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ANNOUNCER:
First though to the Prime Minister, who said that while he was moved
by the Constitutional Convention the Government was now back dealing
with the issues that the public really cared about, tax, jobs and
industrial reform. And at the conclusion of the weekend meeting Mr
Howard told our chief political correspondent, Matt Peacock, the Government
would support an $8 a week pay rise for low paid workers at the National
Wage Case which begins tomorrow.
PRIME MINISTER:
We will be arguing that there should be an $8 a week increase for
each of the next two years for the very low paid. That will represent
for them a real increase, given the current rate of inflation, of
1.2 per cent. This fulfils the promise we made before the last election
that we would argue for reasonable and fair living wage increases
for the low paid. You have got to remember that we are now in a very
low inflationary environment and this represents a real increase for
the low paid. When you add to it the massive reductions in housing
interest rates worth around $250 a month for people with average loans,
together they are real, tangible dollars in the pocket gains for low
income earners. And it does keep our word to the battlers of Australia.
PEACOCK:
Course some companies have done better than that, some executives
have done better than that, should they be sharing around some of
their wealth?
PRIME MINISTER:
They, of course, are accountable to their shareholders and I do think
company executives have got community and moral responsibilities in
these matters. I am a believer in market forces, but I am also a believer
that people who preach restraint on the rest of the community should
be willing to apply it to themselves. Now we have got to be realistic
and recognise that if you want the best people in Australia to run
your company you have got to pay them otherwise they will go somewhere
else, and that applies to us as a nation. But some of those people
might occasionally look at the example they set and the impression
they create, particularly against the rhetoric that is sometimes used
by business organisations to berate people who want a bit of an increase
when they are further down the scale. It is a question of what is
fair and what is just and occasionally some of these executive salary
increases rub a little roughly against the sensitivities.
PEACOCK:
Well of course on that subject, a couple of weeks ago I asked you
about the situation of the workers at Cobar in the mine there and
you said you had some sympathy for companies trying to make ends meet.
But since then, of course, even your Minister Newman has indicated
that she thinks that workers who have been abandoned by a multi-national
mining company like this should have first call to get their back
pay, their redundancy pay, their sick pay, those kinds of things rather
than the secured creditors. How do you feel about that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think what Senator Newman had to say was right. What I said
a little while ago on that issue was that, you asked me against the
background of the Government's decision to help fund the redundancies
on the waterfront, the understanding there is that ultimately the
cost of those redundancies will be met by the industry and not by
the taxpayer. So therefore it wasn't an analogous situation.
But my office saw some representatives of the union last week and
we are looking at what is being put to us. We are in sympathy with
the position of people who are made redundant and they find themselves
ranked in order behind other claimants on the assets of the company
that has pulled out. And there is obviously a case for reviewing those
priorities, and we are doing that at the present time.
PEACOCK:
Is it possible to change the law in that regard do you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is always possible to change the law if you can get it through
the Parliament, it is a question of whether it is sensible to do so
and we are examining that right at the moment.
PEACOCK:
Mr Howard, the Treasurer at the weekend has unveiled a bit more of
the campaign for tax reform, the great adventure' as you
once called it and you have been gee-ing up the troops here at Thredbo,
just exactly how can you be so optimistic that you can get through
a scare campaign against the GST?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well in a sense that would be precisely what any opposition to tax
reform would be. It would be nothing other than a cheap scare campaign
utterly indifferent to the long-term interests of this country.
PEACOCK:
But it has worked politically in the past, hasn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
In the past attempts at tax reform has failed. We are determined those
attempts will not have failed on this occasion, and the reasons we
are determined is that it is in Australia's interests, it is
for Australia's sake that we have embarked upon this adventure
of tax reform. We need a new, modern, up to date lower tax regime
for the 21st Century. We cannot have a situation where average wage
earners are paying 43, 47 cents in the dollar on every additional
dollar they earn. We cannot have a tax system which puts no tax on
caviar but taxes biscuits, we can't have a tax system that makes
us uncompetitive around the world. And what we are doing now is to
argue the case for tax reform by demonstrating the unfairness, the
old fashioned character and the irrelevance of the present tax system
which is, after all Labor's system. I mean Labor did nothing
for 13 years to fix the tax system and now they are pretending it
doesn't need repair.
PEACOCK:
Do you think you will be able to restrain yourself though from dipping
in to what looks like being a healthy surplus to fund some of these
income tax cuts?
PRIME MINISTER:
Matt I can assure you that in contrast to the Labor Party whatever
we do in the area will be utterly sound and utterly responsible. After
all we are the people who inherited a $10.5 billion Beazley deficit
and will, in a few months, turn it into a more than $2 billion Howard
surplus.
PEACOCK:
Now here at Thredbo you have been hearing from a man who walked through
the snow to the Antarctic, is that an analogy, do you think, to the
next campaign in the election?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Peter Tressider gave us a fascinating account on Saturday night
of his journey. It was a physical achievement of a different and a
higher order and we admire him greatly, and he demonstrated great
Australian grit and great Australian spirit.
PEACOCK:
And the mood amongst the back-bench?
PRIME MINISTER:
Very optimistic. There was a mood that the last two or three months
had been months of solid achievement for the Government. There is
a greater recognition out there that if we hadn't been in charge
of the economy over the last two years with what has happened in Asia
we would now be in a real mess.
PEACOCK:
There is a lot of concern though about elderly people, nursing homes
is there anyway that you might be able to fine tune your policy a
bit more?
PRIME MINISTER:
We are always in the business of keeping policies under review and
keeping policies fine tuned. I have no doubt that when we go to the
next election that the retired people of Australia will feel that
their interests are best served in supporting the Government.
PEACOCK:
Now that sounds like these fees that are due to come in, despite the
fact that there has been a bit of a delay there still might be some
more changes?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I am not going to say anything other than what I have said before
on this. The proposal is that it comes in.
PEACOCK:
Now you really enjoyed the Constitutional Convention judging from
your comments afterwards, how emotional an experience was it as a
die hard monarchist such as yourself?
PRIME MINISTER:
It was a great experience, it did bring Australians of diverse backgrounds
and attitudes together and there was a unifying spirit despite the
differences of view. And it gave me a great source of hope and optimism
about the future national unity of this country. And I have no doubt
that when this debate comes, after the next election, and frankly
from now on it is back to what really matters in the immediate term
and that is jobs, taxation, industrial relations reform. They are
the things that people stop you in the street to talk about. Nobody
stops me in Pitt Street or Collins Street, grabs me by the arms and
saying we have got to be a republic or we have got to stay a monarchy,
but they do stop me and say thank God you are doing something about
the waterfront. They do stop me and say please will you fix the tax
system. They do stop me and say, thank heavens you are running economy
because with what is happening in Asia we would now be in a real mess
if the other mob was still there.
PEACOCK:
Prime Minister, thanks very much.
PRIME MINISTER:
Pleasure.
[Ends]