CONLON:
Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning. How are you?
CONLON:
Good. This morning, Prime Minister, you'll be making an announcement that will please people in the northern suburbs particularly.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I'll be announcing a decision by the Japanese component manufacturer Hirotec to build a foundry that will be ready for production by 2006. It will be a $100 million investment and it will supply components for the next Holden Commodore. It will be built in Elizabeth West, creating at least 200 jobs, and this will offer an additional lifeline to some of the Mitsubishi workers that have been affected by the closure of the engine plant and the restructuring that Mitsubishi announced some weeks ago. I'm delighted to be able to make this announcement. It shows that there is a lot of hope for those workers. The Federal Government, you'll remember, announced a $50 million adjustment package the day the Mitsubishi announcement occurred and we've been determined to work with the State Government, the worker representatives, the unions, the company, to make sure that the transition is as comfortable and fair and adequate as possible.
CONLON:
Some mixed news in the south Prime Minister. Today, as it happens too, Gold Coast boat builders are in town. They need 400 more people in their expanding industry. We understand that federal money is available to actually move potentially hundreds of workers out of the southern suburbs and into the Gold Coast. You can imagine the South Australian Government might not be quite so pleased about that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm the Prime Minister of Australia. You have to understand I don't play favourites between different parts of the country. If people don't wish to take up employment opportunities in other parts of Australia, well that is naturally their right and their choice and I'm not criticising them, but it is not the role of the national government to tell people in which part of the country they should work. So I don't know that I would accept that that's mixed news. I think it's good news that jobs that, you know, may disappear in one part of the country and they open in another, I mean it's better than the jobs disappearing and no alternative opening up. I mean that is the alternative. But the investment I'm announcing today, that is a new investment in Adelaide, very close to where many of these people live. I mean there will be a bit of travelling involved, I realise that, but given the alternative, it's a terrific announcement.
CONLON:
It's a real plus. In fact maybe there's even bigger investment in the ship building industry. Is there a chance we'll get news on the big ship building contracts?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that has to go through a proper tender process. Adelaide will be treated fairly. Once again, I don't play favourites between different parts of Australia. Every Premier wants all the investment to go to his state. I understand that. That's the name of the game if you're a State Premier. Mr Rann only has to appeal to South Australians. I have to treat all Australians fairly and I'm not going to take sides between different parts of the country. I don't play favourites, and we will see that there is a proper tender process. And my sole interest is in building up Australia. Now where that building up occurs is a matter for individual commercial decisions, and where governments have got to award contracts, we will do so. But I can say that Adelaide has great capacity in relation to ship building and has a good record, but I don't want by my remarks to pre-empt where it might go. There's a dockyard at Williamstown in Victoria, there are ship building capacities in Western Australia and in Newcastle, so there's four parts of Australia that I have to keep in mind, and I'm not going to be heard to picking winners or playing favourites.
CONLON:
(inaudible) as even handed. On the Trish Draper matter, you'll be aware that there were police raids on Liberal female workers in their 50s. Is it an appropriate use of scarce Federal Police resources to pursue what we have to assume is a Trish Draper complaint to them about stealing, given that we actually needed to know this. It was in the public interest for us to know about that travel issue and to have it tidied up.
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I don't want to comment about a police matter, full stop.
CONLON:
Not even...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I'm not going to comment. It is not appropriate. It's an independent investigation.
CONLON:
Was it appropriate that Trish Draper...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I'm sorry, I'm simply not going to comment about an independent police investigation.
CONLON:
That's not a police matter Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
It is.
CONLON:
Trish Draper is a Member of Federal Parliament.
PRIME MINISTER:
It's become a police matter and I'm not going to comment about it.
CONLON:
Righto. You'll get some questions today in the northern suburbs perhaps. Political advertising, Prime Minister. This week one of the former Government Communications Unit heads said that the Coalition has taken Government use of public money for political ends to new heights. Would you consider perhaps matching Mark Latham's promise to get the political parties to pay the bills if it's proven that they were using them for electoral advantage rather than for information?
PRIME MINISTER:
Who was that?
CONLON:
It was Stephen Bartos, who was a former head of the Government Communications Unit back in '98.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. Well I hadn't actually seen those comments. I think given the changes that... major changes of policy that we have introduced over the last few years, some increase in Government advertising was needed. For example, when you introduce a new tax system, you really do have to explain its operation. When you introduce changes to Medicare that provide a safety net for the first time, do you understand without Government advice how the safety net operates?
CONLON:
The argument that Mr Bartos...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, what I'm...
CONLON:
Well in fact the ads you did...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I'm putting the... I'm dealing with his argument.
CONLON:
You're asking me...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. By illustration, without Government information, could you explain to your listeners how the new safety net operates?
CONLON:
Well the ads didn't help.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, but you see this is... when you say the ads didn't help, with respect, the ads did help. And these safety net arrangements are not simple. What you've got to get across is that you're entitled to 80 per cent of reimbursement over a certain threshold, you've got to name the threshold, you've got identify what the services are that you can claim, and you've also got to point out to the public that you have a $300 threshold for one section of the community and $700 for the rest.
CONLON:
But with respect, you wouldn't agree with him when he said it's an indisputable fact that many Government ads contain little or no useful information.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well certainly in relation to the two that I have mentioned, I totally reject that.
CONLON:
What about the others though Prime Minister? There were more ads than just those two.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there were... there were a lot of ads, but every Government has a right for a certain amount of factual... provision of factual information, provided it doesn't contain political comment.
CONLON:
Seventeen past seven. Just finally Prime Minister, there has been a lot of discussion about truth in politics and so on. Alan Ramsey in the Sydney Morning Herald wrote in the last couple of days in relation to your statement on the GST, which he reminded us was - there's no way a GST will ever be part of our policy, never ever. He then wrote - John Howard's prime ministership has been a lie from the outset. How do you respond to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Alan Ramsey is an habitual critic of mine. Every time he picks up his pen these days, he writes critical comment of me. I just remind Alan Ramsey and remind you and your listeners about the GST - I said we wouldn't have a GST, we changed our mind on that, and we submitted ourselves to an election for the people to make a decision as to whether they accepted our change of mind, and they re-elected us. There's one thing to promise that you're not going to introduce something and then change your mind and introduce it without going to the people, but in relation to the GST, we said before '96 we wouldn't have a GST, we changed our position in Government, but before introducing the GST, we went to an election and we said to the public - if you don't agree with our change of mind, vote us out. Now I don't think you can be more transparent than that unless you're going to accept the proposition that a Government can never change its mind on a policy. I mean I think this is ludicrous. So if I say now I'm opposed to something, and I'm provided with very good reasons in a couple of years time as to why I should alter my position, I'm not allowed to do that otherwise I'll be accused of being dishonest. I mean I could accept Ramsey's criticism in relation to the GST if we'd introduced it before going back to the people. But we went back to the people. I announced the change in the policy in 1998 and it was the centrepiece of the 1998 election campaign, so that the Labor Party had ran around saying Howard said never ever, now he wants to introduce it, vote against him. Now the people knew that and the people decided to re-elect us because they accepted that the GST was a good policy. So I just find that criticism completely unacceptable, but it doesn't surprise me. I mean Alan Ramsey is that sort of... has been campaigning against me for quite some time.
CONLON:
Prime Minister, we'd better let you get on the plane and come to Adelaide with the good news about the Elizabeth plant.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay. Cheers, bye.
[ends]