E&OE....................................................
Well, ladies and gentlemen, I have called this news conference to
announce that the Australian Inland Railway Express System is taking
another significant step towards becoming reality. And if it does
become reality, will deliver thousands of new jobs, investment and
infrastructure to regional Australia. It'll provide high speed
rail links with potential for adding a natural gas pipeline. And if
it proves to be feasible it will extend from Melbourne to Darwin,
while also providing high speed links from Brisbane to Melbourne and
Sydney to Melbourne.
And I am delighted to say that Australian Transport and Energy Corridor
Pty Ltd (ATEC), which is chaired by Mr Everald Compton, who is on
the stage with me, which first proposed this project, has signed an
agreement with Abigroup whose Deputy Chairman, Mr Lloyd Lang, is with
us today, which subject to feasibility, will allow Abigroup to take
the project through to completion.
The next step is to provide, after about a year, a full feasibility
report to the five governments and seek approval to proceed to detailed
planning. It is anticipated that if the project proceeds it will be
finalised by the year 2004 and I congratulate the private sector interests
that have been active in being involved in this project from the time
it was conceived by the people who comprised ATEC. Such a project,
if it comes to fruition, is one of those things that comes once in
a generation. It would open up new industries and jobs throughout
regional Australia and it would contribute to a reduction in the cost
of living in regional Australia and it could signal the rebirth of
many communities throughout regional Australia and create tens of
thousands of jobs.
Importantly, Australians will have an opportunity to invest in this
remarkable venture in about two years time because if it goes ahead
a public company owning the railway will be floated allowing Australian
families to be part of this nation building project. The project will
build on the significance efforts the Coalition has already made via
such things as the Darwin to Alice Springs railway, and the $1.25
billion Natural Heritage Trust and the $500 million rural package
to support and help improve conditions in rural and regional Australia.
I would like, in making this announcement, to pay particular tribute
to the energy of Mr Everald Compton who has been the Chairman of this
group and he has also been very energetically assisted by my colleague,
Mal Brough, who, of course, is the Member for Longman and part of
his electorate, I believe, is touched by the route of this railway.
I am also delighted that my old Liberal Party friend, Mr Lloyd Lang,
is here, he is the Deputy Chairman of Abigroup. His greatest contribution
to public and commercial life in Australia was in December of 1973
to be the Chairman of my pre-selection committee when I was chosen
by the Liberal Party to represent the seat of Bennelong at the 1974
elections.
So I am delighted to have these gentlemen present and, of course,
not least to welcome my colleague and friend, the Deputy Prime Minister,
Mr Fischer. I am sure the gentlemen would be very happy to answer
questions, and I will too, about the project and I dare say you might
want to ask me one or two other questions, I'd be very happy
to take those as well.
JOURNALIST:
The proposal appears to leave open the question of the nature of the
line between Sydney and Canberra but it also appears to rule out the
introduction of VFT technology from Sydney to Melbourne. Given the
concern in Victoria about the acquisition of VFT technology in Victoria,
have you spoken to your Party colleagues in Victoria about this matter,
this apparent exclusion of VFT..?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't think it necessarily has that effect but perhaps,
Everald, you might have something to say about that.
EVERALD COMPTON:
Thank you Prime Minister. All infrastructure in Australia should be
supported including a thing like the VFT. It so happens that the Melbourne
to Darwin line makes no sense unless it's hooked into Sydney
as well and we plan to have a link from Temora across to Goulburn
where it will link with the proposed Sydney-Canberra Very Fast Train,
and therefore take the line into Sydney. Now that's being done,
essentially, for freight purposes so that Sydney is linked in with
the Melbourne to Darwin system. It will also mean that on our line
passenger trains will run. And they will probably take four hours
to get from Sydney to Melbourne whereas a very, very fast train might
take three. Now, all we are saying is that having built our line,
which will only cost $500 million to link Temora to Goulburn, we run
freight trains along it and we run passenger trains along it, but
we cheer anyone else who wants to run a train somewhere else.
JOURNALIST:
Is there any public money in this project Mr Howard?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there will - public money from the citizens. When the company
is floated there will be a lot of public money in it. At this stage,
the Federal Government's role is a facilitating role, an indication
as I've made in my news release, which I'm sure will be
given to you at the end of the news conference, that the Government's
providing a facilitating role, and of course we'll legislate
to ensure approvals. We're not, at this stage, indicating any
direct financial support. This has always been run as something that
is a project that can stand up on private sector principles.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, what is the inference for the timing of today's announcement,
because looking at the map, the line appears to run through pretty
much every seat that One Nation...?
PRIME MINISTER:
That's a very cynical remark. The timing of it quite simply is
purely coincidental. Mr Brough has been working very hard on this,
all jokes aside, he's been working very hard on this and been
keeping Tim and I very regularly informed as time has gone by, and
I've been talking to Mr Compton. I had dinner with him at the
Lodge a few weeks ago, a few weeks ago, and he brought me up to date.
I mean, our position is that we will adopt a healthy and facilitating
role, consistent with our overall economic responsibilities in relation
to any infrastructure project that private sector interests want to
sponsor. We're not taking sides, we're not picking winners.
We're very keen to help on all fronts and it is purely coincidental
that this announcement should be made today.
TIM FISCHER:
Just on a technicality, from Tennant Creek to Darwin - the Prime Minister
spoke of the facilitation - from Tennant Creek to Darwin, both projects
- the Adelaide to Darwin, and this project, will in fact be sharing
the same set of rails on a common corridor basis.
PRIME MINISTER:
And what's more, I never do a news conference on anything to
do with the railways without Tim being with me.
JOURNALIST:
How does this effect the economics of the already publicly subsidised
proposed Darwin to Alice railway.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think it will. I don't think it effects it at all.
EVERALD COMPTON:
Could I first comment on the other question about where this railway
line's going. We started working on this 18 months ago, and it
follows and has been long planned to go through the great productive
areas of Australia. If you look at that map, you'll find that
all the great productive areas west of the Great Divide take that
line. Now, if it so happens it goes through certain electorates, so
be it, but we designed it to pick up freight, not to pick up votes
and I think that's where it is going. And it will develop inland
Australia. With regard to Adelaide to Darwin, again that's another
great infrastructure project which we should all support because we
haven't had a decent infrastructure project in this country since
the Snowy Mountains fifty years ago, and now we are going to get serious
again and get into that sort of development. We will help to make
the Adelaide to Darwin line viable, because we will pay the rent to
get on their line all the way up to their and we'll be running
be more trains than they will up that line and it will make it viable.
And we are going to a totally different freight area to the one that
they are going through, but thank Heavens there are two people trying
to point our freight towards the world. Every railway line ever built
in Australia, with nowhere, now we've got a couple pointing towards
the world with who we'd want to trade, so for Heaven's sake
don't knock either of them.
JOURNALIST:
What are the real chances of this project actually going ahead? 50-50,
75?
EVERALD COMPTON:
Well, as far as I'm concerned it will be built and I'll
take you on the train with me and we'll share a bottle of Grange
Hermitage.
PRIME MINISTER:
I've never seen such an enthusiastic press conference! You can
come to all of my news conferences Everald.
EVERALD COMPTON:
We will build the railway line.
JOURNALIST:
What is the projected cost of the whole project of $500 million that's
required for the Temora link?
EVERALD COMPTON:
It will cost five-and-a-half billion dollars for a single track all
the way. There will obviously be a need for double tracks in certain
high density areas. The technology people tell me that in fact we
could survive on a single track between Melbourne and Darwin because
technology now allows two trains to race towards one another at 500
kilometres an hour and miss one another by half a kilometre, and so
you could do it on one track. So a single track will cost $5.5 billion,
a double track will cost $8.5 billion, which is about the amount of
money that Australians spent in casinos last year.
JOURNALIST:
But surely you are competing with Darwin to Alice in terms of investors
- that's the reality.
EVERALD COMPTON:
The money will come from both of them, because I just made the point
if Australians can invest $8.5 billion in a year, surely we can build
a couple of railway lines. So we're not dealing with any extraordinary
expenditure. I mean, $8.5 billion is just an eight and a five with
a few naughts after it. I mean...
JOURNALIST:
Will there be any foreign investment in this project?
EVERALD COMPTON:
There will be undoubtedly some foreign investment. We believe that
the majority of the investment will be Australian and we set out to
do that. If it happens that it's not that way well that will
be because Australian people and Australian institutions chose not
to invest in it, not because they didn't have the opportunity
to do it. And it the intention of Abigroup who've shown enormous
courage in getting behind, and vision, in getting behind this project
to ensure that we get the maximum possible investment. Abigroup is
totally Australian owned, and my company's totally Australian
owned, we're going to try and keep it that way for the length
of the project.
JOURNALIST:
.. this point in the economy which is about four or five years hence....
PRIME MINISTER:
To whom are you addressing this question.
JOURNALIST:
The Prime Minister. How concerned are you about the short term to
the Australian economy given the situation in Japan at the moment.
PRIME MINISTER:
This is a general question. How concerned? Well, I am obviously concerned
about what is happening in Japan and self-evidently there is a need
for the Japanese Government to proceed very firmly and very resolutely
with addressing the structural problems in that country's banking
system. Now that has been apparent for some time and all the public
and private urgings which go between Australia and Tokyo are to that
effect. I've always been fundamentally optimistic about the Japanese
economy because it has strengths that few economies in the world have,
so my answer to your question is, of course you must have some level
of concern. Don't try and ask me and I'm not going to try
to put some percentage on it. But there is a need for structural reform
and that's been urged on Mr Hashimoto by President Clinton and
it's a view that we have expressed and will continue to express.
JOURNALIST:
When would you expect a project like this in contrast with money printing
ideas that have been floated in the last few weeks, would you expect
a project like this to win back some One Nation supporters?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I'm not going to put it in the context of One Nation. This
project has been conceived quite in isolation from many political
developments. But there has always been within the Australian community,
because of the vastness of our Nation, a hunger for long term national
development projects. It's one of the deepest things in the emotion
of the Australian people. They talk about the Great Snowy River Scheme,
there is still in all of us a passion to open up and develop and full
access the great inland of our country. We have a particular affection
for that, we have almost a romance with the idea. And therefore a
project like this will have a huge emotional response. Obviously it's
got to be soundly based and it's got to be a commercial project,
and my view is that if people want to promote commercial projects
it's not the job of the Government to pick winners, it's
not the job of the Government to say "hey you can't do that
because it might have that affect on another project". That is
for the commercial forces to work out, but from a Government's
point of view, large national development projects, large infrastructure
projects touch the feeling of the Australian people in a very special
way.
JOURNALIST:
But won't the government be called upon ultimately to give special
tax breaks on a project of this size in the form of infrastructure
problems....
PRIME MINISTER:
Paul, I'm not going to react in advance as to what may or may
not be put to the Government except to say that we will react in a
sensible way and we'll care for the national interest in the
way we're reacting to any requests.
JOURNALIST:
So in relation to the national project you wouldn't rule out
giving special tax breaks which the Treasurer in the past has said
go against the thrust of the Government's reforms.
PRIME MINISTER:
I will give the same answer to that question that I gave to the last
one.
JOURNALIST:
Could you please advise us on the progress on your talks with Senator
Harradine and give us your odds on whether there's a chance that
the Wik Bill could pass through the Senate?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not going to give any odds. Senator Harradine spoke to me
last night and I spoke to him again a few moments ago. What he has
put to me so far still leaves a very big gap between what we would
regard as necessary and what he's put forward. I will be seeing
him again this afternoon, I'm very ready and willing to talk
to him at great length. It is an important issue and I will try all
I can consistent with what we believe to be in Australia's interest
to reach an agreement. But I haven't entered a bartering or a
bargaining session. We have already made huge compromises on this
matter. He's put forward a proposal which really does not represent
any significant alteration from the position he occupied before Easter,
but I have arranged to have further talks with him but it would not
be correct at all to say that what has been put forward represents
a large blink or even a medium sized blink. There is still a gap between
us and I'm willing to talk to him about it but I'm certainly
not going to put it any more strongly than that.
JOURNALIST:
If there is no agreement Prime Minister...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look let us just go through..., I'm not going to play the
hypothetical.
JOURNALIST:
But would it be in the national interest to have a speedy double dissolution
on this issue?
JOURNALIST:
Did the Partyroom have a post-mortem on the Queensland election and
if so what ...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we had a very lengthy debate. It was vigorous, even willing,
and that's to be expected because ...
JOURNALIST:
Did you get the (inaudible) from backbenchers.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'll start again. It was quite vigorous, even willing. The messages
were multitudinous and there was lot of advice given to the Government
and I welcome that. I thought it was a very good meeting. People were
concerned about the vote obtained by One Nation. That's understandable.
I reminded them that we are now living in a completely different political
environment than has obtained in the past: that politics is a lot
less tribal; you can expect greater volatility; people are no longer
rusted onto the parties of their parents, and therefore they are more
likely to be attracted by simplistic populous solutions. It's
quite clear that some of the attitudes taken by One Nation have touched
some ugly sentiments in the Australian community and we are all united
in our rejection of those and I refer, of course, to the extent to
which on occasions remarks are made which encourage feelings of racial
prejudice or bigotry.
I don't however believe, and nor do my colleagues believe, for
a moment that the great majority of people who voted for One Nation
hold those views at all. But it can often be the case that people
can vote for an organisation for an entirely separate set of reasons
than the objectives of some of the people involved in that organisation.
The best way to destroy One Nation is to reclaim the affections of
those who supported it, that's self-evident, and many of those
people are of course former Coalition voters. I pointed out to my
colleagues it was natural that after the enormous wall-to-wall publicity
One Nation has received over the last few weeks it was natural it
would enjoy a surge in opinion polls. I'd have been quite astonished
as a politician who's been around for 24 years if that hadn't
been the case. I might also remind you that five weeks ago today the
Newspoll showed the Coalition in almost as strong a position as it
was in March of 1996. Now that's some measure of the volatility
of the political climate in which we are living. We can't dismiss
it, but we mustn't in any way be overwhelmed by it. And if you
really want to give One Nation momentum you behave as though their
momentum to date has forced you to radically change course away from
something that you believe is correct. Now you have to have a combination
of responses. You have to make it perfectly clear that you won't
have any truck with extremist views and you won't have any coalitions.
And I have to say that the headline in The Australian this
morning suggesting however indirectly that I was going to be involved
in some coalition or arrangement with One Nation is something I reject
totally. I won't be, never. I'll only every be in Coalition
with one party and that's the National Party. The question of
dealing with Senators after a subsequent Senate election I'd
be like any other Government. The Labor party in Government talked
to a lot of people that didn't like and continued to do so. That
any suggestion that in some way we will give a wink or a nod to One
Nation is quite wrong. We're in the business of winning votes
for the Liberal Party and the National Party and denying support to
our natural enemies, the Australian Labor Party. And that's the
guiding principle of how we're going to behave.
JOURNALIST: