TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING, MP
7.30 REPORT WITH PAUL LYNEHAM
MARCH 1992
E& EO PROOF COPY
PL: Your battle with Dr Hewson, it's getting pretty
personal isn't it?
PM: No
PL: No?
PM: No, no. It's about exposing fightback for the fraud
that it is.
PL: So you don't really dislike him as much as it appears?
PM: and proposing Labor's program for the next four
years.
PL: It is pretty personal, you call him spiteful and
vindictive and wicked and all sorts of things.
PM: Well he has made a few brutal assaults on us, but
that's all part and parcel of it all.
PL: Well if you're such good mates tell us about his good
qualities. Has he got any?
PM: Well I am not good mates with him, but I don't have any
personal problems with him.
PL: Unlike your problem with Mr Howard, for example.
PM: Well he stepped over the line, and I had to show him a
lesson.
PL: So we are not to believe there is any personal animus
here across the chamber.
PM: We are fighting over things worth fighting about. He
thinks we can fix the nation's troubles, he has told
us, by putting a 15 per cent tax on everything we buy,
and everything we use, food, clothing etc. I know
that's wrong, I have been round this game a long time,
around the Treasury a long time, that's wrong. What we
propose is something which I think has vista, vision,
which will lift recovery, employment, improve our
nationa. efficiency, and basically give Australians a
real chance in the 1990s.
PL: You said today that Dr Hewson's Fightback package was
already finished, sinking in the water. I mean, I
would have thought the latest polls were saying it was
about neck and neck, with roughly a quarter of the
population waiting to see.
PM: Forget the polls, there has been a sea change here this
week. The Government in two weeks of Question Time and
the Treasury and its analysis of the Fightback Package
it's basically holed, it's taking in water and it is
sinking. Now Dr Hewson had two days notice, he had the
National. Press Club to come back and rebut the
Treasury's findings, that 4 out of 5 tax payers will be
worse off, and 7 families out of 10, 7 households will
be worse! off. He couldn't, he didn't, and we found
today in the Financial Review, " Hewson vows to top up
the tax cuts". From what was just the be all and end
all with, Fightback is now gone.
PL: To be fair, it wasn't the be all and end all. I can
show you. quotes of his some weeks ago, where he was
saying those tax cuts were merely an indication of
where he; was going.
PM: Look, basically he knows that he has been caught out.
He was trying to say that this was a great package for
business. He spent $ 6 billion cutting payroll tax and
$ 6 billion removing petrol tax, which is largely paid
by business. If you are going to transfer that to
business where does it come from? It comes from
households, and the Treasury had the temerity to point
this out, that most households will be worse off. So
straight away the be all end all program is now back to
being, hang on don't worry, I will top it up with more
tax cuts, I will find more money, it doesn't matter if
I blow the Budget deficit, I will buy my way back to
power. In other words the great stitched together,
knitted together, tight little package, is basically in
bits, and he had a chance to defend it, to attack the
Treasury ana lysis and he couldn't, and to beat off the
Government.. He couldn't do either.
PL: But look, y6o'u can still make fine tuning to you~ r
proposals, you have got the August Budget, perhaps even
a small statement in the new year before the election,
and you're not going to take those chances, to -tweak it
up a bit here and there?
PM: But I have never said that this was the be all and end
all, thiLs was the package which will change all.
PL: But neither has he.
PM: Yes he has, now come on Paul, yes he has. The
Fightback was presented as a package of reform for
AustraliLa. In reality it was an excuse for a t; ax, a
very nasty, very large consumption tax on food,
clothing and services. It was a transfer of wealth to
business and the high paid. That's what it was. It
has been exposed for what it is by the Government and
the Treasury, he has no comeback to it and now his only
comeback is don't worry I will conjure up a new trick.
Fightback mark I is dead, that's now throwback,
dieback, Fightback mark II will be unveiled as the
electoral pressure comes on. I mean the question is
what will Dr Hewson do to buy his way to office, how
much damage to the national economy and fiscal policy
will he undertake?
PL: Haven't you appeared, though, to have made a tactical
blunder with your proposed tax cuts by appearing to
neglect those earning less than $ 20,000 a year?
PM: Oh come on Paul look, when I became Treasurer the
lowest r. ate of tax on low incomes was 30 per cent.
PL: Yes, but: that's all history now.
PM: No, it Jis not history. It has to be paid for, and it
is paid for every year, it's now 20 per cent, it was
reduced by 33 1/ 3 per cent, the lowest tax rate. At
the same time we introduced a family allowance
supplement, which is a tremendous boost to low income
families, at the same time we are supporting a national
wage adjustment, still, for the low paid.
PL: Yes, but thait is not the tax system.
PM: Dr Hewson is now saying, he won't have a national wage
adjustment for the low paid, and he is now looking at
his tax cuts under $ 20,000 which don't even cover the
cost of the consumption tax.
PL: But why should people on $ 30,000 get a tax cut and not
people on $ 20,000?
PM: Because the people below $ 20,000 got tax cuts all the
way through the ' 80s, when people above $ 20,000 and
between $ 40,000 didn't get as large a tax cut.
PL: And you have still got the Budget and the Statement
next yeEar perhaps.
PM: And in the ' One Nation' Package a tremendous fillip for
families and another $ 250 million for the family
allowance supplement.
PL: Twice today you seemed to duck the question of whether
you will give back the proceeds of bracket creep from
now on. Any chance of a direct answer on that?
PM: Absolutely, this Government has given back more than
the proceeds of bracket creep, that's the impact of
inflation on the tax system, over the course of its
Government and it will again.
PL: And it will again?
PM: And it will again. But it won't be doing it with any
automaticity, it will be doing it as we say in the ' One
Nation' Package in 1994-95 and 1995-96. In other words
we will return to tax payers the impact of inflation,
even low inflation on the tax system.
PL: Look, if you are really so confident, and Fightback,
you betray the Opposition as, what was your phrase,
handcuffed to the black box while the Exocet missile
came down.
PM: Well Dr Hewson basically handcuffed them all to this
thing. A lot of them didn't like it you know, they
were very worried about it. It's blown up, they all
know, look around these corridors, in the Parliamentary
corridors, they know it's as dead as a doornail.
PL: Look, if you're on such strong ground why not accept
their challenge instead of just having the Wills byelection,
have a general election?
PM: But why should we short-change the public with a short
Parliament, a Parliament which we fought over in 1990
and where the Government secured a majority, where the
public expect you to run your full term, where the
Government should go on governing, why would I
recommend to the Governor-General that we dissolve this
Parliament to do what?
PL: So in the public interest, reluctantly relinquishing
what you: see as a winning position?
PM: Dr Hewson and his party came second at the last
election, and the price of coming second is that you
wait for the next one. The next one is about 15 months
from now.
PL: The republican issue, when you raised it were you aware
that within a few days that Saulwick poll would come
out showing 57 per cent of Australians in favour of a
Republic?
PM: I never raised a republican issue, I talked about
Australians having a confident position about
themselves, about our independence.
PL: You gave the Poms a good kicking didn't you?
PM: Well, with the point in mind, of saying to some of the
Anglifiers in Australia, some of the people here who
present themselves, I mean, less confident Australians
who seek to lead the nation and call the tune for our
destiny, who still want to attach themselves to
something, which is now finished for Australia, that is
an old relationship with Britain, where Britain had the
cultural. and political hand in the relationship it is
over.
PL: Well should we be a Republic Prime Minister?
PM: Well, I am not certain of that, I think we probably
will eventually. When that will be Paul, I don't know.
PL: Well ALI' policy is a referendum aimed at the year 2001.
PM: Look, I was certainly not arguing that case, but the
fact of the matter is, I do certainly argue that we
should be whole-hearted Australians and not halfhearted
Australians. Not forelock tuggers to anybody,
and certainly not tugging the forelock while trying to
present themselves as leaders of the
PL: And an independent, confident nation forging those
links in with Asia, that's the scenario isn't it?
PM: Exactly..
PL: But we are not really part of the Asian club are we?
Do you think we ever will be?
PM: Well we have got 73 per cent of our exports going
there, and 67 per cent of our imports. That makes us
pretty mauch part of the club.
PL: Yes, but we'are different aren't we, we are not: really
in the middle of it are we, we are just sort of that
funny mob down the bottom of the map?
PM: Well no--one is in the middle of it, the middle of it is
the PaciLfic Ocean basically. The Asia-Pacific is a
basin, we are around it, the same as everybody else,
and we are having our share of that growth, and we are
becoming a competitive country, an open competitive
country, and the increments to wealth, and employment,
living standards which can come from that trade, are
obvious: ly coming from the Asia-Pacific' I mean the
days when most our trade was with Europe or wit~ h
Britain are gone.
PL: And finally, in terms of the fine art of Parliamentary
debate, what does burble, burble, burble mean?
PM: Things worth fighting about are worth exposing the
issues on, There is a contest for ideas in this
Parliament between a package which basically puts a
heavy tax on people's way of life. Well let me just
make this clear, Dr Hewson was saying in a barrage that
there was a conspiracy between the Treasury, the
Government, the ABC, and I was simply making the point
that it was gibberish. If you can think in a second
what the physical manifestation of gibberish is and do
better, good on you, but that's what I was trying to
say. To say of our national broadcast, that it has
sold out to the Labor Party, to say of the Treasury
that it has been operated for and by the Government is
of course a dastedly attack upon those institutions and
I was saying so. And to say, if you want to defend
your package, defend your package, but don't shoot the
messenger, Dr Hewson.
PL: That's all we have got time for, thanks a lot.
ENDS