PRESS OFFICE TRANSCRIPTWEDNESDAY, 23 JULY,. 1930
PRIME MINISTER INTERVIEWED. BY JOHN LAWS, RADIO STATION 2UE
TELEPHONE INTERVIEW.
( QUESTIONS NOT AUDIBLE)
Question Prime Minister
Good morning to you. I'm fine thank you.
Question Prime Minister
Oh, there's always something to do.
Question Prime Minister
Yes we did.
Prime Minister
We've modified it. We have not done it for a simple reason:
we believed in the wage bargaining process, that it was
relevant and that it was important to be able to demonstrate
that there is a body that can cast an eye over the kind of
pricing policies that are sometimes charged by large corporations.
I do not particularly like the sort of role that the PJT
takes. If' you have-perfect and reasonable competition -you ' would
not need it. But you do not always have that situation. We
made the judgement that we should not abolish the PJT on
industrial relations grounds.-on no other grounds.
Question / 2 3q~ j
-2
Prime Minister
Oh, never is a very long word, isn't it? It really is.
Question Prime Minister
The present decision is to continue with the PJT. The charter
of course, has been altered substantially from that which
prevailed in 1975. It is a less burdensome body on inc~ ustries
than it then was. * I think occasionally it has got its
uses. fr~ estion
Prime Minister
And if necessary, what we have said, we will do, because
I think if companies are going to or the wealthier companiesare
going to do side deals for a 35 hour week and then that
starts to run right throughout the whole economy, you will be
adding in effect an average of over 20%, 21%, to the total
wage bill in Australia. On that basis, of course, we are
going to produce less. We will sell less overseas. We will
sell less in Australia, and more people will unemployed. . We
could see no reason why the wealthier companies should make
it more difficult for everyone else and do their own
sweetheart deals which they would seek to get registered
before the Arbitration Commission. Therefore, we fired one or
two warning shots over the bow. 35 hours, or 40 hours which
is the official working week for most Australians*-is not a
very long working week. I do not how often you have worked
only I have read what you said on the weekend, but I do not
know how often you have worked only 35 or 40 hours a week.
I suspect not very often.
Question Prime Minister
If it is 4-35 hours'pay, but that is quite a different. matter.
If somebody wants to work 35 hours a week and have a reduction
in wages as a result so that the hourly rates are the same
then that is quite a different matter. But nobody is asking
for that. Nobody is suggesting that. What, they are. saying, is:
" let's have the same pay but work less hours for And if
they are going to work the same hours they will get overtime
rates for the extra five hours. All that results in aL
substantial increase in real wages. It is that that would do
the damage to Australian industries, which are now sta~ rting to
do better here and they are starting to get into export
markets some of them in quite an imaginative way. / 3 j
-3-
Question Prime Minister
I think probably it would work out on the basis that if:
you got two companies producing the same kind of commodity
and one of them is only working a 35 hour week, I suspect
there is no way it would be able to produce a competitive
tender. Question Prime Minister
What we said is that this is one of the things we would. examine.
But the main weaponry we have in this particular matte: r was
to say that there could be a PJT pricing inquiry into companies
that gave into a 35 hour week. We were doing that on the basis
that we believed it would damage the Australian economy and at
the same time it would make it much harder for those who are
presently unemployed. I think the grounds for doing that
sometimes we have had companies saying to us " look, we don't
like this sort of weapon you know, but at least it strengthens
our hand very much in negotiations with the union movement".
Question Prime Minister
I think they had made a deal significantly beforehand. I have
not had a report yet on some discussions a couple of"
Ministers had with the tobacco industry yesterday.
My understanding is that it was not a 35 hour week that had
been negotiated, that there was a productivity arrangement.
But I have not had a report from the Ministers about.: t: hat yet.
Question Prime Minister
I do not know that a Government will ever be satisfied with the
way wages are fixed. I think the centralised system of fixing
wages in Australia is probably as good as any system that we
could have within the Australian context. The alternative,
of course, is to let all industries just go out and negotiate
on their own account.
Question / 4
-4
Prime Minister
There is nothing wrong with that, so long as all the
I think you need to look at the history of it. Unions used
to be weak. Employees used to be weak. The Arbitration
Commission was established in a very real way to provide
a protection against what could be large and powerful
companies and the actions of those companies. Over many,
many years, the Arbitration Commission provided that
protection, provided a minimum wage, and provided a basiclevel
of-security and fairness for Australian working mnen
and women. But now, you have a situation where it is the
unions that are more powerful. Even the larger companies
do not carry-the same kind of weight, the same kind of power,
as many of the unions do which have incomes of up to
$ 8 * million or: $ 10 million a year one or two of them.
On that sort of basis, I am not sure that you now do not
need the protection of the Arbitration Commission and system
to protect the interests of a number of companies that would,
in other circumstances, be pushed to the wall. If we had a
union leadership that showed itself concerned for unemploymentand
behaving reasonably in its wage claims, then that would
be one thing. Under those circumstances collective bargaining
might work. But here, we have had it made perfectly plain
to us that union leadership will go for maximum wage increases,
irrespective of the impact on their own members in terms of
employment and all the rest, irrespective of the damage they
do to industries.. Under those circumstances, I think you might
be making.' it very difficult for smaller industries, smaller
companies, if you just said " there is no Arbitration Commission,
go right back to collective bargaining".
Question Prime Minister
No, I do not. I think if under it, companies gave in to higher
and higher wages, wage demands, it would add to unempl~ oyment.
One of the other things which has happened in Australia is that
whether it is called comparative wage justice or whatever
you have a person doing the same job in Melbourne, in Sydney,
in Wollongong and Bour " ke, Alice Springs-if he is doing the same
job with the same sort of classification he gets the same pay.
But the bloke-working in Sydney might be working for a very
profitable company which could afford to pay-more. Th.-e other
companies might be much less profitable and less able to pay
more. If they all had to pay the wage rates that the Sydney
company is paying, the other companies go bankrupt and the
people become unemployed, If unions were prepared to accept
that, on a collective bargaining basis, that people doing the
same work were getting, or could get, different rates of pay,
because different companies in different parts of the country
were in different economic positions, then again, it -might make
collective bargaining easier. But unions do not accept that
principle. Question,
Prime Minister
Not under their present leadership, no.
gues tion
Prime Minister
Well, the companies were saying that could mean dearer
petrol. What has happened under the present system of
marketing of course, is that there has been very great price
cutting in some of the capital cities; price cutting, or
competition or whatever you want to call it. So the people
who have benefitted from that are those who live in capital
cities, not those who live outside them-where'that kin~ d of
competition has not prevailed. I think it is has occu~ rred
in a significant measure because the oil companies have more
and more got into direct selling through commission agents
and whatever. They have put a pressure on the retailing
industry, which in effect has been driving a large number of
retailers out of business. It is all very well to say that
competition should be free and that there should be no
restraints on it. But when you have a collection of small
business people which the petrol retailers are and large
and powerful oil companies on the other hand, the competition
is not free, because the weights are just too much on one side
of the scale. If you had free and perfect competition, well
government should keep right out of it. But the very fact that
if a company has a large influence over a market or industry
because of its size and then tends to drive out small people,
well than that is something that I think governments * need to
be concerned about. I think one of the almost one of the
worst decisions that was ever made in Australia was the
abolition of resale price maintenance. Mr. Hawke was fighting
for the abolition of resale price maintenance. on the basis,
I suppose, that it was going-to help Bourke's Store,. but what
it has done is to help all the large supermarkets and makL-e it
very difficult for the small family store which used to be
a hallmark of country towns and suburban's1 ipping centres.
It made it very difficult for them to survive. All rightin
some senses that might be progress. But I'think somethingz
very sad would happen in Australia if we did not try.-and keep
small business and family businesses together in the kind of
economic organisation which enabled those businesses to prosper.
That really goes to heart of. much of the reason for the
package that Mr. Garland announced yesterday.
Question
-6
Prime Minister
Well, I am sure they will, because they have been squeezing
the retailers. They have been establishing more
and more commission agents, and they have been putting
retailers out of business. You know, it is worth noting that
while the. PJT says that the authorised wholesale price of
petrol is about 31l, or 32Q a litre, in many Melbourne and
Sydney areas the retail price is, in effect,-less than that.
The oil companies supply petrol to different
categories of customers at different wholesale prices. What
they have done, in a sense, is dominated the market.
Question-Prime Minister,
I think it will benefit the private service station operator,
the small businesses if you like. I cannot see why it: should
make any difference at all to the motorist.'-
Question Prime Minister
But they-will not have an increase in-the cost. What could
happen is some of the competition which is driving people out
of business might stop. I suppose that could have an impact
in Melbourne and Sydney, or in capital cities. But it is
too early to tell. Some of the retailers have been saying
with the kind of security that the pa'ckage would operate
that they think that in itself would lead to a reduction in
the price of petrol. So I do not really think that the motorist
is going to be affected by the proposals.
Question Prime Minister
You have got to remember that one of the parts of the package
is that the Government has indicated that the oil com~ panies
should reduce their number of commission agents. This is one
of the things that has been putting pressure in the Taarket, and
putting pressure on the small businesses. I do not r-eally think
that we necessarily want the production, the refining and the
total distribution of oil in Australia to be control-Led by
the oil companies. That is not necessarily my idea of
competition, or the kind of industrial organisation that I
would want to see in Australia.