PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP
INTERVIEW WITH SPENCER HOWSON, RADIO 4RK, ROCKHAMPTON,
TUESDAY, 19 JULY, 1994
E OE PROOF COPY
SH: Prime Minister Paul Keating, thanks for coming in.
PM: A pleasure, very good to be here.
SH: Well, welcome to Rockhampton, have you seen our new bull statue,
we now have a fifth statue, did you see it as you arrived?
PM: I did in fact, yes I did. I mean, I'm quite familiar with Rocky, I've been
here many times over the years. It's a lovely city.
SH: -What did you think of the new statue. Did you take any notice of it or
just sort of disappear past you?
PM: No, I just sort of, well, I just noticed it and went on, but it is a, I mean,
it's a very important centre this and it's very nicely situated on the river
and that's a very beguiling place.
SH: You spent time this morning with local Year 12 students. What did you
learn and what did they learn from a discussion like that?
PM: Well, I think there's a great freshness of mind about young people,
there's no humbug about them. They're interested in argument, the
facts, they've got views, they express them. They're not reticent, I find
actually speaking to them they are a tough audience. I mean, they are
very tough, they are very tough judges, hard assessors but, one has
a chance to talk about how I see it. I mean, that's what I'm invited to
do talk about how I see Australia, where it will be in 10 years time,
what the opportunities are and, you know, and I was making the point
I've never seen us so well placed and particularly the lives and the ' life
cycle of young people today in the new Australia, the one that's got
international linkages now it never had, I mean a young person could
today be working in Rockhampton one month, in Shanghai the next,
and then be back into Sydney or Melbourne. You know, we've now
international ised the country so much these very high participation
rates in school are producing a huge body of educated people and
where ever we see an educated nation we see an interesting one.
SH: You say a tough audience. I believe one of the questions was
regarding East Timor, was that the sort of thing that you were
expecting?
PM: No, in fact it wasn't one of the set questions, it was on the outside, but
no, I think, tough in a sense of that they listened for value. I mean they
don't want hypocrisy, they want value.
SH: So, they're very educated when it comes to politics you think?
PM: Well, I think they're doing politics, they're doing economics and they
probably follow current affairs more than say, my generation at the
time did. So, I always give them as good as I can. That is, I try and
tell them things directly because not many people get a chance to talk
to the Prime Minister directly, you know, they get it filtered through the
media in some way, of course, you always have a chance to meet
people both coming and going. They all say things to you and the bits
and pieces, if you're a good listener, the odd little gem sticks with you.
SH: Yes, what do you get out of this sort of thing. I mean, in the last week
we've seen the Premier, Wayne Goss, visiting a school in
Rockhampton and the cynics would probably say that they are turning
18 next year, it means they can vote. Do you get more from it than
that?
PM: It's got nothing to do with that. I mean, we do it for the fact that I think
it is important that regions believe that they are as central to the way
the nation functions as the cities are and the point I've been making up
here is that often, if you look now around the country the areas of
greatest employment growth is actually in the regional areas. It's not
in the cities. Now, there is an absolutely greater number of jobs in the
cities because the cities are bigger, but the employment growth rate is
often higher in regional areas. So, I think it's important for Premiers
and Prime Ministers to come to regional centres and that's why I'm
here. I'm not here because a group of children, students are turning
18 years of age. I think that important as that is, I'm here to say ten
years ago, if I'd been here only half as many students would be there
because only 4 in 10 completed secondary school. This year it is 8 in
It will soon be 9 in
SH: And have you had much chance, you've been in Rockhampton very
briefly today, you got in I believe about 1 1: 00am and it's now just
coming up on 3: 00pm. Have you had much chance to talk to local
interest groups, the conservationists about Shoalwater, the
Cattleman's Union and the drought?
PM: I have. I've just attended a very broadly attended function and quite a
few people asked me about Shoalwater Bay and about the drought. I
mean, you do get a chance if you're in public life to meet people at
functions like this and garner some views and I always try and do that.
I always try and meet as many people as possible. I don't just come
and give a speech then walk away. I try. and stay and meet everybody,
have a talk, see what they want to say and obviously Shoalwater Bay
is quite an issue here now and it deserves to be an issue because it is
one of the loveliest, pristine areas of the coast. I mean, not many
countries even have the option of preserving an area like this.
SH: Shoalwater Bay as you say, has been in the news. We've had the
Environment Minister, Senator Faulkner up here. We've had the
Resources Minister, David Beddall up here. Neither of them are
saying much about what they want. They say that it's to go to Cabinet.
Are you saying any more than that at this stage?
PM: No, but of course, I was the one who established the review,
Committee of Inquiry, and I did so because, I think, an area this large
and with environmental values as important as they seem, deserve to
be considered properly and we've done that. We've now got a set of
recommendations and now the Cabinet will have to weigh that report,
it's recommendations, the environmental values versus the economic
potential.
SH: Do you have a personal view on it at this stage?
PM: Well, I'm not entitled to a personal view about it, but I don't mind
saying that, I think, that Australia's been very well placed being able to
reserve some areas. I supported, as Treasurer, Graham Richardson
when he sought to bring forward the proposals to preserve the
Daintree and to declare it to make a World Heritage declaration.
Essentially that was about money and I was quite happy to be finding
the money for that. Recently, of course, the Commonwealth
government has decided not to build an armaments depot at Jervis
Bay. Jervis Bay which is, sort of, an equivalent sort of area on the
NSW coast has beein now preserved from economic development. So,
I think the Labor government has a very proud record in these things
and Shoalwater Bay is being considered properly. I mean, there is a
thing called due process, I mean, there is an issue here. There has
been an inquiry established. There's been a report. The report now
has to be considered.
SH: How much of that can you do though. The protecting the environment
Jervis Bay you mentioned Shoalwater Bay, the other side of the
argument is, of course, that every time you do that you are losing out
on jobs potential. Is that a hard balance for you to try to achieve?
PM: Well, I don't know that that is true. It's true in some cases, but not
necessarily true in others. If you take, let's say, the Daintree,
something we know something about all of us, there is no doubt now, I
think, that the economic impact of preserving the Daintree has far
outweighed the costs of the loss of forestry activities within the
Daintree. It has become, outside of the reef, the principal focus of Far
North Queensland. Tourist attention has-still; I think, a lot of economic
up side about it. So, it is a moot point about where the economics lie.
SH: All right. On the point of the drought. You have been criticised today
by the Cattleman's' Union for not going out and seeing droughted parts
of Queensland as part of this tour.
PM: Well, I've seen droughted parts of Queensland and I've seen
droughted parts of NSW on plenty of occasions over 25 years of public
life. The issue is not to doubt that the drought is there. Of course it's
there and it's there probably because of climate change effects. What
the Commonwealth Government has said is look, rather than simply
this be part of the natural disaster relief arrangements, disaster means
it is intermittent and unlikely and therefore where it comes it has to
have an arrangement which reflects those kinds of circumstances.
Whereas what we know is with these climate change effects, is it is
much less intermittent than it was, it's becoming a permanent feature
of the Australian landscape in one place or another each year and
therefore, rather than simply dealing with it on a, sort of, natural
disasters basis it's best dealt with as an on-going agricultural
management problem and hence we have included it in the Rural
Adjustment Scheme in the RAS scheme.
Now, what my colleague Senator Bob Collins has said recently is look,
if we think that these drought arrangements are not adequate then we
can review RAS and, I think, he said that today. We can review RAS
and see whether it is working. Now, I think that's the way to go.
SH: All right, on a second point on rural issues, the National Farmers
Federation has been pushing for a commitment from the Federal
Government to make the family farm exempt from Austudy asset
testing which, I believe, was an election promise. So far no
commitment on that though. What's going on with that?
PM: Well, I think, this is a complex matter. We have sought always in
establishing Austudy arrangements to try and overcome the fact that
some people have got quite a lot of capital tied up in farms though not
necessarily a lot of income. So, on an assets basis they could be quite
comfortable. On an income basis this is not so. It is a matter of finding
the balance in these things, I think.
SH: Well, is something going to be done about that?
PM: Well, it is not something which is across my desk at the moment, but
that's not to say I think that the Minister for Education, that is Simon
Crean and his colleague Minister, won't have this as other issues
under, if you like, a permanent watch.
SH: All right, it all sounds very political that. I mean, does this mean that
we are going to get some sort of answer some stage this year or is it
PM: I can't tell you. It's not a Cabinet ranked matter at the moment and I'm
not sure whether we can design an arrangement where simply the
capital values of properties completely, you know, have a very
diminished impact upon the granting of Austudy arrangements. I
mean, Austudy has been extended as you know to Years 11 and 12.
During the period of this Government we have improved Austudy at
home and away from home and the level of the payments are
comparatively generous to what they were when the Government came
to office. It's again, a case of cutting the cloth.
SH: All right, from Queensland to a couple of national issues. The Reserve
Bank has warned today that banks are lending too much money to the
housing sector. Do you share that concern?
PM: It is a matter for the bank to make a judgement about this I think. It has
stewardship of the financial system and it watches the call on the
capital of banks in the devotion of their capital to certain areas of
lending. I think there is also another impact, that is the impact of
housing lending on the economy. It depends where the lending is. If
the lending is in new housing, of course, it adds the supply. If it is
simply bidding up the price of the existing stock of housing well, that's
a horse of another colour. It may be this, I think, that concerns the
Governor and he's the appropriate person to take this up with the
banks.
SH: There has been reports today that the Reserve Bank wants to push for
re-regulation. Do you think that this is all an argument for that?
PM: No, no. I don't think the bank thinks that at all. I mean, heaven forbid
if we were to go back to the time when savings banks couldn't take
deposits over $ 100,000, that banks couldn't accept deposits under
days, all these silly regulations which existed in the past. It has always
amazed me that people have actually even thought about going back
to them. I'm sure the bank has no idea to do those things at all.
SH: What about a compromise. Say, increasing the capital adequacy
requirements from 50 to 60 per cent?
PM: Of banks or on housing lending?
SH: On the housing lending.
PM: Well, it's a matter of really how much at the moment the so-called
risk weights are the amount of capital that a bank would need to
commit to a certain size housing lending book and these weights have
been largely determined by the BIS Convention this is the Bank of
International Settlements Convention. Whether they reflect really
prudential risks in Australia I don't know, but again this is something
for the bank to make, it's something within its charge.
SH: All right, a couple of brief ones more. In the Sydney Morning Herald
this morning a report that the Government is to overhaul family policies
to counter the Opposition's plan to sell itself as the pro-family party. Is
that the reason for the planned overhaul?
PM: No, I mean, the Government has lead on family policies all across the
last decade. I mean, starting with Medicare, universal access of all
Australian families to health protection regardless of income. The
Coalition party the Liberal and National party want to basically give
a free kick to the medical profession and private hospitals, charge what
the market will bear and cover it with gap insurance. We won't be in
that. The Family Allowance Supplement, probably one of the leading
income support systems in the world came from this Government in
1987-88. The child support agency, the generalised child care rebate
which I promised in the last election and which we have now
implemented, the Home Child Care allowance which will paid in
September this year was a commitment by the Government in the last
election. The Coalition will have to run awfully hard to catch the Labor
party on family policy and the reason is, basically, because the Labor
party is a party and a government which is worried about the general
needs of the community. The Coalition is basically an elite
organisation that is interested in people with high incomes.
SH: One of the major components of this new government plan to give
women up to 12 weeks maternity leave at the existing dole rate of $ 140
a week, can you tell us a little bit about that, how would that work?
PM: Well, that is something that we are going to look at in next year's
Budget as a consequence of our on-going discussions with the ACTU
and the Accord. They have been regarding this for a long time as an
important thing, that is, that there is some income protection there for
maternity leave. Now, we are very sympathetic to that. It is all about
means, it is all about being able to do it at the time. But, if you look at
the improvements, the massive improvements to the income of
families, particularly lower income families from the governmenit's
policies, compared to say where they were in 1983, I mean they are
not to be compared.
SH: This idea of giving women the 12 weeks maternity leave, would that be
for all women regardless of whether or not they have children because
there has been some talk that all women should be eligible for it.
PM: We haven't designed it, we said that we will we said to the ACTU
and we announced this at the time, recently, when we had just agreed
to two $ 8 payments for the bottom third of the workforce in these next
two years that we will look at it next year and that will, of course, be
one of the design issues whether it is income tested et cetera.
SH: Would you be interested in looking at some sort of equivalent scheme
for gay families bringing up children?
PM: It has never been proposed.
SH: Well, how do you feel about that yourself the idea?
PM: Well, I've never thought about it to be honest. It's not on the top of my
agenda and may never be.
SH: If someone were to propose it to you
PM: I don't normally just make decisions about these sorts of things. These
are things that we think about in terms of a framework and the big
framework for us is basically looking after families in need.
SH: All right, Prime Minister Keating, thanks for your time.
PM: Thank you.
ends