12 November 1997
E&OE...............................................................................................................................
Ladies and gentlemen. Graham Richardson has flushed out Kim Beazley on the Native Title issue. The extraordinary story in this morning’s Bulletin when Graham Richardson said quite clearly that you couldn’t accuse the Government of being racist in relation to its Native Title legislation has completely exposed the hypocrisy of the Beazley position over the past few months.
Kim Beazley, knowing all along, as he admitted on the World Today earlier today, knowing all along that the Labor party had got it wrong in 1993, chose to remain silent about that yet allowed an orchestrated campaign to tag me and my Government as having racist motives to be run by his colleagues, by Daryl Melham, by Simon Crean, by Gareth Evans and by other people in the Labor Party.
Everyone knows that if Graham Richardson had not exposed the truth, Kim Beazley would have continued to remain silent. Richardson has totally destroyed Kim Beazley’s credibility on this issue so far from my legislation being racially motivated or racially based. My legislation in the words of Graham Richardson, is an attempt to mop up the mess left by the Labor Party in 1993.
The man who was Deputy Prime Minister in Paul Keating’s government is now the Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labor Party has admitted that in 1993 Labor got it wrong. Yet it has taken Graham Richardson’s revelation to expose that truth and in the process to completely destroy Kim Beazley’s playing of the racist card on this issue.
JOURNALIST:
In the light of Kim Beazley’s comments today do you think Labor should support the Wik legislation?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think Labor should support it and I call on Kim Beazley to silence people like Daryl Melham, to put an absolute prohibition on any attempt by members of the Labor Party to tag our legislation as racist. This is an extraordinary exposure of a party leader. He remained silent knowing all along, as he admitted today, that Labor had got it wrong in 1993. He knowingly allowed unfair attacks to be made on me and my colleagues and on the legislation. Not only should he support the legislation, but I call on Mr Beazley, I call on the Leader of the Opposition to silence those people in his own ranks who continued to irresponsibly fuel community division by falsely accusing my Government and my legislation as having a racial motive.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, Labor might have got it wrong but they didn’t have a High Court telling them what the situation was, like you do?
PRIME MINISTER:
What I am criticising is Mr Beazley allowing a false campaign of alleged racism to be run against our legislation. As Graham Richardson pointed out today, nobody in 1993 was accusing Paul Keating of racism for asserting that the grant of a pastoral lease extinguished native title. Yet our legislation does not go as far as that assertion.
JOURNALIST:
The High Court hadn’t set out the situation that is why they weren’t accused of being racist.
PRIME MINISTER:
But there is nothing racist about altering the law in accordance with the wishes of Parliament. Parliaments do that all the time. There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding amongst many in the Australian community that it is not the role of Parliament to make the law. It is the role of Parliament to make the law and it is the role of the courts to interpret the law from time to time. And from time immorial Parliaments, whether in Australia or elsewhere in the Common Law world, have altered the law as annunciated by the courts.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister it doesn’t actually say that Labor got it wrong in 1993 that doesn’t necessarily mean though that you have got it right, does it? They could still argue that there are points to be amended.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but they can’t say it is racially based. They can’t allow a smear campaign to be run against me. They can’t fuel community division. They can’t sool on the extreme rhetorician in the community. They have a responsibility and now you have got the former Deputy Prime Minister and the current Leader of the Opposition admitting, admitting that they got it wrong. Admitting that we have to do something to respond to that situation. And we have made an honest attempt. I have spent months debating with people in my own party, I have spent months discussing this with the community. And we have delivered a fair, balanced, honest, decent compromise. And all the Leader of the Opposition can do is to allow a false and baseless campaign to be run against me. I call on him again to silence those in his party and in his ranks who would fuel community division on this very sensitive issue.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, if no one was able to pick what the High Court was going to do back when Labor was in power, how are you able now to say whether your legislation will get past the High Court now?
PRIME MINISTER:
The advice we have from the Solicitor-General and from others is that our Bill is entirely constitutional.
JOURNALIST:
What advice Labor had back then?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t know what advice Labor had in 1993. All I know is that Kim Beazley and Graham Richardson now admit that they got it completely wrong. I know that.
JOURNALIST:
Paul Keating last night said the Wik legislation was not necessary, that the High Court should have made its decision and it could have been left at that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he is monumentally out of touch. I mean, Beazley and Richardson have both repudiated that position today. Richardson said that they left a mess and Beazley said they got it wrong. Well if you either left a mess or got it wrong something has got to be done to fix it up. So that leaves Mr Keating totally isolated.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Keating also seems to have change his view on the legislation...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well of course he has changed his view. In 1993 he told anybody who cared to ask and many who didn’t ask that the grant of a pastoral lease extinguished native title. And that was the constant representation that he made to the pastoral community, it was the constant representation he made to the States, now he is denying having said that. Yet, I think I heard this morning a repetition of his words. I think Mr Keating is out of practice.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think he purposely made that comment last night to .....the debate?
PRIME MINISTER:
I haven’t the faintest idea. He doesn’t discuss his motives with me now any more than he did prior to his election defeat in 1996.
[Ends]