PM Transcripts

PREMIERS' CONFERENCE
OPENING STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER R
22 JUNE 1972
A large number of items have been listed for
consideration at this Conference, and there is also a
full quota of Loan Council business to be transacted.
It is our hope and I presume that it would also
be the hope of the Premiers that, while giving the
matters before us the attention their importance warrants,
we will be able to conduct our discussions on them
expeditiously, and with mutually satisfactory results.
The central object of our attention will, of
course, be the general financial position and prospects
of the States.
The extensive information which your Treasuries
have provided to the Commonwealth Treasury has helped
considerably towards our understanding of your position,
both as regards your revenue budgets and as regards
borrowing programmes, and the problems confronting you.
We appreciate that co-operation. For our part, we want
to do what we can within the limits that our own budgetary
requirements impose upon us to help you with your problems.
I suggest that we should move straight to discussion
on the States' finances generally, and that this discussion
be carried forward in private session where you could tell
us anything you might wish to say in confidence to
supplement the information and advice already available
to us. By approaching the main matters before us in this
way and first reaching general understandings on them, we
would then be well placed to make good progress with the
many other particular items listed for consideration both
in Premiers' Conference and Loan Council.