Subjects: GST and political parties; Prime Minister’s visit to Korea and Korean war veterans; GST price effects; Prime Minister’s office; indigenous issues; states’ rights; Internet gambling
E&OE…………………………………………………………………………………
COX:
Prime Minister good morning to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning. Nice to talk to you Tim.
COX:
Why are political parties getting the same exemptions for fund raising activities as charities do under the GST?
PRIME MINISTER:
Because they’re not for profit organisations. I can assure you the Liberal Party does not make any money. I spend most of my life raising money for it and most of the branches of the Liberal Party are either continually or periodically in debt and the same thing applies to the Australian Labor Party. You see if the Liberal Party engages in any commercial activity then the Liberal Party would get caught up. There’s no preferential treatment being given for either the Liberal Party, the Labor Party or the Australian Democrats.
COX:
Do you think mainstream Australia though would see the political parties as charities?
PRIME MINISTER:
I’m not saying they are charities but they’re not for profit organisations. I mean the Liberal Party exists to get people elected to Parliament to implement policy it does not operate… it’s not a commercial operation. If it had a commercial arm well that commercial arm would get caught up. It’s a very simple principal and this suggestion that in some way political parties are being given preferential treatment is just not right.
COX:
All right Prime Minister I’ll ask you more questions as we go through but let’s go to our talkback callers this morning. Our number is 1300 361700 and first up to the Prime Minister is Olive who’s ringing from Hobart. Good morning Olive.
CALLER:
Good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
How are you Olive?
CALLER:
Oh I’m very, very tired I’m still in bed. We’ve just come back from Korea Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, were you over there for the… in connection with the Korean War commemoration?
CALLER:
Yes we were at the wreath laying.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh isn’t it nice to hear from you Olive, it’s great. That was a nice morning wasn’t it?
CALLER:
Oh it was wonderful. I’d just like to tell you the impression of the ordinary people. I know how busy you were and you wouldn’t have had a lot of time to mix with the ordinary Korean people but their impressions of Australia are very, very warm, they love Australians.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we gave a lot to Korea as you more than most Australians would know because of your family connection. And I found in the time I was there that they were well aware of what Australia had done. And my visit and your experience rather gives the lie to the proposition that in some way Australia is not welcome or not well appreciated amongst Asian people and in Asian countries.
CALLER:
That is very… what you say is very true. The warmth over there was wonderful. I’d recommend any Australian to go to Korea particularly.
PRIME MINISTER:
They’re very nice people and there are of course thirty thousand or more Australians of Korean heritage now.
COX:
In Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, in fact I have quite a number of them live in my own electorate in Sydney in and around Eastwood and Epping and some thirty thousand Australians of Korean heritage.
COX:
All right nice to hear from you Olive. Thank you for your call.
PRIME MINISTER:
Very nice to talk to you again Olive.
COX:
We go to Sam now in Mt Stewart. Good morning Sam.
CALLER:
Good morning Tim.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Sam.
CALLER:
Good morning Mr Prime Minister. Now I’d like to speak to you on behalf of various members of my club, the [inaudible] RSL on the GST in regard to the price of beer. Now you promised us that anything above 10% would come down to 10% and anything that was below 10% would go up 10% when a GST come in.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no I didn’t say that, I’m sorry. Just so we don’t misunderstand each other at the beginning, that was not what I said. What I said was that we didn’t believe that any price should rise by more than 10% and that a lot of prices would not rise by that amount and some would stay the same and some would come down. And if you’ve seen the booklet issued or heard about the booklet issued by the Competition Commission last night forecasting the price variation for a whole range of items, hundreds of them, what I’ve just said is borne out by what is in that document. The price of some things, some food for example actually will fall; the price of clothing will rise; the price of other things will rise; the price of electrical equipment will fall. This is what I’ve been saying all along that some things will go up, some things will go down, some things will remain the same and taxpayers will get a tax cut. Now that is the summary of how the GST effects most people.
CALLER:
But don’t you believe this that apart from excise the sales tax on beer of 34%, now 34% mind you on beer is…
PRIME MINISTER:
I’m sorry the price of beer is not going to go up by 34%. The price of packaged beer is going to rise by, in the order of a couple of percent. The price of beer across the counter is going to rise by between 7 and 8%.
CALLER:
But the price… there’s a sales tax on beer now [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes that’s right. Yes that’s right. I’m not denying that I’m saying that it’s not going to rise by that amount. I mean there is a high sales tax on beer and cigarettes of course there is, I’m not denying that but what I’m saying is that suggestions that it’s going to go up by more than 10% are wrong. The price of beer across the counter will rise by more than beer bought in a package, a slab of beer, because there’s a service component in it just as there’s a service component if you were served a glass of wine with a restaurant meal.
COX:
All right Sam we’ll leave you there. Thanks for that. But Prime Minister isn’t it true that the cost of things people seldom buy and purchases which are optional might fall but things like clothes, electricity and gas which aren’t optional will all rise.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well eggs and oranges are things you buy all the time and according to Alan Fels’ guide yesterday they’re going to fall in price. You buy them more frequently than clothing, you buy them everyday.
COX:
OK, now the question though is that [inaudible] by 8 or 9% as opposed to the Government saying 6%. Why is there a difference? Who’s right? Is it the ACCC and Alan Fels or is it the Government?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the predictions that we put out at the time of the election were the predictions we’d been given by Treasury using their model. The ACCC used a slightly different model, in a few weeks time people will find out preciously the price impact. All of these things are a best estimate guide. The important thing about the ACCC is that it confirms that some things will go up, some things will go down, some remain the same and everybody gets a tax cut.
COX:
On 936ABC Hobart and ABC northern Tasmania our guest this morning is the Prime Minister John Howard. It’s twenty to ten and we go now to Rosie in Hobart. Good morning Rosie.
CALLER:
Good morning and good morning Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Hello Rosie.
CALLER:
Mr Howard I know that you have to be in a house, well not a house, it is an official residence and it represents the people of Australia but it is not a palace. You are head of state but you are not like the Queen.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’m not the head of state, I’m the head of Government. The effective head of state of Australia is the Governor General.
CALLER:
Quite right. But I think that most Australians would consider $70,000 for a set of curtains for one room an obscenity. You can get very nice…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well hang on… the figure of $70,000… you’re presumably talking about the curtains, not in the house, these are curtains that have been put in, are proposed to be put in the office that I use in Parliament House and of course they don’t belong to me.
CALLER:
No of course they don’t.
PRIME MINISTER:
They belong to the Australian people and the decision about the price was not made by me. The decision… I’m sorry it wasn’t. I don’t control the expenditure in Parliament House that is controlled by the Joint House Authority. And anything that goes in that building [inaudible] at Parliament House, any of those things are by nature, anything that has to be put in is expensive, I understand that, I’m very sensitive to that and I know how people feel about these things.
I try to keep expenditure on the Lodge and Kirribilli to an absolute minimum in fact the running costs of the two official residences in the four years I’ve been Prime Minister are in fact less than what they were over the previous four years but incidentally I’m not criticising my predecessor for that. Certain expenses in running official residences are unavoidable. They’re old buildings and if you don’t keep them in good repair then ultimately you end up paying a lot more.
Now it’s easy to take pot shots at these things. Quite frankly I wouldn’t mind if the curtains were never replaced but you have to maintain a certain standard. You have visitors from all around the world waiting to see you and it’s not unreasonable to have a fairly tastefully decorated waiting room for people who are waiting to see you. Now…
COX:
Prime Minister, would it be fair to say you’re if not embarrassed, certainly uncomfortable with the cost of $30,000 for a [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, any cost of anything like that taken in isolation sounds high and anybody in my position is sensitive to that but you either never replace anything and allow it to become quite dilapidated and then get criticised for sort of some times by the media for having something that doesn’t compare with countries around the world or you put up with this sort of criticism. Now it’s a no win situation and no Prime Minister of Australia has ever found these issues easy to deal with. That applies to both my Labor predecessors and my Liberal predecessors. I think the way I’ve handled these things has been careful but taken in isolation, of course it sounds a lot of money, but people will know that furnishings and carpets and curtains and so forth, particularly in a fairly large office are always going to be expensive.
COX:
Prime Minister, we’ll leave Rosie and curtains there and we’ll go to Launceston and Brian. Brian good morning to you.
CALLER:
Good morning and good morning Mr Howard. I’d like to congratulate you on your management of the economy after inheriting that horrific debt from the previous Government but I would also, just ask you to comment please on the effect you feel the GST will have on inflation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don’t think the GST will have any ongoing impact on inflation. There will be a once off price increase as a result of the introduction of the GST and it would be in the order of two and three quarters or a bit more per cent, and that will be reflected in the September quarter and there will be a spike but then we believe that the inflation rate for the next quarter will trail away and we’ll be back to normal within a relatively short period of time. Now this has always been the case but we believe it will come and go and therefore it will have no ongoing impact on the inflation rate and that’s the view of most economists and it’s the view of the Reserve Bank.
COX:
Brian, thanks indeed for your call. It’s a quarter to ten now.
Tim Cox with you and Prime Minister, John Howard our special guest on the morning show this morning. Thomas good morning.
CALLER:
Good morning Tim, good morning Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Thomas.
CALLER:
Prime Minister, I have a question about superannuation. Why is there variation between [inaudible] superannuation between the politicians and the ordinary Australian worker?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don’t know that there is the difference you imply. The contributions that Members of Parliament make are higher than average, do you make an 11% contribution?
CALLER:
I make more than that [inaudible] but also. . .
PRIME MINISTER:
No I’m sorry, you make the point. For the most of the time I’ve been in Parliament, I made an 11% contribution to superannuation. Now the superannuation is generous, I’ve never denied that but if you compare the remuneration of senior Ministers with remuneration of senior company executives, the Ministers in this country get about a fifth of what very senior executives get. The Treasurer of Australia gets about a fifth of what the Managing Director of one of the large companies in this country gets and when you take all of those things into account, I don’t think particularly people who carry very heavy responsibility are over paid.
CALLER:
Yeah I’m sorry, that wasn’t the question Prime Minister. The question was why ordinary members of the public can’t approach their superannuation and get before age of 55, where politicians can?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that’s an element of the superannuation scheme, it’s one of the generous elements of it. I acknowledge that part of it is generous. But what you have to do is you’ve got to look at the other considerations and when you take all of those things into account, the total package remuneration given the responsibilities particularly carried by senior people, I think they’re reasonable.
COX:
Is it reasonable though that if someone like Bill O’Chee was able to access his very large superannuation at such a young age?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they are the rules. You might say that particular example is generous. On the other hand against that you’ve got a situation where they, say the example of the Treasurer again, his remuneration is high by community standards, he’s paid less then $200,000, you get somebody running a large company is paid five times that. Now. . .
COX:
[Inaudible] access it so [inaudible] before retiring.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is an element of the generosity of the superannuation part of his remuneration. On the other hand, people carrying much greater responsibility in my view than many company directors, the remuneration is less. Now you’ve got to say [inaudible] or another part and say isn’t this inadequate. I have no complaint about my remuneration, I never have, I’ve never been interested in complaining. I decided to go into politics because I wanted to. I had things I wanted to achieve. Nobody ever gets rich in politics, that’s not been my experience.
COX:
We’ll go to Les now in [inaudible]. Good morning Les.
CALLER:
Good morning. Good morning Mr Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Hello Les.
CALLER:
Would you consider giving the T and P I to all the First World War veterans who are living, there’s only about twenty of them, it wouldn’t cost the country much.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there aren’t, there are very few of them left Les and I’ve never actually thought…let me take that on board. I’m not quite sure whether some of the other benefits they have mightn’t be the equivalent of it. That’s why I’m a little bit careful.
COX:
Your experience I gather is that they’re not.
CALLER:
One person in particular [Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Doesn’t get a gold card.
CALLER:
No.
PRIME MINISTER:
But he’s got one…
CALLER:
He’s got one yeah, but I think if you gave him a TPI and her a gold card it wouldn’t cost very much apart from...
PRIME MINISTER:
Let me look at that.
CALLER:
…but not many.
PRIME MINISTER:
Very few, you’re right, very few.
COX:
Expect an announcement Les?
PRIME MINISTER:
I got to think of …there are some flow throughs and I will talk to the RSL and the department about it.
COX:
All right Les, just hang on there. We will take your number and we will pass that on to the Prime Minister’s office just in case its useful. We will go to Brian now in Southport. Good morning Brian.
CALLER:
Yeah, g’day. I would just like to ask about the GST. Obviously your Government thinks it’s a good thing for Australia, but just forget about whether it’s good or bad. What I want to know is how come before the election you were prepared to deceive the Australian people by saying that we would never ever have the GST.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, that was before the 1996 election and…no hang on, I did say before the 1996 election that we wouldn’t have a GST.
CALLER:
No you didn’t.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I did.
CALLER:
...never had one.
PRIME MINISTER:
Hang on, let me finish. You asked me the question and I am agreeing with you that I said it. Can I now explained what happened. Having said it, I came to the view that it was good for Australia that we have a GST and instead of introducing it without having another election, I put it to the Australian people at an election, explained why I changed my mind and gave them the opportunity of voting me out if they didn’t accept my explanation and they did accept my explanation and they did vote for it. Now there is nothing deceptive about that. I will tell you what is deceptive. What Mr Keating did in 1993 when he went to the election, campaigned against the GST. Never told us that he was going to increase wholesale sales tax. When he gets in, he increases wholesale sales tax with no compensation for low-income earners. He doesn’t go back to the people and explain his change of heart. He does it without another election. Now that is deception. Whereas mine was openly explained to the Australian people why I changed my position.
COX:
Brain, thanks for your call. Let’s go to Malcolm now in Launceston. Hi there Malcolm.
CALLER:
Good morning Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
How are you Malcolm?
CALLER:
Some twelve months of more ago, I sent a letter to The Examiner about this stolen generation controversy. For some reason or other they didn’t print it. In it I stated why don’t the Government come out and say why these children were taken from their parents. They were taken for the best of reasons, the parents were not bringing up the children properly. For a drink or whatever, they were spending their money and not giving the children a chance for proper life. They were taken for the best of reasons.
COX:
Does it make it acceptable though Malcolm? Does it make it acceptable by today’s circumstances?
CALLER:
I think so, yes. If they were white people doing the same thing children will be taken away too. The fact that they were often abused is nothing to do with the Government it is a different issue all together.
COX:
Prime Minister, a response from you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well this is a difficult issue. The reality is that by today’s attitudes and standards those practices of the past are not acceptable and certainly not to be revisited and I can understand why a lot of Aboriginal Australians feel hurt and feel unhappy about what happened. It is true that some of the people involved in the practices were acting for what they thought were correct motives and not all of them had, as is sometimes depicted, a malign or hostile attitude towards the Aboriginal people. That’s true. We just have different views now. There was a more paternalistic view years ago and this is not the view now. I think we’re all sorry about what happened but those of us alive now are not personally responsible because we weren’t involved in those practices. What I think we have to do with this very difficult issue is to acknowledge that there were practices that shouldn’t have occurred, express our regret and sorrow that they happened…
COX:
But Prime Minister, we’re all sorry but are you personally sorry?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes of course.
COX:
Because I think that’s what people want to hear.
PRIME MINISTER:
I have said that a million times. There seems to be a, if I may so your question evinces a sort of unwillingness to actually analyse what I’ve been saying. I am sorry it happened, I think we’re all sorry for any past injustices but the difference is whether the current generation accepts responsibility for what earlier generations did. I mean that’s the only point of difference if you like in the handling of this debate. I mean that is my only real point of difference on this issue with the Reconciliation Council and I don’t think it’s a particularly big point of difference. I think we are reaching a point where I think isn’t it sort of time we moved on to sort of solve the current problems, to recognise that there is a residue of disadvantage and not keep raking over the past.
COX:
It’s five to ten. You are listening to 936 ABC Hobart and ABC Northern Tasmania. Our guest for another five minutes is the Prime Minister John Howard. Can I just ask you about a question that comes up often in Tasmania, that of states’ rights. Of course concerns over raw salmon imports from Canada, apples now from New Zealand. And then larger federal issues in Australia such as mandatory sentencing and also the Internet gaming question which has come up in the last week. What’s your position on states’ rights and the right of an individual state to pursue what it considers the best path?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t have a rigid doctrinaire view. I don’t actually believe in states’ rights as such. I believe, I believe that we’re all Australians. I’ve never seen myself, even though I grew up in Sydney, I’ve never seen myself as a New South Welshman. I never saw myself a New South Welshman. I don’t even barrack for New South Wales in the State of Origin. I don’t really mind who wins the State of Origin whether it’s Queensland or New South Wales good luck to both of them. So I look at things from a national point of view but I do recognise that it’s good sensible politics and good sensible federal management to allow local people in states or territories to make decisions on a lot of things like the criminal law in general. If you’re talking about mandatory sentencing my view generally is that those things should be resolved by the states.
COX:
But why can’t a state like Tasmania which is trying to make itself a clever island, trying to attract as much IT investment here as possible. Why can’t we go ahead…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well for a very good reason, a very good reason because the communications are… control of communications is in the hands of the federal government, it’s a national thing. Communications, communications go right across state boundaries. It is about the most sort of non-state issue you could think of. I mean I’m broadcasting from a studio in Sydney to you in Launceston. I mean is anybody worried about the two state borders that our conversation crosses? Of course they don’t. They’re Australian.
COX:
But [inaudible] maintains that these licences are for Internet gaming for world markets, not for Australian markets. It will bring in hundreds of millions of dollars investment in Tasmania and the creation of hundreds of jobs as well.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think they’re wrong on both counts. The jobs lost through the abuse of gambling in small business will far outsee any job gains from the establishment of new gambling facilities. This country is awash with gambling. We do not need more gambling. We do not need more homes undermined by further addiction to gambling. We have a responsibility to do something about it. I’m very pleased that the NSW Labor Government supports the federal Government on this issue and we will use our constitutional power to prevent the spread if we can of Internet gambling. And I would say to those in Tasmania who think there’s a sort of a quick fix on this- think of the loss to small business because people spend too much on gambling. Think of the poorer sales by small shops, think of the dwindling effects on family budgets that gambling addiction has and then ask yourself whether the state is really better off, whether there are more jobs. I think it is a fools gold attitude entirely and I think the idea that you make money and you make jobs for Tasmania out of Internet gambling is completely wrong.
COX:
Prime Minister we have about thirty seconds left but you’ve talked about suffering. Obviously there’s growing suffering here in Tasmania with drought. Warren Truss will be here tomorrow. Will he be announcing drought relief?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think he’ll have something very good to tell the people.
COX:
Prime Minister good to talk to you this morning and thanks indeed for your time.
[ends]