TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE, MONASH UNIVERSITY, MELBOURNE,
12 MAY 1986
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: We wanted your reaction to the opposition industrial
policy? PM: It is a mish-mash of two conflicting ideologies. They have
tried to patch together those conflicting views, which of course,
has resulted in something which is quite inappropriate and
irrelevant to Australia's interests. It provides no instrument
of wages policy. And of course they learn nothing from the past.
They were in government for seven years and one of the central
reasons which brought this economy to its worst recession in
years was the absence of any wages policy. All they had was the
blunt, tough, undiscriminating elements of monetary and fiscal
policy. And when they couldn't control inflation and regulate
growth by doing something in the area of wages, they just put
on the screws and of course we had double digit inflation and
double digit unemployment. Now, this policy doesn't refer to the
question of macroeconomic policy, doesn't go to the question of
employment and unemployment in it at all. What the people of
Australia will understand is that they have witnessed a party in
turmoil, bitterly divided, one strand wanting one thing, the
other strand wanting another. They haven't come up with a
policy, they have come up with a compromise between conflicting
ideologies. That is all right for them. The tragedy is that
Australia is the one that would suffer as a result of the
abrogation of their responsibilities.
JOURNALIST: Is there any element of the policy which you do find
acceptable? PM: I am not negative in my approach to politics and where they
have done good things in the past for instance Malcolm Fraser
in the area of race relations I have been unqualified in my
recognition of virtue where it exists on that side. But you just
can't find anything which is relevant. I repeat, the essential
explanation of what has emerged is an attempt to find a
resolution between conflicting ideologies and factions. That is
not the way you get policies which are relevant to the current
and future programs for Australia.
JOURNALIST: If it were implemented, what would happen to the
system?
pm: Well, you haven't been up in the Canberra Gallery and I have
a habit of not answering hypothetical questions. But let me say
this, it won't be given the opportunity to do that. One of the
reasons and there are many why the Australian people will
reject this divided, bitterly divided opposition is because
they will recognise, very simply, they have been there, they have
had them for seven years, they have seen what happened in those
seven years with exactly the same sort of approaches and
concepts. It didn't work. We have produced an alternative which
has turned the economy around. It has provided employment growth
with its sustainable levels of inflation and record levels of
economic growth. We have done that and we have done it because
we have had an industrial relations and wages policy which has
given government another lever of policy. we just don't rely
simply on monetary and fiscal policy. We have provided the
government with that instrument of wages policy. And that is
lacking in the policy of the Libs.
JOURNALIST: The left wing unions on the weekend gave you a
pretty clear statement that the Accord would be washed up if you
didn't deliver the tax cuts in September. Can you give us an
unequivocal statement that those tax cuts will still be there?
PM: Let me say this that since February of 1983 I have been
hearing from various sources that the Accord is finished, it will
never work. Now we are hearing it again from a particular
quarter. The Accord will last, it will work and it will work
because the various elements of the Accord will be given effect
to. JOURNALIST: So those tax cuts will remain?
PM: I have answered the question of the tax cuts.
JOURNALIST: inaudible question
PM: But you ought to know that as far as I am concerned, that I
have said in the Parliament and outside that we put our
comprehensive policy including the question of tax cuts where it
should be put. But let me say this, the tax cuts will come in.
JOURNALIST: The Commonwealth Bank today predicted a two per cent
fall in bank home loan interest rates. what is your observation?
PM: Now Mr Christie, the manager of the Commonwealth Bank, had
some very encouraging things to say about interest rates. I
don't want, in a relatively volatile situation, to be commenting
beyond what Mr Christie has said. But let me say these two
things. Firstly, it is the case that over the last couple of
months there has been a substantial decline in interest rates and
Mr Christie is saying that he believes on his understanding of
the factors which are relevant in the level of interest rates,
that those factors will continue to produce a further decline in
rates. Well, I am glad to hear that statement from a person
centrally involved. But I am not going to add my comment or
prediction as to the rate of movement and the timing of it. But
I am glad to hear those sorts of statements.
3.
JOURNALIST: But nevertheless you would be optimistic in the long
term? PM: Yes.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, the union meeting on Saturday also said
that the Government was preoccupied with the trilogy and being so
preoccupied was alienating ALP supporters and that you could lose
the next election. Are you worried?
PM: No.
JOURNALIST: Do you think that that is an overreaction from the
unions? PM: Yes.
JOURNALIST: In your speech you alluded to a pause often being
required for improvement to get sustained growth. Is that a
message aimed directly at those 23 left wing unions?
PM: No. You seem to have an obsession with a meeting of some
unions. JOURNALIST: Pretty powerful group, 40 per cent of ACTU
affiliates. PM: You talk about that meeting, I talk with the leadership of
the ACTU which represents the whole of the unions. And it seems
to me, as the leader of the Government, that that is a pretty
sensible thing to do.
JOURNALIST: How long before the Government decides on the
selection of judges or ex-judges on the judicial enquiry into Mr
Justice Murphy?
PM: Under the legislation that we brought in, that is to be
decided by the resolution of the Houses. I am not going to go
into public comment upon that before we get to the Parliament.
JOURNALIST: Mlr Hawke, the key part of the opposition industrial
relations policy is the ability to pursue industrial matters
through the common law courts. Does your Government feel that is
appropriate? PM: We have made it clear that we don't that is appropriate.
And of course you have got the test. It is not just a question
of concept, just look at it. Under our policies you have got the
lowest level of industrial disputation that you have had in this
country for 17 years. You have got return to the levels of
profitability of the late sixties and early seventies. You have
got a return to the highest, the best levels of international
competitiveness for 15 years. So I don't have to be theoretical.
Our policy works, theirs doesn't.
ENDS