Fax from S
PRIME MINISTER
6 May 1997 TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE. HON. JOHN HOWARD MP
RADIO INTERVIEW AM PROGRAMME WITH FRAN KELLY
E& OE
KELLY:
John Howard, Mal Colston has turned on you. He says you've thrown him to the
wolves and he will vote against your legislation in the Senate. Doesn't this threat bear
out what critics of Colston have been saying since he defected that his vote is for sale
and he votes not on principle but according to favours?
PRIM MINISTER:
What are you suggesting, that he's now been bought by the Labor Party?
KELLY:
Well I'm just suggesting that...
PRIME MINISTER:
This outburst by Senator Colston throws up a very interesting challenge to Mr
Beazley. They are now going to take back the vote of the person who they have been
attacking in public, calling a rorter, saying should be out of the Parliament, Are they
going to repeat in 1997 what they did in 1983 and continued to do by re-preselecting
the man, in other words, despite their sort of retrospective distaste for what he's done,
be perfectly happy to take him while he supports the Government, supports the Labor
Party. KELLY: They say it's their vote anyway, that he shouldn't be there. FaaxftI0 6/ 05/ 97 10: 18 Pg: 1
Fax from PRIM MINISTER:
If he's as bad as they claim, arnd let me say, I think the man is entitled to his day in
court, he's entitled like any other Australian to a presumption of innocence. We did
the right thing. We sent the matter off to the police, something Senator Evans, then
Senator Evans and Mr Deazley deliberately refimsd to do in 1983 and we've also said
in the circumstances we won't accept his vote. Now if that means that the
Government has a tougher time getting legislation through the Senate, so be it,
because it was the right thing to do arnd the right thing for the Labor Party to do would
be to duplicate what we've done but I am certain the Labor Party won't because the
Labor Party will behave without any principle at all on this whole issue.
KELLY:
But if he's turned on you because, as he says, you've thrown him to the wolves
because you've stopped looking after him, does it raise the prospect that you had
offered him something in the past that had convinced him to support you?
] PREME MINISTER:
Fran, the allegations about his travel rorting, alleged travel rorting as far as I am
concerned arose after he had been elected as Deputy President. The Labor Party knew
about it beforehand, I didn't. The first...
KELLY: But he had been voting with you on most...
PRIME NMSTER:
I am sorry, the first, the critical thing is the first I knew about any of these allegations
was in January or February of this year. Kim Beazley and Gareth Evans, the leader
and Deputy Leader, knew about them 14 years ago and did absolutely nothing and
only turned feral when Senator Colston no longer supported the Labor Party. Look,
we've been over all of this. I think the public is bored with the Colston affair. They
want it investigated by the police. They want the man to have his day in court. They
don't want him to continue as Deputy President and they want the Labor Party to
behave with a bit of principle on the issue.
KELLY:
And you're saying that even if he makes good his threat and votes to block all your
important legislation in the Senate, you still won't join those currently calling for him
to quit the Senate.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he can't be expelled from the Senate. Hie's entitled to a day in court in the same
way as Carmen Lawrence is entitled to a day in court. Nobody is suggesting that
Fafris06/ 05/ 97 10: 18 Pg: 2
Fax from060/ 71: 8P3
Carmen Lawrence should be thrown out of Parliament. She's been charged with
something. This man has not even been charged with anything. You can't tear up the
rule book no matter how bitter you may feel about the party political defection. We do
have the rule of law in this country and it's important at a time like this when emotions
run high and people are running around saying somebody has done this or that. It's
very important that people remain a bit calm and follow the rules and the rule is that he
is entitled to a presumption of innocence and the Labor Party should support that rule
in relation to him as they support it quite promptly in relation to Carmen Lawrence.
KELLY:
All right, another problem for you right now is Pauline Hanson and her One Nation
party. Two polls out today show her Party making a significant dent in your support.
The AGB McNair poll showing One Nation second preferences flowing to Labor at a
rate that would bundle you out of office if there was an election now. Do you concede
still that she's not, I mean do you concede now finally that she's not a passing
phenomenon, that she is a problem?
PRIE AMSTER:
Those polls don't surprise me. We are going through a period at the moment where
the Government is quite understandably preoccupied with two or three issues which
are not of immediate relevance to all of the voters. I mean one of them is very
important to Aboriginal people and to farmers, that's the Wik issue, but we've been
tied down preparing the budget and I think it's inevitable that at this time of the
electoral cycle that people will sort of say to themselves, you know, what on earth are
they getting involved with all those sorts of things. The fog around those issues will
clear very quickly. Next week's budget will I think cut through and next week's
budget will be very good for jobs, it will be very good for small business and it will be
very good for the regions of Australia. But we have to work our way through these
other issues and I think the other point that's got to be made is that there were
enormous expectations as there are when you have a government replacing a
government that's been in power for a long period of time, and I know there are some
people out there who voted for us in March of last year who would have liked to have
seen more change but the changes that we have brought about are working their way
through the economy, particularly in area like small business, and I think the real
benefits of them will begin to be felt towards the end of this year so I would say to
some of those people who see in the simplistic nostrums of somebody like Pauline
Hanson some kind of alternative deliverance from some of the current day difficulties
to understand that she doesn't have any solutions at all. I haven't heard her articulate
one intellgent alternative policy and as my colleagues have indicated, now that she's
holding herself out as a party leader, any comments that she makes that are damaging
to Australia, that are wrong, will be attacked by me and my colleagues in the samne way
as statements of that kind madle by members of the Labor Party.
] KELLY:
Just in terms of how you will make that attack, last week you stopped short of
labelling Pauline Hanson's views as offensive yet your Foreign Minister described them
06/ 05/ 97 10: 18 Pg: 3
Fax from as divisive and offensive and your Treasurer said her plan was both divisive and
vicious. Do you agree with those descriptions?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I use my language, they use their's but..
KELLYBut what is the language, how would you describe her?
PRIME MINISTER:
Anybody... anybody... . well, it depends what particular view. I thought some of the
things that she said in her maiden speech were wrong and I said so at the time. Her
claim that Aborigines were not as a group disadvantaged is palpably wrong and 1,
although I disagree with the claims made by the Aboriginal people in relation to many
of their claims in relation to the Wik debate, nobody can deny they do suffer social
disadvantage. Look, it is a question of attacking the merits of an issue. I understand
why some people are attracted to her simplistic nostrums and my job as Prime Minister
is to point out the error of her arguments, the damage some of her ideas would do to
Australia if they were implemented but also to understand why at a time of very great
social and economice change, why some people in the community with good will would
be attracted to some of the things that she's saying. I think the other thing that you've
got to remember is that one of the features of 13 years of the Labor Government was
the imposition without the opportunity of debate by what did amount to a pofitical elite
in this country on the Australian population of views that many people in the
community simply didn't accept and felt that they had been denied the opportunity of
debating. I think some of the people who have been superficially attracted to Pauline
Hanson are people who resented that process very strongly and I must say that I
ideni* with that and I understand that. But her answer is an answer that would cause
damage to' this country. I mean, you can't appear inward looking, you can't run
policies that however you might superficially explain them away, do appeal to
prejudice within the community, That kind of conduct for any political figure in
Australia is quite irresponsible.
KELLY: I guess the simple question for you then is would you categorise those simplistic
nostrums, to use your word, as divisive?
PRIME MINISTER.-
Well some of them are, yes. Others are just simplistic nonsense. I mean, I heard her
yesterday say that we'd organised the riots against her, or the demonstrations. And
can I say in relation to that to people-. don't demonstrate in an ugly fashion against her
any more than you should demonstrate in an ugly fashion against anybody. All it does
is to boost the stock of the person against whom you're demonstrating. If you want to
hinder Pauline Hanson, don't demonstrate against her. 06/ 85/ 97 16: 18 Pg: 4
Fax from KELLY: She is causing some problems for you on your backbench though, doesn't she? I
mean, some of your backbench want you to stop attacking her because many of their
constituents like what she's saying, others want you to step up the attack and finish it
off How will you reassure your backbench on Pauline Hanson?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think you just have to behave in a sensible fashion. You have to take the
approach that I've taken on this interview this morning. Condemn the silly statements,
condemn the statements that don't help Australia but recognise that the people who
are superficially attracted to her are not themselves bigoted or racist. And those terms
are flung around far too easily in this country, it's been a constant complaint of mine
for a long time now that those tenns are used quite unfairly. This is a tolerant, open
minded, liberal country which has received people of all races into its ranks and
absorbed them very very harmoniously and I do not support this overuse of such
peiorative terms. And it was the overuse of those perjorative terms over a long
period of time under the former government which has produced some of the attitudes
within the Australian community which people are now talking about.
KELLY: One of your backbenchers, Liberal MW, Bill Taylor, who's been a strong supporter of
you in the past, accused you yesterday of not having.., accused the Government under
your leadership of not having enough backbone, said if the Government was doing
more then voter dissatisfaction wouldn't be leading people off to Pauline Hanson.
How concerned are you that members of your own backbench are openly criticising
your leadership like this?
PRIME MINISTER
Well, I don't know if that was openly criticising my...
KELLY: You don't think it was not enough backbone
PRIME MINISTER:
anyway, you can say it. Look I don't think it, you can say that if you want, that's
fine. Look, I'm not overly concerned about that. I understand why people say that
because... KELLY: Why? Farxom 06/ 85/ 97 10: 18 Pg:
Fax from ] PRIM MINISTER:
Well, because there were huge expectations of overnight change and when you don't
control the Senate and when you, I think, make the mistake of allowing, as we have
done over the last year, unreasonable criticisms of the pace of change from within our
own ranks to go unanswered, then I think perhaps that view builds up. I do want to
make it clear this morning that the process in the past year of turning the other cheek
when people on our own side take gratuitous swipes at what we have done, those days
are over.
KELLY: What will you be doing now if that.. ( inaudible)?
PRIE MINISTERL
Well I will be pointing out the enormous changes that this Government has achieved. I
mean, look at the taxation area...
KELLY: Are you talking about people within your backbench or John Elliott or business
leaders? PRM MINISTER:
I'm talking generally and you can draw your own conclusions about the people to
whom I am referring. I just want to make it clear in the area of taxation, two things.
We made a solemn promise to the Australian people that we wouldn't have a goods
and services tax in our first term and people who constantly cail for that in our first
term either want us to break that solemn promise or are being deliberately unhelpful.
The other point I make is that in areas like capital gains tax reform for small business
this has been a reforming government from the I1st of July this year you will have the
biggest tax break in the capital gains area for small business that this country has ever
seen. You've seen provisional tax relief. You have seen a $ 1I billion family tax
package. From the 1st of July this year there will be a $ 630 million incentive for
Australian families to take out private health insurance. Now, that's in the taxation
area alone. So I want to make it clear that one of the things I will be doing now is
pointing out a lot more vigorously, and my colleagues will, what this Government has
done. KELLY:
Will you be taking action against members of your backbench if they continue to talk
out? Farxom 06/ 05/ 97 10: 18 Pg: 6
Fax from PRIME MINSTER:
No, I'm not taking... I'm not taking action. I don't engage in that sort of . people are
free occasionally, particularly when there's so many of them, they're free occasionally
to express a point of view providing it is broadly consistent with the good fortunes of
the Government. I think the backbench, given the size and given the difficulties of the
decisions we've had to take, have been incredibly supportive, incredibly well
disciplined and incredibly well commnitted and strongly committed to our goals.
] KELLY:
All right, well another issue likely to flare on your backbench, I understand this
morning, is cross-media ownership. You've indicated you favour relaxing the rules
that would,...
PR]] ME NMSTER:
Well I have indicated that there's quite a strong case for it but we haven't taken any
decision. KELLY: Your backbench commnittee on communications has come out publicly arguing for
more diversity. How can you reassure them that your rules won't result in further
concentration, in other words wouldn't result in Kerry Packer for instance owning
both Channel 9 and Fairfax?
PRIME MUIiSTER:
Well, these are matters that we will in the proper way discuss with the backbench. I
haven't had any discussions with them yet but we will deal with media policy in the
way that we always deal with these things. We discuss themi in Cabinet and if there is a
position for change then that proposed change will be discussed with the backbench
committee and media laws, if there are to be any changes, media laws will be treated
no differently from any other proposals.
KELLY: And would the Australian independent newspapers consortium that you met yesterday,
would that group be a suitable owner of Fairfax in your view?
PRIME MM41STER:
Well that would be a matter I guess for the shareholders and current owners of Fairfax.
KELLY: Were you impressed by their consortium? Fa rom06/ 85/ 97 10: 18 Pg: 7
Fax from PRIM M1NISTER:
well, I have been the recipient of many callers in the last few weeks about this issue. I
did see them. I saw Mr Cameron O'Reilly from the O'Reilly group; I saw Tom Burton
of the Parliamentary Press Gallery representing the journalists; I've seen Mr Stokes;
I've spoken to Mr Murdoch, I've seen them all, Now, they all put their own point of
view. This is an area where people are not shy in promoting the self interest which I
understand and I respect and what we have to do is to take a decision on whether the
current law, which on one argument is quite restrictive should be changed. But I
understand the arguments about diversity, I hear them. I also understand the fact that
you have a special law in relation to the media and there are many people in the
community who argue that it should be dealt with in accordance with the ordinary
competiton law of this country and it is a bit peculiar that the two wholly Australian
media companies of any size in this country, namely Mr Packer arnd Mr Stokes'
companies are prevented from bidding for any of the assets of John Fairfax under the
present law. Now, that's the argument for change. The argument against change is
that if you bring about fewer players then that has a greater concentration and
therefore that is against the public interest. Now, they are things that we have to
weigh up and we have to try and set one off against the other. I don't think it is
something that should be approached in a sense of paranoia and we will take a decision
which we believe is in the public interest. I know that whatever decision we take will
not be popular with some people.
KELLY:
Mr Howard, we'll have to leave it there. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Pleasure. Farxom 06/ 05/ 97 16: 18 Pg: 8