E&OE........................................................
TUCKER:
Welcome and thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
It's very nice to be here Carolyn.
TUCKER:
Could we start with Wik, you met with the Queensland Premier for
the first time yesterday. He's really saying that the issue
has not been solved it's just been dumped on the states.
PRIME MINISTER:
That wasn't the tenure of the private discussion we had. I
think we will be able to work together quite well on this issue.
It's obviously in the interests of Queensland that it have
the same approach as other resource states such as Western Australia.
It wouldn't help the mining industry in Queensland if there
were more rigid conditions in this state than prevailed in Western
Australia and it would be in the interests of the pastoral community
in Queensland that we have, throughout Australia, a uniform approach.
Now I understand that within the Labor Party there are differing
views on Native Title. I do acknowledge that but, in the end, I
believe there will be a uniform national system, and that Queensland
will probably adopt the state based approach which was contemplated
when we brought our Bill into the Parliament. That is an approach
that does not involve the right to negotiate but rather the replacement
for the right to negotiate that I agreed with Senator Harradine,
but that is a matter for Mr Beattie to...
TUCKER:
Has he indicated to you that's what he was after?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, he and I had quite a positive, constructive discussion. We
may come from opposite sides of the political fence, but my responsibility
is to the Australians who live in Queensland. And I am concerned
about their future and the Native Title deal that I made with Senator
Harradine benefits them enormously because it brings to an end almost
five years of angst and dispute and difference and people are immensely
relieved and this deal will deliver security to the farmers of Queensland
and give hope to the mining industry and will deliver justice to
the Aboriginal people of this state. So it is a win, win, win for
the different interest groups in Queensland.
TUCKER:
So, you would support a national approach because of the concern
about cross boarder claims and so on, would you be willing to organise
that? To get the Ministers and Premiers together?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know that a meeting will be necessary, but if it is
I would be very happy to bring it together. I want this issue put
finally behind us. I want an effort to achieve future unity on this
issue. It has been divisive. It has been a disappointment to the
indigenous people. It's been a great source of frustration
and angst to the farming community. And also lost investment to
the mining industry. Now, none of that is good for Australia or
good for Queensland. So I am sure we can work it out. And I am sure
that common sense on both sides of the political fence, now that
the debate is over and the law has been changed, I think common
sense will prevail.
TUCKER:
If you have just joined us, you are with Carolyn Tucker and Prime
Minister, John Howard, on Brisbane 612 4QR and your local ABC. It's
coming up to twenty four to nine now. Mr Howard on to Telstra. Obviously
considerable amount of wrangling over that as well. Not all of your
National Party colleagues are convinced. Bob Katter,
De-Anne Kelly, Mal Colston is indicating that he might vote against
it. Brian Harradine seems pretty luke warm on the idea. How are
you going to convince all of these people?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you never know with the Senate until the vote is actually
taken. And I don't count any of my Senate chickens before they're
hatched, particularly as far as the independents are concerned.
Liberal and National Party Senators and Members approached the Government
for a better communications deal for the bush. This occurred some
time ago and it was always my intention that there be some additional
support for telecommunications in the bush coming out of the full
privatisation of Telstra. You may remember that when I announced
it in March, I said there would be a social bonus. The social bonus
is not something that has been dreamt up in the last few weeks and
it's not something that has been dreamt up since the Queensland
election. It was always the intention that something additional
be done to help communications in remote areas of Australia. And
that is what has happened. But it will only be possible to do a
lot of things if we have the full privatisation of Telstra. If you
don't have the full privatisation of Telstra you don't
have the money to do a lot of the additional things that we want
to do.
Now, Liberals and Nationals, and bear in mind that the Liberal
Party for example probably holds more rural seats than any other
party in Australia, those Members and Senators together have put
views on behalf of their constituents and we are responding. But
we always did intend that part of the social bonus would be in the
rural communications area.
TUCKER:
But there does seem to be some doubt about the measures that you
have announced already as to whether they will be enough? Do you
think they will be?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, in a sense nothing is ever enough but it is a huge difference
if you have the capacity out of the sale of perhaps $40 billion
not only to reduce debt and give to the younger generations of the
twenty first century a debt free future, in a national sense, but
if you've got those resources you can afford to spend more
than if you don't have them. And it is as simple as that. If
you have got the proceeds of the sale you can do more. You can afford
to put a social bonus in the direction of additional communications
for rural areas. If you don't sell Telstra, you can't
do that. I mean it is in Australia's interests that we sell
the remaining two thirds of Telstra. And I am not doing it because
of some ideological commitment, I am doing it because I can use
the proceeds to reduce Australia's huge national debt. And
use some of the proceeds for good things like, further upgrading
the bush communications and other purposes that will at the appropriate
time, be announced.
TUCKER:
I was hoping this might be the appropriate time.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. We have a very important announcement from Mr Fischer and
Senator Alston on behalf of the Government today. And one significant
announcement a day is quite sufficient in this area. And it will
be something that is very beneficial for the remote areas of Australia
for people who feel that they have been left behind in the on-line
communications era in which people in the city now revel. And it's
giving them a life which was just undreamt of by the previous generation
and I do not want an Australia where you have communications haves
and communications have nots. That would bring a new barrier, a
new gap, a new distance between remote area Australians and the
rest of the Australian community. So having the proceeds of the
Telstra sale allows us to do a lot more. Without those proceeds
we can't do those additional things.
TUCKER:
Those additional things that you are planning to do. Will they
be sufficient to win back those disenchanted voters in the bush
that are casting around for someone else to vote for and thinking
about Pauline Hanson?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that is a matter for them. We live in a democracy.
TUCKER:
Surely it is a matter for you too?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, no, it is a matter for me to say what is good for Australia.
To lay out a programme to talk to people. To explain, advocate,
argue and put my case. In the end the voters will decide who they
want as their government. And at the next federal election there
are only two possible outcomes. The one outcome is that the Coalition
led by me is returned. Another outcome is that the Labor Party led
by Mr Beazley becomes the government. Now, they are the two outcomes.
Now, of course I am conscious of what happened here in Queensland,
but I am also conscious that the worst way of responding to that
would be give up on doing those things that you believe are good
for Australia. I am not going to give away things that I believe
in. I am not going to give away things that I regard as important
to the future of Australia in the vain belief that that will win
back support. It won't. It will lose you more respect. What
people want from me as the Prime Minister of Australia is for me
to campaign and to argue for and to support those things that I
believe are good for the country. And I will take my outcome like
any other political leader at the ballot box. But I believe in tax
reform because I think it would be good for Australia to have a
fairer taxation system and I am not going to walk away from that.
I believe that privatising Telstra is good for Australia because
it will help us pay off debt and provide more communications facilities
for the bush and that's good for Australia. Not good for me
or good for the Coalition. It's good for the country. And that's
why I am going to continue to push it. I am not going to take the
advice of those who say that I should go away in a corner and do
nothing through fear of offending people. They don't want that
from their Government. They want me to get out there and argue the
things that I believe are good for the future of Australia.
TUCKER:
If you are doing the things that people want you to .....
(tape break)
Pauline Hanson continue to rise?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Carolyn, I think you are drawing on opinion polls that do
bounce around. Let's wait and see. I mean, we are only a few
weeks away from the Queensland election. The ultimate test of all
of this is in the ballot box whenever the next federal election
is held and we are living in a more volatile political climate.
People do bounce around more. Their political allegiances are less
tribal and less rusted on. There are fewer people who say I
always vote Labor because that's how Mum and Dad voted',
or vice versa with the Coalition. We are just living in a different
world now and you have to respond differently, but my approach is
to argue even the harder for those things that I believe are in
the interests of Australians, and I'm not going to be diverted
from that because that's your ultimate responsibility. Once
you stop doing that you might as well give the game away.
TUCKER:
Are we living in a world where life is simply not going to get
easier? We've been tightening our belts and waiting for life
to become simple and easy again. Is it just not going to happen?
PRIME MINISTER:
That's true in relation to a lot of things. We are living
in a very different world, and people understandably want to hang
on to the verities of the past. I'm no different from anybody
else. There are things about my past and there are things about
the Australia that I grew up in that I want to hang on to and part
of that is the bush. I mean, although I grew up in Sydney I had
an affectionate, almost romantic view about the bush. It's
part of Australia and I just can't envisage the Australia that
I grew up in without the bush, because it is part of our identity,
it is part of what we see in ourselves as Australians. Our lives
have changed, and one of the reasons why a party like One Nation
can come along and offer simplistic solutions and get a bit of support
is that a lot of people are suffering the consequences of economic
and social change. Now, my responsibility as Prime Minister is to
try and alleviate that change, that pain and difficulty, to try
and lessen it, but not to pretend to them that I've got some
magic wand solution, not to offer them false hope, and for example,
people say you've got to stop imports to save our industries.
Well, if we stop imports, other people will stop our exports and
we'll end up being a lot worse off.
TUCKER:
So the rural producers really stand to lose....
PRIME MINISTER:
No, they don't. Rural producers actually stand to gain from
a more open approach to trade.
TUCKER:
Yes, I meant by closing the doors.
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely. The worst thing that you could do for the rural producers
would be to put up the trade barriers because we would immediately
suffer retaliation. Our beef industry, our sugar industry, two great
Queensland industries would be knocked for six if we adopted a restrictive
approach to trade and thousands of people would lose their jobs
and the livelihoods of many people would be affected. And these
are the things that are not always easy to argue and get a speedy
response, but in the long run they represent the truth and I have
to argue that case. I also have to recognise though that if you
live in a remote part of Australia and you see people in the city
getting high class communications and you are not getting it, you
are going to feel envious and you are going to say this is not fair,
and that's why I want to use some of the proceeds of the sale
of Telstra to give to those people some benefits they would not
otherwise have.
TUCKER:
Tell us about your compensation package for workers in the textile
industry?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, this was something that was promised at the time of the decision
to slow down the rate of tariff reduction in the TCF industry last
year. And the whole purpose of it is to provide more security and
predictability after the Year 2000, and it replaces and enhances
an existing scheme which is designed to provide incentives and security
of investment in the industry. Now, we've given to the textile
industry a far better deal than was recommended by the Productivity
Commission. If you like they wanted to administer a colder bath
to the industry than we did. I mean, we believe in greater competition
but we also understand that in many regional parts of Australia
the textile clothing and footwear industry employs a lot of people,
employs a lot of migrant people, employs a lot of women, and if
you just take the protection away overnight, you are going to cause
a lot of unnecessary hardships. So we have struck what I regard
as a happy medium. We've continued the process of greater competition
but we've slowed down the rate of change in the rate of tariff
reduction and that decision was widely welcomed and the announcement
that Mr Moore will make in Melbourne today will give the industry
a guide path in to the first years of the 21st Century.
TUCKER:
Would it be reasonable for our pork producers to look at that and
think why can't you organise something like that for us?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we have offered and we are implementing a programme that
gives export support to that industry.
TUCKER:
And that's all they are getting?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there are other things that are being considered in relation
to the pork industry as well as that. You've got to remember
that the changes that the pork industry is now operating on came
into force in 1990 and it is not something that has been changed
in the last few months. It's something that has been, that
was changed back in 1990 and the level of import penetration in
that industry is only about 5%. Now, they will argue that it's
quite high in one of the sensitive areas of the market but the import
penetration, the number of imports in the textile clothing and footwear
industry is much greater than five per cent. So you are dealing
with a situation where the total level of imports in the pork industry
is much lower than the total level of imports in the textile industry.
The problem with the pork industry Carolyn is that there is an over
supply, the world price of pork has been quite depressed. Some of
that is due to changed consumer habits. We are looking at different
ways through the programmes that have already been announced of
helping people to adjust and also to provide them with support while
they are going through that period of adjustment.
TUCKER:
A couple of quick questions before I let you go. Do you have a
timeframe that you are prepared to reveal on tax reform?
PRIME MINISTER:
Carolyn, I can say that it will be out soon. I don't want
to put weeks or months on that but Peter Costello and I have worked
very hard on this package. We've consulted a lot of people,
there's further consultation. It will be a good package for
Australia. It will give Australia a fairer tax system. We won't
be introducing a Goods and Services Tax on its own. We won't
be introducing a Goods and Services Tax on top of the existing system.
If we bring in a Goods and Services Tax, it will replace the wholesale
sales tax and other indirect taxes. It won't be there on top
of the existing system, and any suggestion that everything is going
to go up by x' per cent or y' per cent is
quite wrong. We'll also have personal tax cuts. It will be
a very good package for rural Australia, it will be a good package
for people with children and overall it is going to deliver a tax
system that is a lot fairer than the present one. Now, I know it
is hard. I know Mr Beazley will run a fear campaign. The Labor Party
will be very negative. They will run on fear and despondency and
I know that represents an electoral challenge.
TUCKER:
There's a fair bit of fear and despondency getting about at
the moment.
PRIME MINISTER:
But does Australia want from their Prime Minister in the face of
that fear and despondency further fear and despondency? Or do they
want their Prime Minister to say to them this is what I think is
good for the future of Australia, I believe in a fairer tax system.
I'll put it to you, I'll argue the case. If you reject
that case and you reject me well I will accept that with the best
of goodwill but at least I will have tried. At least I will have
tried to give to Australia a fairer taxation system. Now, I know
it is going to be hard, and there are plenty of people who are saying
to me, John don't do it - be cautious, be careful'
but I've reached that stage where I don't want to be ultra-cautious
or ultra-careful. I've reached that stage where I believe the
best thing I can do for the Australians who elected my Government,
the Government, is to argue for what I think is good and if it is
rejected and I fail in that attempt, well, I will have tried and
the Australian people will have made a decision and I will accept
it. Now, I have a sneaking feeling that if we do it well, then they
may in fact support it, but that's a matter for them.
TUCKER:
And when do they get the opportunity to ....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, at the right time. Like every other Prime Minister before
me I reserve the right to sort of go when it is appropriate. I want
people to have an opportunity of examining the tax package. I certainly
don't intend to drop it and go off to the Governor-General
asking for an election the next day. I want people to have a look
at it, to work out what is in it. It won't be over complicated,
and there will be plenty of effort made by the members of the Government
to explain it to people and to go around the country answering questions
about it, because it will be a terrific break from the past. It's
something we've needed for a long time. Deep down, most Australians
think the present taxation system is a bit unfair and it does need
to be changed, and I can't promise everybody will be happy,
but I do think the bulk of people will see it as a fair attempt
to deliver a fairer system, and particular sections who need a bit
of help and protection, I mean, pensioners have nothing to fear
from it.
TUCKER:
How about the unemployed?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the unemployed will benefit in that a fairer, more effective
taxation system will be more attractive to business and that will
improve their prospects of getting jobs. Once again, no simple way
overnight of responding to that, but if you have a tax system that
is more efficient and is easier for business to administer then
it leaves more room, more resources, more opportunity to employ
people.
TUCKER:
It is difficult times ahead for Australia though, the rest of the
year no question about it. Is there anything else you can do to
safeguard us against the effects of the region?
PRIME MINISTER:
We can go on doing what we've done for the last two-and-a-quarter
years and that is get our economic house in order. I mean, if we
had not cut our deficit, reduced the big debt we inherited from
Mr Beazley, if we had not turned a deficit of $10.5 billion into
a surplus, we'd now be more at the mercy of the forces that
are raging through the Asia-Pacific region. It is difficult and
although Australia has not been left unaffected, we would have been
more badly knocked around and hurt if we had not taken those remedial
steps and by taking those steps, we've given Australia an inner
strength and a protection that we would not otherwise have had and
that's the message I would deliver to your listeners, that
if we hadn't have done those things, we would have had higher
interest rates, higher inflation, a more vulnerable economy....
TUCKER:
I hate to use the expression, but is this as good as it gets'?
PRIME MINISTER:
Now, well that is not an expression I use. You never see things
in terms of as good as it ever gets'. You always strive
to do something better and that's why we are embracing taxation
reform. It's because we are potentially vulnerable that we
need to reform things like taxation. The Asian challenge makes tax
reform more and not less necessary. So the more pressure you are
under the m