E&OE....................................................
PEACOCK:
Mr Howard, good news for the Party Room this morning?
PRIME MINISTER:
There's always good news for our Party Room Matt.
PEACOCK:
I understand there's a deal on Wik imminent, is there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Senator Harradine and I are still in discussion. I'll
be seeing him again this morning and I've got nothing further
to say at this time.
PEACOCK:
But you have made considerable progress. You've been working
hard in the last week, meeting him...
PRIME MINISTER:
I've certainly met him a lot, and we've had a lot of
discussions but I don't have anything to announce at present.
PEACOCK:
Well there have been consistent arguments by yourself and by the
Government that Aboriginals shouldn't have greater rights to
negotiate with miners than say the pastoralists.
PRIME MINISTER:
Our position has always been that all Australians should be treated
equally, and that it was a denial of that to have a right to negotiate
for one section of the community that was denied to others. And
that's always been our position. As to the details of the discussions
I don't have anything further to say about it....
PEACOCK:
But the boot should be on...
PRIME MINISTER:
Matt, Matt I have given you my answer, you really are wasting valuable
seconds by asking me the same question. I'm not going to say
anything more on this programme.
PEACOCK:
But just as a matter of principle if pastoralists have the power
of veto over a mine on their homestead or on their graveyard, for
example, should Aboriginal people have the same to their equivalent
sites on that pastoral lease.
PRIME MINISTER:
Matt.
PEACOCK:
No comment at all.
PRIME MINISTER:
What's the next question?
PEACOCK:
Okay, you've said you won't make any concessions, but
the sunset clause is perhaps negotiable?
PRIME MINISTER:
Matt, I'm not going to make any further statement on this
issue. You really are wasting your time and that of the listeners.
PEACOCK:
Prime Minister, today's news - the polls show a substantial
fall in support for the Government and One Nation continuing to
climb. Is National Party Senator Ron Boswell right in saying that
people don't realise just how extreme this group is?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the poll is entirely predictable. You had an absolute blanket
of coverage in the news media since the Queensland election about
One Nation to the exclusion of any dissection of Government policy
or of the real choice between Labor and the Coalition, and I'm
not the least bit surprised at this morning's polls, and while
ever there is a - how shall one put it- a novelty preoccupation
with One Nation, then everything is seen through the prism of One
Nation. That will take time to dissipate. Once One Nation is seen
for what it is, another political party, which has a lack of policy,
which has differences of opinion on various issues and within its
own ranks. I believe much of that dissipate. Our task as a Coalition,
because most of the people who are expressing through the opinion
polls in the Queensland election support for One Nation, are people
who would normally vote for the Coalition. Our task of course is
to regain the confidence of those people, but at the same time to
point out what they may not be aware of and that is the true impact
of the policies of One Nation and some of the dangers in those policies,
particularly the disposition to define people according to their
racial background which is very damaging, and equally some of the
very foolish policies that the One Nation Party supports. And I
think the other thing that we've got to do as a Coalition is
where the supporters of One Nation have legitimate concerns, we
ought to point out where we have already addressed those concerns.
I mean, for example, many of One Nation supporters are concerned
about such things as work-for-the-dole, now, we've introduced
that. They are concerned about small business. We've introduced
laws now blocked in the Senate to reform the unfair, unreasonable,
Unfair Dismissal laws, which incidentally Mrs Hanson herself did
not support when it was before the parliament. I think we have a
task on a number of fronts and we are about doing that.
PEACOCK:
All of which takes time. Not a good time to have an election. You
need surely a couple of months?
PRIME MINISTER:
The other thing that could be said about the polls in the present
environment is that they are very volatile. It is in fact six weeks
ago today that the very same poll that you are asking me about showed
the Coalition in almost exactly the position it had been in on the
third of March 1996 when it won a majority of 44 seats. You inevitably
get a lot of volatility in opinion polls when some atypical event
such as the arrival of One Nation on the political scene occurs,
and until people get a proper fix on it, until many of those people
who might have a transient attraction to One Nation, realise that
a vote for One Nation could install a Labor Government which is
not something they want. I think when all of those things are bedded
down and settled down, people will get a much clearer picture.
PEACOCK:
So how do you as a politician get a fix on it. You've been
around this place for a long time. I mean, in some of these seats,
very safe seats for the Government, for example, it is said they
are now vulnerable?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, one way you get a fix on it is you don't take fright
at one or two polls. You understand that these sorts of things have
happened in slightly different ways, but nonetheless essentially
before, and if you focus on what I said a moment ago is that where
One Nation supporters have legitimate concerns you point out where
the Government has already acted. I mean, for example, the question
of the English language for migrants - we have already provided
an extra weighting for people who can speak English but we wouldn't
go so far as One Nation in saying everybody who comes to this country
has got to have a knowledge of English before they come, otherwise
we would deny ourselves some wonderful people. For example, we would
never have had a man like Arvi Parbo, who ended up becoming Chairman
of BHP, the big Australian' - he couldn't speak
a word of English when he came to Australia in the late 1940s. The
late Victor Chang I understand was born in Shanghai. He came to
Australia as a small boy. I wonder if he could speak English when
he arrived in Australia. So if you have that kind of rigid, I think
quite unfair policy, you are denying Australia people who can make
a contribution. On the other hand, there is a legitimate need to
give some kind of margin to people who can speak English and we
have already done that so this is an area where we have acted on
the concern of people in the community without going to absurd lengths
that would actually damage Australia.
PEACOCK:
Prime Minister, you chided Pauline Hanson yesterday in the Parliament
yesterday for making personal attacks but virtually in the same
breath you made what appeared to be a personal attack on Helen Sham
Ho saying that her quitting the Party was an act of sour grapes.
How do you justify that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I was responding to her criticism of me. I mean she had made
a very pointed criticism of me and I mean let's just calmly
recite the facts. Last Friday she said in the New South Wales Parliament
that she had absolutely no intention of resigning from the Liberal
Party. That very evening the New South Wales executive of the Liberal
Party unanimously decided to put One Nation last on every Liberal
Party how-to-vote card in the forthcoming Federal election. I ask
what had happened between those two events and yesterday to justify
her change of mind.....
PEACOCK:
Well she said some backbenchers spoke to her and said that the
mood had changed.
PRIME MINISTER:
I mean, I will rely on the words of others including members of
the New South Wales Liberal Party who say that really it was a sense
of disappointment of not being chosen as the Liberal Party nominee
for the vacancy in the presidency. I think Mrs Chadwick who was
chosen is a person of obvious ability. I am rather sorry that Helen
Sham Ho has left the Liberal Party because the Liberal Party has
been very good to her. Anybody who is a member of Parliament through
the sponsorship, as it were, of the political party is in a privileged
position and I don't think she has repaid the kindness that
the Liberal Party has displayed towards her.
PEACOCK:
Do you think she is right in saying that the mood in the Party
has changed since the Queensland poll?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't. Her claim, I mean just speaking for the Federal
Parliamentary Party, her claim that in some way she was disadvantaged
because she is of Asian decent, I don't believe that, I really
don't. I think that is an unfair thing to say of her former
colleagues. It's easy to make that sort of remark when you
are personally disappointed but I really don't believe that
there is any substance in that and I think given the fact that she
almost immediately sought and obtained Labor Party support for the
presidency, that does really diminish the credibility of her attack
on the Liberal Party and her references to me.
PEACOCK:
She has also threatened that she might exhort the Chinese people
in Australia not to vote for the Coalition. Does that concern you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think what does concern me is the assumption that people
make that some how or other the so-called ethnic vote is there to
be commandeered in one or other direction. That's rather patronising
to Australians of Chinese decent. There are three or four hundred
thousand Australians of Chinese decent. They are all individual
men and women. They are not told how to vote by people who appoint
themselves as leaders of their community, they are individuals.
I know many of them, I have many of them in my own electorate and
I can assure you that they are fiercely independent Australians
like you and I. And the idea that their vote can be directed to
one or other party by some person who holds himself or herself out
as being a leader of the community I think is rather patronising
towards them.
PEACOCK:
To go back to Pauline Hanson, didn't she have a point yesterday
when she said that Aboriginal people get cheap loans in order to
get their businesses going. Why shouldn't she offer cheap loans?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there are a lot of rural people who under existing policies
can, in certain circumstances, get subsidised loans. The point I
was making was that the offer she had made in the Queensland election
was for a much wider thing and Mr David Etteridge, who is obviously
a person who exerts enormous influence on her, had acknowledged
that by saying: well you'd need a lot of money and if you wanted
a bit more money you'd print it. So it is an entirely different
situation.
PEACOCK:
Your Treasurer has been quoted by the Opposition as saying some
things in politics come before.....or principle comes before politics
on these issues of, for example, preferences. Do you feel under
any threat there by Peter Costello's comments?
PRIME MINISTER:
In what way?
PEACOCK:
In the sense that he is widely tipped as the heir apparent to your
job?
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
PEACOCK:
And you think that Mr Costello's stance is okay? I mean, you
did express irritation when he spoke about the issue of preferences.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you said I did. As far as Mr Costello's position is concerned
he, like I, recognise that ultimately this matter will be determined
by the Liberal Party organisation in each State, and so far we have
had four out of six States. I mean why this preoccupation with the
time at which each individual State division of the Liberal Party
makes a decision on preference. I mean four out of the six States
have already decided to put One Nation last. In the last Queensland
election the Labor Party directed preferences in 12 seats to the
Australia First Party whose policies on immigration and so forth
are exactly the same as One Nation, yet there were no questions
asked of Mr Beattie or Mr Beazley about that. There seems to be
a preoccupation with the position of the Liberal Party on this issue.
PEACOCK:
Mr Howard, one final question. Both you and the Treasurer have
been analysing the figures on the turbulence in the economy in our
region. If it comes September and the Parliament is still running,
how do you think this Government will hold up in terms of its track
record of economic management if interest rates do go up as a result
of the Asian crisis?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I am not going to talk about interest rates but I am going
to point out that if we had not got rid of Mr Beazley's $10.5
billion deficit, if we had not set about getting rid of Mr Beazley's
legacy of very high debt then this country would now be weaker,
there would be a lot more economic pain being felt by Australians
and we'd be far more vulnerable in the eyes of the world. The
policies that we have undertaken over the last two-and-a-quarter
years have given this country a level of stability and protection
that would not have been there if Mr Keating had won the last election.
PEACOCK:
But could you survive an election.....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I am not going to start talking about elections. Like any
other Prime Minister before me I'll have the election at the
right time for Australia and I am certainly not going to speculate
about it. But whenever it comes the main issue will be the competence
of the two opposing sides to manage the Australian economy and Mr
Beazley and Mr Evans will be asking the Australian people to make
them respectively Prime Minister and Treasurer. Mr Beazley left
us the $10.5 billion deficit. Mr Evans has demonstrated a, you know
to put it at most charitable, a monumental lack of understanding
of the basics of the Australian economy. I think that will make
a very, very interesting contrast.
PEACOCK:
Prime Minister, thanks for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Pleasure.
[ENDS]