Subjects: innovation statement; research and development; Labor's policies; election
E&OE................................
KERRY O'BRIEN:
Matt Brown with that report, and I'm joined now by the Prime Minister from our Parliament House studio. Prime Minister let's start with that very last point that Kim Beazley made, what's your response to that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's the sort of thing that an Opposition Leader who hasn't worked out his own policy would say. It's just a serious of slogans, I mean he's had five years as an Opposition Leader and he keeps saying that knowledge nation is his big issue, where's his policy. The reality is that we have put down the biggest single group of measures ever from any Government to address issues of innovation and science and higher education. They're very comprehensive, the doubling of the Australian research grants, the massive investment of money to create centres of excellence in the information communications technology area and biotechnology, they, in relation to information communications are a burgeoning area of activity. Biotechnology probably the dominate force in terms of new frontiers of excellence in science in the next 25 to 50 years, I mean this is new policy, there are many new initiatives in this. It's the result of 18 months of work, it hasn't been cobbled together and it is a long term commitment to science and technology and innovation in our community. And I think it's one of those things where the intelligent response of an Opposition Leader would have been to have welcomed it, because he knows deep down that what we've done is fundamentally right and fundamentally good and fundamentally beneficial. And you don't get many points from the Australian public by constantly carping, but I suppose if you've been policy lazy for five years you have no alternative.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
But what about the point, not just being made by Kim Beazley, that you are simply giving back some of what you have cut out over the past five years.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry we didn't cut the research grants, we didn't cut the CRC's.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
You cut the R&D for instance
PRIME MINISTER:
Well one of the things we eliminated in R&D, and we don't apologise for it, was the old syndication system, which was really being, in many cases, rorted for tax avoidance purposes. And we make no apology for that and we haven't restored that and we won't restore it.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
But if the basic R&D scheme, incentive scheme, which you've now boosted after five years, if the basic scheme is sound why wouldn't you have just knocked out the rorts and kept the scheme going at a level that you are now saying is applicable.
PRIME MINISTER:
But Kerry a lot of the knocking out of which Mr Beazley complains were in fact the rorts.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
But what you did was to cut it across the board from 150% to 125%.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I mean you've got to remember Kerry that Mr Beazley left us with a huge budget problem, and it's a bit rich for a bloke who ran up $80 or $90 billion of national debt in four or five budgets to turn around and attack the measures we were forced to take in order to get it into balance. It's only because our economy is stronger, it's only because we now have a strong surplus that we can now devote new additional ground breaking resources to this very important area.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
Is it true with your cooperative research centres that, or CRC's, that they were funded dollar for dollar between Government and private enterprise when Bob Hawke introduced them back in 1990, and that it's now about one Government dollar for every four private dollars.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not, I'm not aware that that is the case.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
Would it surprise you if that was the case?
PRIME MINISTER:
It would surprise me if that was the case, yes.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
That's what the CRC's association is saying is the case.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have increased our commitment to the CRC's by 80%, so I think they would be the last, well yes.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
I mean they're certainly not saying no to.
PRIME MINISTER:
They're not complaining about the 80% increase.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
No they're not.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
But it goes to the point earlier about whether some of what you're doing is restoring rather than bringing it, rather than adding to what was an adequate amount before.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you know I could go back to, I mean the core of this program is the doubling of the ARCs, the creation of the additional university places, the investment in the centres of excellence, and none of those things were in any way touched by the budget changes that we had to make. But we did have a problem five years ago, a huge problem and we had to take some measures that we might in other circumstances have not taken.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
It's true is it that over the past five years universities have become more and more demoralised about the crisis in university research funding?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well certainly they have argued very strongly for additional resources. I wouldn't call it a crisis and the question is whether they're being demoralised on that is very much a subjective judgement. But they put a very strong case for an increase in the commitment to research and you heard what I think Vicky Sara said a few moments ago that in research Australia will now as a result of this announcement be up there with the best. Now I think that's something that ought to be welcomed by everybody and it's a measure of the commitment that we've made in this statement to research.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
I mean you're understandably making a virtue of it now and that is the importance of innovation in the face of this global challenge but the global challenge was there five years ago and I guess the question has to be asked and maybe we'll never know the answer - what opportunities have been lost in these past five years as funding in some of these areas has run down?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry you can't do much in the face of global challenges unless you've got a properly functioning economy. And what we have set our sights on over the last five years is to get the fundamentals of our economy right. And no program of investment in research of anybody however great it may be in isolation is sustainable if you don't have a strong economy. And it's because we have a strong economy that we're now able to put more resources into these very important areas.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
You don't see any sense of a U-turn in some of your messages to the public given that only a few months ago you and the Treasurer were defending the economy as being innovative enough in the face of international criticism of a slumping dollar and more emphasis on an old economy? This is a dramatic change of turn from what you were saying a few months ago is that right?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I certainly don't see it as a U-turn. I mean this adding to things that we already had and creating some new things. Just because you defend the economy against allegations, wrong allegations, that it's an old economy doesn't mean that you aren't prepared to embrace some new initiatives. I mean what is incompatible with rejecting this claim about us being an old economy and you look at our computer use, our Internet usage, the application of new technology to old industries, the claim that we're an old economy is nonsense. There's nothing incompatible with rejecting that and also saying that we can do better and we can invest more money into research, we can invest more money in centres of excellence, we can encourage more post graduate study, we can extend the HECS scheme so that 240,000 postgraduate students over the years ahead can have the advantage of that scheme to add to their store of knowledge.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
Given the emphasis you're now putting on science and high tech what does it say to you that the HECS fees for a basic science degree have more than doubled in the past five years?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we had to get a greater contribution from the individual and from the private sector towards university education. I mean I'm not reluctant to say now, it's been a position I've ad for years, that the idea that you could sustain the tertiary sector with an ever increasing government contribution and a diminishing private contribution was just not something that we could support. We've tried to strike a balance. Now of course there's a high HECS contribution. I don't deny that.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
But where arts degrees went up by less than 50%, science degrees went up by more than twice. What message was that giving from the Government?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we had to get more resources out of HECS overall...
KERRY O'BRIEN:
But they got more out of science...
PRIME MINISTER:
But you have to take account of the commitment of university resources. They vary. There are more resources required in relation to particular degrees than other degrees and that's not something that is entirely within the discretion of a government.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
You also had a shot at Mr Beazley for some of the spending that he's flagged in terms of the policies, policy direction that he's heading down. And yet this week you've made this announcement about a $3 [billion] spending plan. So when you spend, that's responsible and when Mr Beazley spends, that's not?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think the main criticism I've made of Mr Beazley is that they don't have any policies, I really don't.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
And the announcement last week?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he didn't cost it. And he said it might come in in his second term. I mean this is an opposition that's had five years to develop its 'Knowledge Nation' alternative and, but it has lazily hoped to feed off public criticism of Government changes rather than do the hard yards of developing their own alternative policies. And they've now had five years to do that. My criticism of the Opposition is that it's policy lazy, that it squandered five years to develop an alternative plan for the future of this country.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
You've said in your current Budget papers that you're committed to maintaining fiscal surpluses for the next four years if "economic growth prospects remain sound". Can you remain committed to those surpluses if the slow-down in fact develops to a point where growth this year drops to around 2%, between 3% and 2%?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look our advice is that that won't occur. Now, the advice we currently have from the Treasury and the Reserve Bank is that growth will be slower but not to that degree. Now, I can only deal on the basis of the advice that I've been given.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
At what point though do you have to revise your commitment to surpluses?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is, well Kerry look I can only deal in terms of the current advice that I have and the current advice that I have is that we can look forward to continuing Budget surpluses. And judge us on our record. We've had five years, we got the Budget into surplus a year ahead of prediction. We inherited an $80 - $90 billion accumulated Federal Government debt. We've eliminated about $50 billion of that and we were fought every inch of the way by Mr Beazley as we tried to cut the national debt he left us. So compare that with Labor, I mean judge us on our record rather than on hypothetical projections into the future.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
In terms of election dates, you have made clear on a number of occasions that your preference is to go towards the end of this year. What would cause you to change your mind and go in the first half of the year?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm not, that's a hypothetical question.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
Except that you've left, you've left the door open and I am curious to know what it is that would cause you to . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look Kerry, I am not, I mean I think you've asked me this before and I think I said then that I can't cross my heart and say there are absolutely no circumstances in which the election will be other than in October or November.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
I'm just curious to know what some of those circumstances might be.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no, no . . .
KERRY O'BRIEN:
. . . like a slowing economy . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't know what they are, it's just that a person in my position trying to be honest and frank with the Australian public ought to say what I've just said.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
Well as to your own future, I think you've been somewhat honest and frank again today. You repeated in an interview that you will consider your future around the time you turn 64 which of course will be smack in the middle of your next term of government if you win the next election. That means, I can't see it any other way, it means that you will have to go to the next election not being able to guarantee voters that you will serve a full term.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes well that's better than Bob Hawke and Paul Keating going to the 1990 election concealing a secret covenant to hand over the leadership of the party, in other words concealing, you know representing a lie to the Australian people. I mean I think . . .
KERRY O'BRIEN:
But it does legitimately allow Kim Beazley . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
. . . no I think it does . . .
KERRY O'BRIEN:
It does legitimately allow . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it does represent if I may finish, I think it does represent me being completely honest with people. I mean I am a very fit 61, I'm quite happy to acknowledge that in say three years time I'll give some thought to my future if the Australian public are good enough to re-elect the Government. Now I would rather do that than stand in front of a camera at the next election knowing that I might do that but say the opposite and say oh no, under no circumstances would I consider my future midway through my term or through the bulk of my term. I mean in the end I think the Australian people will appreciate that candour rather than the sort of humbug that we were treated. I mean Bob Hawke and Paul Keating secretly made a deal, for all I know senior members of the Labor Party were aware of it, I don't know but they could have been, and they went to that election pretending that Bob Hawke was going to serve out the full term yet . . .
KERRY O'BRIEN:
This time they'll be going to an election saying a vote for John Howard and accurately might be a vote for Peter Costello.
PRIME MINISTER:
They will be going to the election knowing that they've got a prime minister who's prepared to be honest about his future and is not prepared to deceive them and is not prepared to treat them in an infantile fashion and I am simply not willing to do that.
KERRY O'BRIEN:
John Howard thanks for talking to us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]