Subjects: Grand Prix; Petrol.
E&OE................................
PRICE:
Thanks for your time Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm actually in Brisbane but it's always nice to talk to you.
PRICE:
Would you like to say hello to Ron Walker?
WALKER:
Prime Minister good afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER:
Mr Walker, greetings.
WALKER:
This is not a cricket match sir this is a Grand Prix and I know that you lean towards cricket but it's a great day down here in Melbourne.
PRIME MINISTER:
It's very very important and you do wonderful work Mr Walker for bringing the event to Melbourne, you're a great credit to your home town.
WALKER:
Thankyou Prime Minister.
PRICE:
Prime Minister you have changed your views on petrol. Was it hard to say that given how strong you had been over the last six months about not changing?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes it was but you've got to face reality. It was obvious that I had mistaken the strength of feeling in the community on this issue. I thought about it very deeply. We looked at our capacity to do something and the decision we've taken means that there are some things we might otherwise have done in the budget that we now won't do because we have to make certain we get a strong budget position which we will deliver again. But you have to face reality and I did that in what I said yesterday at the news conference. But the important thing is not so much an examination of my thought processes rather of the outcome for the public and the outcome for the public is cheaper petrol and of equal importance the abolition of automatic tax rises every six months. But this is a very big tax cut. That's the way it should be seen because excise is a tax on petrol and we now will have lower taxes on petrol with a 1.5 cent reduction and that will grow over time because the indexation adjustments that would otherwise have occurred will now not occur. And that is a very big reform.
PRICE:
So Prime Minister, to those critics who say it was an electoral back flip just so you could get re-elected and save the seat of Ryan, do you say 'well no I did this because I felt I had to do it and if I've got to say I was wrong then I will'?
PRIME MINISTER:
I certainly believed I had to do it and I take the view that if you've made an error then you should acknowledge it. I try to avoid errors but like everybody else I can have lapses of judgement and I don't mind acknowledging that when those lapses do occur. I think it's important because people are sensible, you've got to be real in these situations. And it represents, in policy terms, a very significant change in the way in which we tax fuel and people will welcome it.
PRICE:
$555 million is the estimate that you will have to change in the budget. What does that mean has to be cut?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have a surplus, what it means is that we will need to be even tighter with spending restraint and also maybe there are other things that we had in mind of doing that we now won't be able to do. We intend to deliver a surplus but you must understand that our budget is in quite a strong position. We inherited a very bad budget position, we've repaid $50 billion of debt Mr Beazley ran up as Finance Minister and we have a very low debt ratio to our GDP and we're in a very strong financial position, that's why it's been possible to do a number of things in recent months. These surpluses are not mine, they're not the Treasurers, they're yours, they're the public's, it's public money. And the public want us to spend the surpluses wisely. They want debt retired and we've done that. They also want tax cuts and we've done that. They also want spending on essential things like salinity programs and defence and roads. And if you get the budget into a strong position you can do those things and we're starting to get a dividend a social bonus if you like out of the economic management of the past few years.
PRICE:
I appreciate you giving us a few moments of your time for the second time this week. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]