TRANSCRIPT OF' INTERVIEW WITH DOUG AITON, RADIO
21 NOVEMBER 1.990
E OE PROOF ONLY
AITON: Prime Minister Bob Hawke. Welcome to 3L0 again.
PM: Pleasure Doug.
AITON: What did you mean? Could you elaborate on the
school educat~ ion we just heard.
PM: Yes. What I was talking about there was that when we
came to office in 1983 we inherited this monstrous situation
that only one in 3 of Australian kids stayed on the
education system to years 11 and 12 which was a pattern of
privilege. It meant the kids of the wealthy and well to do,
they went on but the kids from low income and low to middle
income families, more often than not, didn't. Now in seven
years we've -transformed that from one in 3 to now two in 3
of kids are staying on. What I was saying there today was
that by the end of this century we'll create a situation as
a society, if we can move on like this, that really,
whatever kids want to, go on into the education system
they'll be able to. I mean, that doesn't mean that everyone
will of course. But we'll have created the situation where
they'll be able to. That seems to me the most important
thing that any society can do.
AITON: Yes well I've always thought that it was a bit of
pity that that child poverty statement got out of hand
because you were doing more than anyone else had as far as
child poverty is concerned. Your statement was probably too
extravagant in pure words.
PM: What I said we set ourselves in my spoken speech we
set ourselves the goal that by 1990 no child need live in
poverty. The words in the accompanying document were more
explicit. We said we'd remove the financial need. All the
people in the social welfare community have been generous in
acknowledging that we kept that promise. That we met our
targets. When you think, the fact is, that we are now
spending just in those Family Allowance Supplements
$ 1.2 billionL which is going to half a million low income
families and about 1.2 million kids. I mean, it just is
remarkable that where this Government has done what is now
being recognised as more than any other government has done
anywhere. That, you know, we have that mindless thing
thrown at us. Now I've got to accept some responsibility
for imprecision of spelling out precisely what was in the
document. But I'm proud of the fact that we have done more
than any other government to make sure that the finance is
there for those low income families in need.
AITON: I was working things out today. It seems to me I
don't know if I missed something around July but it seems
to me that about July the 1st this year you became the
second longest serving Prime Minister in this country's
history. PM: Yes. I did. I passed Malcolm Fraser.
AITON: Now, John Curtin became Prime Minister on the 7th of
October 1941. Menzies knocked of f Ben Chifley at the
election of 1.949. I think it was the 10th of December.
PM: It was i~ n December. The end of the year.
AITON: Now according to my calculations you've got about
six months to go before you exceed the longest Labor period
in Australia's history, that is Curtin and Chifley combined.
PM: Yes. I guess, yes I haven't really thought about that.
Yes. That was when you put those two together it was 41,
49, December.. Yes that's right.
AITON: Yes ,%, ou've got six months.
PM: Yes about that. I hadn't really thought about it.
AITON: Will you chuck it in soon after that, do you think?
PM: No.
AITON: How long will you go for? Everyone's asking I know.
PM: Yes. Doug, I'd like to take the Party into the next
election. Then we'd see after that.
AITON: Sometimes I wonder why everyone does ask you that
all the time because you're about to turn 61.
PM: Yes.
AITON: Now in some countries, and certainly some ages in
the past, you wouldn't be old enough yet to be Prime
Minister. PM: Yes. I suppose in Japan they have usually been older
than that. Although the current Prime Minister is younger.
AITON: Yes. Are you feeling as well as ever physically?
PM: Never felt better, Doug.
AITON: Yes. You'd be too young to be Pope by the way.
You'd be the: youngest Pope in history.
PM: I have certain other disqualifications too.
AITON: Certainly. The Accord, or the continuation of the
Accord released by Paul Keating, yesterday or the day
before, it appears to signify that you and Keating believe
that the economic crisis that this country is facing, and a
lot of responsible people have said that it actually is in
recession. What you've announced appears to be a prelude to
the fact that it's coming to an end.
PM: Yes. What both Paul and I have been saying, Doug, is
this, that we expect the cycle of recovery to be clear by
the middle of next year. We knew that we had to slow the
economy down. What we've been undertaking is this very
delicate task of slowing activity down but not in a way
which is going to bust the economy. Now obviously some
people have been hurt in the process and I've never tried to
disguise that. But what we've got are the fundamentals
moving in the right direction. That is interest rates are
coming down, inflation going down, wages growth being
contained. We are now, as far as inflation is concerned,
Doug, in this situation where Australia's inflation rate is
coming down the rest of the world basically is going up and
we're narrowing very substantially that gap between
ourselves and our major trading partners. That means, in
our judgement, that we will, in 1991, be able to resume a
sustainable growth path and resume stronger employment
growth and that's what it's all been aimed at.
AITON: Well Paul Keating has claimed that we are now the
only OECD country with inflation actually decelerating.
We're down to six per cent, about.
PM: That's what we've got now. In fact, we pointed out,
when this last CPI came out which gave us 0.7 per cent, that
since 1971 the Treasury has been measuring what they call
the basic underlying rate of inflation which takes out
extraneous temporary factors. According to their measure we
now have the lowest inflation figure we've had since that
series started at the beginning of the
AITON: Now on the celebrated day on the 5th of March 1983
when you were voted Prime Minister I think you inherited
11 per cent inflation.
PM: Yes. Double digit inflation and double digit
unemployment. In our period we've never got back into
double digit, either inflation or unemployment and we're not
going to.
AITON: On the other hand you inherited $ 21 billion overseas
debt which is now 150 billion.
PM: We also inherited a situation where the Commonwealth
Government, where the people of Australia as the Government
were part of that debt. What we've done is to do what's
never been done before. We've had successive surpluses and
we've wiped out, entirely, Commonwealth Government debt.
There is no Commonwealth we are in fact nett international
creditors. We've paid of f debt. Now overwhelmingly that
debt is in the private sector. It represents decisions that
have been taken, Doug just let me give you an example;
part of that debt profile is money that was spent during
that period on building up the North West Shelf. Now we had
to carry that. But now that's earning us very significant
export income. Now that's part of what's been happening.
There's money been spent to restructure the Australian
economy and the economy is going to get the benefits of
that. AITON: When you were last here I said that I thought that
during the HEawke years the people who had suffered most were
the young people who were not able to get into houses like
you were able to, and I a little later was able to, and
these days they can't so easily. That's interest rates
we're talkingr about.
PM: Yes. Well1, of course, that's true, I mean, what we've
seen in this country was a situation where, when we came to
office, in that last year before we came to office, the
housing starts were 106,000 now we lifted that enormously.
It got up to 180,000 which was unsustainable. Although the
demand was there, I mean, really you couldn't have an
economy along at that level of activity. We've brought
it back now but even down at this deliberately lowered level
of activity the starts have only got down to about 130,000
which never approached the 106,000 that was there when we
came in. Now it is the case that in this period with higher
interest rates in the latter period. The inability of the
States and local government to open up as much land for
housing as they should have so that the land prices were
high. It is true that affordability of housing suffered.
But now the index is coming down as the rate of interest is
coming down and coming down further again today with the
reduction by Westpac.
AITON: Westpac was good news today. Certainly it looks as
though more people will be able to get into houses. The
other thing I'd add to people suffering, to last time that
we met in this studio, would be the rural sector. Now they
may have bee~ n suffering then, certainly are now and it goes
largely unnoticed. I don't think the media has really
caught onto the suffering out in the rural sector because
we ' ye always thought they have nice big farms with big
homesteads on them they must be okay.
PM: Well it's unfair. You do touch on a real point.
There's a lot of people in the rural sector who are
suffering badly and the tragedy what sticks in my craw so
much about it is that basically the problem is that they're
not getting a fair price for what they produce. I mean,
Australian rural producers are the most efficient in the
world. If we had a fair liberalised international trading
system, Doug, these people would get significantly more for
what they so efficiently produce. That's why I'm putting so
much of my time now in trying to do what we can to rescue
this Uruguay Round which is about, I mean without being
technical for your listeners, what that Round has been going
since 86, it's a four year Round and it's aimed at freeing
up international trade. Now it's in the area of
agricultural trade that we have the least freedom. I mean,
the Europeans I mean this is a staggering statistic, Doug,
but between them the Europeans and the Americans spend about
$ 200 billion, $ 200 billion per annum in production and
export subsidies. Now that's stopping our producers getting
access to some markets and getting a fair price in all the
markets they go to. Now the stupidity of course is, that if
the Europeans; and the Americans didn't do that then they'd
be better off' because their whole cost and price structure
would be lower and you'd have a decent sort of access for
our people. So that's what
AITON: They don't seem to see it that way though, do they?
PM: Well, this is ultimately the most frustrating thing,
Doug, I sat ( town in my office with Chancellor Kohl from
0 GIe rumnadneyr staandn d hwahmamte reydo u'hriem saabyoiuntg , t hiIs . u ndHeer stsaaindd, whBoabt, yhoeu ' rseaid,
saying, you'r-e right. But he said, I've got these farmers
and they've ( lot votes and I've got to watch them. And the
French say thie same thing. If they didn't understand your
argument that'd be one thing but when they know that what
you're putting is right and then they tell you, oh yes but
we've got to worry about our farmers' votes. That's what
sticks in your craw.
AITON: Isn't the problem this; the European community has
become the most wealthy economic unit in the world. They
therefore can afford to subsidise farmers who otherwise
wouldn't be making a quid, or a Mark, or a Franc. So
they're doing that and we're objecting to it saying, look we
can't subsidise our rural community it's not fair. And
they're saying we don't care what you can do.
PM: Well that's not an unfair summary of what you're
putting. And again what's so damned annoying about it was
0 that if in fact they wanted to help their poorer farmers
no-one would object to that but don't do it in an
inefficient way. Give them a direct income support but
don't do it by way of production subsidies and export
subsidies. But the way it is now it's not the poorest
farmers who get the greatest help it's the richest.
AITON: Sure. But the point I'm making
PM: And you're right that they are so rich, so powerful
that, in a sense, they can say well, you know, get nicked.
AITON: And they are continuing to say that.
PM: Unfortunately. I've just written, earlier this week,
to all the Heads of Government in Europe and it's a tough
letter. I spoke to Bush, President Bush at the end of last
week. To be: fair to the Americans on this, while they are
doing the same sort of thing they don't want to. I mean, in
the Uruguay Round they've said, they've put up a proposal
very similar to what Australia and the Cairns Group have put
up. That is that over 10 years you'd knock all these things
out. But what they say, is while the Europeans are doing it
then they are. not going to have their people knocked around.
And I say well that's beaut. The actual language I used to
them I said, you say you're not intending to shoot us it's
the Europeans: but if you get hit in the head with a bullet
it doesn't hurt any less if you're told that it was meant
for someone else, it still hurts.
AITON: And they're still not going to take any notice even
with colourful phraseology like that because, as you say,
since 1986 the GATT talks have been going on. They're just
about to continue to tell us, we don't care what your
problems are. What I'm saying is we're not getting
anywhere. PM: Well I think that's basically true on the evidence.
Except that there is now and to be fair to Margaret
0 oTnh attchhienrgs,, anbdu t yosuh e knhoaws pIl ahyaevde aa lgooto d ofr oldei fferentchee s Ewuirtohp eahnesr.
I mean, she's told them that this is crazy. There's a lot
of pressure coming from the United States. When I had this
long talk wit~ h George Bush last Friday he said that they
were going to continue to press hard. They'd send Baker
over there arid he's pressing them. And he's pressing them
himself personally over in Europe at this present time. The
Germans have their election on the 2nd of December. It may
be that once that's out of the way once that's out of
the way Chancellor Kohl may be prepared to look at this a
bit more reasonably. So I haven't given up hope. We're in
there fighting.
AITON: On that matter, going back to the matter of the
overseas debt which may well be, as you say, to do with the
private sector, it may be that the Government's been
involved in ' Letting it blow out to $ 150 billion. The point,
I think, on -this is, can the Government do anything to
contain it or reduce it and is it something that makes you
anxious? PM: Yes.
AITON: Because people don't seem to
PM: Oh no. We are concerned about it. We said in the
Budget that we would reduce the current account deficit from
the previous year and bring it down from the level it was to
about $ 18 billion from the much higher figures it was last
year. So far this financial year we're on target there. So
that the current account deficit as a proportion of the
gross domestic product will come down by a percentage point
or more. But we can't rest on our laurels on that. I think
that we are seeing, importantly, which should encourage us
as Australians, a significant increase in the exports of
manufactured goods. So that we're not just going to be
relying on our rural products, as important as they will
continue to be. So we're becoming more diversified in our
exports and we've got to make sure our challenge as a
community simply, though, is this Doug, that for a number of
years ahead of us we've got to make sure that our growth in
production outstrips our growth in demand. That's-what
we've got to do. It's only in that way that we'll gradually
bring down our current account deficit and our debt.
AITON: Is John Hewson going to give you the biggest run for
your money ofE the four, you've won four in a row which is an
unprecedented record for Labor of course
PM: Let me say this, if we'd had to go to an election
straight after we'd won the last election, the answer to
your question would be yes. Because there is no doubt the
Australian electorate breathed the collective sigh of relief
when, as I puat it this mad hurdy gurdy, merry-go-round of
Howard, Peacock, Howard, Peacock, Howard, Peacock when it
came to an end and there was a new face in there. And if
you had to go to an election then it would have been
difficult. But it's fascinating to see how this man is
operating under pressure. Could I recommend to you as
compulsory reading for someone who is interested in politics
and political analysis, get the full transcript of his last
press conference. You know I geed him up a bit in the
Parliament and said come on and we'll have a press
conference, John, and then I looked up at the Gallery and
said they're not bad people. Don't be so frightened of
them. He'd been dodging them. And when you read this
transcript of his press conference you will see why. The
fascinating thing, a man who's supposed to be intellectually
equipped to deal with ideas and answer questions of policy.
He dodged every question from the press about policy issues.
I think you are going to find, in the period ahead, that
with the combined pressure of the Government and of a media
which responsibly wants to know what he's standing for, that
Dr Hewson is going to be under considerable pressure. Now I
don't say that with any sense of gloating satisfaction, I
mean, I like to see a good Opposition. But I believe that
he has been found wanting domestically and of course,
whoever is advising him in the area of international
affairs, I mean, he ought to sack them now. I mean, the
questions that are prepared for him and the statements that
are prepared for him, really they are just embarrassing and
embarrassing his own colleagues. So he is not performing
well under the pressure of the Parliament. Now I accept
Doug that we; should never, we people operating in Canberra,
should never think that politics is just about Canberra and
just about the Parliament and I am not making that mistake.
But I am saying, that as the pressures upon the Leader of
the Opposition to develop his policies and the details of
them, as tho'se pressures develop, I think you'll find that
he is going to have a somewhat different status than he has
enjoyed in this period since the election.
AITON: Well., you and Paul Keating have tried, I think I'm
right in saying that you have tried to get through to the
public that you believe that Dr Hewson is an admirer of the
Thatcher approach to things and that the UK at the moment
has a higher wages growth, must be up to about 15 per cent
PM: Very high, very high.
AITON: I think inflation is 11 per cent, unemployment much,
much higher than ours of course, and that therefore unlike
what Paul Keaiting announced the other day to do with wages
tax trade-off, if we went the Hewson way, if he were in
Government, wre would end up with a situation like that
Britain is grappling with at the moment, much worse than
ours. Is thatt what you are saying?
PM: Well, I am not necessarily just relating it to
Mrs Thatcher. What I am making the point I am making and
Paul's also making, is that in the conduct of economic
policy, in particularly in a country like this which is so
exposed to the great variation of movement in the prices for
our international commodities that we sell. You can't
basically run a successful economic policy if you haven't
got a wages policy. Without sort of trying to get
theroetical about it, let's go back to the period when they
were last in office. They were there 82-83 we won in ' 83
and you remember that John Hewson was an economic adviser
to John Howar-d at that time.
AITON: Who was Treasurer at that time.
PM: That's right. Now they had high interest rates
interest rates reached a higher peak so they had to rely
very, very heavily on monetary policy even more heavily
than we did and one of the reasons why the whole thing
exploded on them was that they didn't have a wages policy,
they had a 17 per cent growth in wages. Now, the secret of
the conduct of macro-economic policy is that you have got to
be able to have your organised trade union movement being
prepared to accept lower increases in nominal wages.
Otherwise you are going to have unsustainably high inflation
which will then reflect itself through into your levels of
activities, ylour exchange rate adjustments, interest and
monetary policy. The real secret of the success that we
have had in creating 1.6 million new jobs 90 per cent of
them in the private sector and a rate of job creation five
times faster than when Howard was there with Hewson advising
him is that we have had the co-operation of the trade union
movement. No 17 per cent wages blow-outs. Now that's what
I am saying I am not worried about going to Thatcherism,
although the figures that you quote are right, but that's
where the big advantage for this country is of having a
government, the Labor Government, that can get responsible
wages outcomes from the trade union movement. Dr Hewson has
got no wages policy and he could never have one.
AITON: Are you saying that the Liberal Party by its very
nature could never have a good relationship with the trade
union movement?
PM: Well it's not so much that I am saying that they
couldn't have a good relationship because of, you know, the
way they look or who they are but what I'm saying is it's
the philosophy. I don't want to get into a I mean you
know from the things I've said about Dr Hewson, I have been
trying to go to what he has been talking about, not about
the man as such. I don't want to attack him as a man. What
I'm trying to say, Doug, is that the ideology and the
philosophy of the Liberal Party, and he has reflected no
difference in, this at all, is that you don't have cooperation.
You don't say, well we as a Government will
assume part cif the responsibility of satisfying your
aspirations by what we will do in the area of education,
what we will do in the area of health. You see, why the
trade union movement with Labor has been prepared to modify
its wage claims has been because we have accepted our
responsibility to satisfy their aspirations by bringing in
universal hea~ lth care, by doing what we have done in
education and by massive improvements in the area of social
security. Arnd the trade union movement has said to the
Labor Government, alright, you do those things, then we
don't need to have such big increases in money wages. Now
that's our philosophy but it's not that of the Liberal Party
and that's why they can't have an effective relationship.
0 AITON: After seven years, you might be getting a bit
contemplative and philosophical about what, how you are
going to be remembered looking back to the 1940s, the
Chifley Government is still remembered for the Holden, for
the Snowy Mountains Scheme. Is there going to be a monument
like that that the Hawke Government can achieve? We have
talked about economic matters
PM: Physical monuments?
AITON: Well not so much physical
PM: The monument that I will be proudest of leaving within
this country is what I was talking about before. The
conservatives were in Government for seven years before I
came in. In that seven years, they increased the
participation rate in education by two percentage points
from 34 per cent to 36 per cent. So they walked out of
office after seven years leaving just about the worst
participation rate of any developed country in the OECD.
After, now seven and a half years with the Hawke Government,
I have virtually doubled that not up by two percentage
points but viLrtually doubled it. If I want to leave one
thing that I am going to be proudest of, internally, it will
be that we have revolutionised the landscape of educational
opportunity. No longer after this Government has finished
will you have to say of Australian education that its only
basically the kids of the rich and the well to do who will
stay on in school. Because you will be able to say after my
Government that kids from the western suburbs, kids from low
income families, kids from low to middle income families are
going to have the same sort of opportunity. You can't do
anything more important than that because in a longterm
sense, the quality of this country depends upon the equality
of educational opportunity.
AITON: How mnuch credit would you give to Bob Menzies for
doing exactl-y what you are talking about? Not exactly, I'm
sorry, not eXactly but for what he did for education in this
country from the point that he had to start at?
PM: I have always tried to be fair in the assessment of my
opponents. I had profound differences of opinion and
philosophy with Bob Menzies on so many things, but he
deserves credit in the area of education for seeing that
there is a responsibility for a Commonwealth government to
look at the needs of the whole community irrespective of
whether kids are in a State education system or within the
Catholic education system. He deserves credit for that. it
was looked at: by some as political opportunism. Now I don't
know what moved him but nevertheless the fact that he moved
the country towards understanding that the nation as a whole
must accept responsibility for the education of all
children. I give him credit for that. One other area which
is not the same you mentioned, I have always given Bob
Menzies credit for the fact that he had a vision of a
national capital for Australia. If it hadn't been for Bob
Menzies and. some people might cynically say this is a
minus against him but he did have a vision of Australia
having a great national capital of which it should be proud.
And when he became Prime Minister in 49, there was still
those who would have liked to say let's cancel the
experiment, let's wipe it out. Now, I think in, as we go
into the 21st century, Australians are going to be proud of
the fact that we have got one of the great national capital
cities of the world and Bob Menzies deserves a lot of credit
for that.
AITON: Did you know him well?
PM: No.
AITON: Did you meet him
PM: Yes I met him. I met him at the cricket occasionally,
so we knew one another but I didn't really have the
opportunity to have discussions with him of any
significance. AITON: Were you reasonably prominent at that time? You
would have been in the ACTU, wouldn't you?
PM: Well you see, he went out I was the research officer
and advocate by the time I became President of the ACTU,
he, of course, had finished-
AITON: He'd gone.
PM: Finished his Prime Ministership.
AITON: What has made you most angry during 1990? We all
know you can get angry.
PM: Yes, I can get angry and I guess, you know, people in
positions of responsibility, if there are no things that can
make them angry, I don't think they are very real sort of
people. Well, you touched upon it before to some extent
it's a mixture of anger and sorrow that when I look at the
Opposition that they scream out this business, no child live
in poverty by 1990, and the refusal of them to, you know
they quote Archbishop Hollingworth at me but they won't
listen to what Archbishop Hollingworth said, who said, Hawke
delivered on his promise, that the financial targets would
be met. He said further that the Opposition should cease
being opportunistic about this and they should give credit
to the Government for what has been done. It's a mixture of
anger and sadness that what I see as one of the great
achievements of this Government has been belittled in this
unfair way.
AITON: The Aborigines seem to have disappeared as an issue
to me. Am I wrong there do you think?
PM: Yes you're wrong in saying they disappeared as an
issue. They haven't and they should never disappear as an
issue. I just had my Minister for Aboriginal Affairs,
Robert Tickner, in the other day and had a very, very long
conversation with him. We were mapping out just where we
0 were going and the whole range of our programs for the
Aboriginal people including how we are going to handle this
question of looking at the reconciliation, if I can put it
that way, of the Australian nation with its Aboriginal
population. You know, I have talked about this for some
time if there is an instrument to be an instrument of
reconciliation, well that is something that we can discuss.
But the important thing is the process of trying to bring
about a state in this nation where the Aboriginal people
accept that the non-Aboriginal population acknowledges the
short-comings, the wrongs that have been done in the past,
that they on their part the Aboriginal people accept
that and are going to say alright well we accept the
commitment of the Australian community as a whole to move to
rectify these wrongs of the past. And I give credit to
other political leaders that I have written to them,
including the Leader of the opposition and I have said,
look, let's try and get a bipartisan approach in this way
and I give them credit that their responses have been fairly
0 positive. I think that there is a considerable amount of
hope now to move ahead as a nation to do the things we ought
to do in this area.
AITON: I sometimes wonder if anything has happened at all
since the war-, as far as the well being of the Aboriginal
people is concerned.
PM: Oh yes, a great deal has been done and again while I
would have thought that the previous Government could have
done more. They did things we have very, very substantially
increased in real terms the funding that's been provided,
much more has been done. I mean, if you look at education,
I mean I can look at the period that we have been in
Government and the participation of Aboriginal children in
the levels of' education has increased enormously, our
expenditure on Aboriginal health programs has increased very
much and on Aboriginal housing. They are very important
areas and also employment opportunities. So you can look at
employment, education, and housing, and health very, very
big increases; have been made in funding terms. There are
12.
improvements in their condition but we have got no basis,
Doug, for being complacent. Very importantly, what we have
done, and we've just now had the election, we have
established the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders
Commission which is going to now establish for the first
time a democratically elected commission of Aboriginal
people themselves. The concept there is that rather than us
sitting in Canberra and saying well, here we are going to
spend this much on education, this much on health, this much
on housing. We are going to be saying well we are making as
much money as: we can available in bulk and the various
communities around Australia who will have different needs
in some areas, housing will be a more important issue than
health for instance. They are going to have the apparatus
now for determining the priorities of expenditure in their
various regions. I think this is a very important move.
But as I say, none of us are entitled to be complacent.
AITON: I reckon the thing that troubles me most from my
area and a lot of my colleagues, and I think a lot of the
public too, to summarise and put it into a nutshell is that
of the ten city newspapers that we now have throughout this
country, seven of them are controlled by Rupert Murdoch and
that's indicative of all sorts of things to do with media
ownership. PM: Well let me say this about media ownership generally.
No Government, and I think you wouldn't argue with this, no
Government has done more by legislation to deconcentrate
ownership across the media than we have because by
legislation we stopped what the situation was before. That
is that one man or one company could in particular areas own
the newspapers, the television, the radio stations. We
brought that to an end. Now if you're talking about
concentration that was the real objectionable feature in
this country, that one man, one company in a particular
region could have all the outlets. I mean the newspapers,
radio and television. Now we've brought that to an end.
AITON: Yes, that's gone and I accept that.
PM: Now in regard to newspapers, well if you were looking
at the sort of ideal situation I guess you would say you'd
like to see some greater diversification. But we have taken
the view that essentially we've wanted in regard to the
economy as a whole, to have a more deregulated sort of
environment where market forces operate and this has been
useful to the economy generally speaking. Now if you take
the State of Victoria, now you had an afternoon newspaper
and a morning newspaper, the Sun and the Herald. Now that's
gone, you've only got one so that in a sense can be said
you've got more concentration. But is there any difference
in as far as Melbourne's concerned, in the capacity of the
ownership to influence the population because there's one
newspaper rather than two? I mean how far should a
Government intervene, Doug, in determining what the number
of newspapers is going to be?
13.
AITON: I don't know but I'd like to know if you're happy
with the particular man, Murdoch, having seven out of ten
across the country, metropolitan newspapers, dailies?
PM: Well I've got to look at the newspapers. If what I
saw, Doug, and you'll appreciate that I look at the
newspapers pr: etty closely, if what I saw was one monolithic
Murdoch view then I'd be terribly disturbed. But I don't
see that.
AITON: No, but it's potentially there.
PM: Well I suppose it's potentially there and if one had a
position when you saw that sort of thing emerging where one
man or one or7ganisation was going to say I am going to
imprint one view upon the Australian population then you
might cause for But I look at the Murdoch newspapers
and what I find, I mean you take Sydney. I wake up there
and I pick up what was the Telegraph and the Australian. I
get my bum kicked to death in the Australian
AITON: Well you usually do.
PM: But getting ticks and pluses in the Telegraph. Now you
see the point: I'm making
AITON: I do. You're making the point that this particular
proprietor is not misbehaving. That's what you're saying.
But I'm saying the potential is there theoretically.
PM: Theoretically the position is there but I'm not sure
given what it: costs now to own and operate a newspaper
whether there are large numbers of potential Australian
purchasers. You know we stopped Maxwell trying to get
control of The Age here because we thought that wasn't a
very good idea. So if you're saying it's not a bad idea to
look at Australian proprietorship and of course Murdoch
started off as an Australian and I think in a sense I
still in a sense regard him as Australian although he took
out American citizenship. I don't think there are a great
number of potential purchasers in this country at any rate
now. AITON: No, there are not. But off hand anyway we've argued
that one. It seems to me that you're still the vote winner
and Paul Keating has a trouble attracting votes.
PM: Well let: me be fair in regard to Paul Keating. I think
firstly, one should make this point that historically, as
you would know, Treasurers, they find it fairly difficult to
be popular. Secondly, Paul is a pretty single minded bloke
in terms of pursuing his economic objectives. He's a hard
worker and hel's been about pursuing what he sees as the
basic needs of economic management and economic
restructuring and it's neither been his job nor in a sense
his inclination to be out explaining himself and explaining
the Government, that's more the Prime Minister's job.
Thirdly, I MEan it is, I think, the case that by nature I'm
more gregarious, easily gregarious than Paul. I think
14.
people really do him less than justice in many ways, in that
when you do I mean he projects this image of arrogance I
suppose as people say, some sort of contempt for others.
That's projected in some way or people project it of him.
But when you know the bloke he's a I mean he can be a
delightful and congenial companion and I think that as
people get to know him better they'll find these other
aspects of his character. But they don't come out easily in
his present position.
AITON: Have you had some rocky times, the two of you?
PM: I suppose really there have been two occasions of any
significance when it got a bit rocky but that was at the
time of the tax summit, there was a little bit of a problem
there, it didn't last long. And then last year, early in
the year there was a little bit of a confrotente
AITON: Over what?
PM: That was a feeling that Paul had that I was thinking he
was dispensable, which I hadn't expressed. But I concede
that in the language that was used he could've had that
feeling and he was a bit hurt about that.
AITON: And you didn't mean it that way?
PM: No, I didn't. But that upset things a bit. But having
said that, just two occasions on and it's getting on for
eight years I would think the history books will show that
there hasn't been a more effective Prime Minister/ Treasurer
combination than Hawke and Keating.
AITON: We've gone for nearly an hour and I think you've
given me enough of your time. Thank you very much indeed.
PM: As always, Doug, I've appreciated it very much. Thank
a you. ends