Subjects: Tax Reform; UK visit.
E&OE......
JOURNALIST:
Mr Prime Minister, it's not great timing is it, the leaders of three parties who put the GST through, all out of the country in its first week?
PRIME MINISTER:
The GST has been introduced and its been piloted through the first few days and as far as I am concerned what we want from Mr Beazley tonight instead of pot shots and petty comments about overseas visits, let's have an alternative to our comprehensive visionary courageous policy. Tax reform has been on the agenda for this country now for three years. We were the Government that had the courage to bring it in. I now want from Mr Beazley, the Australian people want from Mr Beazley detail of his alternative. Its easy to sabotage, it's easy to sneer, it's easy to criticise. We've taken the risks, we've had the courage to make the change. It's now up to Mr Beazley to tell the Australian public what he intends to do if he were Prime Minister.
JOURNALIST: Are you worried about the public perception of you being out of the country in this very important week?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I don't because the public knows that I was here when it was introduced. The public knows that the die is cast and the public knows that in these days of instant communications if there are any difficulties which I don't expect, they will be immediately communicated to me by the Treasurer who is acting Prime Minister and decisions can be made to deal with them. But frankly I don't expect difficulties.
The time for government and ministerial action was before the system was brought in. I mean we are committed to what is now operating and everybody is now realising that Mr Beazley is a very sad, unhappy man because we didn't have disaster on Saturday. He's banked his political future-he banked his political future on Saturday being a disaster. He's now trying to pretend that he didn't predict disaster, he did and everyone knows that and he won't be able to talk his way out of the doom and gloom that he hoped would descend upon the Australian people on Saturday. It didn't and I am very pleased because the Australian people in their normal common sense fashion have taken this change in their stride. And the very good news is that the tax cuts will come over this week, next week and the remaining weeks of July and by the end of July, Australians will have experienced the tax cuts and they will begin to able to make a proper calculation of how this change will affect them. Contrary to the predictions made by Mr Beazley, people will not be worse off, they will in fact as tax payers be better off because of the generosity of the tax changes.
JOURNALIST:
?petrol prices with some companies saying that will go up by four cents a litre. Does that go back on your promise?
PRIME MINISTER:
There is no justification at all for any company lifting petrol by three or four cents a litre on account of the GST. That isn't even justified according to the arguments they themselves used last week, where the difference between us was one to one and a half cents a litre. Any company that runs around saying that they can justify a three or four cent litre rise in the price of petrol because of the GST deserves to be investigated, because of the GST. They can't do that.
JOURNALIST:
Is there any more scope for the Commonwealth to cut income taxes?.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's an extraordinary question. We are just beginning the biggest tax cuts in Australia's history and you're asking me are there more?
JOURNALIST:
Would you be pushing the ACCC to investigate those petrol companies that?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not pushing the ACCC to do anything other than it's job.
JOURNALIST:
But [inaudible] deserves to be investigated?.?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I am making the point, I am making the point that there is no possible justification for an increase of three to four cents a litre on account of the GST. Now there may be other reasons that justify an increase, I don't know. The price of petrol goes up and down the whole time. But the point I am making is that even last week, petrol companies weren't saying that the difference between them and the Government was three or four cents a litre, they were saying one to one and a half, so if they now come at three to four cents a litre - I don't think they will.
JOURNALIST:
Why don't you think they will?
PRIME MINISTER:
Because it's so unreasonable and it's so wrong and it would be so unjustified.
JOURNALIST:
What would happen to them if they did?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the ACCC looks after its own affairs. It's an independent body and I am quite certain that it would take a responsible attitude and behave in the interests of the consumer and I am quite certain the oil companies will in the final analysis behave in a responsible fashion. That has been their want on most occasions and I am sure it will be again in the future.
JOURNALIST:
?Mr Beazley for the predicting doom and gloom, it's still very early days. Why are you so confident there won't be problems [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I have been quite careful in my predictions, but unlike Mr Beazley, I didn't hope for disaster on Saturday, which he did. I mean all his body language is that of a man who hoped that there would be disaster on Saturday and it didn't turn out that way and he closets himself in the fastness of his caucus room. I mean he won't get any boos there of course but instead of getting out and meeting the people. I mean why wasn't he in the shopping centres of Australia on Saturday morning, finding out what real people thought of this change, instead of sitting there in the isolation of a Canberra caucus room, he should have been out meeting the people.
JOURNALIST:
You are heading off overseas now, with really only a day and a half of business operation since its introduction. In about a month's time do you feel confident they won't?..?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I have been very careful in what I've said. What I am saying to you is that- is the weekend went better than Mr Beazley hoped it would, much better and we are well pleased, the Treasurer and I with what happened at the weekend, but I have always said it will take time but unlike Mr Beazley I haven't talked it down. I mean he is very disappointed man tonight because it wasn't the disaster that he hoped it would.
JOURNALIST:
You're quite comfortable about leaving the country and handing the Treasurer and any GST problems that might come up, he can handle completely?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I have every confidence in the Treasurer. The Treasurer is right across the detail of this tax reform plan and you know Stephanie that with modern communications, the idea that you are out of touch because you are 12 thousand miles away is ridiculous. That may have been the case at the time of federation a hundred years ago, but it's certainly not the case now and I will know will know everything that's happening in Australia, I can assure you.
JOURNALIST:
? on some of these trips they are monopolised by domestic issues, not by what is happening where you are. Do you think that your federation trip will be overwhelmed??
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it will be an appropriate mix. I think I will be very happy to take questions on domestic issues, but I also think that I will have an opportunity of explaining to a country that normally invests more in Australia than any other country in the world just how strong the Australian economy is.
JOURNALIST:
Will you have time for a quick trip out to Wimbledon do you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
It's not on my schedule.
JOURNALIST:
If an Australian becomes in the front running line [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I always hope for that, I always hope for that but what I am saying is that it's not on my schedule.
JOURNALIST:
You are not hoping to bring back any tax tips back from the UK are you?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I intend to spend my time in my discussions with the British Government and the British business community in telling them how modern and robust and fast growing and attractive to invest in is the Australian economy. I mean you have got to remember we tend to associate our relationship with Britain entirely with history and culture and things like that, but Britain invests more in Australia than any country normally. It bounces. There's a competition each year between Britain and the United States as to which country invests most money in Australia.
Now nobody bats an eyelid at an Australian Prime Minister going to Washington, but for some extraordinary reason the Labor Party has chosen to try and politicise this visit. I think that's foolish. All of Mr Beazley's Labor Premiers are going to be there. They see the historical significance of it and I am quite certain that Mr Carr and Mr Bracks and Mr Bacon and Mr Beattie are going to spend a great deal of time with me talking up Australia. I mean I will be engaged in an exercise in Britain of talking up Australia with all of Mr Beazley's Labor Premier colleagues. He will back here trying to talk down our economic future, as he always does.
Thank you.