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TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, AWA DEFENCE INDUSTRIES,
ADELAIDE, 20 MARCH 1990
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, how reasonable is it to
expect a fall of two percent in interest rates after the
election? PM: Well, if you look at what I said, the context I was,
the two percent came up in terms of some reference I'd
seen to, in going through a whole lot of media in the
last few hours of some comment by Mr Howard that he'd
talked about two percent. You'll notice that I was
reluctant myself to predict it and I, I don't want to say
precisely because I've said today and before today that
the actual fall, the degree of the fall, will be
determined by the, by the banks. The important thing
that I have been saying and that Mr Keating has been
saying is that we've got the policies in place upon which
the banking industry is able to say that there will be a
fall. The actual amount of the fall will be a matter for
the banks and the banking system to decide.
JOURNALIST: Would you say that two percent was a
reasonable PM: Well that arose in the context of I'd seen Mr
Howard was talking about two percent. He'd been asked
about what the candidate in the Northern Territory had
been saying and he, he said two percent. Now if he wants
to say it, I'm saying, well it might be reasonable. My
own consistent position is I'm not going to put a figure
on it. What I am saying is the clear alternative that
the Australian people have next Saturday, it's this
that under our policies interest rates must fall and are
seen by the banking industries and necessarily falling.
That's one reality. The other reality is the
inevitability of an interest rate rise under the policies
of the Opposition which contain two things which would
bring about an interest rate rise. Firstly, a wages
explosion and, secondly, a deliberate dissipation of the
budget surplus.
JOURNALIST: Over what, over what period of time would
two percent be a reasonable fall, Mr Hawke? Three years
or a matter of weeks after the election
PM: I wouldn't think a matter of weeks.
JOURNALIST: Three years?
PM: I'm not, you can ask all the questions you like, but
what I'm
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, on another issue
PM: Yes.
JOURNALIST: Andrew Peacock has accused you of injecting
racism into the MFP debate.
PM: Well, Mr Peacock, unfortunately, has got desperate
in the last few days. All the records will show the
untruth of that assertion. I would not, have never,
accused Mr Peacock of racism because I only make charges
if I think they are warranted. I don't think a charge of
racism against Mr Peacock is warranted. I've made a
serious charge against him which is not the charge of
racism and that is the charge that he has been
adventuristic and dangerously irresponsible in his
position in regard to the Multi Function Polis. What Mr
Peacock has to answer is a very simple position. Why was
it that last week, last week, in the Sydney Morning
Herald in explaining the position of the Opposition on
the Multi Function Polis, this was the word, these were
the words, quote the proposal, that is the proposal for
the MFP is unique for Australia and deserves extensive
consideration. Now that was the position last week, then
last Thursday night, without consultation with the
Minister involved, Mr Howard, who himself had just said
that the proposal was worthy of consideration and should
not sink in a sea of hostility without any consultation
a decision was made on Thursday night and that there
wouldn't be any processing of this under a coalition
government. This has appalled his own colleagues, it has
appalled the business community in this country, it has
appalled the business community in Japan.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, on that issue Mr Peacock says he
has a better record on race than you because, as ACTU
President, you opposed him as Foreign Minister on the
issue of Indo Chinese refugees coming to Australia.
PM: Well see, Mr Peacock can't get anything right. He
is totally desperate in this issue. He goes back to a
point not at which I or the Labor movement opposed the,
that Australia should offer haven to refugees from Indo
China. I expressed a concern at the way in which people
were just being able to land without any channelling
through Government of the way in which they came. And
that was a matter of concern to all Australians including
Hawke who has, I would suggest of any person in public
life, the most impeccable record going back to my days at
university on this issue. No-one can touch Hawke on this
issue. Now I'm sorry that Mr Peacock has to go, has to
get into this because I don't accuse him of racism
never have and never would because there is no evidence
available to me, no evidence at all, that would sustain a
charge of racism against Mr Peacock. And so I don't make
it, never have, but I make the serious charge of
irresponsible adventurism in this matter and you have the
position where his, the President of his own Party is
clearly appalled by this because Mr Elliott has taken a
totally different position on this, his own Minister, Mr
Howard, just a week before made it quite clear what his
position was, so what Mr Peacock has succeeded in doing
in this final week of the campaign is yet again
highlighting the fact which has been true, right
throughout the campaign, that you have an Opposition
which is fundamentally divided on serious issues. They
cannot speak with one voice. As I said at the beginning
of this campaign, you've got a coalition which can't
govern itself and therefore, as I've said from the
beginning of this campaign, absolutely unable to govern
this country.
JOURNALIST: ( inaudible)
PM: Beg you pardon?
JOURNALIST: poll showing any influence over the MFP
issue?
PM: Not that I'm aware of and, let me say that, as I've
said in the Parliament and I've said right throughout my
public life, polls will not determine my attitude on
issues like this.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke in the Vietnamese language
newspapers, the, the advertisements being run by the
Labor Party talking about darkest plots by conservatives.
To whom is that referring?
PM: Well on that, that phrase there was put in without
my authorisation and I have a letter and you can get it
from my people, a letter from the person who actually put
that out over my name, in which it's indicated that that
sentence was put in by them and without any authorisation
from me. I don't go in for that sort of caper.
JOURNALIST: Are you embarrassed by that?
PM: Well, I, I Just repudiate the statement. I have
done. It was put in without my authority. It's been
made quite clear and you can see the letter to that
effect. JOURNALIST: Prime Minister
PM: Yes.
JOURNALIST: If Mr Peacock isn't a racist himself is he
trying to tap the certain racist element within elements
of Australian society?
PM: What Mr Peacock has done is to repudiate the
position of his own Party a week before, the position of
his own Party the week, as I've quoted, let me repeat it
that the proposal is unique for Australia and deserves
extensive consideration. His own Minister responsible,
Mr Howard, has said it was a worthy proposal and
shouldn't sink in a sea of hostility. Now he talks to
two or three people, Mr Peacock talks to two or three
people and not including the Minister responsible, and
changes that position against the position of his Party,
against the position of the President of the Party,
against the position of the Shadow Minister. Now he, I
didn't issue his Press release, he said that he didn't
like the idea of an enclave. Now why did he say this
when the principles set down under which the committee is
operating makes it explicit that there shall be no
enclave. They are looking at a proposal calculated to
bring to Australia what Australia needs, to bring in a
concentrated form, the best technology from Japan, from
Europe, from the United States, to marry the best
available technology from overseas with a highly trained
and highly skilled Australian workforce so that we will
put Australia for the future in the best possible
position to tackle the challenge of the future to make
us better able to export manufactured goods and services.
Now that's what it's about, it's what has been accepted
before by the Opposition and its Shadow Minister, by Mr
Greiner, by the Federal President of the Liberal Party.
Now, now, what they are about in talking about an enclave
I don't know because the discussions were only going on
with the Japanese. That's what the discussion was about,
but in the context of bringing everyone to the, to
Australia from all these other areas, but that's what
they've done in a situation where they know that the nine
principles deliberately included a proposition that there
shall be no enclave and he puts out his opposition on the
basis that he's opposed to enclaves when enclaves were
not on.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister.
PM: Yes.
JOURNALIST: From one of your comments this morning you
seemed quite resigned to the fact the vote for the minor
parties could be
PM: I don't know that it will be twenty percent, but what
I've said, Maxine, is that I think the vote for the nonmajor
parties will be higher in this election than it has
been before and I've said, you know, since the campaign
started, that this to a considerable extent will be a
function of a political fact, here in this country and
around the world. That is, that there has been a growing
interest in environmental matters and I make the point
again that for those for whom the environment is the
major issue and they want to express their concern by a
primary vote, either for the Democrats or for a Green
candidate, then the logic of their position demands that
their effective preference vote must go to the Labor
Party because it's the Labor Party or the coalition which
will form Government and the record of Labor is, as the
Australian Conservation Foundation and the Wilderness
Society says, head and shoulders above that of the
Opposition. JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, how much damage will the MFP
debate do to our relations with Japan.
PM: Well, I can't measure that. Obviously they've been
hurt by it which is understandable. I believe we're
going to win the election and we will responsibly, with
the cooperation of the Will Bailey's of the ANZ, the John
Elliott's, with the cooperation of people like that as
well as the bureaucrats and the governments, we'll go
ahead with doing what was being done and that was
calculating how best we can secure the future of
Australia by bringing to this country the best technology
available from overseas, including Japan, to marry that
best technology with our trained workforce and that's
what this exercise is about and any political leader who,
for opportunistic reasons, would prejudice that process
is, as has been said in one major newspaper, not worthy
of being in the Lodge.
ends