A
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING, MP
DOORSTOP MELBOURNE, 10 MARCH 1992
E& OE PROOF COPY
J: What are your chances of winning the Wills by-election?
PM: Well it's going to be a difficult election for us, we
don't underestimate our difficulties, but we will be in
there trying'.
J: Do you think the Opposition's letters to the electorate
of late are going to swing that
PM: I think the debate in the last few weeks has shown the
difference between the Government and the Opposition.
The Opposition is pretty sterile, it doesn't want to do
anything about an Australian recovery, it only wants to
tax your WeetBix, and your Kelloggs, and your clothes
at 15 per cent. I think everyone has got that message.
When the Opposition have their way, the great burden of
the GST will fall on Australian women, in the
management of their households, and it will fall on the
business people of this country, the small business
people of this country, who will no longer have a
Sunday afternoon off, they will spend Sunday afternoon
calculating the GST and remitting the proceeds to the
tax office. This is a small business community we are
in, a shopping street, all these people will be tax
collectors, ' all will have to spend their Sundays
collating and reconciling the GST papers and the
collections. That's the new world Dr Hewson has
available to them. On the other hand, the Labor Party
is trying to run Australia cooperatively, bring
Australians together, induce a recovery, have the
Government riot sitting on the sidelines, actually doing
things to lift recovery and employment, and to make
society better and more efficient on the way through.
J: Do you think it helps our relations with Indonesia to
have confidential documents and conversations from the
Department of Foreign Affairs being leaked?
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PM: Well these are old conversations are they not, as I
understand, 1988 conversations. And this debate was on
back then and I think the Indonesian Government
understands that.
J: But is it fair, do you agree that the Soeharto family
is constraining the growth in the Indonesian economy?
PM: I wouldn't endorse those conclusions, no.
J: Do you agree with the protest of Lusitania Expresso
going to Deli at the moment?
PM: We have given appropriate warnings to the dangers of
people involved in going on that vessel and I can only
repeat those warnings.
J: Do you agree with their right to protest?
PM: Well, people have got to weigh their right to protest
against the consequences of them doing it, and I am not
sure that anything that they may be involved with can
materially alter what has happened, or the response by
Indonesia.
J: Prime Minister, given yours and the Governments good
form, are you thinking of an early election?
PM: Well, I answered that the other day. No, the people of
Australia are entitled to get value from this
Parliament, it's got 15 months to run, and that's why
we take the view that people are entitled to
representation and that's why we've brought an election
on, on the llth of April, so that the electors of Wills
can quickly have a representative in the Parliament.
We believe that people should be represented, and that
therefore that in this electorate, the electors here
have the opportunity to send Bill Kardamitsis to
Canberra.
J: Is that a commitment then to not hold a general
election until after this time next year?
PM: No, they are not commitments. It's just simply that
the Parliament has got a long way to run and it's our
intention to see it run on.
J: But no general election before the end of this year?
PM: I'm not into the commitments business, that's absurd.
J: On the question of the Indonesian protest, do you
believe that that leak from the Foreign Affairs
Department plus this protest is going to sour relations
with Indonesia?
PM: I don't know, you should ask them.
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J: Mr Keating, is the campaign here going to be all local
issues as Mr Kardamitsis said or will it be a test of
One Nation and Fightback?
PM: I think it's a combination of local issues, the fact
that we've got a candidate who is part of the
community, who stands for Labor values as well as the
fact that it has been an area represented by Labor very
abley by our former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, as well
as some discernment on the part of the electorate about
the policies of the Partys. That is, between what the
Government stands for and what Dr Hewson stands for,
and I think that's the important thing. The important
thing for us is to have our candidate elected to the
seat of Wills and to get back on governing Australia.
It is the most important job at the moment
government, getting a recovery going, making certain
that all the One Nation Statement's elements are
adopted and put into place, that we see that impact on
the economy and we get down to the job of governing and
not be too distracted by the business of politics.
J: governing Australia, your Aboriginal Affairs
Minister wants to spend several hundred million dollars
in the wake of the black deaths inquiry. How hard to
you think it's going to be to get the States to keep up
their side of the bargain on this question?
PM: Cabinet is considering this matter soon and I think
it's best to talk about that after its consideration.
J: Do you expect the States to be fulsome in their
response to the inquiry too? There have been
difficulties there in the past with Aborigines.
PM: I think it has been a very long running Royal
Commission and I think all the parties have taken its
recommendation seriously so I will be surprised if the
States don't respond seriously and well.
J: Prime Minister, last week you said that Wills should be
a shoo-in for the Liberals, have you changed your mind
in the last few days?
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PM: The fact: is ' that the Liberal Party has got a very large
lead in the polls. To deny that is to deny the
undeniable. But as Bill said, we are going to be in
there trying, we'll be doing our best and I hope we can
win.
ends