PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP,
INTERVIEW WITH STAN GRANT ' REAL LIFE', 3 JUNE 1992
E& OE PROOF COPY
SG: Prime Minister, welcome.
PM: Thank you Stan.
SG: John Howard thrown out of Parliament today, but
isn't-hiiessentially right, that politicians should
stay out of the APPM issue?
PM: He got thrown out for being duplicitous. He was
telling us that we should not be involved in an
industrial dispute while he was around the back door
talking to the owners of the business to APPM.
This is the sort of industrial mayhem that Dr Hewson
and Mr Howard would give us if there industrial
relations policy were to be the policy of the
country. That is, the ' battle for Burnie', as it
has been called, would be a feature of the
Australian landscape.
SG: But you could hardly say the policy at the moment is
working. I mean the Industrial Relations Commission
ordered the workers back and that's been ignored.
PM: By the company doing Hewson and Howard's bidding in
terms of their policy. This has been the quietest
period in industrial relations probably in 20 years.
Industria] di-pu-tes aie--a-fraction of what they were
in the early 1980s and the Accord model, the
consensus model has worked like a charm. These
silly fellows want to wreck it all by refusing
unions the right to talk to employers, only an
ordinary worker they say can talk to the employer.
What chance has one working person got with an
employer? None.
SG: It doesn't help Prime Minister does it if your own
Minister, PeterCook, starts talking about blood on
the streets tSouli7 dBoes it?
PM: Well they have got picket lines, it's all because of
this confrontationist approach. The truth is what's
Dr Hewson got to present the Australian public with?
A GST tax a 15 per cent tax, on their goods and
services, their food and clothing and an industrial
relations policy which cancels federal awards,
knocks of f their holiday pay, cuts their rates of
pay and conditions and the only recourse they have
is that they individually can negotiate with the
company, not the union. This is what APPM is about.
SG: On another issue Prime Minister, your failure to
lodge a company fax return, a company return in
time, that's not ideal is it? Shouldn't we expect a
bit more from the Prime Minister?
PM: Well that's right. It's a company information
return and they should be on time. But as I made
the point today Dr Hewson again, who has promised us
supposedly a higher order politics in a day when the
Government has just revolutionised television in
this country and yesterday revolutioniseid the
airlines system, he spent the night having a
S9enator, senator Baume, up talking about my company
return. And what did I find today? That Dr
Hewson's company return was late for three
consecutive years and so was Mr Reith's.
SG: You're talking about your moves in policy though
Sir, but today you were not talking about policy,
you were more interested in attacking the man.
PM: Come on you weren't there. The first question
during Question Time I announced the Government's
new revolutionary television policy to allow Pay TV,
to allow all Australians a chance to pay andwia-tch
blockbuster movies and sport, Hollywood and world
movies the moment they are released on television.
That change was announced today at Question Time and
what did I do I got a question from Mr Peacock for
Dr Hewson asking me about my company return and the
questioner, Dr Hewson, has actually not put his in
for three consecutive years.
SG: Yes, but two wrongs don't make a right.
PM: No, but the duplicity of him, the double standards,
and the conceit of it is he has Senator Baume
raising this lousy issue in the Senate last night,
he has Mr Peacock do his dirty work today and what
we find is on the very topic he's asking me his
returns have been late for three years. Meanwhile,
what was I doing last night? Putting together a new
Pay TV policy for Australia.
SG: On that issue of Pay TV, you announced it on Sunday,
today there has been a big change to the policy that
you announced on Sunday, making policy on the run is
that the right sort
PM: No, come on Stan. This is an area where there's
been a policy mess for twenty years. What we saw
today is a policy where we'll have a new entrant
into the media of Australia in Pay TV who does not
belong to the newspaper groups, the television
groups or the telecommunications group.
SG: But clearly what you outlined on the weekend has
been changed today.
PM: It has changed today, but today is better. What I
outlined on the weekend was a way where the
television networks were to be included in the first
round of the Pay TV satellite transmission company.
It's much better with them out of it and them having
the option of going 100 per cent into a network of
their own, and that's what we came up with today.
SG: The image here though Mr Keating, over the last
couple of weeks you must have been squirming as you
saw the Marshall Islands affair, Ros Kelly signing
something that she hadn't even read.
PM: We had a couple of bad weeks, but again look at the
Government ' s recovery. Look at the vast change in
airlines yesterday. Qgantas acquiring Australian
Airlines and it being sol-d to the publric. Ansett
becoming a duel domestic and international carrier,
a total revolution in Australian air travel.
SG: So as far as your concerned there wasn't so much
damage done over the last couple of weeks, it seemed
to be going from one bungle to the next.
PM: You know the policy here, the dogs, may bark, but the
caravan moves on and the caravan moved on to a
revolution in air travel and, really, a revolution
in television. I mean we've adopted today a policy
which will allow fibre optic cable, cable television
as well as satellite pay television, to be
distributed to the people of Australia. That will
mean that Australians over time, will not only be
able to see blockbuster movies at home, sport, news,
but as well as that they will be able to operate the
system back. They will be able to deal with their
bank at home, they will be able to order their
shopping from home, they'll be able to get
information through the fibre optic cable. All of
those technological possibilities were opened up
today in this policy while reserving for the
satellite pay television, a system to give
Australians good entertainment without having the
networks involved.
SG: Mr Keating, just finally, the polls, is the gap too
great?
PM: No, not at all. You'll notice also yesterday Stan,
again on the substance, the National Accounts came
out. The economy has now been growing for three
consecutive quarters.
SG: Sure, but it's a matter isn't it of getting that
across to the people. Now the polls.
PM: Yes, but they see the news. Don't underestimate
them, they see the news, they hear programs like
this, they know the economy is back into recovery.
SG: And you see the polls.
PM: And as that changes it will change the political
perception. As Dr Hewson is sort of playing the man
and not the ball, taking our political system down
to worry about company returns and the rest instead
of worrying about the big issues like technical and
further education, like television, like airlines,
like the economy, as he traffics in that low order
politics you'll see the polls switch around.
SG: Prime Minister, it hardly seems like you to be
complaining about playing the man?
PM: Well who asked me today the lousy, dirty question?
Mr Peacock.
SG: Who called Dr Hewson a fraud and a cheat?
PM: I did. Do you know why? Because he was telling
Australians in the House of Representatives that
politicians shouldn't be in an industrial dispute
when he's been talking to them privately. What else
would you call him?
SG: So as far as your concerned you're prepared to get
out of the gutter?
PM: That's not the gutter. Use your sense Stan, that's
not the gutter. When a major political leader says
to its constituency, the public, we believe that the
political party shouldn't be involved in this
dispute and yet we catch them having dealt with the
principles of the APPM company in secret, don't you
think that is sort of double standard and duplicity
should be referred to by me? Of course it should.
That's not the gutter, that's just simply making
clear. But who asked the lousy personal question,
as always the Liberal Party. In this case Dr
Hewson didn't have the decency to do it himself, he
had Mr Peacock do it. And then what do I find on
the very same issue he hasn't put his company
returns in for three years, well.
SG: OK Prime Minister we'll leave it there. Thank you
very much for your time.
PM: Good Stan.
ENDS