TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH JANA WENDT, A CURRENT AFFAIR,
8 NOVEMBER 19190
E OE PROOF ONLY
WENDT: Prime Minister, thank you very much for your time
this evening.
PM: Pleasure Jana.
WENDT: Acknowledging all the blood sweat and tears that
goes into the kind of micro-economic reform that you've
announced today, do you nevertheless have any regrets that
you couldn't have moved on it a little earlier?
PM: But we have moved on it earlier. I mean, you go back
to the very first days of Government with the deregulation
of the financial sector and the award restructuring. The
whole process of micro-economic reform has been going on.
This is another large instalment, a new large instalment.
WENDT: In the area of telecommunications. Can you still
guarantee that no consumer will be worse off?
PM: Yes. We've said not only that, we've said that there
will be significant real reductions in STD charges and I've
been authorised to say that those charges those reductions
in STD charges to the major routes could be up to 40%, Jana.
WENDT: Can you still guarantee that there will be no timed
local calls?
PM: What I've said in the speech is quite clear that there
will be the requirement that the untimed local calls must be
provided. WENDT: So that will,. categorically that will, continue.
There will be no timed local calls.
PM: That's right. We are saying that we will build into it
a provision that they will have to continue to provide
untimed local calls.
WENDT: Mr Hlawke, I'd like to move on. Once upon a time,
high employment was your Government's proudest boast. Are
you personally disappointed with the sad sort of figures
that we're seeing now? ' IN
PM: Well, disappointed in the sense that for people who at
this point haven't got the same employment opportunities as
they had before, of course I'm sad for them. But I still
have the situation and you say it was once our proudest
boast as though it disappears the fact is that those
1.6 million new jobs have been created. They're there. It
still remains the fact that we've had a period, under our
Government, of employment growth twice as fast as the rest
of the world..
WENDT: But Mr Hawke
PM: That hasn't those facts haven't changed. The fact
is, as I've discussed with you and the media before, we had
a position in this country, a year ago, where the increase
in our expenditure was twice what the increase in production
was. We had to slow things down because if we didn't do it,
if we didn't slow things down, the rest of the world would
have imposed a solution on us which would have been
devastating.
WENDT: In this current climate is rivalling unemployment
the price that we're going to have to pay to solve our
economic problems?
PM: Well you are going to have the experience, that we have
now, of a slowing down of activity which means a slowing
down of employment opportunities but we have said, and I
repeat to your viewers, that as we go through 91 the
recovery will take place. We will see employment growing
significantly again.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, you've always been well able to read
Australians and their feelings towards you. What is your
reading of your relationship with Australians now?
PM: I think the relationship is still sound. It is the
case, as I've acknowledged, that we are not getting ticks at
the moment, as people are being hurt by the necessary
policies that we've had to for the reasons that I've put
of having to slow the economy down people don't like that
and they have been registering their disappointment. That's
one fact. I mean, they're registering their disappointment
about the fact that they are being hurt. No-one regrets
that more than me. But I know that if I didn't do that I
would be letting this country down because the resolution of
the rest of the world would be with us. But, secondly,
politics is about one side and the other and it is the case
that a new leader of the Liberal Party, once they got rid of
that silly h'urdy-gurdy of Howard, Peacock, Howard, Peacock,
which had bEcome a joke, then a new leader was going to have
a honeymoon period. And he's having that.
WENDT: But the fact is that really for the first time there
are more Australians who would prefer to see your opposite
number running the country than would prefer to see you
running the country.
PM: It's taken almost eight years, taken almost eight
years. Let me say this, that I know that in the enduring
sense, there'd be more Australians who would say, we don't
trust Bob Hawke we don't want any more of him if they
thought that what Bob Hawke had done was to pursue wrong
policies to try and hang onto popularity.
WENDT: Most people in a normal and human reaction to
something like this would be hurt by the apparent
deterioration of what was a very warm relationship. Does it
affect you that way?
PM: No it doesn't because I understand the circumstances in
which they ate expressing that concern. But I know I have
total confidence that if you take the period which is
relevant and as I've got to look through the period right up
to the next ( election, I know that I would devastate myself
irretrievably with the electorate if the perception were
able to develop that Hawke had taken the opportunistic line
that instead of doing the hard things he'd done the easy
things and buggered the country.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, what about the long term? I know it's a
fair way to the next election but as you survey the
political horizon you have to consider a loss at the next
election. How does that thought affect you?
PM: I mean I just don't think about it, Jana. Obviously
we've just had an election. There are 2 and a half years to
the next election. I keep saying, I've been saying for 8
years, get your time scales right. I mean there have been
points before the ' 87 election, before the ' 90 election,
go to an election at those points, we would have been
decimated. WENDT: But, Mr Hawke, your popularity has never been as low
as it is now.
PM: And I've given you the reasons for it. I mean I
understand why people are saying that. I've given you the
reasons. WENDT: Well do you think that if this trend in these polls
continue that you will have to consider your position?
PM: No.
WENDT: Do you think that if the trend continues that your
Party might start to consider your position?
PM: They give me no indication of thinking that they want
anyone other than Bob Hawke leading them. I think it's a
sensible decision on their part, I might say.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, let me move on to the situation in the
Gulf. All th~ e signs are that we are moving closer to war.
How close are
PM: I won't say all the signs are. Why do you say all the
signs?
WENDT: Well what is your assessment of the situation?
PM: I don't think all the signs are but I think you're
right to say that war is a real possibility. I think that
is true but don't think all the signs, Jana. I think the
truth is that: no-one, no-one knows what the outcome will be
because basically we are dealing with an irrational man in
Saddam Hussein. Any rational calculation of the interests
of his fellow countrymen and women would have to lead to the
conclusion that he should withdraw from Kuwait. All the
evidence suggests that that's what he should do but he's not
doing it. Now where in fact the accumulation of the
evidence will lead into that conclusion, one can't be sure.
I would not be entirely surprised, I would not be entirely
surprised if suddenly Saddam Hussein said I withdraw.
WENDT: If that did not occur and there was an armed
conflict are we as a country prepared for an involvement in
that kind of war?
PM: Well we've got naval assets there now and I am not
going to these matters are so profoundly important to my
fellow countrymen and women that I'm not going to
hypothesise about this. I follow the events there on a
daily, almost an hourly basis. I insist on being kept
informed of all the latest developments. Now the
circumstances in which war could arise are not capable of
prediction at this time and one will want to know in this
hypothetical situation, one would want to know precisely
what the circumstances are and what it would mean for our
forces there. It would be entirely irresponsible for me to
hypothesise -about this. But our presence there is serious,
it's effective and it's there because we believe that
aggression cannot be condoned and must be resisted.
WENDT: Two Australian hostages are to be released as a
result of the intervention of a self-appointed envoy. Now
what do you think has been the result of that, apart from
the obvious release?
PM: Well let me answer that question this way. Firstly,
obviously for the two that have said are going to be
released then there is obvious pleasure for them, pleasure
on our part for them. The fact is that there are many, many
more that are not being released and that is why most of the
governments that are involved have taken the view that they
will not officially engage in a process of bargaining.
Because the realities are that what this dictator has done
is atrocious, human beings should not be used as hostages
like this and they should all be released. It is
distasteful in one sense that there is some substance being
given, some stature to this dictator by people going and
negotiating with him for the release of one or two when the
great majority stay there.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, we'll have to leave it there. Thanks for
your time.
PM: Thanks very much, Jana.
ends