PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, PERTH ZOO, 3 MARCH 1990
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
PM: It's very appropriate that we should be meeting in
this environment which is a clear manifestation of
another area of our environmental concern which we've
enhanced today by making further funds available for the
endangered species program that is going to be developed
here in Western Australia. This comes at the end of a
week where the Coalition has once again indicated its
environmental vandalism credentials. We have the example
again of the National Party tail wagging the Coalition
dog with the announcement that they would support the
establishment of the uranium enrichment industry. Once
they saw some reaction to that they back-pedalled a
little bit, but not substantially, with Mr Peacock saying
that if it didn't happen in the first year it would
happen in the second or third year. This is something
which has been undertaken without any consideration
either of the economics of it and certainly of the
environmental implications, and certainly without taking
into account the obligations that we have in regard to
the safeguarding of the uranium cycle around the world.
We don't want to be seeing a proliferation of uranium
enrichment industries. So we reject the proposal of the
Coalition. And it's also interesting to note that in
this week there has emerged the fact that Mr Peacock
again, either deliberately or because he simply doesn't
know his own policies, misrepresented last Sunday in the
debate the situation in regard to the Kakadu National
Park. You will recall that in the debate they have made
it clear that the policy of the Coalition was to allow
mineral exploration in Kakadu. Mr Peacock said no, but
of course it's been established since then that what I
said was right. That is their position. So the people
of Australia on the issue of the environment have, as I
said last Sunday, a very very stark choice. I remind the
people again that on every major decision that I've taken
to protect the environment the Franklin, to stop
logging in Daintree, mining in Kakadu, saving the forests
in Tasmania on every one of those decisions we were
opposed by the Liberal and National Parties. And in this
campaign they are, as I say, establishing once again
their credentials as environmental vandals.
JOURNALIST: Today in the Sydney Morning Herald there
appears to be a comprehensive leak on Labor's child care
policy to be unveiled next week. Are we seeing here some
sort of Dutch auction between Labor and the Liberals when
it comes to child care?
PM: Let me say two things about that. I haven't yet
read the report to which you refer Paul and I make no
comment on any report. I'll be making an announcement at
the appropriate time in regard to child care. The second
thing I say is this. We are not in any Dutch auction. I
am able to stand before the people of Australia now and
very proudly compare and contrast our record on child
care with that of our opponents. We have more than
doubled, in fact Just under 150% increase in the
number of child care places since we've been in
government. And under the program that's going on that
will mean by 1992 a trebling under my Government of the
number of child care places. So I stand proud on the
issue of child care. We see proposals from the
Opposition which in an untargeted way are going to give
handouts to people who relatively speaking are not in
need. But I will detail our new proposals at the
appropriate time.
JOURNALIST: But the fact is that the Liberal Party is
proposing to treble the spending on child care that
you're prepared to commit.
PM: You can easily treble spending on child care or a
number of other things but there are two things that you
have to take into account when you talk about spending
proposals. Firstly, targeting. The Opposition have a
very very distorted concept of targeting. If you look at
them over the years they've said watch the dole bludgers.
They have a very very acute vision when it comes to
targeting at the bottom end of the income scale. Knock
the dole bludgers type of thing. Very very acute vision
when it comes to targeting down there. The same
acuteness of vision disappears when they look at the top
of the income scale where they say well just give it to
anyone, whatever the level of income. So that's the
first thing. Second thing, as I've been saying
throughout this week, and it seems to be taking hold now
in this campaign, you've got to look at the funding of
the promises that you make. Now the fact is that as we
now come to the end of the second week of the campaign
the Liberals have done nothing to answer the legitimate
questions of the media and of the people of Australia
about this more than $ 6 billion funding hole. And
they're going to have to do that because they are not
believable in the handout. You can see that they will
promise with the left hand giving something in child care
but they're going to rip it away on the other hand. Look
at what they're going to be ripping away. They're going
to be ripping away in the area of superannuation and of
course if they are going to fund the $ 6 billion deficit
then where are they going to cut? They're going to have
to cut an enormous amount of services to people. Or, if
they don't do that, they'll blow the budget. And if they
do that then of course interest rates go through the roof
a 3
and people have it taken away in that fashion. They have
failed lamentably to discharge the responsibilities they
have to the people. You can't simply say yes we'll give
you something in child care and then leave this
uncompleted picture of how people will suffer either by
the tremendous cuts they're going to have to make in
other services or by the blowing out of the budget
deficit. JOURNALIST: Child care is a big issue in the electorate,
but has the Government and the trade union movement been
a bit slow to respond to the concerns out there?
PM: You could hardly say we're slow to respond to
concerns where over our period of seven years in office
we've had just on 150% increase in child care places.
It's pretty hard to say you're slow to respond when
that's your record and in fact you have funded and in
progress the creation of a further 30,000 places which
will mean a trebling of places over the period. It's
pretty hard to make the accusation of slowness in those
circumstances. JOURNALIST: But over that period of time demand has
increased dramatically as well as more women have gone
back into the workforce.
PM: Well yes, but we have undertaken a range of
approaches, as you know, in regard to also encouraging
employers to provide work-related child care places. I
don't think anyone can say that in terms of the
Australian record of governments and child care that any
other government, as I've said before, has come within a
bull's roar of the performance of this Government.
JOURNALIST: The ACF is having a ballot this weekend to
decide who to give their second preferences to. Does
Labor expect to get them?
PM: We deserve to get them Peter. The Government of
Australia after the 24th of March will be provided either
by my Party, a continuation of the Labor Government, or
by the environmental vandalistic coalition of Libs and
National Party. If people whose predominant concern is
the environment want to have the environment of Australia
protected then there is only one responsible decision
that can be made. And that is to ensure that their
preferences go to Labor.
ends