-~ ASLA A,'
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH JANA WENDT, A CURRENT
AFFAIR, 21 FEBRUARY 1990
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
WENDT: Mr Hawke, thank you very much for your time this
evening. PM: Pleasure, Jana.
WENDT: Now for some time the Opposition has been telling
us that the dole system is being rorted, you and your
Government have been saying all is well. Why are you
clamping down?
PM: No we haven't. The fact is, Jana, that over the
period we've been in office we have significantly
tightened the eligibility criteria and the testing
criteria so that there has been a very, very significant
reduction in the number of people taking unemployment
benefits, not simply because of the increase in jobs
available, but also because of the increasing in testing
and as we go along we're finding ways of improving that.
But this is historic. I mean, it's not just increasing
the toughness of the testing. It's really abolishing the
unemployment benefit and it's all now in terms of
allowances for training.
WENDT: But Mr Hawke, the Opposition has been saying it's
being rorted, your people, Mr Howard's been saying it's
all fine up until this point.
PM: We haven't been saying it's all fine because we've
been changing it. We've toughened the procedures
successively since we've been in and we've seen how there
are further ways of improving it, but it's not just a
question of making it tougher. This change is much more
significant than that. It really is to get rid of the
concept of unemployment benefit altogether and simply
say, Jana, that what we're about is to totally
concentrate the outgoings from Government, not as a
benefit, but as a training and job search arrangement.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, as I said in my introduction, it looks
like you're following the Opposition.
PM: Well, it may look like it to the Opposition, but I
can tell you what, after the mess they've made of this
country in the whole area of employment and unemployment,
they'd be the last people we'd be looking to for an
example. WENDT: Mr Hawke, you've offered us a lot of dollars
today. What is the value of those dollars if they are
lost in a sea of inflation and high interest rates?
PM: Well, they won't be lost in a sea of inflation and
high interest rates. The Treasurer has given the
inflation indicator and just, to put that in perspective
Jana, remember that the Treasury that's independent of
us the Treasury, statement at the end of December as to
the underlying inflation rate-was 5.7 percent. So
what Paul is saying, on behalf of the Government, is
totally consistent with that and, after all, you would
expect now that the banking industry itself is saying
that interest rates are going to come down, it's not just
me and Keating. The banking industry is saying inflation
is coming down, demand is coming off. So with an
underlying inflation rate of 5.7 identified by the
Treasury and demand coming off and interest rates coming
down, the six percent is a sound figure.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, your Government's record on predicting
inflation rates is not good is it?
PM: Well, it's not too bad. We've been a little bit
under, but let me say this in terms of outcomes which I
guess is the important thing. Just look at what we've
done. We inherited an inflation rate of 11 percent and
we've brought it right down
WENDT: I appreciate that, but you and your Treasurer
predicted that inflation would now be at around four and
a half. It's in fact, regrettably, it's around eight.
Now that's not a good record, is it?
PM: Well, Jana, let me say that in respect of the Budget
time, Budget time estimate looks as though it's just
about going to be on track. But the other thing is that
if you go back over a slightly longer period, it is true
that we and all economists in this country, public and
private, underestimated to some extent the level of
demand. We all underestimated it and with demand being
higher than we all expected, certainly inflation was
somewhat higher.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, that's tantamount to saying ' we were
wrong' isn't it?
PM: It's not tantamount to. I'm saying and I've said
it before, this is not the first time and I've said
that all economists, including the official Government
economists, somewhat underestimated demand, but that was
at the beginning of last year, but what I'm saying now is
that the policies that we have brought in, Jana, to
soften demand, to ease demand, it's been universally
recognised they're working.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, election time is a time of reckoning
and so
PM: Yes, sure.
WENDT: And so those people who are thinking of casting a
vote will look at you and say, well they've been wrong
all the way down the track about the inflation forecast,
why should we believe them now?
PM: No, I don't think they will. I think they will ask
what the outcomes have been. They will recognise they've
been a little bit higher than people expected and
anticipated, but they will say that the underlying
inflation rate is going down. And that's not simply my
Judgement, that's the independent Treasury judgement,
that the underlying inflation rate is going down as a
result of the policies we've brought in and the
alternative, Jana, as you know, will be a blowout in
inflation and interest rates because our opponents have
this enormous $ 6 billion credibility gap fiscally and a
wages blowout, which, both of which must mean an
inflation and interest rate blowout. Now they're going
to say, now which is the better? Is it the one where
Keating today has fully funded any new proposals that
we'll be putting, fully funded, against our opponents
who've got a $ 6 billion gap? Where's the money coming
from?
WENDT: Well, I suggest to you that some people might
think that you are following the Opposition's lead, that
you're trying to catch up. But if you don't mind, if you
could stay with us, we'd like to take a break.
PM: Sure.
4
WENDT: Mr Hawke, there is a great mass of people, middle
Australia, who are living on the edge. Are you proud of the
fact that the Hawkce years have produced this whole group of
people who are finding it so tough to survive?
PM: If that was the only thing that had come out of the
seven years I would be worried. But of course that's part
of a situation in which, there, I've asked for restraint.
Restraint has been exercised. And as a result of the
restraint we have these things. Job creation five times
faster than it was before. We have, instead of one in three
of our kids staying on in school, two in three. We have a
fair health system. Now these things you can't conjure up
out of the air. They've got to come because the community
is prepared to exercise restraint. They say is it better to
restructure your education system, to have more jobs, to
retrain your kids, have then in the education system. If
you're going to do all those things which make Australia an
infinitely better place, then we just can't have unlimited
increases in our personal positions.
WENDT: But in that case it must be enormously frustrating
for you personally to know that these people are suffering
and it is the result of the Hawke years.
PM: But it is as a result of the deal that I asked them to
do. I mean I said when I came in in ' 83, 1 said do you want
Australia going on fighting one another, those with some
power to grab some more, get it whether you're a worker or
an employer and fight and produce the worst recession we had
in 50 years. That was what I inherited. r said are you
prepared to do it differently, to have negotiations which
mean that the measure of your improvement won't just come
through your increase in wages, in money wages, but that we
will have tax cuts. When I came to power the top tax rate
was 60 cents in the dollar and the bottom was 30. We've
reduced that to 47 and 21. Instead of the kids not going to
0 school they're going to school. We're building more
university places. we're restructuring our industry. But
nothing in this world which is tough in terms of
restructuring and changing nothing like that comes
easy. I mean I could've, as Prime Minister, if I'd accepted
Jana, each of the recommendations that had been made by the
Independent Tribunal, my salary as Prime Minister would've
been very, very, very much higher than it is. But I've said
for myself and others you've just got to exercise restraint.
Just don't grab money-wage increases. Ask yourself is
Australia a better country because we've now got twice as
many of our kids staying on in school, because we've got
another 1.6 million of our fellow Australians employed,
because we've got everybody covered by Medicare, is it a
fundamentally better country now? My answer is yes it is.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, there is a body of opinion that says that
you have lost track, that you've lost touch with those
people who are suffering. Without wanting to go too far
with this, do you think that it's important that you as
Prime Minister for instancet that you know the price of a
loaf of bread?
PM: Well I wouldn't think it's important that I know the
price of a loaf of bread. I mean I can test, Jana, every
day I can test when I move around, when I'm not sitting
there in Canberra, when I'm moving around I can test whether
people think I've got some feeling for them. I mean just
today, let's be right up to date. I went to the Leagues
club there in the Eastern Suburbs. Now I think your cameras
will probably pick it up on tape and sound. I had a number
of old ladies coming up to me, pensioners, and they said
thank you Mr Hawke, we've never been better of f than we've
been. Now they were not my words. That simply reflects one
thing. When I came to office the pension as a proportion of
average weekly earnings was 22.7. No0w, in April when they
get this next increase, it will be over 25%. It will be the
highest proportion or average weekly earnings in
WENDT: Despite what you say
PM: I'm simply making the point clear. I don't want to
interrupt but I'm simply making the point that I know that
the things that we've done, that we've got the kids in
school that weren't there before. I know that we've been
concerned with the people who need help and that we're doing
the things to make it a better society.
WENDT: But despite what you say, and you acknowledge this I
believe, that there is widespread disillusionment with you
and the Opposition, what responsibility do you take for the
cycnicism that exists in the electorate today?
PM: Well I suppose every politician, every Prime Minster
could be a better communicator. I've tried all my life to
talk with and listen to people. I think I'm a good
listener. I've tried to be all my life. And I guess I've
got to accept some responsibility. But I also know that
I've been prepared to take the tough decisions. I mean it
would've been easy, relatively, to take sloppy decisions
which at the time might have been more popular. I mean it
would've been easier to do an Andrew Peacock in regard to
the pilots for instance and say let them have their 30%. It
hasn't been too pleasant for me to be subjected to all the
innuendo to which I've been subject. And you know a lot of
it. I mean it's been frightful the sort of things that have
been said. But I simply knew, Jana, that if I let the
pilots get away with their 30% claim, the Australian economy
was finished.
6
WENDT: Prime Minister, the pilots do have a lot of support
in the community.
PM: Not a lot.
WENDT: We are running out of time and I regret that, but
PH: can come back some time.
WENDT: I'm sure you can. What do you do if you lose?
PH: I would, it's purely hypothetical, I don't think I
will, but I would not have any personal sense of loss. I've
been Prime Minister for seven years, thoroughly enjoyed it
and hope live been a good Prime Minister. But I've had a
public life before as Prime Minister and there's a lot for
me to do afterwards. But I would have the most profound
indescribable sense of loss for my country. Because it's
not that they'd lose Bob Hawke as Prime Minister. That's
not the point. But this mob opposite me who hate one
another I mean the depths of the hatreds between them is
immeasurable have not produced any policy on health after
seven years. Who have a policy which is going to take
billions of dollars from the ordinary people of Australia
for roads, education, hospitals and put it in the pockets of
the very rich and privileged by abolishing the capital gains
tax. Are going to return the workplace into confrontation.
I mean I'd hate to see my country in the last decade be
returned to that. That's what I would find, devastating.
WENDT: Mr Hawke I thank you for your time.
PM: Thanks very much indped Jana.
ends