7.
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH BRIAN WHITE, RADIO 3AK,
MELBOURNE, 12 MAY 1989
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
WHITE: Sitting in front of me here in Melbourne is the
Prime Minister, Bob Hawke. Good afternoon to you Sir. It
was very kind of you to make that generous announcement that
you made today.
PM: Well it was a pleasure Brian. What you say about the
contemporary music industry is absolutely right. I mean
people tend to think of it just as entertainment and it's
certainly that but it is a big industry in employment
terms and it's growing in importance as an export earner.
So we've been very pleased to put $ 600,000 in earlier to
create a permanent source of revenue through that percentage
of the royalties on the blanks and also to indicate to that
we'll probably be doing a little bit more.
WHITE: Alright. Now let's get down to business. The
business of the day still appears to be the Liberal Party
and it's frontbench. Are you surprised that John Howard has
knocked back Andrew Peacock?
PM: well it's obviously the end result of the stupidity
where they clearly haven't got their best talent and it's
not as though they've got a great deal of talent to play
around with. But they haven't got their best talent when
they don't have Howard in the ministry and to say that Jim
Carlton will be better Shadow minister for Defence than John
Howard would've been, is just an absurdity. What it reveals
is that the bitternesses and divisions within the Liberal
Party are as deep as they ever were.
WHITE: Would you see it as an insult to Howard to offer him
Education? PM: Yes. I think that's a fair way of describing it. It's
your description and I can't bring myself to disagree with
it. I mean he is clearly in a position where he's entitled
to expect higher not that Education is not amongst the
most important issue in this country I mean don't let me
get that wrong but in terms of the ranking that it has
within their portfolio structure, it was obviously knocked
back. The two that Howard apparently wanted Foreign
Affairs and Defence and what Peacock has done is very
interesting. He said, " No John Howard. Ian Macphee is
better in Foreign Affairs than you are." Most interesting.
As you know John Howard in Defence, Jim Carlton, the bloke
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( PM cont) that you through out of the Shadow ministry all
together and who is regarded within in his own Party and
around Australia as a laughing stock after his performance
as Shadow Treasurer, " I'm telling you John Howard that Jim
Carlton's better in Defence than you are". Now it's pretty
hard to get a more calculated insult than that I reckon.
WHITE: Yes. Those none the less. All of this sort of
thing is I guess usually epxected when a new leadership
takes over any political party that there's at least the
week of people settling old scores and bodies falling around
all over the place. Once all that's settled down, one it's
over, once ther is that new frontbench in place, what's it
mean insofar as options for you as Prime minister?
PM: It doesn't affect it doesn't go to my options at all.
You see people tend to be asking this Brian, look I dont
know whether you're asking in that sense about elections.
WHITE: I didn't even mention
PM: No, no. But that's the context in which it usually
comes up. Now what you've got to remember is this. The
bloke, the one bloke who raised the question of there being
an early election was who? John Winston Howard. Why? Mr
John Howard threw this scare thing into the ring because he
had some idea there might be some sort of challenge going on
against him, although it didn't seem to be too much on the
boil about it. And so he was saying to those around him,
" well look you can't go rocking the boat because Hawke's
going to call an election". Now Hawke wasn't going to call
an election. It was never in my mind to call an election in
the middle of the year. He tried to line it up with the tax
cuts. As I've said, the tax cuts were a delivery of a
promise I made twelve months ago that I would give the
people of Australia significant tax cuts from July 1. Now
that's what it was about. Little Johnny Howard said, " oh no
this means an election". Now the fact that he couldn't save
himself and that he's gone and Andrew Peacock's in there
doesn't do anything about my I didn't intend to have an
election now and I'm not going to.
WHITE: Well I didn't being up elections, you did.
PM: And I thought that was the context that
WHITE: Yes. Well I'm actually looking at it in the context
of whether a populist leader of the Opposition against
somebody such as yourself, a populist Prime Minister,
whether that changes the way in which you will approach the
problems that you have before you as Prime Minster?
PM: No. I mean why would you? I mean what we've been
about is the process of making a range of tough decisions
that have been necessary to handle the economic problems of
this country, and that means essentially to get us back
towards the full employment econoomy in which we've been
spectularly successful. I mean the important thing that I
ask your listeners to remember is that when we came to
Office unemployment was over 10%. In their last 12 months
there's been another quarter of a million thrown on to the
unemployment scrap heap, and what I've said we've got to do
is to make decisions between getting people back into work.
We've been spectacularly successful, created jobs 4 times
faster than undrer Fraser/ Howard/ Peacock, and we're doing it
2 times faster than the rest of the world now. In that
situation we've also got to take some tough decisions to
keep the economy not exploding you know in a way which would
just send us right back into recession. That means high
interest rates at the moment. Now I want people to
understand that I don't lightly make these decisions about
having high interest rates, it's absolutely necessary now
because if we didn't try to slow the economy down a bit we'd
just be sucking in that much imports that we couldn't pay
for and sustain. I think about this you know just about
every day. I say to myself, you know I try to put myself in
the minds of ordinary people out there and say, " well now I
know that times have been a it tough for them, I know that
high interest rates are hurting a bit. But is there any
other way to protect the economy, not having a go but is
there any other way?" You know I think about it every day.
The answer is Brian that there isn't any other way. We've
got fiscal policy as tight as we can. We've got wages
policy tight. So we've just got to have monetary policy
tight for some time. I just say to you all your listeners
that I'm concerned about them and I won't have interest
rates higher for one day longer than is necessary. But that
also means that I'm not going to take high interest rates
off a day before they should be.
WHITE: But of course your opponents and that includes an
increasing number of financial commentators it seems to me
are saying that interest rates are going to be the
death-knell for the Hawke Government. You also have people
saying that there are ways of cutting a lot of money out of
the fiscal side by reducing Government expenditure.
PM: It's very interesting that people who say it
particularly our opponents. They never say where and no-one
acknowledges what we've done. Remember this, that when we
came to Office Commonwealth outlays as a proportion of the
gross domestic product were 29.1%. Now we've gradually,
gradually cut away until the outlays now are not 29.1% but
25.6% of gross domestic product. We've reduced a deficit
that we inherited of the best aprt of $ 10B to a surplus of
and we have a situation where the public sector
borrowing is zero. The overseas debt is not a
Commonwealth Government debt, it's in the private sector or
in the states. So we are acutally paying off debt. So we
have done that by very, very severe cutting of expenditure.
For 3 years in a row now there has been a real reduction in
Governemnt outlays. So these people who just blindly say,
" Oh well we'll cut another couple of billion off", let them
be specific. I noticed just reading through some stuff
during this week, Andrew Peacock said back in ' 87 in an
article in the Bulletin that the Opposition must be
absolutely specific and it must be soon about where we would
cut, and he's right. Now where is he going to cut? Is he
going to cut in Defence? I don't think so. Is he going to
cut in pensions? I'd be surprised. Is he going to cut in
other areas of social welfare, education, roads? Come on Mr
Peacock, tell us where you're going to cut.
WHITE: Well the Business Council of Australia what ten
days ago did present an argument where it believes cuts
could be made. Did you look at that?
PM: Sure, sure. And yes there were some areas that they
I know what their submission was, it added up to over a
billion dollars it included some areas of assistance to
industry but it's all very well for those people sitting in
the Business Council of Australia I don't question their
integrity at all. But they've got to understand that in
these areas that they are making suggestions about it is
not just a question of political difficulty but they've
got to put it against the background of the massive cuts
that we've already taken and we just believe that there is
virtually no room left for perhaps one thing that they did
say in their submission the one your talking about. They
talked about cuts of about $ 500M from the states. Now we've
made it clear that there's going to be at least $ 360M. We
said that in the April Statement. There's at least $ 360M
coming off the states. So there's some areas of agreement
between us.
WHITE: Of course, I haven't heard the term used for while
but economists used to like talking about circuit breakers
and one of the circuit breakers that I suppose might be
around the place is if you were able to pursuade your own
Party that selling off places like Qantas and the
Commonwealth Bank would be a circuit breaker, it would help.
PM: They are one off things. I mean you can theoretically
argue cases for and against the sale of the but you've
got to understand that that's a one off thing, that doesn't
do anything in a continuing sense to meet these sorts of
problems of balancing between revenue and outlays. You know
it's in a different area. I mean we are different from the
conservatives in that respect. I mean the Howard at any
rate, you don't know what the Howard Opposition as
distinct from the Peacock opposition was one which just
had an ideological obsession against the public ownership of
( PM cont) any enterprise. Now this crowd, I think, is on a
different certainly Macphee who has now been reserrected
is out passionately against the Howard public asset sales
situation. So one doesn't know what they are about. But
the important economic point is that they are one off
considerations which don't meet the situation permanently.
WHITE: Let me come back to the matter of elections which
you raised, not me. Robert Ray went on record the other day
after the elevation of Andrew Peacock as saying that it did
mean that there wouldn't be any reason for an early
election. But Janine Haines who is not exactly regarded
as a political heavy weight, but none the less is a very
skilled operator as a politician Janine Haines reckons you
ought to run right away.
PM: Well when I get to the stage when I need to rely on
Janine Haines for political advice in general or election
timing in particular, I think I'd be in a bad state. That's
all I need to say about Janine I think.
WHITE: So what are we talking about with an election? Have
you got any thoughts that you can offer that's new?
PM: Nothing new. I mean I repeat, it's John Howard that
precipitated all the talk, not Bob Hawke. I've said no
early election.
WHITE: There was no consideration being given at that time
that Howard floated it?
PM: No. I mean you see I was the one who knew what was
happening about him. I was the one against all the
political journalists none of them were on to it I said
in the Parliament that it was on. I gave the numbers, I
gave the timetable, I knew what was on. In those
circumstances he didn't sort of know the actual details, he
didn't know it the way I did. But he did have a vague idea
that there was something happening. So what he wanted to do
was to try and write down the impact of the announced July
tax cuts to try and say, " Hawke was just dong this because
he was going to have an early election,"' get people to think
that this was a cynical exercise rather than simply what is
was. That's how rough the Tory's are. You make a promise
back there 12 months ago saying you'll deliver tax cuts from
July 1 if there's a proper wages outcome, there is a proper
wages outcome, you deliver it. But their standards are so
abysmally low that they try and say, " Oh no, no he's not
just delivering on a promise, he's trying to create an
election". Now they got it wrong. They got it wrong.
WHITE: I was in the Parliament t he day that you threw that
number at John Howard the number being 34.
PM: Yes. Did you see Andrew blush?
-6-
WHITE: Well indeed what I did notice about Andrew was that
he didn't smile. I did watch him.
PM: well he was there wispering in the Leader's ear, " No,
no I mean I wouldn't be doing this".
WHITE: What did you mean by 34?
PM: Well that's about where they were then 34. They
needed 37 but Andrew's position was he wasn't going to run
unless he had 40 or 41 because he took the view as he was
putting it that you can't trust them. At the end when
they go up to vote it might 2 or 3 back-sliders. They had
34, 37 was enough, he wanted 40. Now he didn't have them
then. But the events in regard to the Goldstein
preselection and their perception of Howard's handling of
that enabled him to tip the numbers. So I was right about
the timetable, I was right about the numbers.
WHITE: Rupert Murdoch's two newspapers in Melbourne the
Melbourne Sun this morning suggested that you got, shall I
say, a baking yesterday in your clash with Andrew Peacock.
The Melbourne Herald this afternoon is running a poll, an
opinion poll, which shows that Andrew Peacock would win an
election if it were held right away by quite a substantial
margin. How do you feel about that?
PM: Well as for a baking, it was certainly not a baking.
What happened is that I miss-heard a question that Andrew
Peacock put to me at the beginning and it was quite clear
that I'd made a slip in the Parliament earlier in the week.
I'd said there'd been a increase in living standards of 8%
per annuum. It obviously hadn't been it and never said
that anywhere but apparently I in the Parliament and
he's able to catch me out on that. It's not earth
shattering. If that's the sort of question on which he's
going to go as his first question, that suits me fine. I'm
not worried about that at all. Later on I was misinformed
about whether training funds for the Trade Union Training
Authority was an amount that had been asked by a question
and we had to correct that. No, no, no problems there. one
of the problems we've got in the Parliament though which
is obviously going to be increased under the tactics of Mr
Wilson TUckey is this constant noise from the opposition,
I mean they're just shouting, shouting, shouting, and that
is somewhat disconcerting, I mean we're gong to have to deal
with that. But as to the poll, I've said before there was a
change in leadership, I said that if there is a change then
there'll be a honeymoon period. I said it earlier this week
when the thing was announced I said to everyone, " Well
you've got to expect a honeymoon period". It usually
happens when you get a change of leader and they get a run,
that won't last.
WHITE: You don't have any concerns that why the 2 Melbourne
papers are doing that which the Sydney papers didn't today
that this might signal Rupert Murdoch deciding that Andrew
is the next leader of the country?
PM: I don't think that, you know, obviously I've had no
discussions with him. I'd be very surprised if that were
the attitude of Mr Murdoch. After all, Mr Murdoch has had
the opportunity over many years now of seeing Mr Peacock and
I'd be surprised if the assessment of Mr Murdoch on what
he's seen and the comparison he's able to make, that he
would come to that conclusion.
WHITE: The other question that is uppermost in my mind
today is one to do with Tom Uren
0 PM: Yes.
WHITE: Your old colleague. Now our Melbourne listeners
would not have heard a long interview that I had with him
yesterday, but just as a brief background, Mr Uren spoke, I
must say move movingly than I've ever heard him speak
before, on a subject which he's often talked about, which
is the plight of former prisoners of war, Australian
prisoners of war, of the Japanese. Yesterday was the first
time that I've ever heard Tom talk about the diseases that
afflicted these men on the Burma Thailand railway and all
the various Japanese prisoner of war camps. He's appealed
directly, through that program yesterday, for people to
write to you to ask for more to be done to help them.
What's going to be the answer?
PM: Yes well, let me first of all say how totally I respect
my friend Tom Uren on this issue. He's a man generally of
enormous compassion, as you know, but this is an issue which
is very close to him because he was a prisoner of war up
there and on the railway and he saw so many of his mates die
and he saw the rest of them come back, many of them with
considerable problems. He's talked about this with great
compassion in many places, including in the House recently.
So what I've asked is that when we have a look at this,
further at this situation and we will, you know, be taking
into account what he's had to say and the very persuasive
representations that he's made and we of that in the
context of going up to the next Budget.
WHITE: There are, as he says, fewer than 6,000 living
former POWs of the Japanese, 70 percent of whom will die
before their time because of the illnesses they contracted.
PM: One can't argue about the very touching and real nature
of the problem and I don't argue it. Simply one has to look
at it in relation to the range of demands from a number of
legitimate sources in the veterans community. I think it's
true to say that this Government has an enormously positive
relationship with the veterans community and their major
-8-
( PM cont) organisation, the RSL. I was just meeting with
them, for instance, Brigadier Garland and Ian Gollings,
their National Secretary yesterday of matters. We have
a very, very good relationship with them and we've got to
look at this particular claim and issue that Tom is pressing
so urgently in the framework of other demands, but we'll be
looking at it sympathetically.
WHITE: Now he has made the point, both in his speech this
week and the one he made in October, that it was with some
considerable dismay that he realised that it was the Hawke
Government which did in fact cut back on some of the
benefits that POWs were getting.
PM: Well, if you look at the total range of what we've done
for veterans generally, then we've spent more in increases
in this area, in relative terms, the increase in
expenditures on veterans has been greater than just about
any other area of administration, Very, very substantial
hundreds of millions of dollars of increase in outlays
generally. One area in particular which the veterans
community is particularly, you know, been responsive to us
and grateful is the upgrading of the repatriation hospitals.
So in all areas of Government there's hardly been one which
has had a greater increase in outlays than veterans. You
had to sort of balance within that massive increase in
outlays the various issues that they put before you, the
veterans and the representatives of the veterans community,
the things which are their number one priorities and so. I
can't say any more Brian, other than that I recognise and
appreciate completely the integrity and total commitment
with which Tom Uren puts these issues. I repeat, we'll look
at what he's got to say.
WHITE: I understand you just mentioned the fact that you
had discussions only yesterday with the RSL I understand
that this may have had to do with this new campaign which
Legacy is also involved with, about getting into schools
with the message about the Spirit of Australia. Is that
right?
PM: Well, that wasn't the particular issue yesterday.
Really what we were talking about yesterday was that next
year is the 75th anniversary of Gallipoli.
WHITE: Yes.
PM: And I announced recently that I would make available a
707 aircraft to take Gallipoli veterans back there. So we
were talking about that and starting to work out how
together we would work out the details because there's a lot
of logistics in that. These men are going to be chaps in
their nineties and that's going to require a lot of medical
and support back-up to go with them. So we've got to talk
about that and also talk about what else we may be doing
together to try and have an appropriate celebration for that
anniversary because, of course, the reason for picking
-9-
( PM cont) up that 75th anniversary is that by the time we
get to the 100th, all those veterans will be gone. We want,
therefore, to make the 75th anniversary one that will be
vividly remembered.
WHITE: Just on that subject, I am one of those Australians
who grew up with a father who was overseas during World war
II, he was a Rat of Tobruk, and I guess I've always grown up
with the belief or a view that no Australian Government ever
does as much as those men and the women really deserve. Do
you think that your Government's approached the right level?
PM: I think we've approached the right level. All I can
say is that the retiring head of the RSL, Bill Keys, has on
the public record been extraordinarily fullsome about the
attitude of my Government and so I, in a sense, rest upon
his judgement as head of longstanding of the RSL, about what
we've done. But I think, having said that, I mean it's not
a question of patting yourself on the back and saying ' well
you've done better than anyone else has ever done
enormous increase'. I guess it's an area in, one way you
can never do too much because it's not an exaggeration of
language or an exercise in rhetoric to say that we owe
everything to these people. I mean these are the people who
were prepared to lay down their lives for the future of
their country and in that war, you referred to, the Second
World War that your father was involved, the very future of
this country The fact that we've got a free and
democratic and prosperous country with all that it has to
offer, we've got that and got it to pass on to our children
in a very real sense, is because of the sacrifices those
people made and were prepared to make. So how do you ever
put an adequate measure on that?
WHITE: Just one other side issue to this all again. The
Japanese, there's Tom Uren who has got, I think, a very
magnanimous attitude towards modern day Japan. But the
issue of Japanese ownership of Australia or that part of it
that they are buying up remains a sore, I would suggest,
with a whole lot of people. Do you think it is?
PM: Yes it does with some people and I'm glad you asked me
the question. What I appeal to your listeners to think
about Brian is this, these are facts that I'm putting not
opinions. The fact is that Japan is our major trading
partner. It buys more of our exports than anyone else and
we get more of our imports from them than from anyone else.
We are not an exclusive monopoly source of supply for them.
If they wanted to decide to get their coal, their iron ore
for instance, from other countries, they could. And their
meat, they could. Now Australia can't have it both ways.
We're either going to understand and accept the fact that
this is our major trading partner and that our actual
standard of living is determined in part by the fact that
they are such a substantial buyer of our products and
therefore carry the implication from that that they have
rights in regard to this country. Well, we don't. You
( PM cont) can't say to the Japanese ' we want you to buy as
much of our coal, our iron ore, some of our uranium, our
wheat, our wool buy, buy, buy that Japanese friends so
that you help to increase our standard of living, but we're
then going to say to you that you're second class citizens.
we'll discriminate against you, as against the world,
and you will have differential and discriminatory investment
rules against you'. Now what the Japanese will say? Say
' OK, you think we're second class, you want to discriminate
against us, that's alright, off we go, we'll do our buying
elsewhere'. Now, who suffers? It's not just us today, but
more importantly it's our children and their children. You
can't live and operate in a world like that. But let me
make the bottom line. It is legitimate for Australians, for
your listeners, to be worried about levels of investment in
certain areas, whether too much of a real estate is being
bought up or so on. That's why we have a Foreign Investment
Review Board so that we look at major investment decisions
to take into account the Australian national interest. Now
that's our position. In the Liberal Party, under the
document that John Howard laid down and which Mr Peacock
says he embraces, they would abolish the Foreign Investment
Review Board so that you wouldn't have any mechanism there,
no substantial separate mechanism to look at levels of
foreign investment. But I'm pleased to say, and I say this
in fairness to my political opponents, that while they
differ from us on the question of a regulatory mechanism,
therefore I think they are in an inferior position, as I
understand Mr Howard's position, as he was then Leader and
as I would understand it to be Mr Peacock's position, they
would not differ from me at all in the exposition that I
have just put. In other words, as I understand it, there is
a bipartisan position and I congratulate them on that in
terms of the view I just put. They would, I think, identify
themselves with that.
0 WHITE: I guess though that, I mean, in a sense I wasn't
even really raising the question in the racist way that has
been raised so often in Australia, but it's only 20 years
that we had talking about buying back the farm and here
we are selling it again.
PM: Well, well, you either are part of one world which is
interconnected in trade and commerce and economically or
you're not and you can't say ' world, hiho world, we're part
of you. we want to buy and sell with you, but world sorry,
having done that little bit of the exercise, we're off'.
Now every country is entitled, in my judgement, to have a
national interest concept. I mean, in other words, take for
instance if you got a national
WHITE: Well the Japanese certainly do don't they?
-11-
PM: Yes, although they are gradually opening up. They're
gradually opening up. There's been a deliberate decision by
the Japanese to open up and this is recognised
internationally now that they are. They're still not as
open as other countries in many respects but they are moving
in the right direction. Now it is right for a country,
including Australia, to say we are going to watch whether
the level of investment and purchase of our assets is such
that either in a strategic area or in quantities, too much,
that we don't want it because it could put the control of
our destiny, in certain respects, into the hands of others.
Now, I will bow my knee to no-one in being totally
committed, Brian, to protecting the integrity of this
country, not putting our future in other peoples hands. But
you take investment, what we need in Australia is to
diversify upon so that we don't depend just so much on
wheat and wool and iron ore and coal. We've got to get a
stronger manufacturing sector. And if we are going to get a
stronger manufacturing sector we need investment and we need
it particularly I may say from Japan who've got, in many
areas of hi-tech industries, the most advanced technology.
So we want their investment, so they come in here and we can
establish here in this country, sophisticated hi-tech
industries which are able to boost the exports and the
living standards of this country, but all the time watching
that we don't allow a situation where the strategic
sovereign control of our future passes to someone else.
WHITE: Yes. Mr Hawke, thank you for that. Well, I've kept
you well past the time that you had, but thank you for being
here. It's good to see you.
PM: Brian it's always a pleasure to talk with you. Thanks
very much.
ends