PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH HAYDN SARGENT, RADIO 4BC,
17 MARCH 1989
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
HS: Prime Minister welcome to the studio.
PM: Thank you Haydn, it's always good to be back with you.
HS: What's happened to the Labor Party in Canberra because some
of the rank and f ile kinda feel you've lost touch with them and
you seem to be rubbing shoulders with the big boys, the Alan
Bonds and...
PM; Oh that's history, I mean it's 1989 there was a bit of that
talk at the beginning of 1988 but none of that talk around now.
HS; What about the story on the other night on Alan Bond
suggesting that he gets a fairly decent deal as far as taxes are
concerned while the rest of us are shelling out pay and you earn.
PM1 Yes well I think Paul Keating got sort of sick and tired of
getting the story out there, let me repeat it. You can't just
look at what tax is paid by a holding company, if the tax has
been paid by the operating company and this has come through into
the holding company, you don't tax twice. Now that's not to say
that there hasn't been some benefit to Bond and some other
companies because of offshore tax saving operations, now what
we've done, and what should have been done by previous
governments, what we've done is bring in the legislation which
will come in next year to close off those tax havens.
HS: So there'll be no little Cook Island offices...
PM: That's absolutely right, and we have more than any other
government before increased the number of tax auditors, we've
actually put them into the big companies, stationed them in
there, to chase these big fellows and we're doing that against
the opposition of the Opposition, they're saying attacking the
Commissioner, Trevor Boucher, and all these things we're doing
they're saying it's an intrusion, well we're going to keep on
intruding because we believe the big fellows have got to pay
their tax, and we'll do everything we can to ensure that they do.
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HS: And where does that leave Mr and Mrs Average Australia come
July 1 with tax cuts?
PM: Mr and Mrs Average Australia, and you've put it right
because the tax cuts are going to be directed at lower middle
income Australians who've bore a lot of burden, they'll be
getting a tax cut from 1st of July. And I'll be announcing them
in April.
HS: Wage increases?
PM: Yes, we're negotiating with the ACTU and we're talking with
employers as well. There'll be wage increases, but they will be
historically different in that they will be associated with the
restructuring of Awards, something that's never been tackled
before. We're going to have an Award restructuring process which
will mean the elimination of hundreds of different
classifications. We'll have an Award structure which will be
relevan, to modern industry, which will mean that the basis of
training and retraining of people in the workforce will be made
easier. There'll be career structures and the actual
classifications will be relevant to the way in which modern
industry is conducted. Within that process there will be wage
increases, increases which are affordable and sustainable and
which over the longer-term will bring about significant increases
in productivity.
HSz Do you wish it was possible to f ind a way to divorce the
interest rates for the home buyers from the kind of ups and downs
of the economy?
PM: Well you've got to look at what's happened, you see in fact
the situation before used to be that you had an artificial sort
of environment created for the area of trading available for
lending for housing, and you had a thirteen and a half percent
fixed rate, but the realities were that that covered in very few
cases the whole of loan. People had to top up that loan at that
pegged rate by going out and getting a cocktail loan and pay very
very high rates for the rest of their loan which made it on
average much higher than the thirteen and a half percent. Now by
freeing up the banking system and enabling the trading banks as
well as the savings banks to get into this area, it's meant that
people haven't had to have recourse to that cocktail a~ oroach so
on average you haven't had the sort of increase that you could
have expected. it's interesting to note that over the last / 3
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twelve months the interest rates have increased by about 7%.
They've gone from about thirteen and a half percent to fourteen
and a half percent over the last 12 months, which is about in
line with the general increase in the cost of living. The big
factor as you know has been Haydn in the increase in land prioes,
that's what we're trying to tackle now in co-operation with the
States. HS: Yes, with due respects though, I mean for instance in
Queensland last year they built 35,000 houses. The deal done
between the Commonwealth and the States on land release is not
going to really ease that land problem significantly, it will
help a little bit but-it really isn't a big enough...
PH: No, but what you've got to understand is that we just
didn't tackle the problem of land supply. What we've done is to
make available now a very large number of blocks within the next
five years which will be the equivalent of about 15 new suburbs
and the same sort of amount again this time around, but as well
as doing that what we've got agreement with the State Governments
and Local Governments is to tackle other areas..... one of the
problems has been the whole process of zoning and regulation. I
mean people are getting tied up for unconscionable periods by the
time it's taken in many areas of local government who makes the
decisions about how land will be available for housing.
HS: Don't you think in a sense by making the house the only
capital gains tax free investment, that that has fuelled the
rising price of land?
PH: There is an argument that you know the pure economists say
you should have capital gains on the house, but we're not going
to do that.
HSI I'm not recommending that....
PM: No and I'm making it clear that we're not going to be doing
it. HSB: No, inadvertantly....
PM! Just let me make this point, unfortunately I don't think
justice was done to Paul Keating when he raised the issue, so I
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repeat that for those who want the separate quarter-acre block,
that's beaut and we should provide that. But for those who
would prefer the option of the medium density areas, well we've
got to have a changed attitude amongst local governments to
ensure that that's made possible.
HS: Prime Minister I understand that the research people
suggest that the Labor Party's appeal to the women voters has
weakened a little bit and you have encouraged your Ministers to
take a little more notice of the womens opinions and w. omens
questions, the womens voice, what prompted that to happen?
P1 Well look I always call the shots, there's nothing, there's
no hidden agenda and I'm not being devious about this, the fact
is yes there's been a bit of a widening of the gender gap.
There's been more men-vote, the fact that more men support us
than do women. Now I'm disappointed by that because it's
recognised by womens groups in this country that no government
has done as much on womens issues and on general issues which
affect women than we have done. What r say, and what I ask your
listeners, particularly your women listeners to understand it's
not only what we've done for the women, but the thing that I'm
proudest of is that as far as their daughters are concerned, the
future adult women of this country, as a result of the things
that we've done in education, eliminating discrimination in
education, and eliminating discrimination in employment, the
young women, the girls of today are going to grow up into an
Australia that we've created where those girls will have a
greater range of opportunity than any previous generation of
Australian women. Now we're proud of that and I think if
Australian women really had that message communicated to them
that they would ref lect that in their support, so I have got to
accept, and my Ministers have got to accept, and all my Party
members have to accept some fault, responsibility for not having
' got that story across sufficiently.
HS: Prime Minister we're you disappointed that the developers
pulled out of the Tasmanian paper mill project?
PM: Not surprised, my disappointment is that they were not
prepared to co-operate in the processes of further environmental
studies and in acceptance of their responsibilities to enable the
mill to go ahead. We want to see the processing of our raw
materials, we want to see greater value added, but I want to make
it clear to your listeners while I'm proud of the fact that We've
created jobs at twice the rate of the rest of the world, so we've
accepted the responsibilities of growth, the Hawke Government is
not going to have development at any cost, at any price. I am
not going to sacrifice the environment of this country for future
generations and the fact was the best independent advice we had
from the CSIRO, which is highly respected, was that this
government could not responsibly allow the mill to go ahead on
those watered-down guidelines. It probably would have involved
more money for the developers so what, you can't short cut the
future generations by just scrimping on inferior technology now.
You see, let me give your listeners some idea of what was
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maintaining. Each day, each single day, 13 ton~ nes of organic
chlorines were going to be pumped into the ocean, which could
have affected the whole food chain, which could have put at
Jeopardy the maritime industries and the reputation of this
country as a prime producer of uncontaminated food products. Now
I'm not going to buy that and I don't think Australians would
want me to buy that, and the f act that Gray, supported by John
Howard, are saying it should have gone ahead. Okay, i f they
want to be short term thinkers in that way, they can. Now there
are better standards and higher standards being followed in other
parts of the world, and I'm not going to cop inferior standards
which can jeopardise the future of this country. Now I don't
believe that means that in the future there can't be mills in
this country, but the mills that are going to be here are going
to be of the highest possible environmental protection standards.
HSI Prime Minister, I don't know if you've heard of a suburb
0 here on the southside of Brisbane called Kingston, but over many
years companies have dumped toxic waste there and it's now
bubbling up out of the ground, and the State Government has put
health workers in there, they've done drilling tests and they're
in the process of trying to buy back I think about 21 houses that
have been affected, is the Federal Government able or interested
in becoming financially involved in trying to rescue the people
of Kingston?
PM; We cannot accept the financial responsibility for areas of
State Government responsibility. What we've got to do is to make
sure that in regard to these sorts of issues in the future, that
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we not only ourselves expend money, but we mobilise State
Governments and private industry to make sure that into the
future we don't pollute and destroy the environment for future
generations. Where problems of past pollution have occurred
that manifestly is the responsibility of the State Government and
they've got to get their priorities to deal with that.
H-S: Technically you see it's probably the local governent and
the local council, but in this particular predicament I don't
think the local council can foot the bill because the problem is
so immense.
PM: Yes well the State Government will have to be of assistance
there, we've got to use the scarce resources of the Federal
Government to deal with those future areas of threat to our
population.... HS: So you're saying no money from Canberra?
PM: Well we haven't had the approach because I think the local
governments, the State Government recogniseB where the
responsibility lies in this.
HS: Mr Hawke it was good to talk to you, thank you.
PM: Thank you Haydn, it's always good to be with you and your
listeners.