Subjects: election; GST: economy; health; education; war against terrorism.
JOURNALIST:
Good morning Prime Minister Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well good morning Summer and good morning Tony. It';s very good to be for the first time in the studio. I';ve spoken to you before, I';ve been interviewed before, but first time in the studio. It';s nice to be here.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, we welcome you on behalf of our listeners and behalf of everyone that is listening to us this morning. In seven days the people of Australia will cast their votes. Next week the people of Australia will decide who will manage the great country of ours – Australia. It';s our pleasure to welcome you in the studio at 2ME, the Right Honourable John Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia who';ll be the Right Honourable John Howard the Prime Minister of Australia next Saturday.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I certainly hope I will. I believe that I';m better able to lead Australia over the next few years than Mr Beazley. I believe that the experience I';ve had and the success I';ve had in managing the Australian economy, the way I';ve got interest rates down from the 17% they were when Mr Beazley was there, and they way we';ve increased employment the way that we';ve repaid $58 billion out of the $96 billion of debt. All of those things make me better able and better experienced particularly at a difficult economic time for Australia because the world economy has been damaged by the terrorist attack and the aftermath of that in the United States. I also believe that at a time of some uncertainty on the international scene I have the experience and the determination to do the job better. It is of course up to the Australian people to make that decision and I believe that my experience and my firm single- minded view on issues make me more suited to do the job than Mr Beazley.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, as you know we';ve got lots of listeners. They';re interested in asking you …..
PRIME MINISTER:
Please do.
JOURNALIST:
I';ve got one question I wanted to ask what were the achievements of the Liberal Party and what were the sacrifices that the Australian people have made for that outcome?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there have been enormous achievements. We have reduced interest rates. The average home loan in Australia now is $350 a month lower than what it was in March of 1996. We have created more than 800,000 new jobs. We have doubled the number of apprenticeships from about 130,000 to 310,000. By the end of this financial year we will have repaid $58 billion of the $96 billion of government debt that we inherited. We have introduced valuable social programs like Work for the Dole. We will have begun the process of reforming the welfare system. We have invested a lot more money in the defence of Australia. Over the next ten years we';ll invest $32 billion more in the defence of Australia. We';ve introduced uniform gun control laws which have greatly added to the safety of the Australian community. We successfully led the international force in East Timor. Our actions saved the people of East Timor. I';m quite sure that if we had not been the government then than a different attitude would have taken and a less supportive attitude would have been taken to the people of East Timor. We have made it very plain that although we continue to be a country that welcomes a number of refugees from around the world that they have to come in an orderly fashion. We will continue to decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. We are a very generous country and one of the great success stories of Australia is that we have taken people from all around the world and it';s very important that we continue to practice our open and cohesive and tolerant approach to people of all different backgrounds. We have seen stronger economic growth over the last five years. The wages of people have gone up at a faster rate than inflation so they';re better off. In fact in overall terms it';s fair to say that the Australian community is better off now than what it was five years ago. They are but some of the achievements of the Government.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard let me ask you, you mentioned the interest rate as well. How long is it going to stay low and with the people who are buying homes especially the young ones today would they feel safe and not have to resell their homes because of higher interest…..?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I can';t see any reason why interest rates shouldn';t stay where they are now for quite some time but I can only point to the record of this Government. We have the runs on the board. When Mr Beazley and Mr Keating were there, interest rates got to 17%, 18%, 19%. And if Mr Beazley wins again over time he';ll introduce the same policies that caused those high interest rates. I mean of all the things that affect young Australians, particularly young Australians in some of the outer suburbs of the big cities is interest rates and there is no contest on that. We are the party of low housing interest rates. Labor is the party of high housing interest rates.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible]… I am waiting for a little operation and they keep telling me I have to wait 12 months to 18 months. Is that fair to a sick pensioner?
PRIME MINISTER:
I';m sorry that you have that wait. But can I point out to you that the Westmead Hospital is not run by the federal government. It';s run by the state government. And over the time that we';ve been in government we have increased our funding to governments like the New South Wales Government for public hospitals like Westmead by 28% in real terms. That';s 28% over and above the inflation rate. And on top of that we have put $2.5 billion a year of tax incentives into private health insurance to encourage people to take out private health insurance. Many people have and that';s taken a load off the hospitals. The public hospitals of Australia are run by the states. The states get all of the GST revenue, every last dollar. They get on top of that they get additionally to help them run their public hospitals they get very generous increases from the Commonwealth government. I';m sorry about waiting lists, very sorry. But in the end that is the responsibility of the hospitals and state governments who own and run those hospitals. There are certain things the federal government runs and you are entitled to complain about delays in relation to things we run and we have to answer for that. But I don';t run the state hospitals and providing we provide those state hospitals with adequate resources which we do. It really is the responsibility of the state government and their concern is that you should not have sympathise with them, you ought to be directing those to Mr Carr and to the Health Minister of New South Wales.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard one really big issue that you have been asked from our listeners during the week that the international terrorism at the moment is coming to Australia as the Ambassador of Taliban to Pakistan told us two days ago and you replied to that yesterday yourself. How safe are we in Australia at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think Australia is very safe. Everybody is naturally on a higher alert and we are naturally all a bit more vulnerable as a result of what happened on the 11th of September. Nobody can pretend that it won';t happen here. That';s a silly attitude to take. But we are a lot safer than the United States, we';re a lot safer than most countries. We have taken a lot of security precautions. We have taken a lot of security precautions. I responded to the comment of the Taliban Ambassador by saying to the Australian people we can';t ignore something like that but we shouldn';t overreact. I was very pleased to see that the leaders of the Islamic community said that they would have no part of that statement. They condemned it. They urged the members of that community in Australia not to take any notice of that and I commend them. I congratulate them for taking that stance. We are first and foremost all of us Australians and I want to say on this program in particular that it';s very important for Australians of the Islamic faith and Australians of Arab descent to hear from me, their Prime Minister, that you are as much part of the Australian community as I am. I will not tolerate any discrimination or abuse being directed to you as Australian citizens because of what happened on the 11th of September. The people who did those dreadful things did those things against you as much as they did against me. They were done against all decent people and they have been condemned by all decent people.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, I have a question from a listener here. He is saying it';s quite okay that you are promising to the Muslim people of Australia but there are equal to their brothers here. But what are steps in law that are taken in this country to achieve or to make them appease them that they are not second class citizens?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they are not. I mean the laws are already there. Every Australian citizen has the same rights as another. Somebody who is born in Australia like me who';s an Australian citizen has no greater legal rights than somebody who was born in Lebanon, came to Australia and then became an Australian citizen. Now his or her rights are exactly the same as mine and if people are assaulted or if people are vilified, if people are discriminated against in their employment they have rights and those rights have been there for a long time and they will be enforced by the law. And I just want to make it clear we don';t need to pass new laws. The laws are already there. We are all equal before the law. But I think it goes beyond equality before the law, it goes to an attitude of mine, and it is important at a time like this for me to speak out very strongly and openly. And what I';m saying now because I';m aware that I';m speaking to a largely Arabic listnership, and what I';m saying now is no different to that than what I have said to audiences that wouldn';t include anybody who can speak Arabic. I';ve spoken in a similar vein in Hobart, in Townsville, in Perth, all over the country. And the message is the same. We reach out to all of our fellow Australians irrespective of their religion or their race or the country in which they were born. They are all the same and everybody who has come to this country and been accepted into this country is entitled to the same place in the sun and the same measure of respect and the same friendly embrace from their neighbours and from their Prime Minister.
QUESTION:
I have a son at a private school which costs thousands of dollars and I am very unhappy about the continued attack on private education. Can you please explain to us the benefits of private education?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you won';t get attacked on private education from me. We support choice. We think parents should decide where their children go and I think the attacks that Mr Beazley are making on so called rich or privileged private schools I think that';s the thin end of the wedge. And every time a parent sends a child to an independent school they take the load off the government schools. Now the government schools do a great job and I want to make the simple point with two figures – 69% of all Australian children go to government schools and those government schools get 78% of total government funding, and more over in the last five and a half years the federal government has increased by 43% the amount of money it gives to government schools although the enrolment in those schools has only weakened during that period by 1.8%. Now when you look at those figures any suggestion from Mr Beazley that the federal government, my Government is discriminating against government schools is complete nonsense. I would advise parents who send their children to independent schools to be wary of attacks on independent schools based on some kind of envy politics. I mean there may only be 54 schools on that list now but if Labor were to get in you could have another list that would have a lot of schools on it that nobody would regard by any stretch of the imagination as been privileged or well off. And can I say particularly to the Arabic people in the community in Australia I';ve been to the opening, the launch of an Arabic school in Auburn and schools that were under the umbrella of the Islamic faith in Australia get the same treatment as Jewish schools and Christian schools. No difference. It';s an example of the equality that people have that I mentioned earlier.
JOURNALIST:
I must say Mr Prime Minister this is what makes this country a great one because there is no discrimination, no difference, no differentiation between any denomination or race or creed.
PRIME MINISTER:
… so you should be.
JOURNALIST:
Also Prime Minister, we';ve got [inaudible]
CALLER:
Good morning it';s Karl….(inaudible)…
PRIME MINISTER:
Hello how are you? Good to see you. What part of [inaudible] do you live?
CALLER:
Just down near your father';s old garage.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
CALLER:
I';d like to say that your are the best prime minister this country has had and I hope your government will win again on the 10th of November because this country needs people like the Liberal Party to run this country for the time being because they are certainly doing a good job. But my question is that we have a business and because of … we had to sack a girl from work and I took her to court and cost us a lot of money because of the unfair dismissal law. What can we do to abolish that which the Labor Party brought in?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what we';re seeing about the unfair dismissal laws is that we would like a situation where all small businesses were no longer impeded by unfair dismissal laws because they don';t really protect people. They hurt people because many firms won';t take new staff on through fear of having an argument and having to settle the unfair dismissal claim for $20,000 or $30,000. A big firm can afford that, a small firm can';t. So what do they do? They don';t put the person on in the first place. Now what we have been able to do is to win the support of the Democrats to have a probationary period of three months which is a step in the right direction and that';s now the [inaudible]. But it really ought to go much much further than that because many small business organisations tell me that if we were able to get rid of these unfair dismissal restrictions small business would take the opportunity of putting new people on without the fear that if they let somebody go very early in the piece they wouldn';t end up in court and it really is cutting off your nose to spite your face to use that expression for people to say oh no we need these current laws. What that really does is stop people taking anybody on in the first place.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Prime Minister, the GST is an issue at the moment. Mr Beazley is promising a Rollback tax. What do you say to that and are we facing an increase in GST?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we';re certainly not facing an increase in the GST under the present government. It is set in stone at 10%. No way Jose will you get an increase in the GST under….
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible] promise?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely. Of course ….can I say it is apparent there';s a very good reason why you wouldn';t need to because the good thing about the GST is that the revenue from it grows as the economy grows. And we don';t want Rollback. What';s interesting about Rollback is he';s really going to keep 96% of the GST and the Rollback is mainly in areas like gas and electricity. But that';s not going to happen for 18 months. Now by contrast our baby bonus operates from the 1st of July this year. Babies born since then, their parents are eligible for it. Now there is a very interesting contrast there. His main taxation push doesn';t really, the main bit of it doesn';t really cut in, I mean the other little things, you know the small items, women';s sanitary products obviously effects all women but it is a very small lifting of impact. The big pitch is gas and electricity and that';s not for 18 months whereas our baby bonus runs from the 1st of July in this financial year. But GST was a necessary reform but as well as having the GST we had $12 billion of tax cuts, we cut the company tax rate from 36% to 30%, we';ve halved the capital gains tax for a small business for individuals. There were some small business difficulties with the forms. We responded. We altered the BAS. We made a number of other changes. We';ve always been ready to fine tune the administration but as I move around the country I get people saying to me look whatever I may have thought about the GST it';s in now, let';s move on, let';s get on with running our businesses. And most small business people I talk to when they';re thinking about the election comparison they remember that Mr Beazley and Mr Keating were there interest rates were 17%, 18%, 19%, 20%. The biggest killer of small business is high interest rates.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible]… one question. This call from Mr Samir whose been on hold for ages.
CALLER:
Mr Howard why are we still seeing the attacks in politics from Labor and Liberals on the public sector whether it is health, education or transport. Most of the support is going to the private sector. Labor government and Liberals now, waiting lists in hospitals increasing and it is so expensive to go to a private hospital for an operation.
PRIME MINISTER:
Can I say I don';t accept that we are attacking, we Liberals - the Labor Party can answer for itself, I';m not going to try and answer for the Labor Party - but we';re not attacking public institutions. I mentioned a moment ago that our support for government schools at a Commonwealth level has gone up by 43% over the last five and a half years even though the enrolments in those schools have only gone up by 1.8%. We';ve increased the payments for public hospitals under the Medicare Agreement by 28% just over a five year period. That';s in real terms. We have put money into private health insurance and that helps public hospitals because if private hospitals are used more because people have private health insurance that takes some of the strain off the public hospitals. Now the question of waiting lists ultimately is the responsibility of state governments. I mean there are some things that are our responsibility. I mean if something goes wrong with Customs you don';t blame Bob Carr because he';s not responsible for it. And if something goes wrong with a hospital or a school that he';s operating it';s a bit unreasonable to turn around and say that';s John Howard';s fault. I mean that';s basically what Mr Beazley in this campaign is doing. We give states money for health with the money they make available to run public hospitals. But we don';t run them. They run them. And therefore things like waiting lists are their responsibility. Now I';m not trying to score a political point but I';m simply stating the reality.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, as you mentioned, the GST goes to the state governments….
PRIME MINISTER:
All of it, every last cent, and they';ve got lots and lots of cash to pay for things.
JOURNALIST:
And also I';ve heard some how from our listeners going around like the waiting lists and also the dental issue. Why doesn';t the state government doesn';t do its job and spend the money okay, doesn';t the federal government have to come into power and check?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we do. I mean we have to put our case. We increased the money. I mean with the public hospitals we actually ended up giving the states more money than we were legally liable to under the Medicare Agreements because under the agreement that was signed there';s a clause that said that if the number of people in private health insurance rose above a certain level, and I think that level was about 34%, then there would be a clawback, a reduction of the amount of money going to the public hospitals, going to the states, because the view was taken that if there were more people taking out private health insurance fewer people would use beds in the public hospitals, more in private hospitals, and therefore the states would be up for less money. Now we decided not to insist on that clawback and as a result of that the states have ended up with more money under those agreements than we were legally contracted to provide. Now I';m pleased we did that. It was good policy because the cause of public hospitals is good. But this constant mantra that every time a state government falls down on something and the call is that the federal government doesn';t give enough money. I mean this goes on whoever';s in power at a state level I have to say. And I think a halt has to be called with this set of nonsense and they have to be accountable to the people who elect them and the people who elect the Carr Government, it happens to be a Labor government at the moment but if you are talking about a Liberal government in South Australia, people who elect that, they';re the people that should make that government accountable.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister Howard, [inaudible]
CALLER:
…..[inaudible]…
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
CALLER:
….[inaudible]….
PRIME MINISTER:
$58 billion by the end of this financial year.
CALLER:
….[inaudible]….
PRIME MINISTER:
I';ll give you a very simple example. When you have a big debt you';ve got to pay interest on it. Now if you borrow some money to buy a house or start a business you';ve got to pay interest on the money you borrow. It';s the same with a country. And by reducing the debt we have more money available from lower interest payments to spend on other things. We estimate that each year now we have about $4 billion a year more that we don';t have to pay on interest because the debt is lower and we can spend that $4 billion a year on roads, on giving extra money to hospitals, on salinity, and all the other things. When we came the government our debt bill I think was bigger than the amount of money we spent on defence. Now that';s terrible. And by getting that debt down we';ve done great things.
JOURNALIST:
You didn';t mention education Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well education, yes, on education. I mean just mentioned some of the things. But all those. I can mention education now. I mean we put $3.3 billion into that science and innovation package.
JOURNALIST:
We have Mr Joseph….
CALLER:
Thank you Prime Minister. How are you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Mr Joseph, I';m very well.
CALLER:
…[inaudible]…. Australian government to show in the war against Afghanistan…
PRIME MINISTER:
No it';s a war against terrorists.
CALLER:
…[inaudible]…. Who is going to pay for the expenses and if it is Australia, why Australia and the other question … 11 September going to effect the migration to Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
The answer to the first question is that the cost of Australia';s military deployment will be borne by Australia just as the British military deployment and indeed others will be borne by those countries. Will it effect migration to this country, no. The migration program will continue. I think it does, the whole issue of terrorism does, it can undermine the need to monitor even more tightly who comes to this country and that';s a perfectly natural response. But we have no intention of altering in any way the source country. I mean we';re not going to discriminate against anybody as a result of the terrorist attack. And can I make the point that we are not attacking Afghanistan. We do not want to occupy Afghanistan. We don';t want to subjugate the people of Afghanistan. We have no argument with the people of Afghanistan. We have an argument with the Taliban and we have an argument with the terrorist but no with the people of Afghanistan. And might I also make the point that over the last few weeks we have announced the provision of something like $23 million extra, most of which will go to the United Nations agencies, to help countries like Pakistan deal with the influx of refugees which will very likely result in what is now occurring. And there is a humanitarian responsibility on the part of the world and including Australia and we are playing our part in helping countries like Pakistan grapple with that huge problem. But I do want to assure you that we';re not going to interfere with our migration program or interfere with the players.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, we thank you for your time on behalf of Arabic listeners and Summer and myself. We thank you for your presence for the time you gave us this morning, your precious time. And may I say to you before we say goodbye to you, you have been known as being a very honest man. How can you manage to be an honest politician?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that';s a bit unfair on the political class.
JOURNALIST:
That';s the reputation you have brought….
PRIME MINISTER:
There are a lot of dedicated people on both sides of politics, both sides. And can I say there is none more dedicated to serving his people than Ross Cameron who is the member for Parramatta. I want to take this opportunity as I say goodbye to your listeners to those of you who may live in the electorate of Parramatta, Ross is a fantastic local member. He';s got a big fight in front of him. They';ve changed the boundaries. That happens. It';s a really tough fight. But he';s a great bloke and he';s a great fighter and can I say he';s been a great advocate of the cause of many of the Lebanese and other Arabic communities within those constituencies. So spare him a thought on the 10th of November.
JOURNALIST:
Graham Richardson this morning on TV he said whoever wins Parramatta wins the election.
PRIME MINISTER:
That';s very interesting. Well go Ross.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard thank you for being with us and I have an excuse for being nervous. It is the first Prime Minister I interview. Thank you very much.
Pter I interview. Thank you very much.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you very much.
JOURNALIST:
Thank you for being with us and also thank you for talking to our listeners who are really concerned about election 2001.
PRIME MINISTER:
It';s a great radio station and the people I';ve talked to are part of a great Australian community.
[ends]