43.
PRIME MINIISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING, MP
DOORSTOP, BRISBANE, MARCH 9 1992
E& OE PROOF COPY
J: Prime Minister, could we get your response to the ANZ
bank forecasts, no signs of a recovery for the economy'?
PM: It's a job Vacancies series, it goes up and down a bit
but it's been running the right way for quite a while
so I wouldn't be focusing too much on that. SiLgns of
recovery are ambiguous, that's why the Government did
introduce the Statement it did to try and accelerate
the recovery. And, of course, it will take some time
for that to have effect. The first payments are not
made until April, s0 it's going to take a while to have
an affect.
J: What about banks suggestion another cut in interest
rates?
PM: I'm not sure. Banks are sellers of money, they're
always suggesting lower interest rates.
J: So you're not considering that at all?
PM: No.
J: Are you confident figures due out later this week might
be a bit more optimistic?
PM: I think we are seeing, as I said, ambiguous signs.
Some signs seemed as though recovery is underway,
others don't. The popular interpretation is that we're
at the bottom of the trough, that may well be -true.
J: The job advertisements are a pretty good indicator, and
they're showing a drop..
PM: Yes, but they have been showing a rise for a few months
now, so there may be some correction to the statistics.
2
J: This drop puts it back to the amount it was in
November, so really you haven't made any progress at
all.
PM: Again, I think it is patchy, it is very hard to tell.
J: The report this morning says that during the last 12
months the number of jobs has dropped.
PM: Employment has risen, it's the job vacancies.
Employment has risen in the period, but so too has
unemployment and the job vacancies were showing signs
of improvement over a period of time. But apparently
in this month they have dropped again. What does that
mean? It is very hard to say what it means.
J: What do you think the figure will be later today?
PM: I don't know, let's wait and see.
J: Do you have any comment to make on the distribution of
that speech you made in 1970?
PM: No, it's only the Liberal Party doing what it normally
does. In the 1970s they were still arguing for capital
punishment and militant about the fact that God Save
the Queen should still be the national anthem. They
were then raving reactionaries and a lot of them still
are now.
J: Your attitudes have changed a lot since then,
obviously?
PM: I worked out that, in the period, women deserved a
greater go and I tried to give it to them in the
and I catalogued that today in the speech. I think
this is yet to dawn on the Liberal Party.
J: Mr Keating, you admitted that you're not widely
regarded as a feminist. Have you got a lot of work to
do until the next election?
PM: As I went through some of the things I had done when in
the 1980s I tried to do everything I could to give
women an opportunity, mainly with employment. With
things like access to superannuation, which they were
formerly not given, they had no preserved benefits,
with a child maintenance agency so that husbands who
had responsibilities to them, faced them, the Family
Allowance Supplement to low paid families, mostly of
course supporting women. But one of the greatest
burdens that we'll see on women in the future, were it
ever to come to pass, would be the goods and services
tax. I can think of no other issue which will put such
a burden on women as the GST and that whole problem
about income exchange within families, about transfers
within families would have to be part and parcel of a
per cent impost on food and clothing and all the
3
things that women are, in the main, responsible for in
the family.
J: Prime Minister on another matter, do you intend to
reignite the Special Premiers Conference agenda?
PM: I'm not here to go around the world for sport. That's
an issue, but the Premiers will be speaking to us about
the Premiers Conference round. Some are supporting the
reconvening on issues that were formerly part of the
Special Premiers Conference agenda. Many of them of
course have been adopted and I have, in the One Nation
Statement, moved that debate along with some of the
issues which were on the agenda. So I have got an open
mind about it.
J: Do you see a need for another Special Premiers
Conference?
PM: I think Australia has to be run co-operatively and it
means I think, therefore, that the Commonwealth and the
States have got to work together. What the processes
are in that working together is a moot point, but the
most important thing is that we should be working
together and will be working together.
ends.