E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
PEACOCK:
Prime Minister, thanks again for joining us. They were nasty comments I thought from women over all with the report card for the Government. I’m not sure if the previous Government would have got a better one.
PRIME MINISTER:
They were fairly predictable given the attitudes of the women on these issues. What we’ve sought to do over the last three years is to give women choice to treat them as individuals. Not to try and stereotype a form of behaviour. To recognise that more than anything else the two things that modern women want are respect and choice and if you give them those two things it is not for governments to mandate or tell women how to use the respect they deserve and the choice they ought to enjoy.
PEACOCK:
How seriously do you treat these kinds of ‘International days of…’?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well some of them more seriously than others. People are interested in achievable outcomes these days. They are less interested in empty symbolism. They are more interested in achievable outcomes. I don’t think domestic violence as Eva Cox said, is a - she calls it safe - I know she wasn’t trying to be clever in saying that but I believe it still remains for a lot of women a very important issue and it is one of those issues that does unite the disparate groups of women within the community. You’ll have women’s groups that have different ideas on just about everything else but when it comes to something like the physical safety of women they’re not surprisingly quite united. I think it is an important issue and I think it still remains an area where considerable work needs to be done.
PEACOCK:
A quick question on another social issue that you’ve been asked a lot of questions of lately, but Jeffrey Kennett’s asked you to put ahead the interests of an addict over your own personal views and reconsider this opposition to a heroin trial. Have you got a closed mind on this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’m not, in this issue, imposing my own view over the interests of addicts within the community. It’s interesting you ask me that question. Only last night one of my South Australian colleagues handed me a submission put together by a group of people made up of addicts, led by a woman who lost her daughter last year to a heroin overdose, and they are passionately arguing that I should not alter my position on a heroin trial. And these are people who have been directly affected. And this idea that I’ve embarked upon some personal moral crusade and I’m just opposing a heroin trial because of some personal moral view couldn’t be further from the truth. Of course heroin is a scourge, and of course it’s a difficult issue, and of course there’s a variety of views on it within the community and that’s what makes it so perplexing. You can meet parents who’ve lost their children through a heroin overdose asking for a heroin trial and the next day you can meet parents who’ve suffered a similar tragedy with their children pleading with you not to have a heroin trial.
PEACOCK:
But do you still have an open mind on the issue or….?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look my view has not changed. I mean what’s…..this is another new paradigm that unless you’re prepared to change your view you have a closed mind. I mean you can maintain a sensible position, and not out of a closed mind but because you actually think that it’s in the public interest to maintain that view.
PEACOCK:
Now on Friday you had lunch with Les Murray. Have you got any rhyming couplets for me?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we are making progress. He’s a great writer. I’m indicating to him the sorts of things the Government would like in the preamble. And I’ve….
PEACOCK:
Give us a couple of examples.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no no no no. Well I want the whole thing when it’s finished to be revealed at once and not dribbled out bit by bit.
PEACOCK:
But Parliamentarians all around the place here are pacing the floor with little phrases, popping up lines….
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that’s terrific.
PEACOCK:
Is this getting you excited this process?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think the public would like a new preamble and this is something where I believe the whole community could come together. You don’t have to be a republican to want a new preamble.
PEACOCK:
It gets you more excited than the concept of a republic?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it certainly does because I don’t think that really is going to change the character of the country all that much and you know my views on that. But we’re keeping our commitment. We said we’d have a convention. We had a convention. We said we’d put the view that emerged from the convention to the public and we are doing that. I don’t know what more that I can do than to simply honour the promises that I made on that subject to the Australian people. They’ll decide it, not me. In the meantime, having a new preamble is something that can bring everybody together and I’m hopeful that when Les has finished his work in response to what I’ve put to him we’ll have something that most Australians can support.
PEACOCK:
Well from one literary figure to another, from Les to David Malouf - I understand helped draft the reconciliation words and again the form of words is important. Are you really opposed to the entirety of what they have suggest….
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I am not. I am not opposed to the entirety of….
PEACOCK:
Can you tell me what….
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, look I am not. I am not going to conduct what ought to be a private dialogue with the Council for Reconciliation publicly. There is nothing achieved by that. We still have a long way to go in relation to that issue but I am trying, my colleagues are trying. I can’t guarantee that we are going to succeed but there’s goodwill there. But obviously nothing is achieved by dissembling and nothing is achieved by pretending that we are making progress in certain areas where that’s not being achieved. I simply say to the Council that there is goodwill on the Government’s part and we are going to keep trying.
PEACOCK:
You say there’s goodwill but, I mean, Gatjil Djekurra, your own appointment to ATSIC says that relations have never been worse between….
PRIME MINISTER:
Matt, look I have answered the question and, I mean, that really is a waste of a question.
PEACOCK:
To move onto some of the subjects before Parliament, this week you bring in your Bill to ultimately fully privatise Telstra. How important is Senator Colston’s health to this process?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don’t think it is decent to talk about somebody’s health in that kind of way. I wish him well as I would wish any Member of Parliament well who has a serious illness. We would like the support of the Senate. We put this policy to the Australian people in October of last year, we asked them to pay some regard to the fact that the Australian people returned us to Government, we think they ought to pay a lot of regard to that.
PEACOCK:
But if Senator Colston’s health….
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I am not….
PEACOCK:
…..if he’s too ill to attend Parliament that will….
PRIME MINISTER:
I am not going to hypothesise, Matt. I can only say that we want that legislation, we have a mandate for that legislation, we’ll have a better more competitive Telstra and we’ll have more individual Australian shareholders if we can privatise Telstra first….further privatise it first to a further 16 per cent, 49 per cent and then ultimately subject to the community service safeguards, 100 per cent.
PEACOCK:
Senator Harradine says that the common….sorry, I have misquoted him here, but he is saying that the common interest should be more important than the interests of shareholders, that the community interests should be more important. Do you agree with that or do you think….
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, there’s nothing incompatible with that and what I have said. There’s a community interest in more Australians owning shares.
PEACOCK:
Okay. Moving on to the Ralph report. How keen are you to see a 30 per cent corporate tax rate?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think everybody would like to see taxes as low as possible.
PEACOCK:
30 per cent?
PRIME MINISTER:
Everybody would like to see taxes as low as possible.
PEACOCK:
You are not buying in on this debate?
PRIME MINISTER:
Matt, we have got a report. There are a lot of arguments in favour of having a uniformly lower rate, equally people are arguing if you’ve had a depreciation allowance, for example, for a long time then it’s a serious dislocation to take it away. We want to hear the arguments and that is what’s going to happen.
PEACOCK:
Well, the latest study by Price Waterhouse Coopers says that the mining industry in Australia would become the least competitive amongst our….
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Matt, these are things we’ll take into account but you are not going to get a Government decision out of me this morning. And all I can do is repeat what I said a few seconds ago and that is we’ll hear all the arguments and in the end the Government will have to make a decision.
PEACOCK:
New South Wales election’s on soon. Sydney airport is still looking a bit like a disaster with these near misses and breaches of curfews….
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh now, Matt, really. We must be responsible. I mean to say it’s a disaster….
PEACOCK:
Well, it’s a political hot potato….
PRIME MINISTER:
We have one of the best aviation safety records in the world. We do, without qualification. We are an outstandingly safe environment for civil aviation. We have great safety records and we are the envy of most countries around the world. So I think we have to keep a sense of proportion.
PEACOCK:
Why then is Air Services Australia saying basically that it’s all too hard, give it back to the corporation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there are issues there that are being debated but I am not going to go into them publicly. Some of them are issues for Cabinet to resolve but I want the Australian flying public to understand that we still have incredibly safe procedures in this country and we are, aviation wise, a very safe country.
PEACOCK:
And you still have full confidence in Dick Smith do you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, absolutely.
PEACOCK:
Now, the Abbott/Costello trial finished last week and interestingly the judge there said that politicians, if anything, had more to gain from protecting their public image, that this kind of defamation hurts them, if anything, probably more than the ordinary citizen. Do you agree with that view?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Matt, I am not going to buy into what was a piece of private litigation although it received an enormous amount of publicity. That was a matter where quite understandably my two colleagues and their wives felt very strongly. The reputation of people whether they are in public life or not is very important to them and I understand people’s feelings. Reputations are precious to all of us. Now, beyond that I don’t have any comment. It’s not right, it’s a private matter and both Peter and Tony have said after their initial reaction that they didn’t want to say any more. I am certainly not going to disrespect their wishes.
PEACOCK:
And a final question, Prime Minister, do you think your counterpart in the Opposition, Mr Beazley’s got a rival in Laurie Brereton?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh look, I am not going to buy into that except to say that having been around in politics for 25 years I would say what Laurie Brereton has done over the last few weeks has got far less to do with foreign policy making and a lot more to do with profile making.
PEACOCK:
Prime Minister, thanks for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Pleasure.
[ends]
SUPPLEMENTARY QUESTIONS
WITH MATT PEACOCK, ABC RADIO
E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
PEACOCK:
Prime Minister, it’s still not clear yet but certainly the citizens of Avalon didn’t want Baywatch. What’s your view on that decision?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, if ultimately that opportunity for more jobs and new investment, and I guess a further exposure of you know, a part of our society and a part of our beautiful beaches to the world is lost, I think it will be a very poor show and it will be something of a metaphor of the difficult public attitudes we still have in this country towards job creation.
We can’t simultaneously say that an unemployment rate of 7.5% is too high yet behave in an unwelcoming way towards opportunities that would generate more jobs. We just can’t have it both ways. And if it is the ultimate result that this production returns to the United States by going to Hawaii and having been made unwelcome in Australia, well that will be something of a metaphor for the explanation as to why the American unemployment rate is 4.5% and ours is still 7.5%. It’s not only governments that have responsibilities in these areas, the whole community does, and if community attitudes still remain difficult and stubborn on some of these issues then it makes the Government’s job that much harder.
PEACOCK:
But you can understand people fighting to protect their little private sort of beach.
PRIME MINISTER:
Look everybody has those interests and I understand that perfectly well. But you can also understand my position and the Government’s position. We are constantly told to find new ways, new policies, new opportunities to create jobs. Our unfair dismissal law is blocked in the Senate. People are threatening to vote against our proposal to entrench youth wages, and communities appear unwilling to embrace new job opportunities. Now this is a responsibility for all of us. We’ve all got this responsibility to reduce unemployment. And I repeat, if we lose it and I know it’s only a small thing in a sense in its own right, it will be a metaphor for the reason why America’s unemployment rate is three percentage points lower than ours.
[ends]