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TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, PORT BOTANY, 15 MAY 1989
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: Nick Greiner has offered to decrease state
borrowings at the next Premiers Conference. What's wrong
with that?
PH: who said there was anything wrong with it? He can
afford to and we'll be making the decisions on Thursday at
Canberra at the Premiers conference and Loan Council
meeting, affecting not only New South Wales but the other
States and the Commonwealth as a whole which are necessary
to see that the welfare of the Australian economy is
protected. JOURNALIST: Will the country's borrowings be decreased?
PH; Well, I think it's not a bad idea to leave the
announcement of the decisions till the Premiers Conference
rather than to do it three days beforehand in however
congenial the environment is here.
JOURNALIST; Your comments on the Tasmanian election
results?
0 Pm: Well the Tasmanian election result is one which causes
me a degree of satisfaction. obviously we would've liked to
have won, but I think that was asking probably too much to
win a majoritygin your own right in those circumstances.
There was a significant swing to the Independents because
that swing came from the Liberals. That took care of
We held our vote up.* To the extent that the Tasmanian
election shows an increasing tendency for the electorate to
concern itself with environmental issues, that's a good
thing because our record in that area is impeccable. From
day one when we saved the Franklin In Tasmania and the
series of decisions we've taken in regard to the
rainforests, Kakadu, Barrier Reef and so on, this Government
has got the best environmental record in the history of this
country at the same time as we've had significant economic
development. So we welcome, in a sense, the increasing
public awareness of-the importance of environmental issues.
JOURNALIST: Greens Party in maybe forming a coalition?
PM: No.
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JOURNALIST: What sort of representations Tasmanian
Government at the Premiers Conference?
PM: The representative there will be the Premier, mC Gray.
Mr Gray is still the Premier. Now how he will be influenced
in what he has to say by the considerations of Saturday is a
matter for him, but the formal representative of Tasmania on
Thursday unless between now and then there's been some
changes and r don't think there can be because I don't think
the polls will be declared. it takes a fairly long'
time under the Hare Clark system Tasmania will be
represented by Mr Gray.
JOURNALIST; Prime Minister, are you suprised that a
consumption tax is being moved by Mr Elliott?
PM; Well when ou look at what's happening on the
conservative side of politics I'm not surprised by anything.
I mean you ask am I surprised by the moving of the
consumption tax, well I said yesterday that what clearly
emerged is that Mr Peacock's been established as Leader by
default. it is now out in the open. Mr Elliott was
considering running for the Parliament. He had a numuber of
votes tied up. He made his decision that he wasn't going to
run but said he would allow Mr Peacock to do the job of
hatcheting Mr Howard. So Mr Peacock is there, as it were,
Mr Elliott's hatchet-man. Not surprisingly Mr Hioward has
said that there's funny ideas about loy aty in the Liberal
Party. it's surprising he said that the President of the
Liberal Party, Mir Elliott, was party to this conniving and
didn't tell him what was going on. But the whole plot is
emerging quite clearly now. mr Peacock has said was
economically illiterate# but he's done a little bit of an
apprenticeship. He's learnt to turn over the pages of the
Treasury Bulletins and knows roughly what page to turn to to
find out where some of the relevant statistics are. So he's
done a little bit of an apprenticeship, but the President of
the Party will be calling the shots. He's saying ' there
will be a consumption tax but we'll do a little bit of
deception Andrew. we won't have it in the first term, but
I'm telling you, as the man whole calling the shots, that
the consumption tax will be on in the second term' and it's
all nicely hypothetical because the Australian people aren't
joing to buy that. The other interesting development is the
increasing amount of dissention which is arising each day
now following the coup of last week because we now have the
remarkable situation of the dinner it must have been a
chummy little event down at, where was it, Bathurst or
wherever in the country they met on Sunday night with
Senator Puplick getting up and saying ' of course mr Howard
was offered the shadow Treasury'. Mr Howard getting up and
saying ' that is a lie'. Now, that's followed by today's
statement of one of the leadership team, senator Austin
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P11 ( cont): Lewis, saying that his new leader, Mr Peacock,
has made a mistake and that John Howard should be on the
front bench, should have had the choice of his portfolio.
so what a happy little bunch of pilgrims they are.
JOURNALIST: mr Hawke, does any of this change your
Government's election strategy?
PM; Look, that really is getting old hat, if I may say so.
Who was the person who talked about an early elect ion? it
was a bloke called John Howard., Do you remember him? He
was a leader of the Liberal Party who saw that he was under
some sort of challenge, he didn't realise how imminent it
S was, and said that Bob Hawke, by bringing in the tax cuts in
July, was going to have an early election. I've made it
quite clear that that was the delivery of a promise i'd made
twelve months ago. That if we got a proper wages outcome#
which we have, then the tax cuts would be coming in on the
first of July as part of a wage/ tax deal. So I deliver on a
promise that I made twelve months ago and the late Leader of
the Liberal Party says ' we're going to have an early
election'. Now I didn't say at any stage there was an early
election, so I haven't had any change of plans. As ternpting
as the spilling of all the blood and guts and gore of the
conservatives all over the Parliamentary floor and around
Australia some people might regard that as tempting. I
don't. we'll be going on with the business of managing the
Australian economy. The Australian Parliament is now about
two years, well, not yet two years, into its life, we were
elected in July of ' 87* and we will go on governin, we've
got to do some tough things. we've got to restrain the
economy somewhat, we're still operating at somewhat too high
a level, so we're going to have to try and get the level of
activity down because we can't sustain the high level
of imports we've got. But we'll go on governing, making the
necessarily tough decisions that will be made, but also in a
situation where the living standards of Australians are
going to be able to rise because of the very substantial tax
cuts that will be coming into their pockets from the first
of July. so we go on with the business of sitting down,
hard work of Government, making the decisions that are
necessary while the conservative opponents, with each
passing day shwtotig. Oe, tey'e got no policies
and secondly, and one of the reasons wy they've got no
policies is because they hate one another with an intensity
unrivalled in the history of Australian politics.
JOURNALIST: Prime minister, how disruptive do you think mr
Howard is going to be in the ensuing months
M Well it's a bit unfair to Mr Howard to accuse him of
being disruptive. I mean what happened? I mean it's fair
game and I can speak with a reasonable amount of
historical experience and authority in this matter it's
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PH ( cant): fair game for someone to want to get the
leadership if they think they can do it better. No-one,
including Mr Howard, has objected to that and to his credit
he said ' well that's fair enough if mr Peacock wants to
knock me of f he can'. But he's not been the one that's been
disruptive. He considered his position and said that he
would wish to be in the shadow cabinet, nominated reasonably
two positions, Foreign Affairs and Defence. Now in one of
the most calculated and ungracious acts of a new Leader, I
think in the history of Australian politics, Mr Peacock said
' really, truly?, it went like that. To John Howard,
offered him Education, said ' I can't give you Defence
because I want to put Defence in the hands of that genius,
Jim Carlton'.
JOURNALIST; DO you see your Opposition
PM: Now, just a minute. To talk about Mr Howard being
disruptive in those circumstances requires a rather
remarkable feat of intellect. I mean he said ' well I'm
prepared to serve with you', but Mr Peacock said ' well
Sou're not good enough for Defence, Jim Carlton's much
etter'. Now if there's any disruption, it's there and now
it's paying of f because the Liberal Party is now in
unprecedented turmoil. I mean I can't remember any time
that it's been in more turmoil than it is now because you've
got the actual leadership, the new leadership, blew it
saying ' this new Leader, Peacock, has blown it'.
JOURNALIST: Getting back to Tasmania for a moment
PH: Yes, we are going around the world aren't we? Across
to Tasmania, across the Tasman, yes.
JOURNALIST: will the result down there mean any sharpeninig
in your own environmental policies?
PM: No. What I have in preparation already, well in
preparation not in reaction to any Tasmanian result, is a
major statement on the environment. That is well under
preparation now, which will bring together a number of
developments that I have asked to be initiated which will
deal with the global issues of the Greenhouse Effect, the
depletion of the ozone layer, particularly Australian issues
like soil degradation and we'll be making a major statement
in June or July which will be, I think, the most
comprehensive statement that any Government in the world is
able to make. I don't think there's any Government which,
on the whole range of environmental issues, has on the
record and in the books, processes to deal with the whole
range of environmental issues. we're extremely proud of
what we've done and we are committed to having a
comprehensive attack upon all these issues which are of
properly increasing importance to the Australian electorate.
ends