E&OE.............
JONES:
Prime Minister good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good Morning Alan
JONES:
Happy birthday.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you, that's very kind of you.
JONES:
What does the Prime Minister do on his birthday?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think, just what a lot of other people do on their birthdays,
they spend it with their family and that's what I intend to do. We'll
have a small family dinner tonight as a tradition not only in our
family but, I guess, millions of others around Australia because special
occasions are always things that you spend with the people who are
closest to you and.
JONES:
Do you think.sorry.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, and that's what I'll be doing. Apart from that it will be a relatively
uneventful day.
JONES:
Do you think your humble background may have redefined your attitude
towards public policy and, indeed, the attitude of the Liberal Party?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I guess my background, which is pretty typical of the background
of millions of Australians, has had some impact on the Liberal Party.
There's nothing elitist or exclusive about the Liberal Party. It is,
to use a popular expression of mine, very much a broad church. We
do represent all sections of the Australian community and long may
it be so because political parties are, if they are to be effective,
are expressions of community values and community attitudes. And if
we can express those values and attitudes in policies then we do good
things for the community.
JONES:
Just on that basis then, I mean, your mum and dad were not well off,
they were comfortable, not well off.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, my father was very hardworking.
JONES:
That's it. But see, your mother, they brought up four children and
the mother didn't work. Do we do enough for families today when it
seems almost impossible for them to survive with one bread winner?
PRIME MINISTER:
We are now doing more under our tax system and it will do even more
from July of next year but, I guess, we never do enough. The world,
mind you, has changed. In my mother's day virtually no women with
children worked. It was a different society. It is easier now to combine
family and work and I think the ideal policy is to give all men and
women an effective choice. Those who want one of the parents to be
at home, normally but not always the mother, full-time while kids
are young should be financially able to do so.
JONES:
They don't have that choice, do they?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, many of them don't, although some of the taxation changes we are
making at the moment will make it a little easier, a little easier
for them to exercise that choice. On the other hand, there are some
people who choose to combine the two roles. And it's not the for Government
to sort of sit in judgement and say which is right or which is wrong
but what it is the role of the Government to do is to provide the
families with the effective choice. And I think we're improving it,
although we still have a long way to go.
JONES:
But see, we had a basic wage which was fundamental to the industrial
wellbeing of our community over many, many years and it was designed
to provide for a husband and his wife and, at the time, three children.
And when that become eroded we then had to have child endowment to
compensate families for the fact that the basic wage didn't meet those
conditions. And at the time of your mum and dad and my mum and dad,
I mean, basically, while you mightn't have lived glamorously, there
was always food on the table and it was adequate for your survival.
That isn't the case today, is it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it is the case for the great majority of people. I think what.
JONES:
They can get by, you think, on one income.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh no, no, no.
JONES:
See, they can't. See, your family could.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I'm not, I'm not, I mean, there is an increasing number of families
where both mother and father and work.
JONES:
Yeah, they have to.
PRIME MINISTER:
They do. Some of them do it out of choice because they feel they have
better fulfilment out of that and what it really gets back to, Alan,
is choice. Now, when you reflect on the past there are a lot of good
things about the past, there are also things about the past that I
think we've moved on from. And I always think in life and also in
setting public policy the best approach is to combine and preserve
the best things of the past but also recognising that in other areas
the world has got to change. And the world we are living in now continues
to change and you have got to get the right balance between..
JONES:
Sure. But if you are a young couple - and you have got three young
children and there's a couple of young blokes sitting around the studio
here now - to buy something - they're just married - to buy something
for $300,000 you'd struggle to get it for $300,000, but you are going
to need a deposit of $30,000. That's almost impossible for kids today,
young people 25 year olds, to actually save that deposit without both
of them going out to work.
PRIME MINISTER:
That is undoubtedly true and particularly so in some parts of Australia
such as Sydney, less typical [inaudible]. It varies, it does. But
that is undoubtedly true and in that sense the world is different.
JONES:
That puts a lot of pressure on marriage.
PRIME MINISTER:
It does. On the other hand there are opportunities that people have
now that an earlier generation never dreamt of. So there are pluses
and minuses have changed in evolution.
JONES:
Just on that under 30's, you were quoted at the weekend of saying
that the under 30's are more interested in outcomes than they are
in ideology. Do you think public debate though is still unfortunately
dominated by ideology? That is why we have opposition, for example,
to unfair dismissal laws. After two times being elected you still
haven't been able to get those proposals through, they are being beaten
by ideology rather than reality.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Alan, I naturally agree with that statement because I think
it is silly that those laws have not been put through. But I do think
we are still.public debate is still too much about ideology rather
than practical outcomes. I do think younger people are interested
in what produces a good result rather than whether it conforms with
a particular ideology. Now, that is a sweeping generalisation and
like all generalisations there are plenty of exceptions.
JONES:
Well, can we take some exceptions because the outcome in the health
debate at the moment, you have got a very distinguished figure in
health, Professor Dwyer, saying his hospital, Prince of Wales, is
technically bankrupt. You have got very reputable people at Westmead
saying: we just can't survive. They are closing down beds every month.
So the outcome seems to me to be appalling and to many but we cling
to the ideology of Medicare.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that's a fair question. I think the outcome in this country
although it is badly flawed is still a lot better than the outcome
in other countries around the world. I would rather, I have said it
before, but I would rather on a battler's wage get sick in Bankstown
than the Bronx. You'd be far.well, it's true, you'd be far better
looked after. Or for that matter, Birmingham. Because this country's
health system, for all the brick bats that are that are thrown at
it, does have certain strengths..
JONES:
But there are people in emergency wards who are getting no care.
PRIME MINISTER:
Alan, I do not deny that. My generalisation, I guess, is that it's
still a fundamentally sound system with a lot of weaknesses. Now,
the States say: let's have a Productivity Commission Inquiry. Well,
we've had one of those already into the Commonwealth area of responsibility
which is private health insurance. We are looking at that. I am a
bit sceptical.
JONES:
They are wanting us to go beyond that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, they're mixed. Some of them do and some of them don't. Some
of them want a means test.
JONES:
So do we leave it as it is?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I think you continue to change it but you keep the basic structure
which is a Medicare complemented by private health insurance. And
we have put.in the last year we have put $1.5 billion more resources
a year into private health insurance, we have promised to double health
and medical research in this country and we have also increased [inaudible]
by 17 per cent.
JONES:
You have got Professor Dwyer saying his hospital is bankrupt.
PRIME MINISTER:
Professor Dwyer I know and I respect him. I acknowledge that there
are many areas that need repair and change but you don't throw out
the whole system. I mean, this is a mistake we made a long time ago
when..
JONES:
We did.
PRIME MINISTER:
..We had a very good system and because there were a few gaps we threw
out the whole system and that was a mistake.
JONES:
And what we had was better than what we have got now.
PRIME MINISTER:
. but you can't go back to that. What you have to do is try and make
the present system better.
JONES:
What you can't go back to saying that basically if you could afford
your own health care you pay and public hospitals are for those in
need. I mean, that was a pretty simple system wasn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
But one of the things that underpinned that system a generation ago
was the honoury system involving doctors. I don't hear doctors saying
they'll go back to that system. One of the things that underpinned
the less expensive delivery of health care a generation ago was the
lack of equal pay for women. Now, I am certainly not in favour of
that.
JONES:
But you had a guns' summit and a tax summit. Do you think we need
a health summit? I mean, this is critical stuff.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I am not in favour of a health summit. I don't think summits are
the stuff of good decision making. I think what has to happen in the
health area is that people who are elected, that's the governments
of the States and the Commonwealth have to keep making decisions to
improve the system.
JONES:
But we have never spent so much money in our lives on health care
and the system in some parts is diabolical.
PRIME MINISTER:
We don't spend nearly as much as say the United States.
JONES:
Should we?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, we shouldn't because in the United States is an enormous amount
of wastage.
JONES:
But what do you say to the people who can't get into an emergency
ward today? I mean they are in diabolical straits and their ambulances
are being turned away today here in New South Wales, and they urgently
need care. What do we say to those people?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think the first thing you say to them is that you recognise
that there's a problem and you look to the government that has the
responsibility to do something about it. Now we do have a division
of responsibility in health. We look after private health insurance,
the States look after public hospitals. Now we have done something
about private health insurance. We have increased the resources to
State governments. This is not...
JONES:
[inaudible] Bob Carr's increased expenditure for public hospitals
enormously.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that's true. But I mean this is not a finger pointing exercise.
But you can't have a situation where every time there is a deficiency
found in one area you turn around and say we've got to dismantle the
whole system. That is ridiculous.
JONES:
There does seem to be people going into public hospitals that should
be paying an arm, and there's all those people say, if they then paid
that money could be turned back and invested into improving the system.
But if people going to doctors everyday for nothing when they should
be paying. Now Brian Howe, who wasn't sort of a raging conservative
let's say, he actually talked about a co-payment when you went to
the doctor. That was bowled over when Paul Keating said he'd unwind
it in order to get the leadership off Bob Hawke. Now if Brian Howe
can talk about a co-payment, surely it might be time for us embrace
it by now.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'll come to the co-payment in a moment. On the question of a
means test for public hospitals, in order to collect a significant
amount of money out of that you would have to apply the means test
not to well off people, but to middle Australia. You don't collect
enough money in order to justify a means test unless you bring it
down to an income of about $45,000 for an individual.
JONES:
Well that's not on.
PRIME MINISTER:
No I know it's not on. But you see I make the point Alan that people
talk about a means test as though you can collect billions dollars
by charging well off people when they go into public hospitals.
JONES:
But they won't go into private health insurance if they can go into
the public hospital for nothing.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you have the phenomenon now of some people who've got private
health insurance going into public hospitals and the reason they're
doing that is because of the gap. We are doing something about gaps.
JONES:
So is the system called Silver Cross but your Health Minister continues
to oppose, and I've written to you about that but..
PRIME MINISTER:
But of course Silver Cross as I understand it, and I don't have all
the details with me, as I understand it Silver Cross and groups like
it don't comply with all of the other conditions that other private
health insurance funds are obliged to comply with.
JONES:
But my understanding is that they do.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well..
JONES:
I'd be happy to talk to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
I will make another examination of it.
JONES:
I'd like you to.
PRIME MINISTER:
You've provoked me to do it.
JONES:
All right. Just on outcomes, 125 workers at Oakdale has not received
the payments of awards to which they're entitled, and indeed you've
got three Ministers - Nick Minchin, John Fahey and Peter Reith - refuse
to meet these blokes August 10. Now all those miners told me those
Ministers agreed to meet them in July, but then said oh look we can't,
we going to be away in July. Now when we're talking about outcomes
there are 200 companies in this country in the last two years have
done just the same thing to their workforce. How do we improve those
outcomes?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that issue was discussed at our Cabinet meeting last week and
there's some further work being done on it, and it will be discussed
again in the very very near future and I don't want to say anymore
[inaudible].
JONES:
Will they get their money?
PRIME MINISTER:
All I can say at this stage is that we are looking at a number of
options, and I don't want to unduly raise expectations, but I'm very
sensitive and I've said to you and others before to that particular
issue and I hope that [inaudible] similar issues can be resolved in
a fair manner, and one that pays regard to the needs of small businesses
in particular not to have to tie up money which is otherwise used
in a day to day sense now for the operations of those businesses.
JONES:
Yeah. Well you see they've done the fair days work but they haven't
got the fair days pay.
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
JONES:
Isn't an argument though Prime Minister to make the payments that
have to be made by small businesses, I understand your point, shouldn't
they be tax deductible at the time at which they are set aside, rather
than at the time in which they are paid to the workforce. That seems
to be the problem. I mean if the small businessman could get tax deductibility
immediately he makes the provision rather than when he actually pa