PRIME MINISTER'S PRESS CONFERENCE
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA\,
TUESDAY, 16 OCTOBER, 1973
PRIME MINISTER: Gentlemen, there have been some appointments made
I would expect about half an hour ago by the Executive Council to
the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission.
Mr Barney Williams R. D. Williams and Professor J. E. Isaac,
have been made presidential members and Mr Jack Heffernan a
member of the Commission. Mr Barney Williams has been Federal
Secretary of the Australian Bank Officials Association since 1950
and at ACSPA since 1956. He was recently, you will remember,
appointed to the Bank. Board. Professor Isaac holds the
Chair of Economics at Monash and has been on the Civil Aviation
Tribunal I forget the name of it. Mr Heffernan is one of the
joint Secretaries of the Amalgamated Metal Workers Union and
Secretary of the Metal Trades Federation of Unions. A Deputy
President of the Commission, Mr Chambers, who for very many years
before that was the Public Service Arbitrator and Deputy Public
Service Arbitrator, has been appointed Deputy Chairman of the
Prices Justification Tribunal.
A couple of things of interest to Canberra. Cabinet
has agreed to proceed with a new building for the High Court.
You will remember that the winning design was announced last week.
The National Capital Development Commission was authorised to
enter immediately into a formal agreement with the architects
for the new building. It is intended that the contract will be
let and construction begun as soon as funds have been approved.
The estimated cost will be $ 9 million.
Cabinet also approved a site at Barton for a new
building for the Attorney-General's Department. The estimated
cost of the building is $ 5 million. However, there will be no
expenditure in fact this year.
Mr. Jones, the Minister for Transport, I believe made
a press statement yesterday on Cabinet's decision concerning the
report of the House of Representatives Committee on Road Safety.
Cabinet also split up among various Ministers responsibility
for following-up the recommendations in the Report of the Senate
Committee on Mentally and Physically Handicapped Persons which
was tabled in May 1971. Nothing was done about it in the last
Parliament but Ministers are reviewing all the recommendations
in that Senate Report.
There are two pieces of legislation to be drafted.
The legislation is being drafted but it doesn't say that every
feature which we have asked to be drafted will be confirmed when
the legislation appears in draft form. One of the features flows
from the statement in the policy speech concerning a Law Enforcement
Agency. You will remember that I said that the Commonwealth Police
Force will be upgraded with better training, pay and conditions to
meet the growing threat of political terrorism and organised crime.
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Its facilities will be expanded and its role extended to that of
the American FBI. The Commonwealth Police Force will become the
key link between Australian Law Enforcement Agencies and
Interpol to fight against international crime and the drug traffic
must be primarily a national part. And there were some further
details in the policy speech on that. Now flowing from that
commitment, Cabinet yesterday considered proposals put forward
by Senator Murphy, Attorney-General and Minister for Customs and
Excise. Cabinet asked the Attorney-General to prepare for further
consideration, draft legislation for the creation of a Law
Enforcement Authority bringing together under one organisation the
work of law enforcement currently performed by the Commonwealth
Police, the A. C. T. Police, the Northern Territory Police and the
law enforcement units within the Department of Customs and Excise.
The legislation is to be drawn with provision for an independent
tribunal to investigate complaints against police and on a basis
that would provide for divisions within the authority appropriate
to the A. C. T. and the Northern Territory. The Cabinet had in mind
that when the legislation is passed, the Department of Customs and
Excise will be abolished with part of its functions being
transferred to the new authority and half being included in a
Bureau of Customs. Additionally, Cabinet decided that arrangements
should be put in hand now for the functions of the Department of
Customs and Excise in the registration of British ships and in
indigenous oil policy to be transferred to the Department of
Transport and the Department of Minerals and Energy respectively.
Mr Daly, the Minister for Services and Property, was
authorised to prepare legislation to ensure disclosure of donations
from now on to political parties.
Are there any questions?
QUESTION: Did Senator Murphy yesterday ask that ASIC be included
in the group of forces to be brought under the control of one
organisation. If so, and that was not done by the Cabinet, can
you tell us why?
PRIME MINISTER: Senator Murphy made no such proposal; ASIC is not
a law enforcement agency.
QUESTION: Do you have any specific knowledge of donations by
multi-national companies to opposition parties and further are
you sure that multi-national companies haven't made donations to
the Labor Party?
PRIME MINISTER: I have no knowledge of specific companies which
have made donations to the Liberal Party. I have no doubt that such
donations figure very greatly in the donations that the Liberal
Party has received in recent months. I don't recall donations
of this character this is from overseas companies to the Labor
Party.
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QUESTION: Prime Minister, as a matter of clarification, in your
policy speech you said " rates of taxation need not be increased
at any level to implement a Labor Government's program"
Subsequently, in relation to this year's Budget, you interpreted
that as an undertaking not to increase taxes in this year's
Budget just past. Is that generally an undertaking that during
your term of office you will not increase taxation?
PRIME MINISTER: I have got nothing to add to that and I am not
going to promote speculation on this issue.
QUESTION: Sir, don't you think that you have in fact created
speculation by the doubt you cast on it?
PRIME MINISTER: No I haven't. If you ask questions and I answer
questions on this it will create speculation. I recommend
Kenneth Davidson's article today.
QUESTION: Mr Daly's legislation. Will provision be made for an
Appropriation for party funds to fight election campaigns.
PRIME MINISTER: That's not proposed in this legislation.
QUESTION: Do you propose to introduce that legislation.
PRIME MINISTER: There is no proposal.
QUESTION: What is the attitude of your Government to efforts by
Rhodesia to recruit migrants from Australia, and what would be
the position of Australian passport holders who accepted an offer
of assisted passage to Rhodesia?
PRIME MINISTER: We are obliged under United Nations Security
Resolutions to do nothing to support that regime or to facilitate
movements into or out of Rhodesia. As you know, any Australian
citizen who is promoting the policies of the Rhodesian regime would
have his passport recalled. I don't say that there are not persons
in Rhodesia in possession of Australian passports who are not
performing functions which have no relation to the policies of the
regime but if a person with an Australian passport were promoting
the policies of the regime that is an abuse of the passport and it
would be recalled.
QUESTION: How?
PRIME MINISTER: There have been passports recalled before as you
know. QUESTION: How would you do it if they were living in Rhodesia?
PRIME MINISTER: If they didn't obey, you couldn't go and get it.
QUESTION: Would you cancel it?
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PRIME MINISTER: It would be cancelled at the first place where
it was presented outside Rhodesia. I suppose there isn't much
* you can do about people who stay in Rhodesia but a passport is
supposed to facilitate movement and any attempt to use it for
that purpose would result in its cancellation.
QUESTION: Senator Georges has inferred quite strongly that
Dr Coombs had something to do with the removal of Mr Bryant
from Aboriginal Affairs. Would you care to comment on that?
PRIME MINISTER: There is no foundation for that allegation
whatsoever. Needless to say, I don't discuss with Dr Coombs or
with anybody other than my immediate ministerial colleagues any
changes in the ministry.
QUESTION: Senator Georges also suggested that Aboriginal Affairs
had been become a disaster area littered with failures and excess
expenditure. Do you think that a wider range of inquiry is needed?
PRIME MINISTER: No. present inquiries should be adequate.
QUESTION: Do you anticipate any controversy over Mr Heffernan's
appointment to the Conciliation and Arbitration Commission?
PRIME MINISTER: I wouldn't expect so. It would be generally
acknowledged that Mr Heffernan's qualifications are very
appropriate. He is a very well qualified person in the industrial
field. I believe he will be able to help in the work of the
Arbitration Commission very greatly.
QUESTION: Last week some 57 members of your Labor Caucus sent
out a petition calling on the Government not to recognise Chile
until Caucus had discussed it. Will you go ahead in recognising
Chile before Caucus has discussed the issue, and what's the
position now?
PRIME MINISTER: We have taken the steps to recognise the Government
that is there. That was done last Thursday. I think I told you
a week ago that that is what would happen. There does seem to be
some misapprehension about this. Therefore it might be useful
if I were to point out to you that, of the countries which have
had diplomatic relations with Chile not just recognition but
those that have had diplomats accredited to Chile, in our region
China, Indonesia and Japan have done what we have done; in the
Commonwealth, Britain, Canada and New Zealand have done what we
have done; countries which have fraternal governments which
have done the same as we have are all the Scandanavian countries
and West Germany. You probably know already that every Latin
American country has done so except Cuba and every Western European
country except Italy. New Zealand and Australia were the last of
all the countries that I have mentioned to take the step of
acknowledging the letter which the new regime had delivered to
the foreign missions in Santiago. You know that we have expressed
our disapproval of the method by which the regime usurped power
by withdrawing our ambassador.
QUESTION: Will he return, Sir?
PRIME MINISTER: Not for the time being.
QUESTION: The A. L. P. Platform lays down that the Federal
Parliament should be clothed with supreme powers. Are you asking
A. L. P.' s supporters within the trade union movement to join with
you in supporting the incomes referendum rather than accepting
the viewpoint of the trade union movement as annunciated by
Mr Hawke?
PRIME MINISTER: The Party's attitude was determined and
published on Saturday week after the meeting of the Federal
Executive in Adelaide. I would hope that most members of the
party and supporters of the party would heed the party's wishes in
this regard.
QUESTION: Do you have sympathy for Bob Hawke's stand in opposing
the referendum or whether you....
PRIME MINISTER: Not much.
QUESTION: Or would you go to the other extreme and believe that
he has actually been disloyal or breaking the rules of the party?
PRIME MINISTER: No, of course I don't. He is entitled to come
to his conclusion and to get support for it if he can. I think
it's wrong but he would accept the same right on my party to
come to a conclusion and seek support for it.
QUESTION: Can you say what topics you hope to discuss with Chinese
leaders during your forthcoming visit to Peking?
PRIME MINISTER: I haven't got any specific list but as you can
well believe, there are a great number of political and economic
and cultural matters which we would like to discuss with them and
which we anticipated they would like to discuss with us. There
is no agenda at this stage.
QUESTION: Will you protest against their nuclear tests, Sir?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, of course. I did when we were there together
last time. I was the first Australian to do so, and I have been~
followed by Dr Cairns who has done so as a Minister.
QUESTION: When the High Court handed down its majority decision
-on the Rhodesian Centre, you did suggest that you would ask the
Postmaster-General to amend the Postal Act. Have there been any
developments on that?
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PRIME MINISTER: There has been no submission on this since I
said that. I think we will be doing so but there has not been
a submission yet because, as you will appreciate, there is a
very great deal of legislation which we have been considering.
It looks as if we will be introducing and I hope passing almost
200 Bills this year, which is easy the largest number and I
would think incomparably the most substantial body of legislation
that the Australian Parliament has every considered. There are
some pieces of legislation which you will appreciate have to be
done quite quickly. There are quite a number which will have to
be through before the 1st of December when Papua New Guinea
becomes self-governing. There are also quite a number of pieces
which we would like to have on the Statute book in time for the
Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
on 10 December. There are also a very great number of pieces
which for various financial or tariff or administrative reasons
have to be through before the end of December.
QUESTION: Could I ask you some questions on the progress of the
Appropriation Bill through the Senate?
PRIME MINISTER: You can ask me one. You have the same right as
anyone else.
QUESTION: Could you give us an idea when you expect that to
proceed to a vote in the Senate?
PRIME MINISTER: Do you mind if I consider that question?
COMMENT: Right.
QUESTION: The second question is, what is your general attitude.
Do you think the Senate is entitled to refuse Appropriation or
Supply? PRIME MINISTER: No, of course its not. It would be quite
unprecedented. QUESTION: And thirdly, Mr Anthony suggested that you couldn't
use the Election Bill to go to the Governor-General to ask for a
double dissolution. He said it is not something you can put on
the shelf and keep there for a double dissolution. Mr Snedden
has said that he doesn't know whether the causes for a double
dissolution have evaporated or not. What is your opinion on this
constitutional situation?
PRIME MINISTER: Mr Anthony, not for the first time, is wrong;
Mr Snedden, not for the first time, can't make up his mind. The
position is quite clear that the conditions for a double
dissolution are available for me to make a submission to the
Government-General whenever I wish.
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QUESTION: I was wondering whether you could elaborate oiii the
Bureau of Customs. Will it be attached to this new Law
Enforcement Agency....
PRIME MINISTER: I don't think so.
QUESTION: And what about its functions?
PRIME MINISTER: It will be primarily a revenue body in the same
way as the Commissioners of Taxation are.
QUESTION: What about by-laws?
PRIME MINISTER: The legislation is being drafted and I think it
is enough for me to leave it at that. We are committed to
establish a Law Enforcement Agency as we undertook in the policy
speech. We are committed, when that legislation is enacted,
to abolish the Department of Customs and Excise as at present
constituted. QUESTION: Would you have been better able to attack inflation if
you hadn't given an election promise not to raise personal taxes?
PRIME MINISTER: I think the same answer as I have already given
to the " Age" s; till applies.