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DANIEL:
Mr Howard, thanks very much for joining us today.
PRIME MINISTER:
You are very welcome Zoe.
DANIEL:
What exactly have you learnt from your tour?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have learnt that the regions contain some very good stories and a lot
of optimism as well as quite a deal of despair and a very genuine situation
of ongoing difficulty for many of our basic industries.
So I have had reinforced some views I already had but I have learnt a
great deal more. There's clearly a great interest in the regions
about the maintenance of Government services. I have found, generally
speaking, there's quite a lot of support for tax reform. I haven't
encountered any deep-seated hostility to the tax reform plan, put aside
the organised demonstrations which are not really an expression of mainstream
opinion. I have actually found that there's quite deep understanding
of tax reform. People in the regions appreciate that fuel will be cheaper.
They understand that it's a big plan and it's not just a goods
and services tax. So I have been quite pleasantly surprised at the level
of support for tax reform in the regions.
DANIEL:
You mentioned the despair that you did get a sense of in some places.
What was that related to specifically?
PRIME MINISTER:
It's really related to the traditional primary industries. Areas
that have relied historically on wool and wheat and beef and dairy are
doing it very hard. Not everybody in those areas are doing it hard, there
are still very successful people in all of those areas. But they are the
communities that are doing it hardest and that's really the toughest
problem because no government can do anything about international commodity
prices. We've been campaigning for 25 years to get a better deal
on the trade front. We've made a lot of progress but, gee, we still
have a long way to go and the Europeans and the Americans still continue
to clobber us. They're much bigger than we are and they still continue
to have a pretty indifferent attitude to agricultural exporters such as
Australia. We are intensely disappointed at the Seattle outcomes. We don't
think there was enough leadership displayed there and we are going to
continue to persevere on the world trade front but it's still very
front.
DANIEL:
There's been much comment around in the press and the electronic
media about how you were received. How did you feel that you were received
by country people?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I was received in a very friendly way by country people, there's
no doubt about that. There were the usual organised demonstrations from
the usual suspects but they didn't really speak on behalf of country
people. But those people who received me with their normal courtesy and
friendliness a number of them also put their point of view and expressed
their concerns. But it was an immensely valuable exercise and people do
appreciate their leaders, their Prime Minister coming to them. It is important
to spend large blocks of time - not just a flying visit - with some kind
of patronising, symbolic gesture but genuine blocks of time travelling
around the regions and getting to understand them. And also having reinforced
the fact that regional Australia's very diverse. There's the
genuine bush with small communities, there's the coastal towns, many
of them such as Port Lincoln are doing very well, others not so well.
And then there are the large sponge or hub cities such as Dubbo which
again have different challenges.
So the big investment of time that I made in travelling around, and I'll
be doing it again in other parts of the country, was very valuable.
DANIEL:
You made an undertaking earlier this week that you are planning on putting
a floor on the withdrawal of Government services. How are you planning
on enforcing that on departments and also across State boundaries?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I am talking about Commonwealth services. I can't be accountable
for State government services. And one of the things that I have told
audience after audience is that they should make the three levels of government
accountable for the things that they provide and not allow one level of
government to say: well, I can't do that because another level of
government is not doing its part. I'll be held accountable for Commonwealth
Government services. I am writing to all of my Ministers in effect instituting
a red light system that if a decision is likely to result in a diminution
of service that's not to say you mightn't change the way the
service is being delivered then it oughtn't to occur.
DANIEL:
Closing the stable door after the horse has bolted though isn't
it?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it's not because there are a number of areas where we are, in
fact, increasing service provision to the bush. I was in Maclean yesterday
and was able to point out that for the very first time in the town's
history it would have a job network provider. It had never had a CES office,
it had never had any assistance under the first tender round of the Job
Network but under the second tender round it will have a job provider.
DANIEL:
Given the seriousness with which you took the issues when you were travelling,
why was it necessary to bring up the concept of tying the further sale
of Telstra to rural infrastructure?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I didn't tie the further sale of Telstra to the expenditure
of any further money on rural infrastructure. There will be more money
spent on rural infrastructure even if we don't sell the final...we
can't get Parliament's approval to sell the final part of Telstra.
The point I was making was that if we were able to sell the final part
of Telstra we'd be in a position to provide more by way of infrastructure
support because we would have paid off our Commonwealth Government net
debt and we'd have a stronger fiscal base on which to undertake at
an accelerated rate further expenditure on infrastructure. So I thought
it was very necessary to do that. I am a great believer in these situations
of laying everything out on the table and not taking, as it were, the
easer option and just engaging in a public relations exercise. And I found
in the bush, although there are still a lot of people who are sceptical,
a growing recognition that maybe it isn't sensible to tie up tens
of billions of dollars in a telecommunications company and perhaps it's
better to invest that money in additional infrastructure at an earlier
date. I also made it clear in my discussions that any further sale of
Telstra will be absolutely conditional on it being demonstrated to the
Government's satisfaction that Telstra had met its community service
obligations and we are going to investigate that in a benchmarking study
that will be commencing shortly.
DANIEL:
Could I put it to you that by even mentioning though the possibility
that the sale of Telstra would lead to increased infrastructure funding
that that somehow cheapened the goodwill that you'd created by embarking
on this regional tour in the first place?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't think it has. I think it's had, in fact, the opposite
effect.
DANIEL:
What evidence do you have to demonstrate that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, just the reaction of people. I did not find as much opposition
to the sale of the final part of Telstra as I expected. I found a good
deal but there are quite a lot of people on the other hand. For example,
the Mayor of Dubbo, Mr Peacocke, said: look if you can demonstrate that
the community service obligations are being met then there's some
merit in the proposal. Others have a different view but it wasn't
the hostile bone of contention that your question implies.
DANIEL:
Speaking of guarantees and speaking of funding being directed to rural
Australia, the Regional Australia Summit steering committee will soon
report to the Government with its recommendations. What funding and resources
has the Government set aside to implement hose recommendations?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's something we'll consider in the lead up to the
budget in the normal way. I'm not, quite deliberately I'm not
going to make funding commitments on the run. We'll get the report
of that committee. I will have as a background to the consideration of
that report, I will have the experience of my weeklong visit to regional
Australia. I'll therefore be far better prepared to take sensible
decisions on what we ought to do. But the level of any funding and where
it's going to go is something that we'll be deciding in the
normal way and that process starts very soon. So we'll be looking
at that matter quite soon.
DANIEL:
Interestingly the steering committee's already put out a document
looking at the possibility of a vision statement, a more long term strategy
for rural Australia for the next say five to ten years. Would you consider
that sort of thing as an option to set a more long term agenda for rural
Australia that won't get changed as government's change?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you can't ever guarantee that policy won't change when
there's a change of government. That's just unrealistic. We
can't control what any future government will do any more than the
previous government could control what we've done. But I'm not
against some long-term statement. People however in the end, while statements
may be nice, they really want practical decisions that provide them with
identifiable assistance or incentives. But again we've got to keep
in mind that there are a lot of good news stories in the regions. A number
of the centres I mentioned are doing well. A number of the centres I visited,
I visited such as Bourke have turned their situation around and have now
built thriving alternative industries. So it's not just unrelieved
gloom. There's a lot of brightness on the horizon. And there are
a lot of areas of very strong economic activity in the regions. But it
varies. Once again it's really the areas that have been very heavily
dependent on the traditional commodities, areas that have been most badly
affected.
DANIEL:
One of the other things that's been put up, Mr Howard, is the possibility
of an actual legislated bill of rights for rural Australia. Is that something
that's completely out of the question [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well nobody raised it with me.
DANIEL:
So does that mean you don't think it's a possibility?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I'm just saying that it's the first time anybody's
put it to me. You're the first person that's ever raised it
with me.
DANIEL:
Right. Well it's been raised with me before.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you know, I can only answer honestly. I've spent a week travelling
around the regions and I have met literally hundreds, indeed perhaps thousands
of people and at no stage has anybody said the answer to our problem is
to have a bill of rights. It doesn't sound to me as though it's
come out of the heart of the bush.
DANIEL:
Well that's probably your opinion.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, well that's the only opinion I can give you. You've asked
me a question, I've given you an honest response. Nobody has raised
it with me.
DANIEL:
Fair enough. One of the other issues that you've brought as being
significant in your tour was water use and water sustainability. What
sort of plans is the Government able to make on that front because salinity
is certainly probably one of the prime issues that rural Australia is
facing at the moment.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes salinity is a huge issue although even there you get a mixture of
views. Some people put very strongly the view to me in Bourke that some
of the impacts of salinity have been exaggerated by some. I got a very
different view in South Australia. We have a responsibility to work with
the State governments to try and get a fair outcome. It's a very
big issue in Australia - water, very big issue. I hope the States adopt
a sophisticated mature approach and don't just say I'm from
New South Wales and to hell with rest of the country, or I'm from
South Australia and the same. We really do have to have a bit of give
an take on this issue and that I guess is where the national government
comes in and I'll try and do that.
DANIEL:
One of the things I'm trying to get a sense of, and please don't
think that I'm trying to be smart, is what sort of long-term plans
can be put in place not only by government but also with consultation
with rural communities on these sorts of things environmental planning,
the vision statements for rural Australia, social responsibility. Is it
time that these things were looked at with a little more long term vision
rather than just looking ahead to the end of the term of the current government?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is already happening in these communities as far as social
problems are concerned. I didn't think in Bourke for example in relation
to the relations between Aborigines and other Australians. I didn't
think you needed a long-term vision statement. I thought you needed a
continuation of the spirit of tackling the problem as a community. If
that were to go on then I think you had the basis of providing some long
term solutions. What did impress me in a lot of areas was the way in which
problems were being tackled by the whole community. I deliberately avoided
separate meetings with interest groups. I met interest groups as part
of an aggregate community and you get a far more genuine community based
response if you do that. I am a great believer that the Australian public
has a capacity to challenge and solve social problems if only the different
interest groups would work together and not see themselves as bargaining
with each other for a share of the outcome.
DANIEL:
Can people in the country look forward to the coming budget do you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well people in the country are now living in a nation whose general economic
settings are very strong. I kept pointing out to people as I went around
that at a national level our economy has rarely been stronger and that
the reform programs of the government, particularly in the area of taxation,
will bring major benefits for the entire economy including the rural economy.
So I don't think we should be fixated on what this or that budget
will deliver, although there are obviously particular measures that will
be considered in the lead up to the budget. Economic policy is more than
the annual budget. Economic policy is the aggregate way in which you handle
the national economy.
DANIEL:
You said you'll take another tour soon. Have you planned it yet?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I haven't planned it yet. But I don't want people in other
parts of Australia to think that they're going to be neglected, but
then I haven't neglected it. Last year I undertook a number of trips
to rural Victoria extending over a couple of days. I don't think
I've undertaken a trip which has been as long as this in one block
of time. But I'll be visiting the other States and I'll be going
to other regions in other parts of Australia to get their views and to
do essentially what I've done. And no doubt I'll encounter organised
demonstrations there from the usual suspects and once again they won't
represent mainstream opinion.
DANIEL:
Prime Minister, thanks for talking with us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks a lot.
[ends]