-A " V
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF DOORSTOP, COBURG PRIMARY SCHOOL, MELBOURNE,
24 MARCH 1990
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, in the unlikely event that
you lose tonight, is there life after this? What do you
do? PM: Well, I didn't think that I'd be starting of f with a
hypothetical but I'm prepared to. I will do what I've
said during the campaign that I would see what the Party
wanted me to do and I would listen to what they had to
say. If they wanted me to stay on as leader I would
listen to that but I wouldn't necessarily accept it. But
I have had a life long involvement with and commitment to
the Australian Labor Party. It is the party for the
people of Australia and I wouldn't lightly just ignore
their wishes, I would want to take it into account. But
having said that, having answered the hypothetical, I am
confident that the good sense of the Australian
electorate-will prevail again and that I'll have the
great honour and privilege of continuing to lead
Australia as its Prime Minister.
JOURNALIST: I ask the question that way simply because
it looks as though it is going to be extremely tight
tonight. How tight do you think it's going to be and is
it possible that we won't get a clear result tonight?
PM: I think we'll know tonight. It is the case that
there will be a higher vote for the non-major parties on
this occasion than there has been in the past, for a
number of reasons, and the most important of which I
think is probably the increasing interest in
environmental matters. It does seem to be the case as
far as we can tell from our own research and the
published polls that we will get a clear majority of the
preferences of the Democrats and the environmentally
inclined Independents. And I guess in answer to that
part of the question which goes to when will we know the
result, it may be that one will have to apply this
evening some assumptions a little bit more than in the
past. But I think, on the basis of our knowledge, we
will be in a position to make those sorts of assumptions
about the distribution of preferences.
9 2.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you more nervous at this
stage of voting day than you have been in the previous
two elections?
PM: I don't get nervous and in the same way I don't get
cocky or complacent. I don't get nervous. I mean, one
of my principles in life has been because I've seen it
happen so often to others that you don't worry about
things which you can do nothing about. I've seen people
destroy themselves by just worrying and fretting about
things over which they can have no control and do
nothing. It would be stupid for me to be nervous now.
I've given this campaign my best shot. I've tried with
all the resources at my command to do the job that I
think the Australian people want of me. That is to
explain my policies and to expose the inadequacies of the
alternative. Now I've done the best shot, I've given
that the best shot. Now that's done. There's no point
in being nervous about it.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, do you have a gut feeling about
tonight? PM: Yes, I have a gut feeling. I think the Australian
people generally speaking in the post-war period have got
it right. And I say that knowing that we were out of
office for a long period and I think we were out of
office for a long period because we were demonstrating to
the public in the Labor Party that we couldn't control
ourselves, govern ourselves, and I think the Australian
electorate made the judgement that if you couldn't
control yourselves you weren't proper to control the
government of the country. I think they've essentially
got their judgements right in federal elections for a
very long period and I don't think they're going to get
it wrong this time.
ends