TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH RANALD MCDONALD, RADIO
JULY 1990
MCDONALD: Good morning, Prime Minister.
PM: Good morning.
MCDONALD: I won't go through my introduction again, but
anyway I could, of course, want to talk to you about the
speech you made to the National Press Club yesterday.
PM: Yes.
MCDONALD: Now you say there should be uniformed
supervision of the non-bank deposit taking institutions,
as is obviously important to Victoria, how do you see the
State and Federal roles in this?
PM: Well I said, very simply, that we will include this
item now in the lead up to the first Premiers' Conference
that I've scheduled for the end of October. We'll have
work done between the Commonwealth and the States leading
up to that and the aim will be to try and arrive at an
agreed approach on this matter so that we can satisfy the
two criteria of effectiveness of supervision and
uniformity. Now that would mean that, as a result of
cooperation between the States and the Commonwealth, we
could see instituted in every State, a system which would
be seen as effective in supervising the operations of the
deposit taking non-bank financial institutions, with the
responsibility for that supervision remaining with the
States because, as I said yesterday, Ranald, there is
simply a vast myriad of these deposit taking non-bank
institutions around the country and that some of them are
very, very tiny and it wouldn't be appropriate to have a
centralised actual supervision, but what is appropriate
that the supervision that does exist, as I say, be
effective and be uniform.
MCDONALD: You use the word remaining, so quite clearly
responsibility lies with the States currently?
PM: It does as a matter of law and of the Constitution.
MCDONALD: Alright. Let's look at your overall approach
to what has been dubbed the new federalism. You use the
word achievable, you therefore clearly have-not--gone--to--
the absolute total solution of rewriting the
Constitution? PM: Well, no because we live in the real world. I mean,
I'm neither dictator nor a person who has such ambitions
to be a dictator. We have to operate within the system
that we have and therefore what I've set out in
yesterday's speech is a series of processes which can
achieve effective reform and essentially those processes
are in two parts. One is to do with the working within
the Constitution as it stands and I have now invited the
States to set up, appoint a representative to meet with
the Secretary of my Department, Mr Codd, which will
prepare papers leading up to the October special
Premiers' Conference that I have called and I've set up
in my own Department now a high level unit under Helen
Williams which will have ongoing responsibility. Now
this process is directed towards getting an agenda which
will identify the areas of duplication and overlap which
exist between the levels of Government in the delivery of
services to citizens and to say well, is there a better
way in respect of each of these areas for the delivery of
these services. In some cases, Ranald, that would mean
conceivably, the Commonwealth getting out and giving it
over to the States and perhaps with financial
compensation. In other areas it may mean the reverse
the States would agree that there's some things that we
may do better from the centre, but the aim in every
respect, the criterion is the better, more efficient
delivery of services to the citizens. So that's that
category. The second category of process is in regard to
possible reform of the Constitution itself and here I've
pointed out to our history where we have an abominably
poor record in achieving Constitutional change, basically
because they've always been in the context of partisan
controversy. So what I'm proposing, starting in
March/ April of next year when we'll have the centenary of
the first Federation Convention in Sydney in March/ April
1891, that we will then together, governments,
oppositions and non-government people, sit down and try
and work out areas of agreement that we can put to the
people by way of referendum.
MCDONALD: And you suggest that now is, for all sorts of
reasons, the best time to bring about such a major
change. Are you really being specific about why?
PM: Well, yes. We are now at the beginning of the last
decade of this first century of the Federation and, as a
keen student of history, I'm very much aware of the fact
that it took the last decade of the 1890s to forge the
Constitutional instrument which created the nation of
Australia. It's a fascinating thing to do, Ranald, to
read through, as I have done, the actual record of the
debates of those three Conventions. The first was in
Sydney in 1891, was followed then by the 1897 Convention
in Adelaide and then the third Convention in Melbourne in
1898 and it was a fairly tortuous process. I mean, for
A 3
instance, you may be interested, your listeners may
be, on one of the heads of power in the Commonwealth
Constitution, the one which gives the power to have
conciliation and arbitration, at the first Convention in
Sydney in 1891, that proposal was debated and its
inclusion in the Constitution was defeated by a vote of
to 12. In 1897 they debated it again and it was
defeated by a vote of 22 to 12 and it was only then, at
the last Convention, that it got in and a change of two
votes would have left it out entirely. So, it was a
long, tortuous process because various interests are
involved. So the reason now in part is to say, well
we're now at the beginning of this last decade, let's
commit ourselves as we come up to that centenary of
Federation on the first of January 2001, let's commence
now a decade of commitment to changing the relationships
between the States, but in the Constitution as it stands,
but also direct ourselves to the proposal to try and make
the Constitution itself as relevant as it possibly can be
to what is going to be a tough, competitive, demanding
21st century.
McDONALD: Well of course also it requires the
co-operation of State Premiers, the Opposition and
whatever and without bringing an unpleasant note into it,
presumably it's easier without a Joh Bjelke-Petersen or
Robin Gray. I mean you have a situation where you might
have a chance of support from the State Premiers don't
you? PM: Without making any reflection on the two gentlemen
to whom you've referred I think it is true as I said
yesterday at the National Press Club, that we've never
had a more congenial propitious set of circumstances than
we've got now. And it's not simply the fact that the
majority of State Premiers are of my political
persuasion, because I've paid proper credit to Nick
Greiner, the Liberal Premier of New South Wales,
yesterday. Because I must in all fairness say that Nick
Greiner has been very open and constructive in his
approach to this issue. So we've got leaders of calibre
around Australia now. People who I think do have an
understanding and share with me a vision of what
Australia needs to be if its going to face up to the
challenges of the next century. So the times are good.
McDONALD: Now what about the position of local
governments. It's mainly concentrated on Federal and
State relationships. What about local.
PM: I've taken that into account and indeed in the
letter which I sent yesterday to the Premiers I indicated
that I had written to the Chairman of the Local
Government Association with a view to having the Local
Government Organisation represented at the Premiers'
Conference that I've called now for the end of October.
So that they will be able to participate in those items
which were of direct relevance to them. The reality is,
and I'm glad you went to this question, the reality is we
have three tiers of government in this country. The
publicity is nearly always either upon us at the Federal
level or at the States. But we tend to forget, those of
us who are engaged in those two levels of politics and
commentators tend to forget that in a day to day sense of
our Australian citizens, local government has a
continuing impact upon them and a continuing relevance.
So we have to make sure that in our talk about
re-equipping ourselves for the challenges of the future
that local government is brought into it.
McDONALD: Well let's say we reach agreement and there's
a system of real co-operation between the three tiers,
what actually happens then to make it law?
PM: Well there are some things that won't require a
change of law but rather a change of practice and
procedures. For instance in the area of program delivery
it may simply be a decision, for example, that in a
particular area we will say to the States, well we think
there's certain national standards that ought to be
operative and if we can get agreement on those sort of
concepts then the actual delivery of particular services
can be handed exclusively over to the States. Now that
won't requir necessarily a new piece of legislation. In
some cases it will. But where it requires legislation
that would be a matter of a change of the law by us, we
would change our law and the States would reflect that in
their own legislation. But in many areas it would simply
be a decision taken executively which would then be
administered by the States. Now of course that category,
where we are talking about the better integration of
services, the better delivery of services. Now of course
if you take a matter like transport. Now this is one of
the big areas of challenge as I referred yesterday to the
issue of rail. Now what we've got to do and what we're
about already is States and the Commonwealth trying to
have a national rail freight initiative. Now in that
area what we want to do is to try and reduce the
impediments to commerce that currently exist by the
division of authority, not merely the physical division
of three difference guages, but the division of authority
in this area. Now there, there may be some change in
legislation required.
McDONALD: And what about a referendum? Because
presumably-PM: Well a referendum in that area, yes. If you're
actually going to, in that second category of my concern
of changing the Constitution, that of course is a matter
of law and that would require these stages. Firstly, in
the convention, the first of which will be held in March
or April next year, will be April I would think of next
year, which will I repeat, not be simply governments and
opposition represented but academics and institutions
represented. There we would try and get agreement as to
an issue. Now the example I gave yesterday was the four
year term. I doubt very much if there is anyone of
significance who questions that it would be for better
governments of this country to have four year terms
rather than three. Now what we've got to do is to try
and talk through issues like that, get bipartisan
agreement and then of course the legal processes are that
we at the Federal level then put a law through the
Federal Parliament proposing a change of the
Constitution. And that is then put to the people.
McDONALD: So there would be one referendum.
PM: Well, let me make this point. I said yesterday I
don't want to see one long drawn out year's long process
to come up with some voluminous report at the end which
then deals with a whole compendium of decisions. What I
want to see is a series of decisions. Both in the first
area of administrative arrangements between the
Commonwealth and States but also in this area. I think
for instance the four year term referendum should go to
the people at the next Federal election. There may be
other areas of constitutional reform which are more
complex, will take perhaps some years to talk through so
that we would in some senses, may replicate the last
decade of the 1890' s so that it will be a series of
constitutional changes over this period.
McDONALD: In a way that represents the sort of best of a
system of the community taking part, decision by
decision, rather than being presented with one package.
PM: Oh yes. I think if there's one thing we learn from
history and it's in two parts, but firstly that
constitutional change is very difficult to achieve in
this country. That's the first thing, an obvious lesson
we learn from history. And the sub lesson from that is
that they don't like packages very much. But underlying
all that is the most important lesson of all. And that
is that if we can get bipartisan agreement then you can
get change. I mean the most recent example of that was
back in the sixties when on a bipartisan basis power over
Aboriginal affairs was put into the hands of the
Commonwealth and with the government, the then
conservative government of the day, supported by the
Labor opposition an overwhelming majority in the
States for this change.
McDONALD: Yes. All right Prime Minister many thanks for
talking to us this morning.
PM: It's been my pleasure Ranald, thank you very much
indeed.
ends