EMBARGO: 8.50 p. m. THURSDAY 16 OCTOBER PARTY TV INTERVIEW NO. 2
1969 FEDERAL ELECTION.
TELEVISION INTERVIEW GIVEN BY THE PRIME
MINISTER, MR. JOHN GORTON, OVER ABC
TELEVISION NETWORK
Interviewer: Mr. George Wilson 16 OCTOBER 1969
Q. Mr. Prime Minister, there has been a lot of rattling
and roaring about this Naval Base at Cockburn Sound. Even Mr.
Caiwell, the former Opposition Leader has said the Labor Party would
have built it ten years ago. Is the building of this Naval Base a real
election issue or a part of the defence mechanism of this country?
PM. It's part of the defence mechanism of this country, but
it wouldn't have been ten years ago. We have now reached a stage
where our fleet is growing, and we have also reached a stage where
the British are withdrawing from the Indian Ocean, and it is therefore
time to begin to construct a base in Western Australia. It will take
some years to complete it but, clearly, in the new situation in which
we find ourselves, in the growth to which we can look forward, this
will be a necessity and therefore this will be started. We set up
consultants, Maunsell Partners, a couple of years ago to advise
us on this, and the report has been with Navy and Defence and the
recommendation is that this should happen. We agree with the
recommendation. I don't know whether it is an election issue because
I haven't heard any indication from the Labor Party that they would
build such a base. They have spoken of " maritime facilities"
Q. Well, so much for the Naval Base. Can we talk about
Vietnam?
PM. Sure.
Q. According to your policy speech you are now prepared
to admit for the first time that if America continues to withdraw troops
from Vietnam, then Australia also will phase down its involvement?
PM. I don't know that I would phrase it that way: " I am
prepared to admit for the first time", but quite clearly and I have
stated this if there were to be a continuing programme of United
States withdrawal, if they were to have a plan that there would be so
many troops getting out in such and such a time, and others at another
9 / 2
-2
time and so on, and that were to be implemented, then we wouldn't
stay there until last. We would expect to be phased In to such a
withdrawal plan and at a stage which would be the subject of discussion
between us. But we wouldn't unilaterally withdraw just by ourselves
and leave the United States and South Vietnamese in the lurch. We
would, if such an eventuality as I have spoken of occurred and I
don't think it will, but if it did, if there were such contingency plans
then we would expect to be phased into them, and indeed, we would
see that we were phased into them.
Q. These taxation reforms in your policy speech has
the Federal Treasurer, Mr. McMahon, been a party to discussion
about taxation reforms?
PM. Oh, yes, he has been in fact he has been speaking
about them quite frequently around the country, about the need for
trying to do something about the inequities which have developed in
the taxation law. One of the first things I did when I became Prime
Minister was to ask him to look into this and ask the Treasury to look
into this. It is a very very complex matter.
Q. We will come back to your record as a government in
a moment, if we may. But you are virtually offering a dollar a week
to the lower and middle income wage-earners during the life of the
next Parliament, providing, of course, your Government gets back in.
PM. Oh, I don't think you can work it out that way. I
wouldn't work it out that way.
Q. Well, in your policy speech you have said you are
prepared to give $ 200 million back to Australians in taxation concessions,
on a year by year basis, admittedly, during the life of that next
Parliament. Well, with a workforce of 2 million people in Australia,
perhaps in this category of lower to middle income group earners,
this is going to work out between $ 1 and $ 2 a head.
PM. No, this would only work out that way if everybody were
earning the same income and everybody got the same tax rebates and
so on, and they don't. Rates are different for different classes of
income and the whole matter would be far too complex to try and say
it would be a dollar a week for everybody. It would be relief for
everybody. But at this stage, and until studies are completed, you....
I would like to agree with what you suggest, but I am afraid I couldn't.
Q. Any taxation concessions that come, they would not be
until the Government brought down its next Budget?
PM. They would be starting in the next Budget, yes. 9 / 3
3-
Q. I see. Right. Is the Government really offering
substantial benefits for pensioners? After all, the Labor Party,
with its policy speech a couple of weeks back, offered a dollar a week
rise to pensioners.
PM. We have given it is not a matter of promising we
have given very substantial assistance to pensioners of all kinds.
Indeed in the last two Budgets, which is just a little over a year, the
base rate pension has been raised by a total of This we have
already done and this is old age pensions I am talking of. And we
have paid particular attention to widows with children and to the
handicapped. We have given a whole range of very, very significant
benefits and we have brought in the tapered means test which is an
incentive to thrift, so that people just don't get cut out of a pension
altogether because they have got some kind of superannutation income.
So this we have already done. What we think is that what we have done
will be accepted by the Australian people as an earnest of what we
propose to do as soon as it is responsible to do so. We want to see
that the benefits they get are real benefits and not illusory.
Q. And you have singled out organisations, such as the
Meals on Wheels organisation, to give Government aid to?
PM. Well, we think this is a very, very good, voluntary
organisation, and that its expansion would be of benefit to people
they serve and to the organisations themselves.
Q. Mr. Prime Minister, country viewers who saw your
policy speech on television, will be interested to know that you are
going to find $ 100 million over five years to help water some of
Australia's distant farms. Would you like to expand on this one?
PM. Yes, it's not merely f inding water for.. it's not
merely conserving water in dams. The money is to be made available
for conservation of water, yes, but also for flood prevention and
mitigation, which is quite an important matter in various parts of
Australia. And it is also to be available for surveying our underground
water resources, so that we may have a much better idea of where
artesian water is and what quantity we have got and what opportunities
for development it will give to us. Water is one of the major factors
limiting the growth of Australia and this is why we have made a
significant attack on it.
Q. The name of Chips Rafferty is probably one that is
known to perhaps every person that is watching this telecast this
evening.
PM. It's known to me, yes. / 4
4-
Q. Chips Rafferty has been urging the Government for
several years to try and find some sort of subsidy for the production
of Australian films and Australian television. Now I understand that
you would like to do something about this?
PM. Well, we would like to do something about it and we
are going to do something about it. We are proposing to set up a
corporation which will invest in films with a significant Australian
content, made in Australia, or lend money to the producers of such
films. It will have an initial capital of $ 1 million and it will have that
capital replenished so that at the beginning of each year it would still
have $ 1 million. And the profits which we hope it will make, and
the returns we hope it will get from its successful films would then
be paid to it in the hope that it would be able to be self-supporting
after a while.
Q. Well, let's ask you a curly one for the last one. You
have talked about an 8. 7 per cent growth in the economy. You have
talked about a record number of houses being built by your Government.
You have talked about more migrants more this and more that.
Well, do you want to go to the public on your record, or do you want
to go to the public on what you propose to do for the benefit of Australia?
PM. I think we would like to do three things. We would like
to go to the public on our record, on our record of achievements which
is really quite great; on the preservation of the present state of the
economy, the preservation of the present prosperity; the avoidance
of inflation; the continuance of growth and immigration and all
those things of which you spoke. In other words on our record, on
the results our record has achieved, and also on the new proposals
which we are making for the future and which we are sure we can keep
without inflation, or without increasing taxation. The new proposals
you've mentioned some of them the relief in income tax, for example,
bringing Australia into the atomic age, paying particular attention to
the children's needs and needy families, continuing on those paths, but
retaining the present full employment and state of economy we have
got.
Q. Thank you very much for answering these questions
tonight, Mr. Prime Minister.