a PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF DOORSTOP, CHANNEL NINE STUDIOS, MELBOURNE
" AUGUST 1989
J.
E OE'-PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: conunent on Ian Sinclair's' cla: im that unless.
, the: C oal: itio6 gets its policy arnd philosphical act together
i t has little hope of winning the next election.
PM: He's right. You can' t~ rely on Ian Sinclair getting
0it'straight arnd right but he's 100% right in saying that
the Coalition is not ready for Government, don't deserve
government. It's a pretty damning indictment comIng from
the person who was their number two person until very recently.
He's absolutely right. Why? They have no policies and in
the area of policy consideration there are absolutely
fundamental divisions within the Liberal Party, within the
National Party and between elements of the Liberal Party
* and the Nati onal Party. They have no Policies. They have
no leaders'that are trusted by themselves., The. inter-, sting
thing' abu I r Peadock and the Liberals, none of ' them hav~ e
any confidence in him as a man of substance. They thought'
HoWard had some substance, they thought Peacock had none
but he was going to be a better salesman, So they've got
no confidence in him in terms of policy. And of course with
Mr Blunt the Leader of the National Party, they describe
him, they do, as a billy goat. So no policies, divisions
and no confidence in their leaders. So when you put all
that together Sinclair's
0OVRNALIST:* Do you also agree with his comment that the
recent leadership changes ha,% only gone to confuse the electorate?
PM. Well ' T. don't know that the electorate is confused..'
t think the opp osit6 Is true. ' I think the pleotorate is
* far fromn confused. They say, well 1ook at this mob. The
simple rule. They can't govern themselves, they can't govern
the country, It's a good rule of politics. In the Labor
Party we were to a large extent rightly condemned on that
., fundamental -principle of the Australian Mc. oerc. Vc. 2' T,* Ihey.
., say to th parties -of Austria if you na'o r eoe~ ser
VOU e nogoing to governus
JOURNALIST: Is it a good move as far as the ALP is concerned?.
* PM: Well, we show that we can govern ourselves. We are
a united, tough,; competent, compassionate team. That shows
, ii 4v ! una I I 4h nb n ta WA a^ na A-0et LW1~ r e7.* w1 . rw s ua.
so we can govern the country*. On the other side they are
a collection of unprincipled opportunists. Mr Sinclair is
I mp., pa~ itig, t' 4I issued the warning straight and clear 1.
I
to billy goat Blunt,^ he say's you're fair game boy, you butted
me out billy goat and I'm about to butt you right out at
the earliest opportunity. Good luck to them as they play
their games. They expend all their energies on hating and
fighting one another. We'll get on with governing the country.
JOURNALIST: Mr Sinclair rs vowed to challenge for the leadership.
Do you think he will butt his way back in again?
PM: I would think if I were Mr Blunt I would have the very
very heaviest padding around my backside and py bacl because
he'll get butted and stabbed. There's no doubt about that.
He needs very heavy protective armour because rlt's face
. Mr it, Bllaunn t. S incSlo aipru t iyso nuor mdeeafenn cfeisg hutpe rb. illHye ' sg odaet. clared war on
ends