PRIME.. MIISE
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH PAOLO TOTARO, AMANDA BUCKLEY
AND GEORGE NEGUS, FACE THE PRESS, SBS TV
OCTOBER 1990
E OE PROOF ONLY
TOTARO: Mr Hawke, what's your dream for SBS in the year
2000?
PM: I hope that it will be stronger, even more widely
watched than it is now. But I won't be relying on my hopes.
I will be delivering on the commitment I made when I
outlined the multicultural program agenda for Australia that
I would be introducing legislation to guarantee in a
statutory form, its independent existence as an independent
corporation. That will be introduced next year, that
legislation, after further discussions with SBS itself and
with the Federation of Ethnic Communities.
TOTARO: Should SBS have additional sources of funding to
the Government?
PM: That's a question which is, as you know, not entirely
hypothetical because you do now. You are able to have
sponsorship and indeed you helped to give the great
telecasting of the World Cup with some assistance by way of
sponsorship. This is a vexed question. The important thing
is that we wrill ensure that you have substantial funding
from the Government. You know I gave the three year
guarantee, real terms guarantee in ' 88 and which means you
get $ 60 million this year from the Federal Government. So
we're not going to let SBS wither because of an absence of
Government financing. The question of advertising is
something which has got to be discussed with the SBS and
with the ethnic communities.
TOTARO: And to you personally, what ways of receiving
additional funds for SBS would be acceptable?
PM: There are really these sources. You've got Government
funding which you'll continue to get, you've got sponsorship
and there's advertising. Now we've got to make sure that
this thing is not imposed from Canberra. That there is
appropriate discussion with you in SBS and with the ethnic
communities so that what emerges is something which is ( a)
understood; acceptable; and effective.
BUCKLEY: Moving on to political matters, Mr Hawke. Next
week you are going up to the Premiers' Conference in
Brisbane and this is, you've said, one of the most important
things you'll ever do as Prime Minister, trying to change
Commonwealth.-State relations. What actual concrete
proposals do you expect to get out of it and, I mean, the
Opposition is saying it's just a gabfest.
PM: Some of the Opposition is. They really have been
repudiated and properly repudiated by other sections of the
political parties opposed to us. Let me pay tribute to Nick
Greiner, the Liberal Premier of New South Wales. Of course
I have some differences with Nick in politics but I pay
tribute to the seriousness with which he is approaching this
together with his Labor Premier colleagues. This attempt to
play petty politics by some sections of the Federal
Opposition is anathema to him, I know, as it is to me. We
are about a serious piece of work here. Now as to the part
of your question as to what we hope to achieve. These
things: first of all it will not all be done in one special
Premiers' conference. This will be the first of a series of
special premiers' conferences. There will be some specific
decisions made. For instance, I hope to be able to get
signed a heads of agreement in regard to a national rail
freight corporation. That's just an example. But
essentially w~ hat we'll be doing, I think, is to say well
here are the areas in which we need now to cooperate,
perceive how we can avoid, for instance, unnecessary
duplication of services, unnecessary duplication of
regulation. We'll establish now ongoing processes so that
we won't wait for some uncertain time in the future where
the whole thing will be done. Ongoing decisions.
NEGUS: Are we talking here in the long run, Mr Hawke, about
less government because it's been almost a conventional
thing to be said around the place that this country is
grossly over-governed, too many governments.
PM: I mean particularly for your viewers who come from
other countries. They must be staggered by the level of
government. We've got 17 million people in Australia and
we've got one House of Parliament virtually for every
million of our people. We've got two federal houses of
parliament. We've got six states which is 11 state
legislatures because it hasn't got an upper house in
Queensland. So there's 11 plus two there's 13; the ACT
14; and 15 when you come to the Northern Territory. That's
just about one House of Parliament for every million of
people. TOTARO: Talking again about
PM: That's crazy. So the point is that we've got to get
more efficient government. We want to say now look if the
Federal Government's doing it and the State Government's
doing it and Local Government's doing it, is there a way in
which we carL rationalise that so there's not overlap?
That's what it's about.
NEGUS: We're not talking about doing away with any of the
tiers though are we?
PM: No. I said back in 1979 in the Boyer Lectures that I
don't think -there'd be anyone in Australia who would
disagree with me. If you were making a decision now as to
what form of government you would have for Australia going
into the 21st century you wouldn't have what you've got.
There's no way. But it's there so the challenge to
intelligent leaders is to say alright how do we make the
existing system work more efficiently. That's what this
Special Premiers' Conference is about.
BUCKLEY: John Hewson says that the way he would do it would
be to abolish Commonwealth departments. Now is it your plan
to make the National Capital more central or to hand back
more powers to the States?
PM: John Hewson frankly doesn't know what he's talking
about. He is an embarrassment to the Liberal Party and to
his state colleagues. He simply doesn't know what he's
talking about. This nonsense that we've had that you'd
abolish the Department of Social Security. I mean it is
laughable. It's repudiated by all the welfare organisations
in Australia. It's repudiated-by anyone who knows something
about the real social needs of Australian people. Of
course, Dr Hewson, the multi-millionaire, doesn't understand
the Coming to the specifics of your question
BUCKLEY: Mr Hawke
PM: There are some areas, Amanda, in which I believe it
would make sense for the Commonwealth to say I think
probably in that area the States and or Local Government can
do that better. Certainly parts of program delivery. There
are other areas of human affairs in Australia where it would
probably make sense for the Commonwealth to do it. So it
won't be a one way traffic. I think there will be some
session of obligations from the Commonwealth to the States
in some areas. There could be a session from the States to
the Commonwealth. There should only be one criterion. Not
what I want or what a State premier wants, but we should all
be saying what is it that's best for the Australian citizen.
NEGUS: Is that the way you'd like to go out, on that sort
of note? Bob Hawke, the man who put his stamp on a new form
of government in this country because
PM: I don't look for monuments. I hope that I'll be
remembered for a number of good things. That's for history
to decide. But I have a long established concern about how
we govern ourselves. I've addressed it not only in the
Boyer Lectures. I've addressed it at a number of academic
dissertations and speeches. Because the real thing is this.
We have got, I think, the greatest country in the world.
One of our greatnesses, as I say to your viewers, is the
fact that we'lre made up of people from so many different
countries 140 different nations. We've got natural
resources. We've got the paradox of a heterogeneous
population coming from 140 different nations but homogeneous
in our commitment to the democratic parliamentary processes.
Now the great challenge to us is that we should use our
resources in the most efficient way. We shouldn't denigrate
ourselves and dissipate our capacities by a duplication and
a lack of integration between those governing processes. If
I can do something to make that better, well I'll be very
pleased. TOTARO: This is of course what multiculture would mean to
you. PM: Multiculturalism means many things to me, but it means
these things. It means releasing or having the capacity to
release all the talents of the individual, irrespective of
their race, colour or creed, background, origin. It means
social justice and it means economic efficiency. So what
I'm talking about here in this Special Premiers' Conference
is relevant to multiculturalism, yes.
TOTARO: So you'll go beyond the simple question of You
see multiculturalism as real cultural pluralism and of
cultures. Is that
PM: What to me politics is about is very very simple. You
don't need, as I said once recently, you don't need great
volumes by political scientists. Politics is about the
creation of human happiness. Maximising the opportunity for
happiness. Maximising the opportunities for individuals to
release and use all the talents within each individual. And
multiculturalism is an aspect of that. We have great
opportunities for strengthening and enriching Australia
because we have people coming from 140 different places, so
we have to be intelligent as a community and say what are
the ways in which we maximise the opportunities for every
individual irrespective of their background to achieve
happiness. That's what multiculturalism is about.
TOTARO: Is there still bipartisanship in multiculturalism?
PM: Well le~ t me say this. There have been times when our
political opponents I think have been, when you get into an
election situation, a little bit opportunistic about this
and have attacked multiculturalism and have been a bit dicey
on the question of immigration. I pay tribute to the basic
thrust of ou~ r political opponents basically, although they
succumb a bit to temptation when they think it might help
them. Basically I think they do have a commitment to our
multicultural Australia.
BUCKLEY: OnL your own population and immigration policy, do
you expect by the end of this term of Parliament to have a
population target, keeping in mind environmental concerns as
well as the Liberals' worries about immigration
PM: There's; no in November of this year we're going to be
having this Outlook conference and that will come out of the
work of the Bureau of Immigration Research which I have
established recently. Now I hope that, if I may talk to
your viewers; is that you will see this conference that we're
setting up is not just something which is going to be for
politicians and officials but I hope that people generally
will take an interest in this. If they've got thoughts,
let's have them, get their views to us. Now that will help
us as a Government have a better idea about levels. But I
don't think it makes sense to say that you're just going to
have a level come what may. To have a cohesive society
you've got to have a community which accepts, broadly
speaking, the level of immigration that you're pursuing.
And it won't necessarily be the case that you can say now
what is the level which will satisfy that criteria perhaps
in two years time. Having said all that, by inclination I
tend to be a higher immigration level rather than a lower
one. We're a country of only 17 million people in a world
of five and a half billion and I think that it's in the
interests of this generation and future generations of
Australians that we build that population up as much as we
can. TOTARO: You seem interested your own grandchildren.
PM: Yes. ' Yes I do.
NEGUS: Mr Hawke, I don't think anybody would argue at the
sort of aspirations that you're expressing for the country.
It would be a pretty nasty cynic who'd do that. But at the
moment we're! looking at those things in the context of a
pretty awful. economic climate. I mean you're talking now
about us being possibly in technical recession. What does
that mean? Does that mean that people are technically
having a hard time, technically out of work?
PM: No, no, no. Don't be the cynic yourself.
NEGUS: I'm not.
PM: Well
NEGUS: ( inaudible)
PM: It means, very simply, that economists define a
recession as two successive quarters of negative economic
growth. And as yet we're not in that point. That's all
I've been saying. I haven't done anything That's
what the economists' definition of a recession is. We're
not yet at that point. But I've said quite clearly, as
you've heard me say to the Parliament Amanda, I don't deny
that there Eire economic problems out there for a lot of
people. The simple point is this, and I'm not going to push
statistics at your viewers, but there's one overridingly
simple statistic. Last year we had an eight per cent growth
in expenditure and a four per cent growth in our production.
We financed that four per cent gap by just calling on the
savings of overseas people. You can't go on doing that. if
we hadn't brought down the level of activity and the level
of imports, if we hadn't done that ourselves, with the pain
that's been involved, the world would have imposed a much
harsher, more draconian remedy upon us.
BUCKLEY: I think Mr Hawke that you get your message across
pretty well. I think, as you've said yourself many times
you've educated the community on economic matters and they
do understand
PM: It's a two-way process.
BUCKLEY: A two-way process. But I think there are mixed
messages coming from the Government about the future. I
know you're always more optimistic in many of the things you
say and yet Paul Keating often talks about the Argentinian
road, as many economists do. What exact message are you
trying to tell us about what will occur
PM: Let me say two things. To be fair to Paul, Paul is not
and hasn't been preaching the message of doom. He has the
optimism that I have. But he has seen it as his
responsibility as Treasurer to warn about the dangers that
if we are not prepared to exercise the discipline that we
have, then we could be as a country in a much worse
situation, in his Argentinian reference. Now that's what
the responsibility of government is about. Let me say to
your viewers, the beaut thing as a politician would be to
just do nice: things, say oh yes, well yes we'll have
interest rates not at 18% or more that they got up to, we'll
have them at: 10 or five. That will make you all feel nice
about it. But what would've happened if we'd done that is
the place wo'uld have exploded. We just would've gone like
that, sucking in imports and the world would've suddenly
said bang, that's the end to you. They would've wiped us
out. Now what the message therefore is, in answer to your
question Amanda, the message is simple. We've got enormous
natural capacities and opportunities. Not only because of
our people and our resources but of our geographical
proximity tco the fastest growing region in the world. But
it's a hard, tough, competitive world and we've got to
conduct ourselves in a way which enables us to compete in
that world. So we can't consume essentially, whether it's
in terms of private consumer goods or investment goods, we
can't consume more than we produce.
NEGUS: The horrible fact of life though for you politically
is that whether people believe what you're saying about the
economy or riot the polls are looking pretty dreadful
wiped you off the map if you went to the polls this week.
PM: You go back and look up your files, and Amanda knows
this. You l. ook at your files
BUCKLEY: Fourteen points though. Fourteen points.
PM: Well you go back to your polis and look what they were
saying to us; before the 1987 you look at the beginning of
1987.
NEGUS: They've never been this low before.
PM: Ok, we haven't had a Victorian situation before. Have
we? Now, if I'd listened to all the panic merchants back
there in ' 87 and before the ' 90 election I would have gone
and shot myself or something like that. But I didn't. You
know, I said well
NEGUS: ( inaudible)
PM: No, I'll leave that to you George. But I've said all
along that I have confidence in the intelligence of the
Australian e: lectorate. You've heard me say it. When
everyone was down most of my colleagues said we had no
chance of winning last time. A lot of them thought it in
' 87. But I have a faith in the Australian people. If I go
to them and say look, we're not perfect, of course we've
made mistakes. You can't be in government for seven and a
half years and not make mistakes. But we haven't been
mistaken in 1L) our trust in the Australian people; 2) the
capacity of -them to respond. And remember this when you
talk about the gloom, just remember this statistic. We have
created, in our period of government, 1.6 million new jobs,
of them : in the private sector. And remember this, that
rate of job creation is five times faster than in the seven
years of the conservative government and it's twice as fast
as the rest of the world. So we have done things in terms
of the most important requirement of the Australian
population. That is job creation. We've done more than has
been done before. We're doing much better than the rest of
the world. We'll continue to do it.
NEGUS: So why are the polls so bad for you then if that's
the case?
PM: The polls are bad for these reasons. People don't like
being hurt, as we've had to hurt them over recent times with
high interest rates. They don't like it. They don't say oh
beauty Bob, beauty or you up. And secondly, we've had
the disaster of Victoria. Victoria is a very very big hunk
of Australia.
BUCKLEY: We're becoming two nations here in Australia
aren't we?
PM: No, no, we're not becoming two nations. But it is the
case that a federal government will be hurt if you're seen
as one of your big state components as having gone bad.
Similarly, because we're not travelling terribly well at the
moment some of our state colleagues will be hurt. That's
the nature of things. But how many times have you heard me
say Amanda, you've got to get your time scales right. When
I see the journalists saying gone, gone,
NEGUS: You can definitely turn it round?
BUCKLEY: You've been pretty tough on John Hewson
TOTARO: Just want to change that for a moment.
PM: Yes sure.
TOTARO: Immigration. Is the Government a little bit out of
step with public feelings about immigration numbers?
PM: Well, I don't know. I mean there is some part of
public feeling which says it should be higher, there's some
which says we shouldn't have any. But you know in the end
what leadership is about? It's about leading. You don't
get elected to0 go like that and say what's the opinion,
like that. Leadership is about leading.
TOTARO: When you have the growing level of unemployment,
people say why should we bring migrants in.
PM: Then we wouldn't have 17 million people that we've got
now if governments had just responded to that view.
Whenever there was any sort of recession
NEGUS: ( inaudible)
PM: and this country now would've denied itself millions
of great citizens.
TOTARO: What's in your view
PM: You've ( jot to get your time scales right. If you say,
look things are a bit tough now so we'll cut off the
immigration t: ap, then that's not something you'd just do
then. That's a loss forever.
TOTARO: When your grandchildren are grown up, what do you
think should be the level of population they should have?
PM: It's impossible to say.
TOTARO: Should be 25 million, 30 million?
PM: It's impossible to say now. But I answered the
question before by saying I am a higher immigration man
rather than a lower immigration man. But, I repeat, the
real criterion has got to be, well there are two
essentially, and they are related. It's got to be
economically responsible. I mean you've got to say now I
believe that with that level of immigration we're going to
be able to essentially integrate them into our economic
growth and our employment growth and secondly, while I say
you don't go like that and say well what are people wanting,
in a broad sense however you've got to be able to persuade
the Australian population that the sort of immigration
program you're having is one which they understand and
accept. Not to which there will not be some objection. But
basically the Australian people have got to be going along
with what you're doing. I think essentially on immigration
and multiculturalism they are.
NEGUS: Mr Hawke, you've said to Amanda and others that,
you've made it very plain lately, that you intend hanging
around for a while longer, at least until the next election.
Why?
PM: Because I'm a good Prime Minister.
NEGUS: Or because you think the alternatives couldn't win?
PM: Well I don't know whether they could or they couldn't.
All I know is that I've been Prime Minister for seven and a
half years and I'm a much better Prime Minister now than I
was. I've never felt fitter physically and mentally. I
still believe I've got a significant contribution to make to
this country as Prime Minister.
NEGUS: But do you think that you could win more easily than
Paul Keating or Kim Beazley?
PM: Well at the moment the polls would when they you look
at alternatives, who do they prefer? Well that is the case.
But that's maybe good for your ego in one sense but it's
also in a sense unfair to others. I'm there, I've had the
opportunities. So people can maybe tend to identify with
you a bit. But even when they don't agree with you on
everything, they say well you know, we know Hawkey and they
tend to say yes we prefer him. But I don't think that's the
point. I mean I'm a very healthy 60 George, and 60 is not
very old.
NEGUS: But it might be the point for the Party. Without
you, no longer Government.
PM: You knoiw, the Party will make up its mind. All I can
say, as far as the Party is concerned, they are 100% behind
me. TOTARO: I must interrupt because this after all is the
tenth birthday of SBS. Our viewers often cannot see SBS
simply because it doesn't reach them, or because it is
What's the Government going to do?
PM: Well you know what we've done. We've
TOTARO: But what are you going to do?
PM: Well we'Ive made provision for the extension of
services. We've made money available for the extension of
the services and as it's possible through time to extend it,
we will.
TOTARO: Do you think that Channel 10 could be handed over
to PM: Now don't jump too many hurdles in advance. I think
your viewers know that Bob Hawke's very firmly established
his commitment to SBS. We'll do what we can to see
TOTARO: Do you believe that the new 1991 Aussat satellite
could be used by SBS to increase its coverage?
PM: It's conceivable, but let me say this. In conjunction
with my excellent Minister for Communications, Kim Beazley,
we will see that we do all we can to create the environment
within which SBS can prosper.
TOTARO: You can't give us any more assurance?
PM: I don't regard programs like this, as enjoyable and as
important as they are, as the places in which you make
policy announcements.
BUCKLEY: We'll give you an opportunity to speak on another
matter in that case. You had a pretty spectacular flare-up
with Archbishop Hollingworth last week. What are your
relations with him and why do you let him get under your
skin? Why do you let these people get under your skin?
PM: He doesn't get under my skin. I don't care whether
it's Amanda Buckley, Archbishop Hollingworth, George Negus.
If people say something which I think is not right, then I
will say so. It's no reflection upon Peter Hollingworth as
an individual, none.
NEGUS: ( inaudible)
PM: I respect him in may ways. He's been a man who's
dedicated his life to the things in which he believes. In
the Brotherhood of St Laurence he's done some very important
things. But where I think Peter, or George or anyone says
something publicly which I think isn't right, then I'll say
so. But that doesn't affect my judgement about them. May I
say in regard to Peter Hollingworth that fortunately he
tends to have reciprocated to myself.
NEGUS: Sure, but you said he was talking nonsense and all
he was really saying was that people were hurting which is a
fact. PM: Well why don't you get your facts straight? It's not
what he said, that I objected to What he said that I
objected to., and as a professional journalist there is an
obligation upon you to get your facts right, and you've got
them wrong. What he said, and what I objected to was that I
and the Government had used the single instrument of
monetary policy. He was wrong and I objected to that.
Because we'd had the tightest fiscal policy in history and
the tightest wages policy. That's what I referred to as the
unholy trinity of fiscal policy, wages policy and monetary
policy. The Archbishop was wrong in saying we'd only used
the one and I objected to that.
TOTARO: We have only a very short time.
PM: Ok, don't let these people overrule you. You assert
your authority mate.
TOTARO: Yes, yes, absolutely.
PM: Good on you mate.
4-.9 11
TOTARO: I copy you. On the 10th birthday of SBS, what's
the Australia you'd like to bequeath to your children? In
which way is Australia different from what your father left
you? PM: I want it to be a more tolerant society. I can
remember the first year I went to university was 1947. An
exciting period to be a young university student. What
caused me to join the Labor Party then was the great
immigration -program that they'd introduced which was
bringing hundreds of thousands of people to this country.
TOTARO: After the White Australia Policy?
PM: Yes. Yours truly was the one who with others worked to
see that that was abolished. I saw then and I was hurt by
the prejudice that my fellow Australians Then it was
the dagos and the wops which was the language. Yes, that's
the language that was used by my fellow Australians against
you people who've come to help us be such a much better
country than we were. I dedicated myself from that time to
try and make Australia a more tolerant society. Because if
there is one obscenity that I can't stand it is the
obscenity which says that one human being, one child is less
worthy than another because it has a different coloured
skin, or different shaped eyes or a different accent. So
what I want to see in this country as compared to those
earlier days is a more tolerant society, one which
understands the great truth of this planet, that all people,
all people, irrespective of the colour of their skin, shape
of their eyes, their religion, all people are intrinsically
equal in terms not of their endowments -some people will be
born with more intelligence than others -but they are all
equal in terms of their right to have their talents
developed and their opportunities for a free and independent
life. And if Australia accepts that more readily at the end
of my time than it did before, then I'll be happy.
TOTARO: And you think that SBS has helped to create this
new climate?
PM: There's no doubt that SBS has helped. That's why I'm a
great supporter of SBS.
TOTARO: Thank you very much Mr Hawke. I'm afraid we have
to leave it here. Thank you very much for coming, and best
wishes. PM: Thank you very much.
ends