TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH JOHN HAMILTON, ABC RADIO, PERTH
16 JULY 1989
E OE PROOF ONLY
HAMILTON: Today on Hamilton's People my guest is Prime
Minister Bob Hawke. Welcome to the program Prime Minister.
PM: Thank you John.
HAMILTON: You've been Prime Minister now for over six
years, you've won three elections. How do you keep up your
enthusiasm? What makes Hawkey run?
PM: It's a very complex question. No-one, I think, is
capable of analysing themselves completely. But elements
are, one, I made a very brilliant decision as soon as I
could in my life. I got born to parents with strong
constitutions and I seem to have inherited that. I have the
capacity to keep going fairly easily. Secondly, I eat well,
I keep fit. For that I thank Hazel very substantially.
She's got me onto the health kick. I exercise. So
physically and constitutionally I'm very very fortunate.
But then in terms of what drives me and enables me to keep
going, I've just, from a very early age, when I started to
hear really my political consciousness in Perth, I've had a
commitment to trying to make a better Australia, a different
Australia. Some people say doesn't the edge go off after
six years? In a sense the opposite is true. Because you're
able to see the results of many things that were just ideas
before and that's very stimulating.
HAMILTON: Have you changed yourself do you think? Have you
become a more patient person, a more tolerant person?
PM: I think so, yes I think I have. At times you get a bit
frustrated that there are so many road blocks in mind and in
practical affairs. But I think you learn as you go on that
you've got to be accommodating and find your way through
these things rather than a tendency I might have had earlier
in my life to do a bit more and to crash through.
HAMILTON: Let's turn to the domestic scene. What do you
think about the recent public opinion poll which says for
the first time that more Australians were pessimistic about
the country's future than optimistic. In other words really
I think what we're saying is when will we see a change, a
light at the end of the economic tunnel as it were?
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PM: I'm not surprised. It tends to be the case that if we
get into a situation, and particularly where we've got very
high interest rates at the moment which are necessary, that
people get depressed. I'm not surprised by that. As to
that part of your question John which talks about the light,
you've got to remember there's a hell of light there now.
You look at the employment figures that have just come out
in this last week. We've created one and a half million new
jobs. We've got a situation in Australia now where people
who want jobs can get them. We've got the unemployment rate
down to six per cent. If you had the same participation
rate now as when we came to office the unemployment rate
would be about two per cent. So that's a hell of a lot of
light. We've created jobs twice as fast as the rest of the
world. Inflation is down from the double digit figures that
we had before and will come down further after this blitz
that will be associated with the increased food prices from
the floods. But certainly it is that some people are
hurting because of the high interest rates. Now that hurts
me, but it's necessary. If we didn't have the high interest
rates now it would be very very much worse for very very
many more people. But in that climate, sure, people express
a certain amount of pessimism. I believe those interest
rates are going to come down but not a day before it is
economically responsible to bring them down.
HAMILTON: Prime Minister Thatcher had a famous response
that there is no alternative. Is that really your response
too to the present situation?
PM: I'm saying there is no economically responsible
alternative. The opposition floats around, makes noises,
but in the end can't promise anything constructively
different. You've got three arms of policy. You've got
your fiscal policy, that's tight. We've reduced the
deficit, created surplus significant. You've got a
tight as possible wages policy. That leaves your monetary
policy. You've got to keep that tight for some time. But
we do that in a way which is going to keep the economy going
but at a less high level of activity because we can't pay
for the level of imports that that measure of activity
brings. HAMILTON: It's just a hard-selling job though isn't it?
PM: Yes you're right John. People don't like tough times,
they don't like to scrape. You've got the job and I've got
the job, Paul Keating and others have got the job to explain
that there is no alternative in these circumstances. unless
you want to be totally irresponsible and say alright we'll
ease off monetary policy. What would happen then? The
international money markets would do the job for you. The
dollar would dive, interest rates would go through the roof
and you'd have a massive recession. No-one wants that
alternative.
HAMILTON: So what's your message of hope for the people who
are really hurting out there. The people out in the
northern suburbs here are really hurting at the moment.
PM: Yes, there are people with high interest rates. My
message is this. If you haven't got jobs you won't have
mortgages. That was the situation we inherited in ' 83 when
this other mob had control of the economy. They brought the
worse recession for 50 years. At the same time we had
double digit unemployment and double digit inflation and
interest rates under them reached 22%. That's the
alternative. With us you've got a situation where with
restraint on wages and very tough budgetary policy we've
created jobs more than twice as fast as the rest of the
world, four times faster than the other mob when they were
in office. So people are in work but at a level of activity
now which is bringing in too many imports. We've got to
lower the level of activity and high interest rates for the
time being are necessary to do that. In the absence of
having those high interest rates then as I say internationl
monetary markets would drive the Australian dollar down,
drive interest rates to levels infinitely beyond what they
are now and throw millions out of work. That's the
alternative. I don't make up the economic world and the
rules of it and Australia is part of a world economic
system. That's what the truth is. We have to have a level
of activity that is sustainable in terms of our capacity to
pay for our imports.
HAMILTON: What do you say to the people who say why don't
we bite the bullet straight away and strike a consumption
tax? PM: The points to make about that are these. We had that
on the agenda and the Australian people said no they didn't
want it, quite clearly. So we had a massive restructuring
of the Australian tax base in the absence of a consumption
tax and in a way in which I might tell you converted a
$ 9.6 billion deficit that we inherited from the Libs into
now a massive surplus. In other words we've been totally
fiscally responsible in terms of increasing the revenue to
Government by doing what they would never do. And-that's
making the rich and the powerful pay where before that was a
matter of choice for them. We've increased the Government
revenue in this way, put ourselves into surplus and to then
suggest another change in the tax system would be disruptive
of a pattern which people have now come to understand
point one. Point two it would very very significantly
increase inflation in a one-off but nevertheless hurtful
way. That's precisely what we don't need at this time.
Thirdly of course if you're going to have a consumption tax
you would have, as we said at the time, a very very
significant safety net arrangement in place which would add
to the welfare provisions. it's appropriate in the
circumstances that I'm talking about to be going down this
path. We have dealt with Australia's fiscal problems, its
budgetary problems and we don't want at this time to be
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PM ( cont): inflicting upon the Australian consumers a
massive dose of further inflation. Let me say that as far
as savings are concerned, essentially savings of the
Australian community have been on the increase in the last
year or so.
HAMILTON: Each program we're going to be asking our guests
to select a piece of music. I asked the Prime minister
today and he said Lonesome Loser by the Little River Band.
Is there any particular significance
PM: There are two. My tastes, basically my preferences in
music are classical. But that would take rather too long to
play. I'm currently into Brahms Number one Symphony but I
think it might take a bit too long. So I then thought well
I'm Catholic in my tastes and I thought of the Little River
Band for this reason I like their music and they were
amongst the leaders of the Australian music industry in
being exporters, helping us in our export drive,
particularly to the United States. So I thought they
deserved recognition. And then I thought, because as you
know I am a soft and charitable I thought of poor old
Andrew HAMILTON: Who just happens to be in Perth at the same time.
PM: Yes, yes he shadows me That's until after the next
election. Then they'll dump him and there'll be a fight
between John Elliott and McLachlan and Fred Chaney. That's
the scenario. So he's going to be a pretty lonesome loser
isn't he.
HAMILTON: So this is a political message as well as a
personal selection?
PM: Yes.
HAMILTON: Let's turn to foreign affairs. You've just come
back from an exhaustive and probably exhausting trip abroad.
Let's turn particularly to Eastern Europe. Is there really
a new era emerging for the world do you think? Somebody
asked me the other day " do you reckon Gorbachev is dinkum?"
I think that's a good question. Do you think he's-dinkum?
PM: I know that he's dinkum. I've had the opportunity of
spending three and a half hours with the man. I was very
fortunate when we were in Moscow at the end of ' 87 and it
was suggested we might have 20 minutes. We finished up
having three and a half hours. There is no question at all
that he is dinkum. Are we at an important point in history?
The fact is that we are at a turning point. We're
privileged to be alive at the most significant point in the
nuclear age. For the first time, as I said to a group of
people last night, we're able to look our children in the
eye and without any suggestion of untruth say to them that
there is now a real chance of them growing up in a world
free of the threat of a nuclear holocaust. Because
Gorbachev, and pay Reagan his tribute too, President Reagan
PM ( cont): and Gorbachev have started us off on the path of
eliminating particular classes of nuclear weapons, working
for massive reductions of the strategic weapons, working on
the reduction of conventional forces. That job has been
taken up by my friend George Bush. So at that level of the
super powers those things are happening. of course, within
the Iron Curtain countries, unbelievable changes. I was
there in Hungary just a couple of weeks ago. Unbelievable.
I was sitting down with the four leaders with a sense of
excitement that they had about the fact that they were
preparing for free democratic parliamentary elections. I
got the story from them and then on the Saturday morning sat
down in the Australian Embassy with about 25 representatives
of the opposition, all of whom accepted without question the
integrity and the commitment of the Communist Party
leadership to bring about this change. These leaders said
to me in answer to a series of probing questions that I put
to them, yes we accept that as a result of this process we
could finish up in Opposition. That's exciting.
HAMILTON: But are you frightened that there could be any
setbacks? Look at what happened in China, We were all
optimistic about what was happening in China and all of a
sudden the incredible events unfolded in Beijing.
PM: You've got to understand that what's happening in
Hungary and what's happening in Poland is happening with the
blessing and endorsement of Mr Gorbachev. So you've really
got to ask yourself the question can anything happen in the
Soviet Union? Because there is nothing going to happen
within Hungary and Poland itself to reverse these processes.
HAMILTON: Could anything happen to Gorbachev?
PM: There is some degree of, well, not overwhelming, but
there's some degree of pessimism that I found in talking to
some of the leaders in Europe about his chances and one has
to be honest and say there is no guarantee of his survival.
But I think the realities on which he's operating, that is
that the system is buggered, to coin a phrase. The system
is buggered. In Gorbachev's words the Soviet Union is in a
pre-crisis condition. It can't feed its people, it can't
provide the goods that consumers need. The days of the
command economy were never with us and they certainly are
not now. In a world in which the freedom of movement of
ideas, communication of information and ideas, is the
quintessential element of growth and progress. The command
economy is the antithesis of that. Gorbachev understands
that. All the thinkers in the Soviet Union understand it.
So the system was always ideologically absurd. It remains
ideologically absurd and practically irrelevant. So if
there's change it may be, and this a pessimistic case, that
they can't stand Gorbachev's ruthless directness of mind and
action and that they will want to ameliorate that. But I
don't think that they can reverse the reality.
HAMILTON: Was the system buggered in China?
PM: The system was. Marxist/ Leninist system. The
ideology was always absurd and in an increasingly
sophisticated world, irrelevant and counterproductive. So
that proof remains. That is why even now Deng Xiaoping is
saying we want the economic reform to continue, we want the
opening to the world to continue. But they're frightened of
the political change. The great proof of course is, and I
discussed it at length with my friend Zhao Ziyang who's had
the courage to stand up and keep saying these things. The
great truth that he realised is that inevitably with
economic reform comes political reform. He recognised that
truth. The old and tragic men of China either don't
understand or won't accept that. But that's temporary.
HAMILTON: If the worst comes to the worst in the China
situation would we accept people from Hong Kong? There's a
lot of people asking this at the moment
PM: I refuse to answer that hypothetical question. I say
that we've got nearly a decade, the best part of a decade
before the handover. I am optimistic that the fundamental
realities to which I've referred will mean that the good
sense will come to prevail in China. It's our
responsibility in conjunction with our friends in the rest
of the world to try and ensure that we create the maximum
conditions for that happening. If that does then the truth
will be that China will need a free and entrepeneurial Hong
Kong as much as Hong Kong will need their relationship with
China. That's what we've got to try and work for.
HAMILTON: Just a little closer to home, Papua New Guinea.
Are you concerned by the breakdown in law and order there?
I know we've sent some helicopter supplies there. Will this
escalate and if so do we respond
PM: We are as a nation to be worried about developments
in Papua New Guinea of which the developments in
Bougainville are in a sense the most dramatic illustration.
What we've got to remember is that Papua New Guinea is, more
than almost any other pre-colonial situation, alligned,
drawn on a map around a group of heterogeneous tribal
groups, some 760 different tribal groups, who historically
had no connection
HAMILTON: Cohesion.
PM: and so the great challenge for Papua New Guinea is
that the processes of cohesion, those things which unite,
have to be given a maximum opportunity of flowering and
developing against those forces which are for dissipation.
This is something, as I say, which concerns us all. As a
government we're doing everything we can to assist them
positively and economically. In regard to Bougainville and
the helicopters, I had long and serious discussions with
Rabbie Namilau, the Prime minister, to ensure that the
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PM ( cont): circumstances in which those helicopters could
be used, not with Australian Defence Force people I might
say, they had to organise the crew themselves. But I have
the undertaking in writing that they circumstances not
to be used against civilian people. That they'll be used
purely for the movement of troops'and for the evacuation of
civilians and troops. They will not be armed, they will not
be gun ships. So we have tried to do everything we can to
ensure that while they are given the requirements, which as
a sovereign independent nation they are entitled to, insofar
as our equipment is concerned it will be used in a way which
is totally justifiable.
HAMILTON: Have you heard of any particular concern from
Indonesia?
PM: The Indonesians have a continuing concern about what
happens in Papua New Guinea. But let me say these two
things. one, I think that the Indonesians have been and
will be responsible in terms of their reaction. Secondly, I
think that the relations between Papua New Guinea at the
official level are on a sound and constructive basis. They
both mutually recognise that it is in their interests that
the difficulties on the board will be resolved peacefully
and that they live together amicably and constructively.
HAMILTON: Moving very very close to home. You were at
Balcatta last night mastering a quiz night. I understand
one of the questions was on what part of the body is the
skin the thickest? What's you advice? Which is the
thickest part of the hide for the politician?
PM: Yes, you do have to have a thick hide because it is the
case, and I suppose to a large extent those who have
preceeded me in this generation of politicians have perhaps
brought this about. But politicians aren't the most popular
breed of people. You have a situation, particularly when
you're a politician in Government, you often have to do
things that are a bit tough, that people don't like. I
think that the best defence for yourself as you think about
your position and your niche in life is what do you believe.
Can you look yourself in the mirror at night and in the
morning and look yourself straight in the eye and say I'm
doing the best I can. If you can say that, that's the best
defence. HAMILTON: Actually, my six year old said to me as I left
this morning " what are you going to do today dad?" I said
I'm going to meet the Prime Minister. I said do you know
who he is? He said " he's the boss". I said would you want
to be that boss? He said " I don't know". So what's your
advice to the six year olds of Australia? Should they
aspire to be politicians?
PM: I don't necessarily say aspire to be politicians but I
do plead with them all to think and learn about politics.
Because despite what your dad might say as part of this
funny sort of crazy media we've got what's his name?
HAMILTON: Matthew. Have a word to Matthew.
PM: Matthew, let me say this. Despite this crazy media
we've got of which dad's part, who have got an enormous
responsibility to play and a lot to answer for in terms of
people's priorities and perceptions, I wish they'd analyse
themselves as much as they are so prepared to examine
others, including politicians. And if they did they might
find at times a rather ugly mess. However, having said that
and given that nice gratuitous swipe at the media Matthew,
let me say this to you and all the other six year olds. In
the end politics is not only the most noble, but it's also
the most important part of life. Because politics in the
end is about how we as human beings organise our
relationships to maximise our best opportunities in life,
and particularly not just for the older people but for the
younger people Matthew. There's nothing more important and
more noble than that. How do we best organise our
relationships to give all of ourselves the best
opportunities in life. That's in the end what politics is
about and nothing can be more important than that.
HAMILTON: Prime Minister, thank you very much.
ends
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