TRANSCRIPT 

THE HON PETER COSTELLO MP

TREASURER

Official Opening of Higgins Electorate

1244 Malvern Road, Malvern

Saturday, 4 September 2004
10.10 am

First of all, Andrea, my wonderful campaign coordinator, thank you for

all that you do for us, I appreciate it. To Ross Liebmann, my electorate

Chairman, to Peter Bartels, to Aly, to Amy and Suzanne who work so hard

in our office here, and to my wonderful campaign team.

My name is Peter Costello and I am running for Higgins.

I am running for Higgins because I love this area, I love this community,

it has been my privilege to serve it and nothing gives me more satisfaction

than to help people with practical problems at the local level and to improve

their quality of life. To do things like we did down at the Holmesglen Railroad

Station where we got blackspot funding, so that a community could have its

whole neighbourhood and traffic flows changed. Its amenity of life improved

and to see people who had been living their for 20 and 25 years come out

and say, ‘This is the most wonderful thing that has happened to us and our

neighbourhood in the last 25 years.’

Or to go to what is something which is a great credit to this area and

to the nation as a whole, like the Very Special Kids programme run by that

wonderful lady, Sister Noone, who looks after kids that are threatened with

life threatening illnesses up here in Glenferrie Road and to talk to her

and her volunteers and her helpers and to help them get a grant of $600,000

so they can take their program nationally to help families that are coping

with children that have life threatening illnesses. Or to sit in my electorate

office as I do as regularly as I possibly can and to have people come through

and talk about friends and family that are having problems with jobs or

maybe visas. To help a guy called James whose wife had been separated from

him for ten years because he had taken a stand against the military junta

in Burma. And to help him be reunited with his wife and to see the gladness

on their face and to know that you played a part in that as a local member.

It is an honour and it is a privilege to serve the people of Higgins and

I want to continue doing it and I want to earn their trust and I hope that

they will re-elect me in the forthcoming Federal Election on October the

9^th.

But an election is also about national issues. I know in this electorate

here in the Higgins electorate, we have a wonderful quality of life. People

are buying their homes and establishing families and they know that the

greatest threat to the security of their family and their home would be

rising mortgage interest rates. They know that if mortgage interest rates

were to go back to where they averaged under the Labor Party of 12 ¾ per

cent, on the standard mortgage, you would be paying another $960 a month.

And there are a lot of people in this electorate who don’t have standard

mortgages, believe me.

They know that the advances we have made in this electorate where we have

now had unemployment down to 3.4 per cent in this electorate, could all

be threatened if we had inexperienced and erratic and economic management

in this country.

And as I go around the streets of Higgins and speak to the residents and

the electors they are not about to trust somebody who can’t run an economy

with their mortgage or their job or their business and neither they should.

You know when I saw Mr Latham the other day sign a piece of cardboard,

saying that this would keep interest rates low, I went home and I said to

Tanya, ‘How silly am I? I have been going to Canberra, I have been working

16 hours a day, I have been doing federal budgets, I have been reforming

the tax system, and all I had to do was sign a piece of cardboard.’

And then I thought, well if it is as simple as signing cardboard, why don’t

we do some more of it. Why don’t we sign cardboard and abolish unemployment

forever? Or sign cardboard and abolish droughts, or sign a piece of cardboard

so that Essendon can win the next four AFL Premierships. That may well be

a campaign promise.

Let me tell you, economic management is a little bit harder than signing

pieces of cardboard. It takes discipline, you have to be focused, you have

to be prepared sometimes to take hard decisions if you want good outcomes.

You have to know what you are about. As I said in the Herald Sun with a

column in Thursday, ‘You wouldn’t trust Joan Kirner with the Australian

economy, and you shouldn’t trust the failed Mayor of a failed Council in

outer suburban Sydney with the Australian economy either.’

Economic management is important because people rely on it, they rely on

it for their jobs, they rely on it for their businesses, they rely on it

for their homes, they rely on it for their family security, they rely on

it for strong neighbourhoods and good communities and strong states and

strong nations. And it takes leadership to get there, and I believe that

the leadership which the Howard team has shown over the last eight and a

half years speaks for itself, it is a record, it is not just words, you

can assess it, you can look at it, you can compare it, you can compare it

to previous governments in Australia and you can compare it to other governments

around the world and you will see that it is a record of achievement.

And after eight and a half years there are more Australians that have jobs.

There are more Australians that have better healthcare because we have run

an economy which can afford it. More Australians who have better educational

opportunities because we have run an economy which can afford it. More Australians

who have had real wage increases because we have run an economy which can

afford it and more Australians that have better opportunities in a nation

which is stronger and more secure than it was eight and a half years ago.

Let’s keep it that way. These are the issues in our election campaign.

I want to thank my wife Tanya who has been an unbelievable support to me

for eight and a half years and she knows that, over the last 22 years, who

has been an unbelievable support over the last 22 years of marriage and

eight and a half years in government, she knows that there is a lot of sacrifice

that is required in public life and she has always been there as a wonderful

support and it has meant a lot to me as has the support of my friends, my

family, my wonderful campaign team and the people of Higgins.

Let’s go to this election and let’s ask for the trust of the Australian

people to do the things that we believe can make our country strong and

secure that only good government can provide, that only the Howard team

can provide, that only the Liberal win on October the 9^th can

set Australia up for. Thank you very much.

The Liberal campaign, in the electorate of Higgins is launched.