TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW ON COMMENTS BY RALPH WILLIS PETER
THOMPSON, THE WORLD TODAY 5 JUNE 1989
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
PM: I'm not going to go any further. As the Minister
indicated there are certain processes of investigation going
on within the Party and of course he has provided a
significant input to those processes. I think that's all
that needs to be said at this stage.
THOMPSON: If there is to be a change of policy first of all
the ALP Airlines Funding Committee must recommend that.
What Mr Willis said does put them under great pressure.
PM: I don't know whether it puts them under great pressure.
He made a clearly articulated case before so your question
assumes that this was the first time they'd heard this from
Mr Willis. The opposite is true, he's appeared before them
and put the case.
THOMPSON: Of course if there's to be a change of ALP policy
that would require a special national conference. Do you
favour that sort of thing?
PM: As he said, that's required and we understand that.
THOMPSON: Are you happy about that idea?
PM: It's not a question of being happy, that's why the
thing has been done. We considered it at the previous
conference, it was recognised that this was an issue in
which there are lots . of considerations and emotions
involved. I understand all those and I'm one, as I think
it's been well established, that likes to see processes
established which enable people to express their points of
view, have the matter fully on the table. So in a sense
there's nothing new in what the Minister said, it's just
that there was an articulate public expression of the issue.
We hear this pathetic posturing of the Opposition which
talks about reform in the Government business enterprise
section and talks about privatisation. You've got to
remember that for 31 years of the 34 before we came to
office they were in power they never did anything in terms
of micro-economic reform or to make the public enterprises
more efficient. Now they're just tub thumping and making
noises which are empty noises. We've gone about the
business of trying to make the public sector more efficient
and we're succeeding.
-2-
THOMPSON: Just a very brief final one on that machinery of
bringing in a change of policy, would you hold an ALP
national conference before the next election?
PM: There's no commitment necessarily to holding one before
the next election. I'm not going to be rushing into some
judgement about these things, I'm quite happy with the way
the processes are going. You must get your perspectives
right in politics and remember that all that's happened is
that the Minister has said on a television program precisely
what he said to the Committee some time ago. That's the
reality, the fact that something said on a television
program which has already been said to the Committee
shouldn't be regarded as something remarkable.
ends