptable.  Accordingly, as a first step to major tax reform and in light of the consideration given to National Party concerns in the tax policy of the Leader of the Liberal Party, Mr John Howard, the National Party will support his program, both for expenditure savings and immediate tax reform.  Above all the capital gains tax and the fringe benefits tax introduced by Hr Keating will go in legislation introduced in the first session of the new Parliament.  Labor's negative gearing measures will be repealed.  Bona fide entertainment expenses met in the course of doing business again will be tax deductible.  However, the Party does not see this as the end of tax reform nor of expenditure cuts.  Labor's lump sum superannuation tax scales will be modified to be taxed at 25%.  We will seek further changes in due course. The corporate rate must be reduced to the maximum personal rate.  The Family Law Act will be changed to ensure that parents meet their maintenance payments and to take into greater account the needs of children.  Our Government will work with the States to introduce laws to give the police and the courts power to deal with offensive anti-family or anti-social behaviour.  The party will seek a national inquiry into all forms of child abuse. Children are our future and they must be protected.  AIDS AND DRUGS  The money currently spent on sensationalised advertising campaigns on AIDS and drugs will be diverted to work on cures and real assistance to sufferers.  The emphasis in our drugs campaign will be on penalising drug pushers and helping drug users to kick the habit.  EDUCATION  We will commence a nationwide "basic skills" program for children to lift minimum levels of reading, writing and arithmetic.  Technical education at school and at TAFE colleges is essential to developing the work skills necessary for personal satisfaction and job generation.  The Nationals will place particular emphasis in working with the States to encourage opportunities for young people in these fields and to ease the present restraints imposed by the existing apprenticeship scheme.  The number and value of AUSTUDY scholarships will be maintained to ensure access to tertiary education on ability but without penalising the financially disadvantaged.  Post-graduate scholarships, particularly at a doctorate level, have declined in relative value in recent years. In conjunction with private enterprise initiatives will be taken to maintain adequate opportunities for students to qualify for senior degrees so that basic and applied research and innovative design and conceptual thinking may be enhanced.    EHPLOYMENT   The Commonweatth Employment Service is administratively top-heavy and too often it has failed in its task to match employer demands with employment needs.  The CES, together with the Community Youth Support Scheme, will be overhauled and where possible responsibilities transferred to the private sector. Encouragement will be given to occupational training to better prepare the unemployed for jobs.  We have to he imaginative enough in our planning and brave enough in our commitment to diversity in education to give young Australians a real chance to gain skills and get jobs.  SOCIAL SERVICES  Work for the community or approved job training will be required for those receiving unemployment benefits.  The work test will be strengthened.  Unemployment benefits will no longer be paid to under 18 year olds although in cases of financial need a special benefit will be maintained.  For those leaving non-seasonal jobs voluntarily a 26 week qualification period will be required.  Entitlement for supporting parents benefit will be revised. Payment will be restricted to those with children up to the age of 16 unable to support themselves and their children nor obtain support from the other parent. Those who apply for the benefit must prove they have tried to obtain maintenance. Maintenance dodgers will be pursued through a maintenance collection agency.  The administration of the Social Services Department will be tightened to minimise social welfare fraud.  THE ELDERLY  Labor's Assets Test has been yet another anti-family measure for so many in small business and in the rural sector.  The transfer of ownership for family enterprises between generations inevitably leaves sortie assets in parents' hands.  In today's adverse circumstances those assets are earning insufficient income to sustain even a reasonable standard of living, yet the Assets Test denies the owners access to any pension.  The Assets Test will go.  The National Party will also work for the extension of present earnings permissible while maintaining the right to a full pension.    HEALTH   Medicare is a shambles.  It has meant high costs and impossible public hospital queues.  Australians deserve better.  Pensioners, the disadvantaged, and the chronically ill will pay nothing as at present.  All Australians again will have the right to choose their own insurance arrangements.  Basic health care will be available from a nominated private health fund. The cost will be covered by your Medicare levy.  Those Australians who can afford to will pay the first $250 of their hospital and medical costs in any one year. Voluntary health funds may offer additional insurance to cover this payment, the additional 15% you are required to pay for medical expenses under the existing Medicare plan and the cost of private hospital and other health care.  A special program will be introduced to give immediate access to private hospitals for existing complaints for those thousands of Australians who are unable under Labor's Medicare to gain access to public hospitals for elective surgery.  That 100,000 Australians today are denied access for such operations in the public hospital System is itself an indictment of the Labor Government. That a delay of two years is not uncommon compounds the offence.  We will negotiate with the States to relieve the acute shortage of nurses by allowing the registration of nurses following in-hospital training, as in the past, as well as through the recently introduced tertiary courses.  INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS  Under Labor Australia has been living through an industrial nightmare.  The wages accord was a disaster. The superannuation loading was a con.  A few weeks ago Labor did another deal with the unions and introduced yet more industrial legislation into the Parliament.  Had they proceeded with it, unions would have been put even further above the law. If there were to be another Hawke Government, that unwanted legislation can be expected to return.  The National Party believes in responsible unionism. But more than that, we believe that workers are more important than union bosses. If workers want to opt out of a union they will be allowed to.  If a business and its employees want to enter into a voluntary agreement on the terms and conditions of employment and register these with award status they will be allowed to.  Those agreements could cover penalty rates and the hours to be worked before overtime or penalty rates are incurred. Importantly, union bosses will be subject to the same reporting and financial obligations as directors of public companies.  Income other than union fees of all industrial organisations will be subject to tax.  INDUSTRY  Our economic and social policies are designed to encourage the individual and foster opportunities for employment and economic growth.  These cannot succeed unless Australian industry is once more allowed to function in an environment as free as possible from government regulation and control.  Under the Nationals Labor's anti-business taxes will go. Under the Nationals Government regulations will be reduced.  Under the Nationals investment will be encouraged in an environment where inflation and interest rates will go down.  SHALL BUSINESS  Industrial relations changes will enhance job prospects in small business.  The National Party will ensure the Government meets its trading debts within 30 days. Greater contracting out to the private sector will be required.  Small businesses will gain access to Australia's postal services through new Post Office franchises similar to those now applicable to newsagents.  A special industrial advocate will be briefed as required to represent small business before the Arbitration Commission and to help in court cases involving the secondary boycott provisions of the Trade Practices Act.  PRIMARY INDUSTRY  Separately my colleague, the Deputy Leader of the National Party, Ralph Hunt, has issued a full and detailed policy statement outlining the party's intentions to revive the family farm and restore the viability of our major rural commodities. However, no policy speech of the National Party would be complete without particular reference to our concern that Government constraints such as export inspection charges will be lifted.  Water and soil conservation too are major concerns.  Labor terminated our Bicentennial Water Resources Program.  Now assistance will be given not only for on-farm conservation but to the States to help provide water for regional city and town supplies.  Subject to discussion with the Queensland Government, a special grant will be made to complete the pipeline from the Burdekin Dam to the City of Townsville.  Greening Australia, a major non-Government program to increase tree stocks, has our full support.  We will negotiate with the States for more effective assistance for natural disaster relief, provide dollar for dollar Commonwealth assistance for the duration of drought and extend drought assistance to small business in drought declared areas where those businesses depend on farm businesses.  MINING AND RESOURCES  Another great export industry that has suffered under Labor has been the mining industry.  Commonwealth mineral export controls will go. So too will the coal export levy.  Resource Rent tax will be abolished as will any coal marketing authority.  Coal industry workers will be made subject to the same laws of conciliation and arbitration as other workers within our Industrial Relations policy.  We will progressively deregulate the Australian oil industry to give incentive for exploration. Australian crude oil will be sold at word prices and we will move towards a free market for oil sales. Transitional arrangements will be made to ensure a market for small producers.  Labor's policy on uranium has made Australia the laughing stock of the world.  There is so-called "good" uranium from South Australia which we can export but "bad" uranium in the Northern Territory which we cannot.  Nuclear energy is year by year more vital to meet the world's electricity requirements. Australia has a responsibility to ensure its resources are used safely and wisely to meet that demand.  We will resume development of the Australian uranium industry under guidelines that maintain our stringent safeguard requirements and nuclear non-proliferation arrangements.  FOREIGN AFFAIRS  Recent events in Fiji and Vanuatu and differences between the United States and Australia at this weekend's ASEAN Foreign Ministers meeting in Singapore reflect the changing strategic situation in our region and the progressive estrangement of the Hawke Government from the United States.  The National Party will co-operate with the United States to protect our joint interests in the Pacific and pursue to the maximum diplomatic efforts to restore New Zealand's participation in ANZUS.  We will re-establish close tics with Papua New Guinea and play a positive role as an active member of the regional community.  We will support multi-lateral disarmament and play a responsible role within the Western Alliance.  Present international trade disputes, particularly those affecting agricultural commodities, are of great concern and positive efforts will be made to lift tariff and non-tariff barriers to our exports.  The National Party rejects apartheid. However, we oppose economic sanctions against South Africa and would seek the restoration of air links between our two countries.  We will terminate Government support for the African National Congress and other terrorist organisations and prohibit any group supporting or involved in terrorism from establishing an official presence in Australia.  DEPENCE  Increasing Soviet military strength in the Pacific, coupled with Soviet attempts at economic penetration and the adventurism of Libya, pose a serious threat to the continuation of a regional stability which had been almost taken for granted.  In these circumstances a well-trained and well-armed Australian Defence Force IS essential.  The disastrous reduction in defence personnel under Labor must be halted.  We will give to the Defence Force Remuneration Tribunal a comprehensive reference to ensure comparability of Service pay and conditions to those in the public service and the private sector.  Defence housing will be improved through a special vote from the defence budget.  Administrative regulations will be changed to allow financial delegation to Base Commanders to' permit the transfer of funds between divisions of expenditure and a carry-over of up to 20% of funds from one financial year to another.  Permissible training days and personnel ceilings for the Reserves will be lifted.  School cadets for young men and women will be re-established.  TRANSPORT  In a sparsely populated and vast continent like Australia transport remains a priority for government.  The National Party seeks the allocation of six cents a litre of fuel excise to upgrade the nation's roads. The two cents a litre bicentennial levy will be maintained until 1990.  We will amend the Australian Flag Act to enable foreign vessels to compete in the Australian coastal shipping trade, across the Tasman and in the supply of rock phosphate to Australia.  We will terminate the Two Airlines Agreement.  Australian Airlines and QANTAS will be reconstituted into public companies and a percentage of shares offered to employees and the public.  We will provide a parallel north-south runway at Sydney's Kingsford Smith airport.  COMMUNICATIONS  Telecom will maintain its responsibility for the telephone network. Progressively, line construction and maintenance, the wiring of premises and value added services will be transferred to licensed teletricians in the private sector.  We will ensure the continuation of the rural and remote area telephone program, and give all Australians access to untimed local phone calls.  Australia Post's monopoly on standard letter carriage will be retained, but we will encourage more flexible administrative arrangements to maximise services in rural and remote areas.  The politicisation of the ABC has generated concern as to its ability to function in its traditional way. Its directorate and management will be replaced to re-establish its independence and its structure reviewed to reduce the inefficiencies of its administrative hierarchy.  ARTS  Australian creativity in music, theatre and the arts is particularly significant at this time of increased awareness of our cultural diversity and abundant natural talent.  In changes affecting the operation of the Australia Council, recognition will be given to the need to encourage Australian artists, authors and composers as well as our musicians and performers.  In conjunction with the States, efforts will be made to ensure music, arts and the theatre are available through regional centres.  NORTHERN TERRITORY  The National Party believes that Aboriginal land rights is a matter for the States and rejects uniform federal land rights legislation.  Responsibility for Aboriginal land and national parks in the Territory will be transferred to the Territory Government.  Full powers of self-government will be granted to the Territory as soon as possible.  SUHHARY  Today I have covered the major policies the National Party is offering in the election on 11 July.  Details of all our policies are set out in a policy summary also being released today.  Over the last few months divisions among those who share our beliefs in the urgent need for a new national direction for Australia have gained a lot of media attention.  That these differences have been public rather than private does not affect the essential strength of the National Party around Australia.  The Party has always been a loose federation of strong State organisations.  However, the majority of these Senators and Members elected on July 11 alone will determine our Parliamentary attitude in government.  To do otherwise opens the path to corruption, abuse, and ultimately, tyranny.  Much too was made of the split in the Coalition but already, John Howard and I have had preliminary discussions about the formation of the next Liberal and National Party Government.  The National Party approaches the election with a firm commitment to form once more a strong united and effective conservative partnership.  Since 1950 the National and Liberal parties consistently have worked together as separate parties but in coalition in government.  Our parties led this nation through its greatest age of prosperity - then rebuilt it after the disaster of the Whitlam years brought it almost to its knees.  We are ready now to rebuild it again.  The policies of the Labor Party are the policies of the pasfc.  They have failed.  The National Party gives you a real choice on 11 July.  You owe it to your family, your children and Australia to think of the future when you vote.  Think of Australia, think of how much better off you should be and then vote for the Nationals.