E&OE........................................................................................................................
PEACOCK:
Prime Minister, it has been generally well received the drug package, but what is actually new about it, aren’t these old, recycled policies?
PRIME MINISTER:
No it is not. I think the two strongest features of it is that it is very balanced, half of it is law enforcement, the other half is education and rehabilitation. What is new and different is the emphasis on the community and volunteer organisations, organisations like the Salvation Army, the Ted Noffs Foundation. Those organisations that really work directly at the coal face partly out of a sense of moral responsibility and personal dedication to help people who have a problem with drugs. And what I have done for the first time ever at a Federal level is really give to those organisations much greater help than they have had in the past. And there is a far greater emphasis on those organisations and there is a very simple reason for that is that they understand the personal agony, the difficulty, the family heart ache, the family tension, the personal distress that is involved in so many people who are hooked on drugs. And therefore they are better able to help people because you have got to approach it in a two-fisted way. On the one hand you have got to be tough on the law enforcement front, and we have done a lot, we have put $43 million more into that area. But on the other hand you have also got to understand that we need to try and help rehabilitate the people who become the victims of drug taking.
PEACOCK:
And when will we see results, when will we know?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t know that I can put a date on that, I think it is far too early, it will take time. I saw somebody on the television say this morning it would take a number of years, I think that is probably right. This is not something that is going to be solved quickly, it is not going to be solved overnight, it is something that will take time. But what we have done is to give moral leadership and real financial and other leadership at a national level. And I need the help of the States and I will be seeking that help at the COAG meeting, the Premier’s meeting later this week and I know that this is something that ought to cross the party political divide and I know that all Australians, irrespective of whether they vote Labor or Liberal or something else will want governments of all persuasions and parties of all persuasions to work together on this. We did that incidentally when the Hawke Government launched its AIDS strategy in the mid 1980s, we gave that bipartisan support.
PEACOCK:
But you have brought out this policy before you have spoken to the States haven’t you? I mean you will be talking to them next week.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but many of the decisions are decisions that only we could take.
PEACOCK:
Let’s hear it from some of the critics, the Head of the Drug Law Reform Commission, Dr Alex Wodak.
DR WODAK:
It is an attempt to extravagate the Prime Minister from the political problems he got himself into when he extinguished the heroin trial. If you look at the fine print on most of the big ticket items you will see that they are for zero tolerance, they are for just say no programs, they are for programs that have been tried repeatedly and have failed repeatedly. And you have to ask yourself why repeat things when they have been shown time and time again to fail. He is effectively ending Australia’s commitment to harm reduction which has been relatively successful.
PEACOCK:
Prime Minister, why repeat these things?
PRIME MINISTER:
We are not repeating everything. But that reaction, given where that man is coming from, and he is entitled to his point of view, was entirely predictable. There are some people in the community who believe that the answer to the heroin and drug problem is to remove any taint of criminality to in effect say you can never beat criminals and you just go down the path of decriminalisation. Now I don’t take that view.
PEACOCK:
You say just say no.
PRIME MINISTER:
That is part of the response but I don’t say that in an insensitive, heartless fashion and that is why we have put an enormous emphasis in this program on rehabilitation. We are not persecuting people who have got a drug problem we are trying to help them in the most compassionate way possible. We are persecuting people who make money out of other people’s misery. And I am very proud to say that we are determined to go on doing that.
PEACOCK:
Again the Labor Party says that you are just reinventing the wheel, let’s hear it from Kim Beazley.
KIM BEAZLEY:
Frankly this is a small step, what has been put in place here. I said we welcomed the fact that the step had been taken. But as a single step after two steps backwards, John Howard has got to do better than this, the Federal Government has got to do better than this.
PEACOCK:
You did cut some of Labor’s programs that you are now restoring, aren’t you?
PRIME MINISTER:
That is a great furphy. I mean the Customs Service last year had its funding go up from $402 million to $422 million and the cuts that were made to the AFP were not in areas that affected anti-drug operations and they came to only $8.5 million last year which is nowhere near the claim of $80 million. Hang on let me finish, the charge has been made and I will answer it which is being made by both Mr Beazley and Mr Carr. Can I just say to both Mr Beazley and Mr Carr, the Australian public wants both of you men to work with the Government on this problem and not to politicise it and not to knit-pick. If they go on knit-picking people might remind them that they had 13 years to do a lot more about this and what do they have to show for it.
PEACOCK:
OK, if we are throwing around these figures about cuts again. The Australian Federal Police Association whilst welcoming the funding says essentially that it has just restored funding as we hear from Luke Cornelius.
LUKE CORNELIUS:
Well of course the Association welcomes any injection of funds into the Australian Federal Police budget. But the $15.5 million must be considered within the context of $14 million which had been cut from the budget of the AFT over the last two years. And indeed budget cuts which have been going back right to the early 1990s which have seen over 500 staff leave the organisation without replacement.
PEACOCK:
Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well speaking for changes that were made since we have been in office, which is two budgets and not back to the early 1990s. I just repeat again. That they were running cost reductions which were quarantined from the anti-drug effort of the AFP and that is something that has been attested to by other people, separately from me and that is the case.
PEACOCK:
Second week in a row that you are down in the polls does this concern you? And why is there such a decline do you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t know Matt and if I spent all my time worrying about that I would get diverted from the job of providing good government. The only response that any government can have whether it is up in the polls or down in the polls is to get on with governing. And I didn’t comment on every poll when we were a mile in front so I won’t comment on everyone when we are a bit behind.
PEACOCK:
Your Leader in the House says it is a mid-term slump, would you agree with him?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am just not going to go into a lengthy debate about it Matt, I have given you one answer and that is it.
PEACOCK:
Let’s look at industry policy which the Cabinet will be, I understand looking at today. Now there has been a joint statement by a number of industry groups, fairly prestigious groups saying that it is time essentially that the Asian economic crisis has given this a big spur and you have to announce something as soon as possible. What is your response to their criticism of government inaction?
PRIME MINISTER:
I would have thought a government that did what they asked us to do in reducing the budget deficit, in getting inflation down further, in delivering five interest rate cuts, in reforming the industrial relations system, in embarking upon the most vigorous privatisation program that any Federal government has embarked upon. I would have thought that a government that has done all of that in 20 months was in fact doing what they want. There is a debate at the margin as to how interventionist a government should be in assisting industry. That is what it boils down to, whether governments provide tax incentives or subsidies or sectoral policies to help particular industries. Now that is a healthy debate.
PEACOCK:
And these people are at the margin?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I said there is a debate at the margin I didn’t say they were at the margin, that is not what I said.
PEACOCK:
They are saying that a lot of jobs have been blown away by the Asian crisis, careers and jobs?
PRIME MINISTER:
Hang on. The Asian crisis illustrates a number of things. One of the things it does incidentally illustrate is that some of the more interventionist policies that have been practiced in some of the countries in the region have not perhaps been as successful as some of the advocates of those policies both here and elsewhere in the world would have thought. Indeed, some of the models that have been presented to us over recent months by some advocates of a more interventionist stance by industry have in fact not faired very well in recent months.
PEACOCK:
Like investment funds?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I am not putting too fine a point on it. I think it is a question of generically interventionist industry policies. And there is a genuine debate as to how far you ought to go. The first responsibility of a government is to create an attractive climate for investment, we have clearly done that with what we have done with the budget and inflation and interest rates and privatisation and labour market reform. The unresolved issue is the extent to which governments should go further and give specific help to particular companies for particular projects. Now that really, in a sense, is the issue that produces some of the heated debate. Now there are a lot of people in the business community who support what you have just put to me, there are also a lot who are strongly opposed to it and say that the job of the government is to create the climate and it is the responsibility of men and women in business to take advantage of that climate.
PEACOCK:
And very briefly. When will you call it, when will you make a decision?
PRIME MINISTER:
Cabinet will consider this at the appropriate time and we will make an announcement.
[Ends]