PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH TERRY WILLESEE 11 JUNE 1986
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
WILLESEE: Mr Hawke thanks for your time.
PM: my pleasure Terry.
WILLESEE: Mr Hawke, you addressed the nation earlier tonight in
your shirt sleeves. Was that symbolic?
PM: No, it is the way I usually am in my office.
WILLESEE: It wasn't preplanned?
PM: No, I feel more comfortable that way in my office. That is
the way I always am there and it seemed the most appropriate way
of doing it.
WILLESEE: I just thought, given with your pep-talk, to get us
all going that might have been a down to work
PM: If that is a bonus of the way I appeared so much the better
Terry. WILLESEE: Right. You called for, amongst other things and we
will come to those hopefully, you called for us all to buy
Australian. How far should we take that?
PM: As far as it is absolutely possible. I-think one of the
problems about some of us in Australia is that we don't realise
how good we are. We tend, some of us I think, to assume that
because it is made overseas it is better. And that generally is
not the case. What we have got to understand is that if we are
going to give our Australian industry the best chance of
competing overseas we have got to give them as big a base as
possible. And certainly by buying Australian goods, we are going
to help our current account problems. And we are going to help
our employment situation.
WILLESEE: Mr Hawke, what would you say to people-who-can af ford
it, perhaps executives across Australia who are driving foreign
cars?
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Pm: I would say " Buy Australian". We make great cars. Let me
give you an example. The quality of Australian cars has improved
so much that we are now having decisions made by the
multi-national companies that they want to export the Australian
product back into their home area. Ford for instance, is now
going to be exporting its car into America. From Japan, they are
importing now, more components made in Australia. The quality of
the Australian product has improved that much that that is the
judgement that these corporations are making about Australian
products.
WILLESEE: Are things so serious that perhaps those executives
should trade their imported cars in right now, or should they
wait? PM: I would much prefer to see them, with the rest of the
community, making immediate decisions to buy Australians.
WILLESEE: Have you considered how you will go about buying more
Australian products?
PM: Since I have been in, I have had an Australian car and I
will continue to do that. And I will be trying to set an
example. Where I have got the choice between buying Australian
and buying overseas I will be going Australian.
WILLESEE: With a government department, will they be instructed
to buy Australian?
PM: If you look at the complete statement that I have put out
tonight, we go to that. We are going to be looking at the whole
question of government purchasing so that we can do as much as we
can. As a Federal Government, we will be asking the States to do
the same to buy Australian where they possibly can, Obviously,
in some areas, particularly in the defence area, there are
some things that are simply not available, not made in Australia.
But as far as possible, government will be doing what we are
asking Australian citizens to do.
WILLESEE: Mir Hawke, we are starting to get reaction to your
speech tonight and we have a recorded interview with Mr Bob
Ansett, the business leader. And we would like to have a look at
his reaction to your speech earlier this evening.
ANSETT: We have a system that has slowed down because, the
economic system has slowed because there are no longer the
rewards for people to invest and to build businesses and to
manufacture so that we can export. And no matter what we
want to exhort about buying Australian, there are less and
less Australian goods to buy. The only solution is to
provide the rewards for business to invest. And I am not
talking just large business. I am talking about the 600,000
small businesses who really are our future in this country.
And I am afraid that the prescription that we heard tonight
is not going to help in this regard.
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WILLESEE: Mr Hawke, what is your reaction?
PM: First of all, I would say to Bob to look at the record.
Under this Government the profitability of Australian business
has been restored to the highest level since the end of the
sixties. And that has been because of a combination of the
policy decisions made by my Government and by the co-operation
that has been given by the Australian community, including the
Australian business community and the Australian trade unions.
You can't ignore the facts, that is the very, very significant
increase in profitability. That is what has happened. What we
want to do is to help Australian business by the macro-economic
environment, what we are saying about wages. And we also want to
help Australian business by arranging particular decisions in the
investment area, which we have made 150 per cent tax deduction
in regard to research and development, one of the most generous
systems in the world that we have brought in. And particularly,
I want to help Mr Ansett and the Australian business community by
getting my fellow Australians to say, before they made a
decision, let's buy Australian.
WILLESEE: Mr Hawke, you gave us in part a pep-talk, that is the
impression I got, I may be wrong but that is the feeling I got
from it, that it was in part a pep-talk?
PM: In part it was, yes.
WILLESEE: And once again the workers were asked to tighten their
belts. But Mr Hawke, some don't have any notches left on their
belts? PM: Let me say this there are 700,000 more with a belt, if I
can put it that way. 700,000 new jobs as a result of the
policies of this Government since we have been in office. The
highest rate of employment growth in the history of this country.
So that is the first thing I say, there are more people in work.
And what I want to make sure is that as a result of the policies
of my Government and the co-operation of the Australian business
and trade union community, that we are going to continue to put
more people into work. We have got a very simple choice, Terry,
in regard to what the world has done in terms of what they are
paying for our exports. The Australian economy will adjust in
one way or another. It can adjust by a co-operative approach of
the sort I am talking which will mean that we can keep growth
going, keep creating jobs, or we can refuse to exercise the
restraint and the economy will adjust then by rapidly declining
exchange, rate burgeoning interest rates, lower employment and
stagnant growth. And what we are saying as a Government, it is
much more sensible that we exerc-i-se--restraint, recognise the factthat
the world by what it is giving us for our export products
has marked our national capacity down by three per cent. We
can't ignore that, it is a fact.
WILLESEE: But what about those who can't tighten that belt
anymore? PM: As far as our social welfare policies are concerned, we will
attempt to ensure that the most needy in this community are not
disadvanted. I think that is what society recognises as
reasonable and certainly what the Government recognises as
reasonable. commercial break
WILLESEE: Welcome back to TWT and with us live from Canberra is
the Prime Minister Mr Hawke. Mr Hawke, I would like to get your
reaction, you mentioned in your speech tonight about putting the
unemployed to work in a part-time capacity in the community,
community programs. We have the reaction of Colleen Chesterton
from the Australian Council of Social Services.
CHESTERTON: I don't think it is workable for the unemployed.
Let's face it, unemployed people whether old or young, want
a full-time job. The Government has moved in this direction
by introducing things like traineeships, like the Community
Employment Program. Those, at least, were trying to give
people some structured employment and training experience.
But now we are told that they can get this sort of experience
by just working for a couple of days a week unpaid. Now, I
believe that unemployed people will feel that if they are
good enough to be employed, they are good enough to be paid
for it.
WILLESEE: Mr Hawke?
PM: Let me say this to Colleen and to your viewers. We are
still spending more money, Terry, on the sort of programs to
which Colleen refers the traineeships program, a whole range of
training programs to try and give that experience to which she
refers. I say again that we have created 700,000 new jobs
record growth and we are going to continue to create jobs.
Unfortunately, that still leaves a large number of people who are
not employed or can't participate in these programs. And all I
can is that if my experience in Priority One earlier this year
and the end of last was that these people are saying sure, if
we can't get jobs and we know that there can't be jobs for
everyone at this stage, we would like to do something for, and
with, and in the community rather than just getting the
unemployment benefit. So that is what we are about. I think
they want to be able to do something than just receive the
unemployment benefit. I think the community wants it, so in a
co-operative way, that is the situation we are going to try and
r-ingabout. But I want to assure-Colleen that there is not only
no diminution of what we are doing in the other areas, there is
an increase.
WILLESEE: Prime Minister, we have a reaction also from the
Queensland Premier, Sir Joh Bjekle-Petersen, so let's have a look
at that. PETERSEN: He gave no hope and I feel sorry for the people of
this nation. No incentive, no encouragement as far as he and
his Government was concerned. You know, the massive
spending, the high taxes, the high interest rates. And then
to have the hide and the audacity plus the other things to
say to people you have got to work harder, you have got to
produce more, you have got to give us more money. He talked
in terms of cutting the Public Service. He is the one that
has created 400 times more public servants in his time than
we have in Queensland, for example. And so he has gone from
catastrophe to catastrophe. And he expects and says that the
people are responsbile. We are all in it, we have all got to
do something. He and his Government and their policies have
created this situation and now he is asking you and me to
bear the burden of their mistakes, and it is just not on.
WILLESEE: Mr Hawke?
PM: Just two things about Sir Joh. Firstly, Sir Joh should
really come and talk to the people of Australia about economic
performance because the economic statistics which have been put
out in fact by the Liberal Party in Queensland, not by the Labor
Party, show that the worst economic performance of any State in
Australia is the Queensland performance under Sir John. Don't
rely on me saying that. The Liberal Party in Queensland is
saying it is the worst performance. So he is not the one to
talk. Secondly, I am glad that Sir Joh talked about massive
government spending. We will give him the opportunity on Friday
of this week, in Canberra at the Premiers' Conference to
participate in the reduction in government spending. And I am
sure now from his observations that he will co-operate.
WILLESEE: Mr Hawke you mentioned, just finally we are running
out of time, the spirit. Were you trying to capture the spirit
that we had in the times of the America's Cup by naming those..
PM: What I was trying to say was that I think one of the beaut
features of Australia is the way in which, right across the
board, we do take great pride properly, not only of our
international prominent sportsmen and women, but also I mentioned
Joan Sutherland right at the top of the tree. Now, all I am
saying is that I want us to get the same sense of excitement and
shared participation when Australian firms, doing as many of them
are doing, competing against the best in the world and winning.
That is the sort of same spirit that we have got to get becaewe
can do it there.
WILLESEE: Mr Hawke thank you very much for your time this
evening. PM: Thank you Terry.
ends