PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP
DOORSTOP, SALVATION ARMY CENTRE, MELBOURNE,
FRIDAY, 27 MAY 1994
E& OE PROOF COPY
PM: Let me just say a couple of things about the Salvation Army and what
you've just seen here. These are the sorts of things which Australia
needs to do to encourage those who have missed out in society and
missed out in the work force, who are untrained or who are homeless
and how the White Paper which the Government introduced two weeks
ago can help to see people case managed, trained, placed in a job
and where, as a society, we pick them up and we don't just forget them
as the rest of us move on into the recovery of the 1990s. So, the
Salvation Army as a voluntary organisation will be a case management
agency and one of the challenges to the Government now is to build
the administrative system to deliver all the White Paper policies. And
it will be with organisations like the Salvation Army that this will
happen and the sort of co-operative, interested work which you are
seeing here where there is not the rigidities of the work place that a lot
of the benefits of self esteem and experience, these are the things
which, I think, the long term unemployed, the homeless because the
thing you've got to remember about a lot of people who are homeless,
particularly kids, you've got to be awfully street smart to survive.
They're mostly very intelligent and it is a matter of focussing their
intelligence into things which they can do and this is what this is about.
So, I'm looking forward to seeing a change in the next couple of years
in the way in which we introduce the White Paper, apply the White
Paper to the problems of the unemployed in this country. And, what
I've seen today, here, is a tremendous example of the innovation which
the Salvation Army has been able to bring to helping homeless kids,
people who have been institutional ised get experience, get their self
esteem up, make products that actually sell and run as a business, Of
course, it has grown here by about 300 per cent, the turnover here, in
the last year or two.
J: Prime Minister, on issues like this where you are relying on voluntary
agencies like the Salvation Army to do so much, they are finding their
funding base increasingly difficult the Red Shield Appeal was down
for instance what happens when these agencies can't meet the need
that is confronting them?
PM: We will be paying case managers on a fee basis. We have set up an
organisation to actually operate the case management business as a
market. This organisation called ESRA which will see the
development of a case management agency in competition with the
CES. So, we will actually be paying a fee, we won't be simply saying
to organisations like the Salvation Army, you cover the industry cost of
it. In other words, it will be in the interest of voluntary agencies to
actually take up the White Paper proposal.
J: Mr Keating, are you impressed so far by the performance of the-
Opposition's new frontbench?
PM: I must say I thought if Mr Downer is starting to say that he is going to
show some strength, he could start by dismissing Senator Bishop from
the position of Shadow Health Minister. I mean, for somebody trying
now to run an argument which was won in this country 20 years ago,
that there are very clear links between smoking and health, smoking
and cancer, I should have thought there are some things where people
get things wrong, and in the tolerance of public life you can say well,
that's one they got wrong, but ok, then move on. But, you don't get a
thing like this wrong. This is just plain negligence, incredible
negligence and a terrible arrogance speaking to buttress the interests
of cigarette companies against the common good of the community. I
think, Mr Downer ought to say, look I'm sorry about this Bronwyn, this
is going to hurt me as much as it is going to hurt you, but out you go.
J: Mr Downer said though, he is not going to do anything you tell him and
that actually you are engaging in 1930 style class war rhetoric in your
attacks on him.
PM: I know, and don't the media run some of that simple simon stuff. Look,
I made two points which he says are class war tactics. They are not at
all. One is, I repeated what Dr Hewson said that Mr Downer's
leadership was decided by an exclusive group of the Victorian Liberal
party that is simply just a point of fact. The second point I made is I
don't believe that any leader of a major party today, in 1994, ought to
belong to clubs that exclude women. I mean, what sort of society
would we be if the policy behind that kind of intolerance were to be
applied generally in the community. I noticed Mr Downer has run
around saying I've never been to a club and everything like this, look,
the fact is the club I belong to and I've gone into thousands of times in
my life, a club that must be burnt into the Liberal party's memory where
I accepted victory on election night the Bankstown Sports Club in
Sydney 25,000 members, men and women who participate freely and
enjoy each others company. But, the notion there is some sort of basis
of superiority and a basis of privilege, wherein a club or its
membership say to women you can't be involved here is something
that the Downer's didn't tolerate.
J: ( inaudible)..
PM: Just understand this, don't let Mr Downer pass this off as some class
matter. This has got nothing to do with class, it is simply to do with
social comment. It is a matter of a social point to be made and the
social point is that women should not be excluded from institutions in
our country, least of all, of course, clubs.
J: in parliament?
PM: I've been in public life for 25 years and I've faced them all.
J: Do you think the new Opposition front bench is looking a bit tougher
than the front bench you've had to face in the past?
PM: Well, are we talking about toughness or crassness? Because if
barracking for cigarette companies against the interests of young
Australians, who are basically who they are trying to hook into the
habit of smoking, if that's tough, well, that's not the sort of toughness
Australian politics needs. I would have thought, also, the appointment
of Mr McLachlan as the environment spokesman, just laughs at every
person that has a serious interest in the environment. So, there are a
lot of, I think, poorly placed people here. But I noticed Dr Hewson said
that he was making it very clear that he thought there was a lot of
preference here, they were very pointed comments by Dr Hewson.
Yesterday he said well, a lot of people who supported Mr Downer have
been rewarded here and then he went on to say some other things, but
he made the point that he didn't think it was appropriate. It is not going
to be an entirely happy little gathering.
J: ( inaudible) and right across Mr Downer's agenda ( inaudible
PM: Yes, you see that's what Dr Hewson did say. He's expecting to speak
across the agenda and he's there basically to you see Mr Downer is
trying to say we're going to run a broad inclusive kind of policy which,
by the way, doesn't include women in particular places, but an
inclusive policy while all the drys in the economic area sit in the key
economic jobs and they're saying Fightback, which they committed
themselves to absolutely including Mr Downer, who is now trying to
reform himself as a dry.. you see, you've got this terrible dichotomy..
Malcolm Fraser has made his leadership by recruiting Mr Staley and
all of them in Melbourne getting him up. Malcolm has never been
happier than the last week. This is Malcolm's best week since 1983.
He is as happy as a sand boy, he's got Mr Downer up, he can't stop
smiling, he's writing columns, he's on radio stations, he's doing press
comment, he's in seventh heaven. Now, the Fraser government was
the blancmange government of the post-war years. The government
that did nothing. So, Mr Downer is going to be the leader of a
government like Mr Fraser, but he's got all the hard edged economic
guys in the economic jobs who believe in Fightback. So, Fightback
has been on the scrap metal heap, but will soon be seeing all the tin
men of Fightback crawling out of the heap, coming back. Because
that's basically all the Liberals believe in. They believe in the hard
edged economic things of Fightback as their leader is now trying to put
another complexion on the hard edged philosophy of Fightback. Now,
remember this, the hard things about Fightback were not simply the
consumption tax, but the $ 10,000 million cuts to government spending
that would affect the whole social welfare system and organisations of
the kind we've seen today. All that is still there. Mr Downer told us
that a week ago in the Budget reply, that he is going to basically base
his changes on cuts to government spending. He calls it efficiencies in
government. Read: efficiencies for cutting into the social wage.
So, just understand the contradictions here. You've got Mr Downer
seeking to emulate Mr Fraser in, if you like, the broad rhetoric, but the
non-reformist policies of the Fraser years coupled with all the hard
edged people put into the economic jobs who are all inherent to
Fightback. Now, you know what that means for the rest of you I can
tell you fun and games. Fun and games as this dichotomy emerges
over time. They have to be one thing or the other.
J: ( inaudible) Downer a formidable opponent, what do you think
about that?
PM: Well, why should I take any notice of that. Paul ( Kelly) also thought
they were going to win the last election.
ends