PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF PM INTERVIEWED BY GREG CARY ON BRISBANE RADIO 4BC
9/ 03/ 90.
E 0 E Proof only.
GC-$ Welcome Mr Hawke, it's good to see you you're enjoying
the campaign?
PM: As a matter of fact I am, yes.
GC: You talked yesterday in your policy launch of dreams, you
talked of visions. I remember we talked not a long time after
you attained the highest office in our land, you talked of a
dream for our country a vision for our country, if you were to be
beaten March 24 how much of that remains undone?
PM: Well, vision is something which is never accomplished. I
mean because if you think a vision is ever accomplished that
means there is never room for improvement. What I feel about the
seven years is that we've got so much of the building blocks put
in place but the structure's not finished and it will always be a
building that can be extended. But, by building blocks I mean
these things very simply, Greg, the most important building block
is the education of our kids.-There's no more important
building block than that, and when I came to office only one in
three of our kids stayed on in school; in the seven years that
they'd been in office they'd only increased that retention rate
went fromn 34% to 36%, and that was criminal. We've massively
increased that, it's getting up towards two in three of our kids
staying on in school. That means there's another 67,000 kids
each year additional going on and having their education, that
important part of their education so that building block's
in place and the country and the kids themselves are going to
benefit from that. But I want to go on building on that and it
was part of the promises of yesterday to make it easier for
parents to meet the costs of keeping their kids on in school.
One of the very important building blocks that we're getting in
place is the restructuring of our industry. We've got the most
massive investment in industry in our history. That's going to
start to pay off by making us even more competitive by enabling
us to add to our exports of manufactured goods. We want to keep
on doing that. We're reforming our awards so that the awards
under which people work reflect more accurately the sort of
technology with which they are working and that is a massive
reform process. The reform of superannuation. That's a
fundamental building block but now with $ 15 a week going into
each person's pay packet from the employer to give them a
-2
PM ( cont) t superannuation basis in the future and it's adding to
the country's savings. But we want see that go on so the answer
to your question Greg is that a lot of the basis of the vision
f or this changed country is there, it's in place, but we must see
that those building blocks are not smashed and scattered.
GC: To do that, as you said yesterday, we need to be clever, we
need to get away from this concept and I think Donald H~ orne
f irst coined the phrase didn't he some 20 years ago the lucky
country. He was being a little sarcastic he said we'd really
not done the right thing by our natural resources. You said
we'd have to be more clever, in what ways have we been less
clever than we should have been?
PM: Well, I think it's a function of the lucky country syndrome
that there is a paradox about Australia if you look at this
postwar period Greg, we of course suffered in the war and so many
of families lost loved ones and so on, but for Australia the war
paradoxically was a plus. It meant that our, in the post war
period when the rest of the world was devastated, the world paid
us enormous prices for our agricultural products and we had
mineral booms and they paid us enormous amounts for what we dug
up out of the ground as well an what we grew. Life camne pretty
easy relatively for us. And, I guess we weren't clever enough in
a sense to understand that those days couldn't go on for ever.
What I've tried to be about in talking with not at my fellow
Australians is to say, well look it's a very very competitive, a
tough competitive world which doesn't owe us a living. So we've
got to be clever enough to work out what are the things that we
can do in addition to being the best agricultural producer in the
world, to being the best miners in the world. The world can
suddenly pay you much less f or your wheat and your wool and your
meat and your iron ore, your coal and your bauxite, and if they
do you're in the proverbial ditch if they halve your income. So
you've got to be careful enough to work out the sorts of niches
in manufactured goods and exports of services that we can
develop. So, for example, I've put in place taxation incentives
for research and development which are paying off now. We're
finding that we can develop technologies, in particular markets.
One of the most remarkable things is, as I said in my speech
yesterday, we are in fact exporting cars and automobile parts to
Japan and the United States. And we can do those sorts of
things. One of the most exciting experiences I had in the last
year or so I went to this great enterprise in a suburb of
Adelaide, and this is in the area of plastic lenses, glasses.
One of the most competitive, tough markets is the United States
and this f irm in Adelaide has got more than 50% of the United
States market and it's exporting all round the world. So these
are the sorts of things we've got to be clever enough to do and
that's why a central part of my speech yesterday and my proposal
-3
PM ( cont) I was the establishment of these 50 co-operative
research centres. The scientific community is absolutely excited
about it and I owe them a debt of gratitude because Professor
Slatyer, who I've appointed in the last 12 months as my personal
science adviser, and I've established a Science Council, between
them they've come up with this idea and that means with a
spending of quite a lot of money that we will put into it, we
will now have 50 centres of excellence around the country which
are going to develop new ideas in medicine and technology . and
environment control and these sorts of things so that we can
become a leader. Those are the sorts of things I mean by being
clever. GCs Okay, a lot of people would like to talk with you. Just
before they do though, one final question on interest rates.
Liberal Party says they are going down significantly,
substantially, whatever they're going down. You've suggested
they're going down as well. What happens if they hit 19%? What
happens if they hit 20% as some bankers are prepared to say they
might. I know there are plenty saying that they might go down
but can you tell me, can you tell the young home owners
struggling today that they won't hit 19%?
PM: Yes I can on the basis not just because T want to win their
vote by saying it, I don't operate like that, but I do believe
that we have put in place the policies which will mean they'll
come down and the evidence is there. The reason, put simply
Greg, as to why we had to have interest rates high was a very
simple statistic in the last year we had an 8% growth in
consumption and a 4% growth in production. Now that 4% gap was
just filled by bringing in imports and we couldn't go on doing
that so I had a tight fiscal policy, I had a tight wages policy
and I had to tighten monetary policy. That was to slow down
Sdemand. And all the evidence is there, it's acknowledged that
Wthat demand is slowing down and it's on the basis of that slowing
of demand that the banks last month started to lower rates in the
non-mortgage area and it's on that basis that they are saying
that mortgage rates will come down. The important thing for
your listeners is, are those policies which have enabled us to
have the environment for lowering interest rates, are they going
to be kept? They will be under us because we've got a wages
policy which will prevent a wages explosion. Mr Peacock has the
opposite, he's going to allow free~ vorcfl in wages bargaining. He
would have let the pilots have their 30% and it just would have
been mayhem and under his policies that's what would happen as it
did at the beginning of the 800. This wages explosion, that's
one thing that would mean interest rates going up. The other
thing, of course, in that he's got now $ 6 Billion of promises
that he's made and he hasn't funded, so that means the surplus
that we've built up is exploded and take those two things
I
-4
PM ( cont) together you must get a boost in interest rates
under the conservatives.
GC1 Let's talk a little with the people, Natalie good morning
you are talking with the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke.
NATALIE: Hi Mr Hawke.
PM: Yes Natalie, how are you?
NATALIE%, I'm fine thank you. I'm 19 and a lot of my friends
and a lot of people in my age group talk about politics and there
seems to be quite a lot of confusion. I think we hear more mudslinging
and denials thani reasons why we should vote for any
party and it seems whoever we vote for it's going to be a donkey
S vote anyway. So my question is how do I make up my mind between
a group of men who are always fighting and bad-mouthing each
other? PM: Well Natalie, that's not what's always happening. I
suggest Natalie, if you really want to have a look at this got
the transcript if you would, get the full speech of Mr Peacock
when he launched his policy at the beginning of this week, and
get mine.
NATALIE: But you are always both saying things about each other
like what you just said then.
PM: I Well, let me say, get his policy speech and get mine and
see who's talking about the real issues of the future. But let
me make this point, Natalie, politics is not simply a business of
Mr Nice Guy. I mean a politician, in my judgment Natalie, has
two responsibilities in a democracy, because in a democracy it's
either you or the other fellow are going to form a government and
0 your responsibilities are twofold. Your first responsibility, of
course, is positively to talk about your own policies which is
precisely what I did yesterday, talked about the building blocks
we've already created and the new proposals for a better future
for Australia. If you don't discharge that positive obligation,
Natalie, you shouldn't be in the business. But you've also got
an obligation to tell. the Natalies of the world, everyone all the
voters out there, what does the alternative mean, and if I
believe as I deeply do Natalie.. that the proposals of the
conservatives are a recipe for disaster for this country, then
it's my obligation to expose that. I mean, for instance Natalie,
you're 19 and that means when I came to office in 1983 you were
only 12. Now you wouldn't know, with respect, the disaster that
had been brought to this country just in that period before I
came to office because the conservatives then were in Government
and they were pursuing the same policies then that they are
PM ( cont) i promising to impose again-Now I've got an
obligation I wouldn't be doing my job if as well as telling you
about my policies I didn't warn you of what the alternative would
mean. G: Prime Minister, Natalie touches on disillusionment that is
widespread in our community just now with both major parties. Do
you want to acknowledge that and two, take any responsibility for
that, or understand why it is the case?
pMs Yes, I've had this question put quite a bit. There's one
feature of it Greg which I think is not just unique to this
country but if we look all round the world we can Bee it. one of
the indisputable facts of life is that in the last few years
O there's been an acceleration of interest in matters
environmental, in every country and I'm glad that that's
happened. Now that's reflected in this country and I think it's
one of the reasons why you see the non-major party vote being up,
some of it in the Democrats and some of it in the Green
candidates. Now that doesn't upset me, I think it's very
important that people should be concerned about the environment.
I've simply made the point, and I make it again to your
listeners, if a person out there listening on your program
regards the environment as the overwhelmingly important issue to
the point where they want to cast their vote for an environmental
candidate, okay okay. But, they've then got to ask themselves
the question if the environment is so important to them, how do
they then cast their preference to ensure that environmental
issues are going to be best looked after? There's only one
answer then and that is they must vote for Labor because we have
the record against the conservatives. You know it all, we saved
the Franklin, we stopped Daintree being logged, we ' ye stopped
Kakadu being mined and on each one of those decisions, on each
Sone of those, the conservatives opposed us. So that's one of the
Wmajor reasons for this increase in the vote of the non-major
parties. GC,. Wendy$ you're talking to the Prime Minister.
WENDYs Good morning Mr Hawke.
PM: Good morning Wendy.
WENDY: Look, in your policy speech I've not heard any mention
for small businesses that's where there's a husband and wife
and 15 people and less. What relief can we expect considering in
the first seven months of this financial year my interest rates
have doubled that of the last 12 months? Also, superannuation
for everyone is very important, I agree with that but in a
business where our prices are controlled, where are we going to
-6
WEN * DY ( cont) find the money to pay for our employees'
superannuation? PM:. Well, Wendy, let me take the interest rates question first.
I said yesterday that it had given me no pleasure to have to have
a tight monetary policy and it wasn't done for fun. The simply
fact is Wendy that you and other small businesses in Australia
would have been absolutely ruined if in fact we hadn't had those
Policies because if I'd just allowed the explosion of demand to
go on then the economy would have collapsed. We had to soften
the level of demand in this country, we had tight fiscal policy,
tight wages policy, so we had to tighten monetary policy. There
was no alternative other than if we wanted the economy to
collapse. Now, the question Wendy is simply, you've got to ask
yourself# what's more likely to happen to interest rates if Labor
comes in or the conservatives get in? I don't want to go over
all the stuff I've gone over with Greg, but the indisputable fact
is that the banking sector is saying that the policies that we've
brought in has now created a situation in which interest rates
can come down. Prime rates have already started to come down and
under that situation there will be continuation downwards of
interest rates and it will go into mortgage rates. The banking
Industry is saying that but it's equally inevitable
that if the conservatives came in with their wages explosion, boy
would you have to worry then because wages would go through the
roof WENDY: Yes, but we've got to worry now because in this
morning's news it said 10,000 small businesses have gone
bankrupt, and I just don't think anymore can go bankrupt because
you know, you go home at night you don't have to face your bank
manager and there's thousands, hundreds of thousands of us out
there employing people, young people, I've got two apprentices,
Sand you know we are wi lling to give them a chance but how can we
Wgive them a chance when we have continuing high interest rates?
PM: Wendy, let me tell you that you talk about apprentices, the
fact that you've got apprentices reflects into the fact that in
the seven years of my Government there has been a doubling of the
number of apprentices. There's been, if you want to talk about
employment Wendy the fact is that under my Government there's
been five times, five, not one, two, three, but five times the
rate of employment growth as there was under the Liberals and 93%
Wendy, 93% of that employment growth has been in the private
sector and the overwhelming proportion of the private sector is
small business. In other words you've been able to grow. Look
at the other things that we have done
GC: Prime Minister, with respect, for one second, Wendy's doing
it tough and yet you are coming back to her telling her that
-7
GC ( cant): she shouldn't be doing it tough.
PM: No, I'm not saying anything of the sort. As I said
yesterday, I know that Wendy and others have been doing it tough.
I'm saying two things I'm saying that and this is not a
statistic that Wendy, you and Bob Hawke or anyone can avoid in
that last year because of this enormous growth that was taking
place the economy was growing that fast that we had an increase
in consumption of St. We only produced another 4% more and as a
country we made up that gap by sucking in more imports and we
couldn't afford to keep on doing that. The world wasn't going to
keep paying f or Australia's standard of living and so we had to
lower that demand and the only way of doing that was by
tightening interest rates. But, the important point is, now
they are coming down. The banking industry which sets the rates
0 says that, but it's also clear that we won't get the benefit of
those reduced rates if there were a change of Government because,
Wendy, and all the business community out there would be faced
with a wages explosion because Mr Peacock and the others say let
her rip, let the strong use their muscle which they would
C But if you had enterprise bargaining couldn't Wendy say to
her employees now listen I'm doing it A little bit tough I'd
prefer you to take a pay decrease for the next 12 months?
PM1 Well what I can say about that is you look at our history,
if you look at our history what's happened, and this is important
I mean you and I Greg don't have to sit here with Wendy and have
a hypothetical about this
WENDY: Excuse me, let me get in, my interest rates when you
came in, because I've been in business f or 11 years, was probably
only what 12-13%? It's 24% now and what do you say to the
employees who come to me and say look please, please, can I
borrow a hundred dollars f rom you if not I can't make my house
payment? What do you tell these poor people?
PM: I Wendy I say what I said yesterday that I know it's been
hard. I'm simply saying that the alternative was disastrous and
the alternative under the conservatives would even be more
disastrous. They had a situation where they controlled this
country. Under them the 90 day bill rate reached in April of
1982 22%, it's never reached that under us the 90 day bill rate,
they reached the higher rate and they brought about the worst
recession in this country's history because, Wendy, they didn't
have a wages policy. In the last 12 months before I became Prime
Minister you talk about small business collapsing, in the last 12
months before I became Prime Minister, a quarter of a million of
your fellow Australians were thrown onto the unemployment scrap
8-
PM ( cont) I heap, a quarter of a million, not under this
Government. Employment is growing and growing and growing but
the unemployment scrap heap grew under then because they didn't
have a wages policy and Wendy, that's what they'd inflict upon
you again.
CS Wendy, I know you want to say some more but in respect to
the other people who have been lining up and waiting for
sometime, we need to move on, Patty, good morning and welcome.
PATTY: Good morning, good morning Prime Minister.
PM1 Good morning Patty.
PATTY: It's indeed heartening to see the family being
recognised in this election. However* it seems ironic to
me anyway, that the policies of both your party and the Coalition
have ignored the plight of the single income family and in fact
discriminate in favour of users of external child care. Now I
say ironic because it seems that family policies now have to be
framed to help solve the very problem created because women have
been forced into the workplace. Now my question therefore is, Mr
Prime Minister, why have you not increased family allowances as
even after the increases and indexation last year, for which we
thank you, their real value in dollar terms has fallen by 100%
since 1982. Now you did give two bucks a week to keep kids at
school in years 11 and 12, that wouldn't even pay transport costs
for one day. Now by chosing rather to increase funding for
external childcare you are abandoning those families which forego
a second income to care for their kids at home which families,
incidentally, are already paying up to 50% more tax than dual
income families.
PM*. Well Patty, let me say that in that exposition, you have
Woverlooked the facts of what we have been doing to assist the
families, including single income families and including the most
needy. Lot me give you the facts, these are not opinions. In
this current year, Patty, we are paying to the lower income
families in this country over $ 2 Billion so that those families
with kids are going to get the assistance they need to meet their
responsibilities, and that's in addition, that over $ 2 Billion
which is paid by way of family allowance supplement to the low
income is in addition to the $ 1.2 Billion that Is being paid in
family allowance. Now just so that we can get those figures Greg
down to our families, so you can get some idea of a single income
family, what that means let's take a single income and this is
a family that this lady Patty is talking about-a single Income
family Greg with an income of $ 320 a week. Now under the family
allowance supplement that I am~ paying there, that family that's
got three kids is getting $ i1o a week tax free, $ 110 a week tax
9-
PM ( cont); free which is equival~ ent to a wage increase of $ 170 a
week. Now that's for the single income family. So, Patty, it
might sound nice to say the things you do, but unfortunately you
refuse to take account of those realities over $ 2 Billion being
paid and being paid out to those in the greatest need and that is
in the area of the single income family with $ 320 a week, an
additional $ 110 tax free.
GCs Patty, I need to let the question and the answer stand
because David is also hanging in there, David welcome.
DAVID: Yes, good morning Mr Hawke.
PM: Good morning David.
0 DAVIDz I've been following the campaign, probably not as closely
as what I should, but right throughout this campaign you've given
me the distinct impression that you're frightened of the minority
parties. Why?
PM4: Well, David, you're wrong I'm not frightened of the
minority parties, not frightened at all. What I have said is
tried to, as Greg I think would acknowledge in discussion, I've
acknowledged that I think the votes in minority parties will be
up and the major reason why the votes in minority parties will be
up is that now, as compared with-three years ago, there's a
greater interest in the environment and some people are going to
cast their vote, their primary vote, on the basis of their
concern with the environment. That doesn't worry me, it doesn't
worry me at all. in fact basically I welcome the increase in
interest in the community on the environment. I'm simply saying,
particularly to those people David, that if they have a real
concern about the environment they've got to make their decision
about their second preference because their first preference
W won't decide who governs the country, the second will and they
can decide for Hawke who's made all the major environmental
decisions, or for the conservatives who've opposed them.
GC: Kate, we only have one minute, can you make it kind of
brief. KATE% Yes, good morning Mr Hawke.
PM: 6 Good morning Kate.
KATE: I'm not aware of any attention either parties have given
to people with a disability in your talks and that leading up to
your elections; p and also the specialised equipment which disabled
people need. They should be really tax exempted because there's
on these things, a lot of them are really essential to us.
10
GC: Okay, to be fair to the Prime Minister, and we have to break
for the news, what I will do is if it's okay with the Prime
Minister is take two minutes of your time and record your answer
to that question, we will play that after the ten o'clock news
and hopefully that will keep everybody happy.
PM: Sure, sure.
BREAK FOR NEWS
GC: While the news was on the Prime Minister stayed with us for
a few extra minutes to answer the question just posed by Kate.
XATE: I'm just wondering why there is no attention is given to
people with a disability; and also the equipment that is
S necessary to disabled people, you know the tax exemption on that.
Surely to goodness that could be waylaid and, sheltered
workshops, your Government has phased out all of these sheltered
workshops and it was throwing a lot of people out of employment
you know. If they are to go out and mix with the world, surely
the world can come in and mix with them.
P? 4* rirstly, in regard to the history and then in regard to
the present. What you are saying, of course, in regard to what
we've done in the area of sheltered workshops and so on is just
not accurate. We have in consultation with the States and the
various organisations concerned with the disabled changed our
approach in a way which has been welcomed by the organisations
themselves because our view is that we ought to together do
everything we possibly can to see that every opportunity is given
to disabled people to become integrated into the mainstream of
employment. This is a development which has been welcomed by
everyone concerned in this area. But now to the presents I
Sdidn't ignore the disabled yesterday in my policy speech. Let me
Wjust point out that to help overcome the problems involved in the
education of the disabled children I announced that the Federal
Government will increase from the beginning of next year its per
capita grant for students with disabilities in Government schools
by 20% and it will fund students with disabilities in non-
Government schools at the highest rate for non-Government
schools. And, these changes as I have said, recognise the
benefits of increased integration, something that I just referred
to, and accordingly the new per capita grant level will be
portable so that all children with disabilities can take their
grant with them upon integration into regular schools. This will
cost us $ 4.2 million in a full year. So, we've neither forgotten
them In the past nor in my immediate policies.
GCt Kate, we thank you for your call, we thank everybody else.
we apologise to the many others who wanted to get on, election
CC ( Cont) I campaigns of course, can be a bit of a bother not
only to the electorate but also to politicians who fancy a punt.
Tomorrow we've got the Newmaarket have you had a look at the form?
PM2 No no I haven ' t had a look at the form. I don't know
whether I might be able to have a look at it sometime tonight in
Mount Isa and I hate giving tips without having studied the form,
but having a quick look at it what I'm just saying in Melbourne
these days what you ought to do in go for Colin Hayes outsider,
he got up with Scarlet Bisque the other day at 33-1 and then
Masahan in the Blue Slipper at, what was it about Well,
what's his outsider, his outsider is Franklin Drive at 20-1.
Apart from that he's got Michael Clarke on Leica Western. So if
you really were going for a roughie I suppose you'd go for
Franklin Drive at 20-1. if I wasn't doing that I guess, probably
I might be looking at Strawberry Ranch perhaps..., . what about the
Queensland horse Planet Ruler, what do you think of it
GCs It's a good horse.
PM: Hasn't really struck it down there this time.
GC1 It will run well though, stick with your outsider.
PM; Okay.
C: What price a Hlawke win on March 242
PM: I think the odds are much shorter on that, but we're not
being cocky about it, we're working hard right up to the day.
GC: Thanks for coming by.
qPM: It's been my pleasure. Thank you very much to you Greg and
Iq to your listeners.
Ends