E&OE....................................................
PRESENTER:
Joining us in the studio this morning is the man who can answer
these questions and more, Prime Minister, John Howard. Mr Howard,
good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Tracy.
PRESENTER:
Most experts are describing Pauline Hanson's extraordinary
showing in Queensland as a wake-up call to the major parties. Have
you heard the call?
PRIME MINISTER:
There is a message in it. I think both major parties, and I'll
speak for the Liberal Party, would be foolish to ignore it. There
is a battle weariness within the electorate, perhaps with some of
the tactics of major parties and the ambience of national politics.
We all should take some heed of that. There are a lot of reasons
why the Hanson Party did well. The major reason in my view is the
sense of vulnerability that many people, particularly in regional
Australia feel at a time of economic and social change and it's
very easy when you are not in power to come along and say, well
look I can fix it. But now, interestingly enough that Mrs Hanson's
Party has won seats, she'll have to be accountable for the
practical implications of her policies in the same way that I am.
PRESENTER:
You said on Friday that the Queensland election result didn't
have federal implications but you can't still believe that,
surely?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I didn't say that. What I said yesterday was that you
can't automatically do a full translation of State to Federal
and that is true. You have got to remember that in the last South
Australian State election, from recollection, the Democrats polled
between 14 and 16 per cent. So there is some history throughout
Australia of political parties, minority parties doing well in State
elections. But I don't want to suggest that there isn't
something different about what happened on Saturday and I do believe
that it has to be analysed. But most importantly, now that Mrs Hanson's
team is on the field, they have to play the game according to the
same rules as the rest of us and that means that their policies,
like offering people two per cent interest rates, I mean, who is
going to lend a bank money at one and a half per cent so it can
lend at two per cent. I mean it's those sorts of things now
in my view will come under much greater scrutiny.
PRESENTER:
The fact is that their policies seem to have struck a chord and
there policies are not necessarily in alignment with yours.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think so much their policies have struck a chord,
I think there is a discontent out there and the rhetoric has exploited
that discontent and now the hard part for the party is ahead and
that is translating a rhetoric into hard and fast alternatives that
won't do more damage. They, for example, are against imports.
Well that's fine, but if you stop other countries sending goods
to Australia other countries will not take our goods so we will
end up being worse off as a result of that and I think these sorts
of things over time will be examined. And the people who followed
the clarion call on Saturday will start over time to see that there
are no simple solutions in today's complex world. If there
had been, I tell you what, politicians before Mrs Hanson would have
implemented them.
PRESENTER:
Well Mrs Hanson seems to be promising simple solutions and people
seem to be embracing them. They are also opposed to a GST, they
are also opposed to the final sell-off of Telstra. Are you going
to change those policies?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we're not in favour of a GST on its own. I have never
been in favour of putting a GST on top of the existing tax system.
I am in favour of a taxation reform and that, of course, could easily
involve a GST replacing a whole swag of existing indirect taxes
and, of course, reductions in personal income taxes.
PRESENTER:
Will you have to back away from that now?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't want to back away and I don't intend to back
away and I want to make that very clear, from taxation reform. And
the reason I won't back away from it is that it is good for
Australia and my responsibility as a political leader is to make
changes that help the country, not make changes that satisfy some
kind of ideology.
PRESENTER:
But Australians have voted in Queensland saying that they don't
believe that this will be good for them. I mean, One Nation has
campaigned on federal issues predominantly, hasn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think the GST was an issue in the Queensland election.
I don't remember it being mentioned until Saturday night and
I followed the election pretty closely.
PRESENTER:
So you are not going to back away from a GST?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am not going to back away from tax reform. I am certainly not
going to back away from tax reform. I mean, what is the point of
being Prime Minister unless you do things that you believe are good
for the country?
PRESENTER:
If the country doesn't believe it's going to be good
for it.....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is a judgement that is made in the ballot box. I mean
at the end of the day I accept the verdict of the people. 23 per
cent of the Queensland electorate voted for One Nation on Saturday
and they weren't all, as some people have suggested, racist.
A great bulk of them, as I said some time ago, are ordinary people
who feel vulnerable and feel adversely affected and think on occasions
that the bulk of the community has not been, that the major political
parties have not been listening. Now we all have to take a message
from that. I am not dismissive of the result, nor am I overwhelmed
by it. It's a question of giving a sensible, measured, intelligent
response and that is what I am doing. I mean the last thing I am
going to do is get knocked off course for things that I believe
are good for Australia. I mean, once I start doing that I am of
no use to my Party or to my country. I hold this job in trust for
the Australian people and I want to use the authority of the office
to do good things for Australia. Now if the people don't agree
with me that they are good things well, they'll vote me out,
that's the way the process works.
PRESENTER:
What about the sell-off of the rest of Telstra?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I believe in that and that's our policy.
PRESENTER:
One Nation doesn't.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well all right, we'll sort of campaign on it. I mean there
are benefits. If we can complete the sale of Telstra and the men
and women of Australia own all of it, what we will have is essentially
a debt free 21st Century. Now surely the people who feel economically
and socially vulnerable would like Australia to be free of debt
in the 21st Century. Now that is why we are committed to the sale
of the remaining two thirds of Telstra and I would say to any of
Mrs Hanson's supporters who think it's a good thing to
oppose that, think of the benefit of our country and our children's
country in the 21st Century being essentially debt free.
PRESENTER:
If you go to a double dissolution on Wik election analysts are
predicting that One Nation could get three Senate seats in Queensland
and up to nine Senate seats nationally with a handful of lower house
seats. Does that frighten you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't believe that would ultimately happen but the
reason that I contemplate a double dissolution, and I haven't
decided yet, my position has not changed on that for months, I can
have a double dissolution if I want to, is that it seems, unless
the minor parties and the Labor Party change their position in the
Senate it's the only way I can get the Native Title legislation
through, through a double dissolution and a joint sitting following
that double dissolution. So, that's the reason. I mean people,
including the Labor Party and Senator Harradine and the Australian
Democrats, don't want One Nation Senators well, they can act
very decisively and pass our Native Title legislation. I mean, they
are the people who are holding it up not the Coalition. I mean,
we have to get this Native Title problem sorted out and let me assure
the people of rural Australia that I am not going to compromise
on my Native Title Amendment Bill. I have fought hard for a fair
plan, I have already compromised, I am not going to compromise any
further and I am not going to give in to those who really want to
sell out the interests of the farming community of Australia and
I won't do that.
PRESENTER:
Are you counting on the notion that the spectre of a double dissolution
given the Queensland result is probably as frightening to the Labor
Party and to people like Senator Harradine as it might be to you
and that they may come to heel now on Wik?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I am not counting on any new notion because my position has
not altered. It is in Australia's interests, remember to get
this native title mess cleaned up. There are many projects that
are held up, there is a lot of uncertainty. There are a lot of new
jobs that could be generated once the problem is resolved. And it's
in Australia's interests that we get it resolved, not in my
interests or the Liberal Party's interests. The reason I am
amending the Native Title Act is it's in Australia's interests
and that's why it ought to go through. So in the national interest
they wouldn't let it go through.
PRESENTER:
But you don't want a double dissolution do you?
PRIME MINISTER:
I want to do what is good for the country and what is good for
the country is fixing the native title mess and at the moment the
only way that that can be done is through a joint sitting following
a double dissolution. I have never set out to have a double dissolution
a such. I would just like to have a normal three years and have
a half Senate election and get re-elected and do the same thing
again, of course. But I am faced with the dilemma that I cannot
get essential legislation through the Senate despite the fact that
I have a majority of 44 in the House of Representatives. And part
of the anger of those people who voted for Hanson on Saturday is
the sense of frustration that, okay they changed Government after
13 years of Labor and perhaps things are not changing quickly enough
for their liking and one of the reasons....
PRESENTER:
Or maybe things are changing too quickly?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well in some cases that is right. In other cases perhaps they had
the unreal expectation that the world would be overnight better
as a result of the change of Government. Now there are no simple
solutions. If there had have been, as I have said before, a politician
before Mrs Hanson would have implemented them.
PRESENTER:
Will Coalition preferences go to the One Nation Party in a Federal
poll?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that'll be decided by our various State branches. My
suspicion is that there'll be probably some different approaches
adopted in different parts of the country.
PRESENTER:
What would be your preference?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is something that I will be discussing with my State
organisations over the next few days. I'd rather talk to them
about that first.
PRESENTER:
Do you accept suggestions that if the Coalition in Queensland had
not directed preferences to Pauline Hanson then she would probably
only have picked up three seats?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think you need to analyse the outcomes a little more closely
than that. But you've got to remember, Tracy, and I think one
thing is forgotten in this preference debate is that the great majority
of, not all, but a significant majority of the people who voted
for One Nation on Saturday were former Coalition voters. Now my
responsibility as the head of the Coalition is to talk to those
people, to listen to them, to point out where I disagree with Mrs
Hanson and her policies and where those policies would be damaging
to Australia but ultimately to get those people at future elections
to vote for the Coalition because many of them are former Coalition
voters. Now the Labor Party is claiming morality on the preference
issue. The reasons that the Labor Party decided to put the Hanson
Party last was that it made the calculation quite correctly, of
course, that the great bulk of the people who were going to follow
One Nation were, in fact, Coalition voters. So there's really
no morality on the part of the Labor Party. If there had been, why
did they direct preferences to the Australia First Party whose policies
are the same as One Nation on the sensitive issues like immigration,
in 12 seats in the Queensland election. If they're really consistent
they wouldn't have given their preferences to that Party because
those policies that they despise in One Nation are identically held
by the Australia First Party.
PRESENTER:
It's probably legitimate in a sense for you to draw the line
and to say that there would be some sort of crossover in beliefs
between One Nation supporters and traditional Coalition supporters.....
PRIME MINISTER:
In some areas but in other areas, I mean my party, the Liberal
Party in particular is a party which varies across the country.
It has elements in rural Australia that would be closer to the views
of some One Nation supporters but in the cities that would be different
again. So when you lead a diverse party you have to have a range
of responses.
PRESENTER:
But you don't want to leave yourself open to the sort of thumping
that the Coalition took in Queensland do you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the way you avoid that is to talk in a civil fashion to the
people who voted for One Nation. You certainly don't brand
them with pejorative labels which many people.....
PRESENTER:
Like deranged?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that was a remark about a section of the speech rather than
the person and the allegation that I was referring to was the claim
in the speech that my approach to native title was designed to create
a separate Aboriginal State in Australia. Well having copped over
the last two and a quarter years bucket fulls of criticism from
Aboriginal leaders in Australia I'd have thought I was the
last politician who could be legitimately accused of trying to establish
an Aboriginal state in Australia.
PRESENTER:
Okay, Prime Minister, thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
It's a pleasure.
ENDS
[ENDS]