PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
INTERVIEW WITH NEIL MERCER, " TODAY TONIGHT", CHANNEL 7
31 JANUARY 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
J: First up tonight though it's back to business for the Prime Minister Paul
Keating. Today we find out the economy's boiling over, a tough
Budget is now being predicted. Prime Minister Paul Keating joins me
in the studio. Prime Minister, welcome to the program.
PM: Thank you Neil.
J: What do you most admire about John Howard?
PM: Just the view that if you hang around long enough you might get asked
a second time, that's all. If you're tenacious and you stick there.
When Peacock left somebody said well you know if you leave, you
might leave the job, but Johnny said I've been there that long I don't
care any more.
J: But you would have to admire his resilience, the fact that he has hung
in there.
PM: Yes, I think that's to be admired but I don't admire his lack of policy
ambition or his lack of achievement.
J: He's surely though the most formidable opponent you've had in the last
few years?
PM: That's what they said about John Hewson. That's what they said about
Alexander Downer. Ten months ago it was the dream team, the young
turks, Alex and Peter Costello. See the Liberal Party, this is the
Liberal Party's third choice and you're asking the Australian people to
be their first choice. In other words, when John Hewson lost the
election they had a chance then of making a clean break and saying
well look, John's gone we'd better go to John Howard. No, they said
no we won't do that, we'll go back to John Hewson. When he fell over
they said maybe we should go to John Howard. No, no we won't go to
John Howard, we'll go to Alexander Downer. They've gone to him
because there is no one else.
J: But surely he's a more formidable opponent than Alexander Downer
was?
PM: I just don't accept that...
J: He's a better parliamentary performer?
PM: He is a better parliamentary performer but one of the things I'm very
pleased about Neil in Australia is the Government has at least over a
decade now lifted the policy debate and the policy expectations. The
public want value. They don't want parliamentary hijinks, they want
Government policies. So that's where I think we're strong and he's
weak.
J: You're not the best of mates with him though and I'll just read you a
quote that you said in the 1980s and it was this: I will do everything I
can to crucify him, obliterate him from the leadership. They are very
strong words. Do you still feel that strongly?
PM: But why did I say that? Because he had one of his backbenchers in
one of the most sleazy attacks ever raising personal matters about my
personal life. That's why I said it.
J: Have you forgiven him for that?
PM: Everything has its place. You see, I don't refer at all to the personal
lives of Liberals. Never have and won't do it.
J: Have you forgiven him for that?
PM: Oh it's way back in the dark ages, yes.
J: Will you still crucify him?
PM: I don't think it's fair of you to ask me that question. What I'll do is, look
John Howard has got three policies. One is income splitting for
families, the other is to cut the wages of people under $ 35,000,
average weekly earnings, what he calls labour market reform, and the
other is a sort of corner shopkeeper's crankiness about red tape. You
know, knock over the Government sector. They're his three policies.
Nothing's changed in twenty years.
J: But to be fair to him on income splitting, he said he's now prepared to
be more flexible, the Liberal Party is going to be a broad church.
Surely that makes him a lot more difficult for you to combat than
Alexander Downer who was clearly accident-prone.
PM: Let me make this clear about him. John Howard left an inward-looking,
moribund, low-growth, high unemployment, high inflation economy.
J: And he would say you gave us the recession.
PM: That's what he left us. Ring-fenced by tariffs, a managed exchange
rate, a wage explosion, eleven per cent unemployment and ten per
cent inflation. It took this Government to open Australia up, to do all
those things and knock over the tariff wall, to float the dollar, to open
up the financial markets, to get back to back best practice, to get nine
kids in ten completing secondary school, to give us a future as an
educated country. That's why the Government will always beat a John
Howard Opposition.
J: He also says you're, and this was just recently, a part-time Prime
Minister. That in recent times, you've taken your hands off the wheel.
PM: In the last year I've had Working Nation, the largest package ever for
dealing with retraining and reskilling the labour market and dealing
with the long-term unemployed. The cultural policy, with support for
the arts and multi-media. The Budget of last year. APEC, sewing
Australia up in the Asia-Pacific. The drought policy, develop income
support for farmers. I mean we couldn't have done any more last year.
In fact we did more last year than I think any Government since the
war.
J: Alright Prime Minister, we have to leave it there just for the moment.
We'll be back with more from the Prime Minister right after the break.
Stay with us.
J: Prime Minister, just before the break, we were talking about John
Howard saying, you had taken your hands off the wheel and indicative
of that was the shemozzle over woodchips.
PM: Well woodchips is a complex issue and there are three thousand, I
mean I reject absolutely this hands off the wheel notion, as I said this
was the toughest year and the biggest year last year I think any
Government's had, certainly since the war. But woodchips is a
complex issue. We've got what we call a coupe, 150 metres square.
There's three and a half thousand of them and picking which ones
have got high conservation value and which haven't, is very hard for a
Cabinet.
J: But in terms of a political problem, you said I'm going to lob a grenade
in there you have dropped a grenade on your foot, and you have
alienated both the Greens and the timber workers?
PM: Well that might suggest to people look, what we have got here now
is a decision for the nation. It doesn't suit the timber workers, and it
doesn't suit the Greens but it is right for Australia. What it does is
preserves those high-quality, high-conservation value stands of trees,
which I think it is a crime to see cut some of these stands of old trees
that can be protected and ought to be. What we have done is to set
these aside for examination, to see which are truly in that position.
Now, if before Christmas 200 coupes were set aside, the Greens
would have thought it was a fabulous decision. I have set aside 500,
and because they think they have got the Government under pressure,
they are saying " Oh no, we're not having that", the timber workers are
saying " oh no, this is too much", so maybe it gives the public the
inkling that we have probably got this about right now.
J: Alright Prime Minister, lets move onto the major economic statement
today can you guarantee say to us tonight that in the coming May
Budget, there will be no increase in taxes?
PM: What I can say to you Neil is that this is the fastest growing Western
world economy, with the lowest levels of tax and low inflation. What I
can say to you is we will be keeping that going, and the Budget is
about keeping that going. This Government was hired and rehired in
1983 to produce growth, job security and employment. We have done
that. But we have now got a very strong economy, and basically have
to temper it and that is the job of the Budget.
J: Ralph Willis said today at his press conference, apparently, " there will
be some resort to tax increases". Do you agree with that?
PM: None of us can pre-empt what the Cabinet will do, but
J: But it has to be one or the other?
PM: Well that is what I am trying to say it will come this way it will come
by either some increase in revenue, cuts in Government spending, or
sales in Government assets.
J: Which do you favour?
PM: You'll see. I did, as Treasurer, 9 Budgets and 7 May Statements I did
16 Budgets, virtually, and we'll be doing another one.
J: Can you understand why a lot of people would be apprehensive about
what is happening we saw 3 rises in interest rates, the economy is
supposedly going well as you say why are we seeing the rises in
interest rates, and Government spending about to be cut?
PM: Neil, let's get this on the record 6% growth and 2% inflation in the last
year is the best economic year since the War, fullstop...
J: But you can understand that people are hurting out there?
PM: the interest rates are basically a premium for the security for the
future in other words, how we do we keep this growth and
employment running so that people don't have to worry about their
jobs, where they are seeing unemployment come down, where they
are seeing growth and incomes rise, where they are seeing company
profits and investments rise. The increase in interest rates that we
have seen are basically a premium on that security.
J: Will we see any more increases in interest rates in the near future?
PM: Well, I don't believe that.....
J: They would be appropriate?
PM: I don't believe there is a cause for any adjustment, and that is why the
Treasurer again stressed today that in terms of policy, we will be
looking at the Budget.
J: Okay Prime Minister, we have to wrap up very quickly are you looking
forward to the year?
PM: Absolutely. This is the ultimate high-wire business this is my 26th
year at it there has got to be something about it that keeps me going.
J: Prime Minister, thanks for your time.
PM: Good luck with the program.
J: Thank you.
ends