Subjects: Life Education; drug testing; Telstra; welfare; GST; Pauline
Hanson; overseas trip; meeting with Yasser Arafat; 36-hour week; Melbourne
Grand Prix;
E&OE .................................................................................
MITCHELL:
Good morning, straight to it today, there is a great
deal of ground to cover. With me in the studio, the Prime Minister. Mr
Howard good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Neil.
MITCHELL:
Is it fair if a GST is to be applied to drug education
for children?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I understand this arises out of a concern expressed
by Mr Metherell.
MITCHELL:
Life Education, yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Life Education. Well I've actually had that checked
out and the advice I have is that, this is the Tax Office's advice,
it is not a prime ministerial ruling. The advice is after discussion between
Mr Metherell, Dr Metherell and the Tax Office, that this particular service
almost certainly won't be subject to the GST. There was inadequate
information provided in the earlier contacts and now that there has been
a contact between, a renewed one between the Tax Office and Dr Metherell,
he is a lot happier and that appears to be the situation.
MITCHELL:
OK. As a point of principle, it is reasonable though
isn't it, if we are going provide drug education for kids we shouldn't
put a GST on it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course it is.
MITCHELL:
And it is a charity . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, of course.
MITCHELL:
And education.
PRIME MINISTER:
I am sorry the doubt arose in the first place. But when
you are introducing something new like this I never pretended that you
won't have a few implementation challenges and it is the role of
the Government and the Tax Office in particular to be available and to
be helpful and to be patient and to be understanding. It is equally I
guess the role of the community to understand just for a moment that anything
big like this is going to involve a few periods of time where we're
working things out and it may take a bit longer than the first attempt
to get the absolutely correct answer.
MITCHELL:
Anyway, it's fixed.
PRIME MINISTER:
It's fixed.
MITCHELL:
This is related. Would you agree to be drug tested?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there's been no suggestion made that I should
be.
MITCHELL:
Well Brian Watters was suggesting that . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he was suggesting...he said he was going to raise
it with his drug council and I am quite sure . . .
MITCHELL:
What do you think of drug testing politicians?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't myself see any need for it and I don't
think he did.
MITCHELL:
No, but he was suggesting that bureaucrats who are driving
the policy were doing so because they were regular recreational drug users.
Should we be testing the bureaucrats?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is a hypothetical question, nobody's put
it to me. Look I have a strong view about drugs, but I tend to take a
positive view of the motives of people, unless it's demonstrated
otherwise to me. I assume that when a bureaucrat says to me, I think the
Government ought to do this, that that person believes in it, it is not
driven by any personal agenda. Although I guess in some cases, I am not
talking about the drug issue, but generally, it is. And the same applies
with my colleagues. I'm not into sort of detailed introspection of
the personal behavior of my colleagues, that is of no great concern to
me. If people do their jobs correctly, you try and judge people on their
merits.
MITCHELL:
Mr Howard, welfare. This story seems to get worse. Figures
today, I think $41 billion, 41.36 billion we paid 98/99. 140,000
Victorians on disability pensions. What can you do about it? Can you get
that bill down?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as a proportion of our national wealth, it's
not growing out of control. I mean we can't have it both ways, we
can't be a caring society that looks after people who really need
help, but on the other hand complain about the size of the welfare bill.
We are having an examination into the operation of welfare system and
Senator Newman will be releasing quite soon the draft paper prepared by
the reference group, headed by Mr McLure of Mission Australia. And it's
going to look at ways in which we can reform the welfare system which
are consistent with maintaining a strong, social security safety net.
MITCHELL:
Is the aim though to get that figure down? 41.36 billion?
PRIME MINISTER:
No the aim is to have a system that is fair and affordable.
MITCHELL:
Is 41 billion affordable?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it depends what proportion that 41 billion is of
the total national wealth. And government spending as a proportion of
national wealth is lower now than what it was four years ago.
MITCHELL:
Ok, so you're comfortable . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
So, it is always a mistake to look at the absolute figures,
you have to look at them as proportion of our national wealth. Obviously
the amount we spend on welfare in dollar terms is going to rise every
year because incomes are rising and populations are rising. That's
axiomatic. It is a question of whether it is growing out of all proportion
to the rise in our national wealth, and the answer to that is no it is
not. That doesn't mean to say we can't tighten it, we have tightened
it. And things like work for the dole ensure that people are less likely
to abuse the welfare system than was previously the case. We are saving
millions of dollars a day in the social security area with the crackdowns
that we do have. It's once again a question of getting a balance,
we want to help the needy, but we don't want the system abused because
you and I pay for the abuse.
MITCHELL:
True, but there seem to be so many people affected here.
We've got what a million people in Australia getting parenting payments.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, but parenting payments used to take the form, years
and years ago, those parenting payments used to take the form of tax concessions
for having children. Now we still have tax concessions for having children,
we have converted it to the spending side of the budget. They're
not really welfare payments, they're just a recognition that a parent
at home looking after a child is entitled to some financial help and I
think that parent is. That's not really a welfare payment.
MITCHELL:
71 . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Unless we take the view as a society that people should
be given no financial reward or assistance for having children. Now I
think that would be a very blinkered view to take of our community.
MITCHELL:
$71 million in social security benefits paid to people
living overseas. Is that appropriate?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if people have contributed to the tax system all
their lives, we expect, and we're having a heavy negotiation with
the British Government at the moment to make sure that the British Government
pays in full their obligations to people who were born in the United Kingdom
and contributed to their pension funds, while they lived in the United
Kingdom before they emigrated to Australia. Now we're having a lot
of trouble with the British Government over that. But we're arguing
the principle that if you earn an entitlement in country A and you go
to another country, you're entitled to take that with you. Now you
don't get a pension entitlement in this country until you've
been here a number of years. And if you've made a contribution to
your taxes and you go and live elsewhere there is an argument that you
should be entitled to have them. And some people argue that you shouldn't.
It is an interesting debate. I think there is merit on both sides. But
I can understand that if a person has worked in this country for forty
years and contributed to taxes they might feel they can take some of that
entitlement with them.
MITCHELL:
So you don't feel the system is generally being
rorted?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I think you always have to be vigilant, and you always
have to be willing to tighten where abuse occurs. But I think we have
a welfare system which does provide a social security safety net, but
it's not an open slather. We are tightening it. Work for the Dole
is a good example of that. Where we're basically saying to people,
yes we'll look after you, we'll give you sustenance, we won't
allow you to starve on the streets as sometimes happens in the United
States. But we will ask you to put something back into the community by
way of working for your unemployment benefit. I think that is a fair balance.
MITCHELL:
We will take calls for the Prime Minister in a moment, 9696 1278. Telstra
Prime Minister seems to be a lot of energy going into worrying about the
bush. What about the city? It's not working properly in the city
is it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you say it's not working properly. It's not perfect but
it's a very good telecommunications system. And can I say it's
a very good telecommunications system in many parts of the bush too. Many
parts of regional Australia have very high quality telecommunications
facilities, just as good as they are in the city. It's not perfect
in the city but.....
MITCHELL:
Well how do we fix it in the city? We're getting complaints....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well when you say how do we fix it, I mean you will never have a perfect
system but any fair examination of the service delivery performance of
Telstra will show you that over the last few years it has improved quite
dramatically.
MITCHELL:
But by definition they make big profits, they sack people or they drop
their numbers, they cut their staff. That has to affect service.
PRIME MINISTER:
No not necessarily because some of those....look, of all the areas
of our economy more than any, information technology is one where technology
can do things that people previously did.
MITCHELL:
That's true.
PRIME MINISTER:
But interestingly enough though it's also the fastest growing area
of employment in our economy.
MITCHELL:
Not Telstra [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
No no. But this is a very important point to make that many of the people
who've lost their jobs in Telstra, many of them, something like 88%
have found jobs elsewhere in communications.
MITCHELL:
Yeah but now they're going to what, drop another 16,000. I think
six of those are going.....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well let me give you an analogy with the steel industry. There are fewer
people employed in the steel industry in Australia now than 25 years ago.
But nobody can say that that industry is necessarily less efficient.
MITCHELL:
But I think that's the point. People are saying to me that this
industry is less efficient. They don't.....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they may [inaudible]. Well I have to say in reply to them that although
I'm not arguing it's a perfect system, things are and people
frequently say this to me and it's borne out by surveys, people do
get quicker service than used to be the case. That's not to say everybody
is happy and I acknowledge there'll be people listening to me now
who will say he doesn't know what a problem I had with my phone.
And let me say to those people, hypothetical people, I do know that some
of you are still having trouble but there are fewer of you having trouble
now than was the case five or ten years ago. And certainly when this was
fully owned by the Government it wasn't more efficient. It was a
lot less efficient. I mean the really bad old days of telephone breakdowns
and long delays and so forth was at a time when the old Telecom was fully
owned by the government, fully owned. And they were retrenching people
then and the service was worse than what it is now.
MITCHELL:
But a six-week delay on having a business line put in is unacceptable
isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes it is. And when that happens....and there are penalties being
applied under the law to Telstra where that occurs. But those examples
are fewer now than what they were five or ten years ago. That is the point
I make.
[commercial break]
MITCHELL:
I have more questions for the Prime Minister but some calls first. John
go ahead please.
CALLER:
Yes good morning Neil and good morning Mr Howard. Look, just a quick
question to Mr Howard. For years I thought it was wrong to rip in and
[inaudible] people in for abusing the social security system and it got
to a stage that I just got so sick of it that I thought I'd do something
for a change. I rang up, and I did, I dobbed in a cheat and I told them
about some people that are actually on social security and working full
time. And you know, it upset me, I work, I pay my taxes like anybody else.
And you know, six months down the track and this one person, this particular
person, is still working and still receiving social security [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if you are prepared off air to provide that information to the station
and you provide it to my office I'll have that investigated.
MITCHELL:
Hold on John. Do you think people should dob in social security cheats?
PRIME MINISTER:
I see no reason why they shouldn't. I mean I know there's always
a tension here between the sort of the Australian unwillingness to do
it but on the other hand there's a rising resentment amongst working
people and John's a good example. He works hard, he pays his taxes,
he's honest. Why should he have to pay for the bloke next door who's
the opposite and I can understand his anger.
MITCHELL:
It's really theft isn't it from the taxpayer.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is. And the point you've got to understand is that it's
affecting all of your listeners. There's no such thing as a government
that's separate and apart from the community. When we make decisions
we're not spending our money, we're spending your money. And
when people cheat on the social security system they are robbing you,
they're not robbing quote the government.
MITCHELL:
Do we know how extensive that cheating is though, how much of the $41
billion is cheating?
PRIME MINISTER:
Less than it used to be because it's tougher to cheat now. I can't
put an exact figure on it. It's a certain percentage. It's not
a major percentage but there is an element of it and there is an attitude
in the community amongst some that it's alright to cheat the government
because it doesn't hurt anybody, but it does. It hurts their neighbour,
it hurts their relatives, it hurts the bloke they have a drink with at
the club or the pub. So you know, people should remember that and they
shouldn't be so reluctant to report incidents of abuse.
MITCHELL:
Roger, go ahead please.
CALLER:
Good morning Mr Howard and Neil. Thank you very much Mr Howard for following
up the GST situation with the life education. That's excellent. But
I have one question. Dr Metherell mentioned yesterday that there was a
government grant from Victoria. Would that be subject to GST as well?
PRIME MINISTER:
Government grants generally speaking aren't.
MITCHELL:
Okay, thanks for that. Thanks Roger. Another thing that was raised while
I think about it is that corporate grants or corporate donations to charities
would pay a GST if that corporate organisation got anything in return.
So for example....is that right?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah well that's a commercial sort of transaction. It depends if
there's sort of.....depends on whether there's significant
commercial return. But if it's a sort of a bare acknowledgement then
no but if it's a significant corporate return then not.
MITCHELL:
And who determines that, the tax office?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah.
MITCHELL:
Leslie, go ahead please.
CALLER:
Good morning Neil, good morning Mr Howard. I represent the Debater's
Association of Victoria and I'm very pleased for life education that
they are going to receive their exemption. But my concern is what about
other small non-profit organisations who are providing ancillary services
to schools?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what I suggest you do is put your information together and go and
talk to somebody in the tax office. If you have any trouble at all getting
a response will you ring my office and we'll put you in touch with
the taxation unit. Rather than my trying to give you a ruling, and I can't
give those, I'm only a Prime Minister, I leave those things, high
and mighty things to others. But rather than my try and give you a ruling
without knowing all of the information because I might mislead you.
MITCHELL:
What tax do you [inaudible] paying under the GST Leslie, what will you
be paying?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well our concern is that our members' schools will have to factor
in a 10% GST on their registration and that that may actually exclude
many children from being able to [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, look I don't think that will occur. But because you may have
in mind the services you provide as well as the registration fees and
so forth, why don't you just get all of your information and talk
to the tax office. And if you're unhappy about the adequacy of the
response let us know.
MITCHELL:
Thank you Leslie. Prime Minister, Pauline Hanson. Would you like to see
the end of her in politics?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's a matter for the public but I think she did receive
the dismissal notice of her electorate at the last election.
MITCHELL:
But if she doesn't come up with $500,000 by five o'clock today
she could be bankrupted.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't want to comment on her pending bankruptcy. I think
there's a possibility of a legal appeal and I don't think it
really helps for me to be giving....making a gratuitous running commentary.
But there are electoral laws and we've all got to comply with them.
The Liberal Party and the Labor Party are often pursued by the electoral
commission if there is any technical breach. Members of Parliament have
got to obey the law. We are all subject to the law and that applies to
her like anybody else.
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister, you are off overseas soon.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I am going to the opening, I am going to open with the New Zealand
Prime Minister the new memorial on ANZAC Cove. We've had to build
a larger one in a slightly different area because there are now so many
young Australians and New Zealanders visiting ANZAC Cove, not only on
ANZAC day but other times of the year that literally the old memorial
and the area around it was too small. I will be there on ANZAC day this
year and then I will go on to France and when I am in France, I will spend
a half a day visiting the battle fields of the Somme, from World War I.
And I will be coming back through Israel and I hope that when I am in
Israel as well as naturally meeting the Israeli Prime Minister I will
talk to the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. I think all of us hope that
we're inching towards a lasting peace settlement in the middle east.
As somebody who has always been a staunch supporter of the cause of the
Israelies and Israel's independence and territorial integrity I none
the less recognise the aspirations and rights of the Palestinians and
if we can have peace in that part of the world it would be a huge relief
to many people.
MITCHELL:
What would be the purpose of you meeting with Yasser Arafat?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think it's important that one as well as saluting and acknowledging
the success of the Jewish State, I think it is very important to also
understand the Palestinian point of view and let us remember that Israel
and the Palestines are now talking to each other in a very effective way
and the Israeli Prime Minister is, I am sure, keen that any foreign visitor
to his country also have the opportunity of meeting the Palestinian leader.
MITCHELL:
I would have thought that their would be a significant lobby in this
country that wouldn't approve of the meeting with Yasser Arafat.
PRIME MINISTER:
That's true and perhaps on an earlier occasion I might not have
done so.
MITCHELL:
What has changed your mind?
PRIME MINISTER:
The fact that the peace movement is gathering strength.
MITCHELL:
That doesn't remove the terrorist background.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no but there are a lot of people who on occasions you might meet
who have had a terrorist background. There are a lot of leaders in the
world that we meet that have had a terrorist background.
MITCHELL:
Yes, certainly, so..
PRIME MINISTER:
Its difficult isn't it. You have got to make a judgement call on
each and the judgement call I have made on this is that because Israel
herself is talking to the Palestinians and if you are in the middle east,
it is perhaps insensitive to the desire of many Palestinians for a place
in the sun to ignore them.
MITCHELL:
Would you expect a backlash at home?