' p7
TRANSCRIPT OF JOINT NEWS CONFERENCE WITH THE HON KIM
BEAZLEY, MINISTER FOR TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS,
PARLIAMENT HOUSE 8 NOVEMBER 1990
E OE PROOF ONLY
PM: I'll just make a few comments and then be available for
question. I think in this area of telecommunications
perhaps more than any other industry illustrates the
commitment of this Government, because there's no doubt it's
the industry of the 21st century and it's quite clearly one
that's going to boom in our region. The decisions that
we ' ye taken are going to have a very considerable impact on
the AustraliLan economy as they'll first make our own
domestic telecommunication industry significantly more
efficient and that in turn must have a beneficial effect on
all of our industries. It will certainly equip us to
compete internationally for business in this very rapidly
expanding market. It will encourage investment in a clever
country industry and without question is going to bring
massive private capital investment and its associated
technical expertise into Australia. I think it's beyond
argument that the changes that are involved in what I've
announced today represent the most substantial reform to any
industry in the history of this country. The benefits for
consumers that will flow from the changes that have been
announced are significant and numerous. It's anticipated,
as I said irt the Statement, there'll be an up to forty
percent reduction in STD prices on major trunk routes.
There'll be the most rapid possible access to new
technologies, their choice of telephone company, with better
service quality and a quicker response for telephone repair.
Overall, what it will mean will be a greater choice f or
Australian consumers. Now obviously what we've had to
announce in telecommunications is the most important of the
announcements that we've made. And I think it is
significant to understand the range of the areas of the
economy that have been covered in the Statement as well as
telecommunications which permeates the whole of our economy.
We've announced the development of reforms in the aviation
industry, rail, road and developments in the waterfront in
the shipping area. So you can see that here is a further
delivery by the Government of reform, which when you strip
all the jargon away which is associated with some of these
discussions, simply means as I said in the Parliament that
the Government is delivering on reform which will mean
better, more efficient, cheaper services for consumers and
will create the infrastructure which will enable Australian
industry to be more competitive and more efficient. Kim, do
you want to say anything
BEAZLEY: I'd just add a few things to what the Prime
Minister's had to say particularly in the telecommunications
area. You have a fairly good explanation before you I think
in the book. But I think on any objective test that the
implementation of these reforms would see probably the most
competitive telecommunications industry anywhere. There are
enormous barriers to entry for competitors in the
telecommunications industry and what this has done is to
address those barriers to introduce a competitor, it has
done a great deal more than that. There is a very
substantial liberalisation in the area of the establishment
of private networks and because of that unlimited resale
option. With an immediate lifting of the limitations on
that in the area of common interest group network resale.
There is as many competitors in the cellular mobile area as
the technology will efficiently take, as Austel has talked
about, with the provision for a review on that in 1995 if
technologies tell us that more can be done in that area.
And in the area of cordless telephones there is unlimited
licensing provision associated with it. There isn't any
country that in practical terms permits this level of
competition across the board. Go to the United States local
loop they are still monopolies. You go to Japan and they
talk about tier two carriers where there's competition in
Japan a tier two carrier is a private network, what we would
mean by a private network. This is the most, in practical
terms, the most competitive set of arrangements. In New
Zealand they've privatised Telecom but there is no capacity,
there's no legal, there's no system which brings into play
equal access and the price arrangements associated with
that. So that until that happens competition is meaningless
and that is so for a number of other areas which are
ostensibly deregulated. I think there really is a
requirement to get a detailed comprehension of this to
understand the extent to which this is really a very
substantial set of reforms.
JOURNALIST: Mr Beazley, what sort of consortium have you
envisaged going into the third mobile licence and could they
by foreign owned?
BEAZLEY: It's difficult at this stage to tell. I think the
basic objective of the Government in all these areas, which
was portrayed at the Federal Conference of the Labor Party,
is to secure over time major Australian ownership. That
would apply to the additional competitor in regard to
cellular mobile licences as well as to the second entrant.
What we're really going to establish over the next five or
six months or so prior to the conclusion of the legislative
process in Parliament which is when we're going to be able
to go finally to tender, via a process of expressions of
interest and then request for proposals, exactly what is the
nature of the interest in the marketplace in what we are
doing. And of course we will be watching very closely and
the sorts of~ bids that come in and the sorts of views that
are expressead to us, and even more closely when we go into
the tender phase, the capacity of would-be competitors to
Australianise themselves and what are the cost penalties
involved in Australianising themselves at a particular pace.
So we, in this area, it is enormously complex. What we can
do is give answers in way stations, if you like. This is a
very big way station but I think you will see as you read
this, there's an awful lot still being subject to review in
order for us to establish clarity to move to the next phase.
And we require more dialogue, I believe, with the people who
are interested in this process before we could give
definitive answers to that type of question.
JOURNALIST: two additional mobile phone licences and
won't that have the impact of reducing the income stream for
the potential competitor to Telecom and therefore reduce the
potential for competition?
BEAZLEY: Two additional can be a little bit misleading.
One of course will be held by the network competitor, so
it's one on top of that. It has, yes it has a capacity to
reduce the price of the competitor to the Government.
There's no question of that, but there will be a load of
other factor7S involved in making that calculation. The
Department of Finance is currently going through the terms
and conditions on which we ought to be selling Aussat and
we'll be taking into account all these sorts of factors in
arriving at what we would consider a reasonable reserve
price so to speak. But on the other hand, as it
simultaneously reduces the value in one sense of the
competitor, it also of course creates another value in
itself, and that's not being issued for free. And I would
think that on the swings and roundabouts it would end up not
to our disadvantage.
JOURNALIST: Do you have any idea what the impact of that
and opening up resale will have on the value of Aussat?
BEAZLEY: There are mixed views on the issue of resale.
Resale conducted effectively by the carriers are seen by
some of them as a very good way of making better use of
their own network. It depends very much at the price at
which that iLs delivered. I have noted in my discussions
with would-be competitors of Telecom a very mixed attitude.
Some have said they don't want any form of private network
resale, some of them think it's a terrific idea it would
enable them to enhance the value of their investment. We
want to ensure that resale does operate in such a manner
that allows the competition to take place effectively.
Hence Austel, as you will note from these documents, has a
requirement on it to go away and take a look at this to
ensure that what does emerge from resale enhances overall
the introduction of network competition.
JOURNALIST: What reaction do you, expect from the unions to
the decision to completely open up the network from 1997?
BEAZLEy: I think there has always been an assumption around
for some considerable time that the duopoly has to conclude
at some period. We're talking about two Parliaments away.
I don't cont~ end for one moment the unions agree with these
decisions. They made their position amply clear at the
Federal Conference of the Labor Party on what their views
were and beforehand and have done so since. I think that
they would continue to maintain those views.
JOURNALIST: So how could you guarantee that the
interconnection arrangements will be able to go ahead by the
end of next year.
BEAZLEY: Well, the whole variety of factors involved in
getting thos~ e interconnection arrangements right and I don't
think you should pretend that they're going to be -or I
should pretend, you don't have to pretend anything -I
should pretend that they're going to be easy, they're not.
They're techinically extraordinarily difficult. And arriving
at the right pricing arrangements is also extraordinarily
difficult. I think from the point of the unions there is
this to be said. There is no doubt that one of the effects
of increasing competition is a massive exponential increase
in communications usage. We've had arguments over the years
whether or riot opening up telecommunications produces better
services to the customer. I belief it does and I support
the people who argue that it does. But there is one
unarguable point from everywhere where competition has been
entered into by a government even in quite limited forms.
And that is that there is exponential increase in the usage
of telecommunications, so the market expands. We have a
small exampl~ e from Telecom's experience and that was in the
paging system area where Telecom defended its monopoly as
you expect Telecom always until recently would have.
Telecom dropped from a hundred percent of the paging system
market down to sixty, the market increased three hundred
percent. That's a little area, I do admit, but you can
expect those sorts of increases across the board. So what
you say to t: he unions is this you, instead of becoming
effectively a public service union in a public entity, you
become a communications union in the most rapidly growing
area of industry in terms of contribution to our GDP-You
have presented yourselves with the opportunity, from being a
moderate to large size union in the Australian context of
being the Australian union giant. That's what you'll become
and for your members you have what you have never had
before. That is a market in telecommunications workers.
Now these are very substantial benefits for the unions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, when you say in the Statement
we will ensure that untimed calls continue to be offered to
households, does that imply in any way that timed calls will
also be Offered to households in other sorts of packages?
PM: As far as my statement is concerned it intends to
convey no more than what it says, and what it says is
precise. That is what the situation will be. They'll
continue to be offered.
JOURNALIST: That does mean that you might time local calls
BEAZLEY: It's a question of what Telecom is directed to do.
As far as we're concerned we are directing Telecom to
provide untimed called for household consumers under the CPI
minus x formula in keeping with the promise made by the
Prime MinistE. r that everybody benefits from these changes.
It has to be said that the capacity to separate out, to all
intents and purposes, timed calls in the local loop from
untimed calls; in other words business and households
situations is not easy, and I would think fairly unlikely
to be pursued by Telecom, even if a capacity is opened up
because the Government didn't provide a direction in that
area. So I think in many ways the sort of fears that have
been expressed in those areas really are a chimera.
JOURNALIST: in terms of the competitor to Telecom. Are
you saying that they will be
BEAZLEY: Wel~ l it's up to the competitor how it chooses to
conduct its affairs in these areas but it would be pretty
stupid if it offered itself a offered a worse deal than
that providedi by Telecom to any particular group.
JOURNALIST: Mr Beazley, in your statement you say that in
selling AUSSAT the Government will ensure there's a strong
Australian participant leading to majority Australian
ownership. Will there be any formal time limits on
achieving that or any formal sell-down requirements for the
new carrier?
BEAZLEY: None have been determined, at this stage, but it
is possible that that would be done.
JOURNALIST: inaudible
0 BtEhAeZ LtEeYn: d er Thparto cewsosu. ld be determined by the time we went to
JOURNALIST: question Minister. What's the timing
process for the third mobile?
BEAZLEY: It would not come into place until after the
second carrier had been awarded. In other words, we would
not give the third cellular mobile operator an opportunity
to leap ahead into the market of the second carrier.
JOURNALIST: Do you expect that to be pretty much
simultaneous or that there would be a significant gap
between the second and the third?
BEAZLEY: There wouldn't be a significant gap.
JOURNALIST: immediate resale that there's a high risk
that the second player in the infrastructure in setting
the scale of the resale value.
BEAZLEY: I think that it is very important the way in which
AUSTEL finally comes down with the terms of conditions that
it sets for r-esale. I think it would be most undesirable
were the set of events that you outline there to take place.
We would be expecting of AUSTEL, as they determine these
conditions, to ensure that in the way in which they're
determined there is still major incentives on the new
carrier to develop their own infrastructure.
JOURNALIST: talk about price..
BEAZLEY: The pricing related too to the amount the
infrastructure that goes along with the establishment of a
private network all those sorts of issues.
JOURNALIST: -Mr Hawke, you said the fee which Telecom would
have to pay fEor OTC would be set in consultation with the
new player. Why is that? Doesn't that new entity have a
won't it be motivated to maximise the price that Telecom
would have to pay thereby constraining Telecom's ability to
compete? PM: I can't even hear the question. Could you speak up?
JOURNALIST: You said in your statement that the level of
the fee that Telecom will have to pay for OTC would be
established in consultation with the new entity? Page 6.
PM: It didn't say with the the new entity being the
merged entity not the competitor.
JOURNALIST: So you're not saying that the OTC price
PM: A fee will be paid to the Government as a result of the
merger of Telecom/ OTC that level of that fee will be set by
the Government in consultation with the new entity. That's
the new entity.
JOURNALIST: inaudible
PM: It's all right.
JOURNALIST: What would be the price for OTC be like?
PM: I beg your pardon.
JOURNALIST: What would the OTC sale price be like to
Telecom? PM: Well that's the matter to be determined.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, you said in Parliament that you
expect it would be a job of expansion not contraction.
Could you see that as an incentive for unions albeit
reluctant. By how much would you expect jobs to expand?
Have you got any sort of round figures?
PM: No I haven't got any figures. Perhaps Kim has. But I
mean, the comments he made before are relevant to it. I
mean, experience everywhere shows that where you have the
increase in competition you have this massive increase in
the use of new service and new technology that is available.
All the experience, including the experience that we've had
here, in regard, I think it was the pager service that he
referred to,. all the experience shows that there will be an
increase in employment opportunities. I don't know, Kim,
whether you've got any figures on it at all but I think
that's true everywhere and certainly we can say with
confidence it'll happen here.
BEAZLEY: I1:' s impossible to tell at this stage but the
sorts of numbers of people, I'm being advised, that the
would be competitors who're already taking on board, in
their Australian establishments, to put themselves simply in
a position 1: o bid for this process, I think is a pretty fair
indication that employment is going to increase
exponentially. You've got I mean, one particular company
already has close to a thousand employees in this country.
One of the regional I think that you think of Telecom
having a workforce of some, if you add OTC into it, some
86,000 86--87,000. You've got a new competitor coming in
you have to see that the new competitor would be very likely
to very rapiLdly expand to get up to being in a position to
provide a reasonable service. So there is absolutely no
question that as a result of these various initiatives and
as a result to of the technological change and the growing
importance of telecommunications employment over the next
years is going to increase exponentially in the
communications area.
JOURNALIST: Mr Beazley, do you think there should be major
shake-up with the management of Telecom?
BEAZLEY: I think that what will arise from the merged
entity is going to be a much more offensive business
organisation. It will need to be because of the fact that
it now experiences competition. I do think that that
structure of the company that will emerge as a result of
deliberations that are taken by the interim board will
reflect some changes in Telecom's business organisation.
I'm not expecting a shake-up, as you describe it, of Telecom
management iLn the sense that you speak of it. I'm talking
I'm thinking of it in the context of practices of business
behaviour. JOURNALIST: Will OTC retain any structural integrity within
the new structure or not?
BEAZLEY: Well that's to be determined and OTC is not simply
just an overseas provider of communications. It has a raft
of other business activities. So it would be very difficult
to say at this point exactly what it would look like after
the interim board has had a chance to have a look at the
whole struc-ture.
JOURNALIST: How important is structural separation to the
ultimate level of competition that or the speed with which
competition will be introduced into the industry?
BEAZLEY: Thtat is the question of structural separation
is, as you'll notice from this paper, a matter to be
considered by the interim board and by, ultimately by, the
Government. My own view is that what is critical to
competition is accountancy separation.. That AUSTEL proceeds
immediately to work on that. I think the other question is
not as important as that.
JOURNALIST: How long before we can see dramatic reductions
in STD prices?
BEAZLEY: There are going to think in if experience,
our experience to this point under the threat of competition
is to be replicated, and the experience elsewhere, prices
could well be start to fall before competition is
introduced. But I would think that the falls are likely to
be quite substantial very quickly once a competitor gets
anywhere near like getting up and moving.
JOURNALIST: inaudible
BEAZLEY: None to this point. That's a matter for we have
given, in accordance with the Conference decision, Telecom
the permissiLon within the price-capping formula to do some
deaveraging and rebalancing. But that is a matter yet to be
worked out effectively between AUSTEL, the competitor and
Telecom. JOURNALIST: What about the freedom from Loan Council
restrictions? Telecom is not getting that. Won't that
unfairly handicap it against a competitor and also
industrial relations freedom?
BEAZLEY: I think that there is a substantial requirement
for Telecom to have additional capital as a result of the
many things it will do under this framework. Within the
framework of the Government's decisions, to this point of
time and the way in which the public sector borrowing
requirement is examined, the fact that Australian and Qantas
are being sold is very important. It takes them out of the
Loan Council arrangements. The amounts freed roughly
conform to t~ he amounts required by Telecom in this area. So
I do think that, fortuitously, the combination of these two
factors will probably address Telecom's requirements without
us having to contemplate the Loan Council issue.
JOURNALIST: Doesn't that underline the stupidity of the
Loan Council requirements? Some and ownership
subsequent BEAZLEY: NC). I mean, if you're taking ownership out of the
public sector into the private sector quite clearly the
public sector borrowing requirement is quite important.
JOURNALIST: The bottom line for the economy in terms
there's no difference at all.
BEAZLEY: I'm now out of my territory and I don't intervene
in other Ministers' territories.
PM: I'm quite prepared to answer. The simple fact is that
in terms of the conventions that are applied to us by those
who determine our definition of requirements. What we are
doing is in accordance with them. In other words, if the
no question about the fully publicly owned enterprise that's
required to be within the, by definition, must be within the
public secto~ r borrowing requirement. If there is a majority
public ownership then the definitions that are applied to us
by the statistician in accordance with international
convention i~ s required that it be included. As long as we
all understand that that's what's involved you can, you are
able, in your analysis to then understand, over a period of
time, what's happening to the levels of demand upon the
community saLvings from that sector. There's no difficulty
in f ollowinqr that.
JOURNALIST: understand the definition
PM: I can see the point that there is an artificiality
about it. It's not an artificiality of our imposition.
JOURNALIST: Mr Beazley, will the recent decision by the
AUSSAT board not to take up an opportunity to use satellite,
new satellite, technology to enable it to operate in the
South East Asian market provide a barrier to its becoming a
more, an effective international competitor in the way
you've described here?
BEAZLEY: I don't think so. Basically because there's a
very substantial unused capacity on INTELSAT and also a
whole new set Of fibre optic cables being run through the
same area. I mean, I think, in a sense you look at AUSSAT
under the oJld terms and conditions of how AUSSAT used to
operate. AUSSAT will now have, as Telecom/ OTC will have,
the capacity to lease operations off the international
satellite system and fibre optic cable system. And I think
that any deficiencies in regard to their own satellites will
be of minimal importance. I think they made a reasonably
sensible cal. culation in the cost benefit analysis terms of
developing their own capacity in that regard rather than
being able to0 lease it.
JOURNALIST: on the Qantas being able to buy up into
the domestic: airlines?
BEAZLEY: Well I must say that I would very much take the
view and the whole issue of this of course is in the hands
of the Minister for Finance at the moment and he's doing
scoping studies and looking at the best possible return and
all those sorts of things for the Government. But I would
take the view that the best price for Australian would be
realised ancd the most equitable outcome achieved by
maintaining strict separation between international and
domestic aviation. At least for the life of this
Parliament. A logical consequence of that would be that
Qantas would not acquire shareholding in Australian and
maintain its; status as the single overseas passenger
carrier. Likewise, I think, that's probably quite important
to Qantas' value as well. So while one wouldn't rule that
out completElly, until those scoping studies were finished, I
didn't, and the Prime Minister and others, haven't laboured
mightily in the field to produce a situation where we can
sell the domestic airline and stay out of Government
ownership irk a domestic market to buy ourselves back into
it. PM: I'M glad Kim said that. It just seems to me a very
strange sort: of situation as he says, to have laboured
mightily which is, as usual, an understatement on the
Minister's part to get rid of what I see as the absurdity
of a government running a domestic airline, do all that and
then come back in the other way. It doesn't seem to me to
make very much sense.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, why is the sale of AUSSAT being
handled by a taskforce based in Mr Beazley's Department
instead of going through the Department of Finance's regular
avenue? PM: Because, there's a very simple truth, and that is that
what we're about is setting up a competitor in the
telecommunications industry, a competitor to Telecom/ OTC.
It happens to be the case that the vehicle that's being used
for the creation of a competitor is Aussat. But the
essential operation is not selling Aussat, I mean that's
not the essential. The essential thing is the creation of a
competitor. Now in that sense it's most appropriate that
the be in the department which is concerned with
telecommunications. However, we acknowledge, and the
Minister happily acknowledges, that the Department of
Finance has a legitimate interest when as part of that
process of setting up a new competitor you are disposing of
an asset that the Department of Finance should be involved.
So that's the basic answer. If we were setting up the
competitor by means of not using Aussat, you were putting
Aussat, OTC and Telecom together, you weren't selling
Aussat, woul. d Finance be involved? The involvement of
Finance is i~ n a sense an incidental, but an appropriate
incidental. They are entitled to be involved and should be
involved. But the essential thing in this exercise is the
setting up o~ f a competitor and if you're setting up a
competitor in the telecommunications industry the
appropriate department, portfolio to have a major
responsibility is the Department of Transport and
Communications. JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, getting back to airlines, in
your StatemfEtnt you say that the foreign investment changes
you've outlined offered clear opportunities for the New
Zealand carrier to enter the Australian market. What
11.
precisely do you mean, do you talk about operations or only
equity? PM: I'm sorry? The opportunities for
JOURNALIST: The opportunities for the New Zealand carrier,
I presume AiLr New Zealand, to enter the Australian market.
PM: Yes, I'm just coming to where the words begin this
is page fift~ een.
JOURNALIST: Page seven, fourth point.
PM: Yes, well it's my page fifteen. I haven't got the..
It means, not Look, let me answer it first by pointing
to what we've said before that which is most relevant. The
page where we talk about during the life of this Parliament
we are going to leave the arrangements that exist in place.
The only implication for that section there is not that you
will be able to have Air New Zealand coming in and
operating, but they will have an opportunity to invest.
It's the investment opportunity that you talk about. We are
not, and I was trying to find the passage in the speech but
you know where it is you can look it up yourself, where we
are not changing the basic operational arrangements. For
the reason that I said in the Parliament, that, there are
two reasons that were referred to in the speech as you will
recall. Firstly, that you can't, it doesn't very sensibly
when you're moving into deregulation, to create a situation
where you're going to make more difficult the viability of
people who have just entered and undertaken significant
capital expenditures. So you wouldn't do it for that
reason. And secondly, I refer to the fact that in disposing
of your total interest in Australian Airlines and your
partial interest in Qantas, you don't want to be changing
the goalposts while'people are in the process of acquiring
those interests. For those two reasons we've made the point
quite specifically in the speech and in the decisions of
Cabinet we wouldn't be changing the basic structures beyond
the significant changes that we've made. And that refers,
as I say, to investment opportunity.
JOURNALIST: Can you put a figure on the value of the Loan
Council funds that would be freed up by the sale of the
airlines? BEAZLEY: I: E you took the two of them out just take last
year's performance and of course they vary year on year
it'd be about seven hundred million.
JOURNALIST: What about the number of Telecom shareholding
in Aussat and the Government's involvement?
BEAZLEY: Yes well, as the Prime Minister said, it's
determined at a value some date last month
PM: Twenty-fourth of October.
BEAZLEY: Twenty-fourth of October, Finance is working all
that out.
JOURNALIST: ( inaudible)
BEAZLEY: ( inaudible)
JOURNALIST: Do you see any conflict in the fact that Mel
Ward was Aussat when they made that decision?
BEAZLEY: I think probably that was a decision which on
balance may well have increased the value of Aussat as
opposed to lowering it as far as the Government was
concerned and I think that Mel Ward would be as
understanding as anyone else that Aussat now doesn't have to
compete simply with its own technology. The Aussat will do
as it pleases, the establishment of the links it wants to
internationally and use whatever services other people
provide JOURNALIST: consortium can we expect ( inaudible)
BEAZLEY: Very difficult at this stage. It could be as high
as four and I think there will probably be a higher number,
half a dozen to eight companies, that would be interested.
That is, overseas is interested. And it'll probably
come down to a smaller number.
PM: OK? Thanks.
JOURNALIST: the statement by Mr Dawkins yesterday did
you speak to him about that before or afterwards, and what
is your attitude to his going outside his portfolio and the
context of what he said?
PM: I had a yarn to him before he made the statement and
JOURNALIST: ( inaudible)
PM: I didn't use the words that I authorise it. I had a
yarn to him beforehand. It was his statement, not mine.
Don't really get knicker-knotted about that as under some
JOURNALIST: you authorised him later
PM: It's your word authorised. He'd made arrangements to
make a speech at the National Press Club. He'd made those
arrangements and I don't have a situation where if Ministers
are going to be making a speech somewhere that they come and
get my authorisation to make speeches. He had made his
arrangements to talk at the National Press Club. I spoke to
him beforehand, it wasn't a question of authorising him to
speak, he'd made the arrangements and I had a discussion
with him in company with the Treasurer.
JOURNALIST: we're a third world economy..
6 13.
PM: Beg your pardon?
JOURNALIST: Do you agree with his observation that we're a
third world economy with first world aspirations?
PM: I don't think we're a third world economy, no.
JOURNALIST: Does this statement go against your principle
that Ministers should not range outside their area?
PM: He related his concerns to the question of employment,
he hung his observations on that peg and in that sense the
Treasurer and I were prepared to go along with him making
the speech. I would think you were getting towards a pretty
fine line.
JOURNALIST: Did you initiate this meeting with Mr Dawkins?
0 PM: Yes I asked to speak to him, yes.
JOURNALIST: Do you think you persuade him from saying some
of the things that he said
PM: No.
JOURNALIST: ( inaudible)
PM: No, I didn't seek to persuade him.
JOURNALIST: What's your view of the main thrust of what he
had to say?
PM: In what area? He was talking about factions, he was
talking about the economy, which is the more important?
JOURNALIST: Additional government intervention to assist
export industries.
PM: I'm not going to discuss those things here, we'll
discuss those matters in the Cabinet.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, the ALAC meeting which I think starts
in about fifteen minutes, are you anticipating any
suggestion from the union movement as to changes to the
Accord in the wake of yesterday's inflation figures.
PM: I'm not anticipating any.
JOURNALIST: What was your response to
PM: you know this hypothetical business doesn't wash
with me
JOURNALIST: ( inaudible)
PM: Well we'll see. I've got enough things to deal with,
actual things, without spending my time answering
14.
hypothetical questions from you. If the matter arises with
the trade union movement, I and my colleagues will deal with
it. I'm not going to spend my time contemplating what we
might do if
JOURNALIST: ( inaudible)
PM: OK, alright then.
JOURNALIST: ( inaudible)
PM: I'm simply saying that if they raise the question,
both the Treasurer and I and relevant Ministers will listen
to what they've got to say. We always do listen to what
they've got to say. But I'm not anticipating that they will
raise it and if they do raise it I'm certainly not going to,
before they do, in here have some speculation about what our
reaction will be.
0 JOURNALIST: Will you be faced with the attitude though that
you have a deal and that's the end?
PM: We've got a deal and the most important part of that
deal is the seven percent national aggregate wage outcome
and that is something to which I believe the ACTU is
committed and to which they'll adhere. OK, and now I'd
better get to the ALAC.
ends