PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP
INTERVIEW WITH ANGELA CATTERNS, TRIPLE J, 10 MAY 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
AC: Welcome to Triple J.
PM: Thank you Angela. I have been before, but not here.
AC: Not to Triple J central.
PM: Not to Triple J central.
AC: Are you pleased with the way this Budget has gone down.
PM: Exceptionally. I think what pleases me about it is that it confirms that
we can continue growing through the 1990s. That is what the whole
thing was about sustaining the _. grQ~ wth and sustaining the
employment growth. We have had this amazingly high level of
employment growth'in the last year, four per cent, and we want to try to
keep those sorts of levels running through the rest of the 1990s. But,
we had to reduce the Government's call on what is called our savings.
And that means we have got to take the-. Budget from deficit into
surplus, so we are adding to savings, not subtracting from them to
kee p the growth going. That is what basically we did last night and the
other thing we did was we put into it the first ever comprehensive
savings plan for Australians. So, this will be the first generation, your
audience will be the first generation of Australians in our history who
will have security right through, that is economic security, right through
their working lives and beyond.
AC: This audience would possibly say to you that why should they be
forced to put money away for their old age when the oldies around
today didn't have to do that.
PM: Well, the difference will be that they will have an income twice, as you
put it, the oldies today have got. So, it means that they will be the first
generation ever that won't have to say ' well, what will I do later?'
When you are in your teens or twenties, the last thing you think about
is your retirement.
AC: Absolutely.
PM: But, that all changes by about your mid 30s and you start saying ' well,
you know, I am 20 years away from retirement, what am I going to do?'
Last night that was all pretty much decided that is, by this great
change, as I say, for the first time ever you will have people, well if you
take someone on average weekly earnings that is about now $ 33,000.
At the end of their working life they will have a lump sum of just on half
a million which will give them $ 30,000 a year for going out into the
future. So, it is a very great change.
AC: Although, I wouldn't agree that necessarily young people see the
advantage of that right now. I'm sure that they would rather enjoy the
benefits of tax cuts now, for instance, rather than having to wait until
they are 60 when they can finally kick up their heels.
PM: Well, again we had the tax cuts, the first round, at the end 1993, but
the main thing to know is that this is a very lightly taxed country. This
is the second lowest taxed country in the western world, but again the
things that matter in this Buge o ntne i dcto hc
matters to your audience, we have got $ 16 and a half billion over the
period 1996 to 1998, we have got another 11,000 new places in
universities in Queensland and NSW and Western Australia by 1998
and that is on top of the massive funding we have got in TAFE,
technical and further education.
AC: Students do seem finally quite happy with you, would you agree their
protests worked in spite of you telling them to go get a job?
PM: No, no because we were never going to put up-front fees for
undergraduates. I mean John Howard, my opponent, he believes in
up front fees. He says if you can' t ' pay for it, you take the incentive out
of things. You have got to give people the incentive so therefore you
have full fees. Now, we have always said, I made that clear at the
time, I mean, at the time I made the remark you just referred to I had
someone walking beside me for about 500 metres yelling abuse at me
about HECS. I said ' well, hang on, all the HECS ' money is going back
into places. We have had a 37 per cent increase'-in places, we have
gone from 360,000 to 550,000 university places all with the HECS
money going back in and we only ask you to pay some of it back when
you get to average weekly earnings'. So, that is why I was saying to
somebody ' if you don't want to pay your HECS, give it to someone else
who does.' But, the big beef was erroneously that the Government
was about to introduce up front fees. So, the Budget has come and
gone, there is no up front fees for undergraduates, there is no increase
in the size of each students HECS debt and the repayment of HECS
still doesn't begin until the student hits average weekly earnings. So,
I'm afraid it was a kafuffle for nothing. That was the point I was trying
to make at the time.
AC: Mr Keating, you mentioned unemployment, but there still seems to be
an awful lot of people still unemployed. How can you cut Working
Nation by more than $ 1 billion?
PM: That was about $ 200 million odd a year, we put in about $ 1.6 billion,
so we are cutting that money from $ 1.6 billion a year. The answer very
simply Angela is we have had such great success with employment.
Last year long term unemployment which Working Nation is directed
at, that is for people unemployed 12 months or more, dropped by
102,000. When we had the election just over two years ago we had
360,000 long term unemployed people, this year we have got 260,000
a huge fall and because that category of persons has changed so
much we just don't need the funding we had there, but it doesn't
reduce the target. The target is five per cent unemployment by the
Year 2000 and you might remember at the election we had 10.5 per
cent unemployment, we are now at 8.7 per cent and in the Budget we
are forecasting 8 per cent. So, we are, if you like, half the way to 5 per
cent in less than half the time.
AC: Mr Keating, how will you try and reduce youth suicide?
PM Well, I think, this is a big issue and I think we all understand and feel
deeply about it. I think the best thing that government's can do, I'm not
sure that government is the ultimate answer on youth suicide. I think it
is a phenomenon of personal debilitation and de~ i-i -thfink it needs
families, it needs the support of friends, I think those things matter
more than anything a government can do. But what governments can
do is provide opportunities for training and employment, to give young
people a very clear future, the fact that they have confidence, that they
can get a job and an interesting job and be trained, we can provide
support through the social safety net which, of course, this
Government has championed. In things like Working Nation we can
support people with labour market programs to get them trained and
back into work. Through Creative Nations to see them do interesting
things, through funding for TAFE to find these interesting programs
being opened up to them. In the Youth Training Initiative in One
Nation we are taking young people now in years 11 6nd 12 and
streaming them already into TAFE courses, into accreditation in TAFE.
In One Nation we said we won't let any young person between 15 and
19 slip through the system without case managing them, talking to
them and getting them back into education or structured training or a
job. So, I think that sort of Government support matters. I think case
management, the thing we did in One Nation. Let me just tell you
listeners about case management and what it means. It means that
somebody like you would talk personally to 30 or 40 people, you get to
know about their personalities, their aptitudes, their readiness for a
job, their educational attainments, their previous work experience and
then you deliver to them the labour market program, the job subsidy or
the training. In other words, they just don't turn up to a CES. counter
and get the brush off or a social security counter and get the brush off
and go back in despair. They actually have somebody interested in
them. That is what Working Nation did and, I think, they are the sort of
programs we can help with, but I don't think that is the full answer. I
think it has to be as well, I mean opportunity, a brighter horizon,
interest by government, the community saying you are important and
we want to help you, that we are not going to let you slip through the
system, but they must have families and friends. I think there is a lot of
loneliness with many young people today that we are not getting this, if
you like, clannishness and I still actually think the family and that
environment is the best support system for any of us.
AC: And their radio station helps too, I might put in bit of a plug there. Mr
Keating, can you understand the cynicism of young people towards
politicians?
PM: Not really. No, I can't because the political system has in this country
made changes you could never have dreamt of 10 years ago. Ten
years ago, I mean look, let me just say this, we ran the risk of drifting
into the 21st century with the hang overs; from the 19th century. The
Queen, the great lie about terra nullius the land of no one that
Aboriginal people had no rights, had no property, the sort of values of
the 1950s, John Howard's dead end jobs. ' You know, in my day' he
said ' they could get a job at 15'. Well, yes, they could, but it was a
dead end job with low pay. This was the sort of attitude we had in a
closed country ringed by tariffs. Look at what we have got today. In
years we have seen ' such a dramatic change. It is now an
externally orientated country, it is trading with Asia. Ten years ago
only three young people in ten completed secondary school. This year
it is nearly nine in ten. And 40 per cent of those are being streamed
through universities where we have added 60 per cent of places. This
Government has created the equivalent of 18 universities the size of
Sydney and Melbourne university since 1985/ 86.
Now, that kind of change trained with interesting jobs, in a society
which is confident about its culture, which is coming to terms with its
indigenes, which is engaging Asia, the political system has done this.
This Government has done this.
AC: And you think young people should be grateful rather than cynical?
PM: No, not grateful, but you asked me why should they be cynical and I
said I can't understand it. I mean, in my day I started work at 15 years
of age as a clerk and all I had to look forward to was night school for
my higher school certificate and then if my parents could afford it to go
through university. There was really no TAFE system. I mean, look at
the opportunities for young people today. As I say an 80 per cent
retention rate in years 11 and 12 and when John Howard left the
government to me it was three in ten. Only three young people in ten
completed secondary school in 1983. That is now eight and a half in
ten going on to nine. So, why should I accept the argument that
people have got a right to be cynical about politics.
AC: Well, the youth suicide figures certainly speak for themselves.
PM: I know, but what about all the young people who have got interesting
jobs, that are taking up these places in the labour market. I mean, I
think this generation is fantastic, the young generati~ n. The vitality,
the verve, the vigour, the confidence, I think you are right, there is this
sort of sliver or slice of concern alienation of what should we say,
despair et cetera. But, look at the ones who are actually out there into
it. I mean, the confidence of young people today in their teens, in their
early 20s compared to my time is just not to be compared. I got into
the House of Representatives when I was 25. 1 won the preselection
for one of the safest seats in Australia at 24, it was just a purgatory.
Where today the system is wide open for them.
AC: John Howard is taking young Australians very seriously, he has
actually promised a youth ministry and a minister that is part of the
Cabinet.
PM: Yes and he has also promised people $ 3 an hour for work. I mean,
that is John Howard for you.
AC: What do you think of his idea of a youth minister?
PM: Let me say, what John Howard would give you is the Queen, we would
have none of the truth of Mabo, we would have none of our pulling our
national culture together, our sense of ourselves, there would be no
way we would engage Asia, he would have us with only three young
people in ten completing secondary school, he would have full up front
fees for universities, he would have $ 3 an hour. That is what he would
have and if he wants to hand out the sort of, what you may think the
sop of a ministry, all we say is don't be so gullible.
AC: You think that is a folly, the idea of a youth ministry and a youth
minister?
PM: No, because you are better to do the things that really matter. I mean,
it is not the youth ministry that has created that massive participation
rate in schools. It is not the youth ministry that has got for the first time
young women taking the predominant number of places in Australian
universities, it is the edujcation. policy of the Government. This, if you
like, trying to tokenise things and particularly for people who have
shown, I mean, how could you when you when Howard was the
Federal Treasurer of Australia for five years and the leading member
of a government, ieave office with only three young people in ten
completing secondary school. Seven in ten essentially going out to a
changing labour market untrained and then have the temerity to turn
up and so ' oh, yes, I will give them a youth ministry.'
AC: Mr Keating, how do you think your vision for young Australians differs~,
from that of the Liberals?
PM: I believe in the zing and zest and creativity of Australia. I believe in us
having an independent culture, a destiny of our own. I said in the last
election campaign it is always, with the Liberals, a contest between the
enlarges of life and the straighteners. John Howard and the Liberals
belong with the straighteners. You know, keep your head down, keep
working, don't answer back. Whereas my Party, what we believe in is
something bigger in life. Something better. If you give people a
chance, if you give them the opportunity, if you believe in them, if you
have faith in them, they will do better. Now, that is the essential
difference and you can't have the sort of straighteners view of the
world and believe in knighthoods and queens and European enclaves
and all the rest of it and they say ' oh, just by the way, we are really the
future'. I mean, as we always say in Canberra with John Howard it is
back to the future.
AC: Mr Keating, do you think young Australians though are more
concerned do you know about interest rates than they are about the
big issues?
PM: No, I don't think so. I think they are concerned properly with the things
that matter. They are concerned with the country's values. They are
concerned with their own values. They are concerned with their
creativity, with their education. They are concerned about the
environment. They are concerned about the nature of society, whether
we care for one another. I mean, one of the things I admire about
young people is they don't take the half hearted view, they actually
believe in inclusion. They believe in us going ahead together. They
are not saying survival of the fittest and devil take the hind most they
actually believe in inclusion and so do I. I mean, we are standing up,
Ralph Willis was standing up last night with a Budget which didn't rip
the guts out of payments to schools, payments to universities,
payments to TAFE, payments to families, payments to low income
families because we don't believe in those things.
AC: Have you got time to take some calls, to talk to some listeners, would
you mind putting the head phones on?
PM: I'd be delighted to.
C: Annita. Good morning Mr Keating, I would just like to ask you, you
were talking about sustaining growth before and I was wondering how
sustainable is the Australian economy going to be if governments keep
on selling off all our public utilities when it comes up to election time
rather than cut spending?
PM: Well, Annita they are not the things that are sustained. What is
sustained is the capacity of the country to invest. That is, when the
business community go to the market to put Australian savings into
investments which create jobs, those savings should not be there with
a perpetual drain from the public sector. That is what makes the
growth sustained. The growth comes from investment and only from
investment. So, what we did last night was to stop ' the public sector
drain or the public sector call on Australian savings by getting the
Budget back into surplus.
C: It still seems to be a quick fix method.
PM: No, it is not a quick fix, no, no. This is a completely sustainable
change so the Budget will now be back into surplus through the
balance of the 1990s. Now, there are some asset sales in there, that
is what you were talking about, I think, but the Commonwealth buys
assets all the time and it also sells assets. That is not changing the
fiscal or budget picture. The budget picture is one of a structural
change which is seeing the budget back into surplus which means
those investment funds are going to be there for the jobs that keep the
growth going. And what the Treasury did in its forecast yesterday was
say that we will have now sustainable growth over the next three years
and we have already had it over the last three years. So, it does
mean, I think, there is more than a lot of hope in these documents,
there is a lot of concrete evidence that we are going to basically be a
relatively high growth, high employment society through the balance of
the 1990s.
C: Dave from Alice Springs. I am a registered nurse in Alice Springs
here. Now, you have allocated in the Budget pnrnar-y h ' ealtli care
million. In my opinion that is still fairly low, it is less than $ 5 per capita.
PM: Are you talking here for Aboriginal people are you?
C: Well, my wife is Aboriginal, but apart from that overall in Australia it
still seems to me that we are still working towards treatment services in
the health care system, tertiary and secondary treatment, rather than
aiming at primary health care to try to reduce that further down the
line.
PM: I think we are doing both. I think early diagnosis, understanding better
health and better well being, less reliance upon, if you like
pharmaceuticals, less reliance upon expensive diagnosis, diagnostic
imaging and pathology and these things. I mean, I think Australians
have generally taken this message on board. I mean, there is much
more today healthier lifestyles, you can see that in the change in
cardiac disease, I mean that lesson has been picked up and I think we
are generally supporting that. And, also part of these programs we
have basically tried to inculcate the medical profession and GPs in
looking at, if you like, better practice in their own practices is about
meeting your point.
C: I quite agree with that, but certainly I still feel we are not really
attacking the issue of primary health care especially in line of
agreements we have signed with the ULN and also in line with things
such as the food and nutrition policy which your government
developed in August 1992 which is up for review this year which aims
at making healthy food choices easier. Now a lot of the communities
that I go out to, that is not happening because of the problems with
transport costs and so on because of particular store keepers, those
sorts of issues are not being addressed and certainly vegetables are
not an alternative out there because they can't afford them.
PM: They can't get them. I know that and the other thing is that we do have
to, I think, when I was up recently at Hopevale and Cape York, one of
the lessons from the Cape York Health Council was that the Aboriginal
communities themselves need to be part of the strategy. There is no
way a government can wave a magic wand and decide what an
Aboriginal person will feed to their children that morning or feed
herself or her family. They have to be involved in it to. I think we want
to approach Aboriginal health care on that basis. That is,
environmental health, better water, better sewerage, better drainage,
better housing and direct health, primary health, better services,
pharmaceuticals, better diagnosis and, as you say better diet, better
hygiene. It is a group thing, it is not something the government can
do, it is something we have got to do with Aboriginal communities.
C: Renee. I'd like to raise a question about HECS. I was really glad to
see that there has been some attention to the private students with
something like 72 per cent still living below the poverty line. But, I'd
also like to point out that within universities if you get out there and talk
to the students you will find that many of them are radically dissatisfied
with the quality of the education they are receiving and I'd like to know
why it is that our HECS can't be spent directly on education.
PM: Well, it is. All the HECS revenue, that is every dollar of it is ploughed
straight back into higher education. As a consequence HECS revenue
has allowed for a 37 per cent increase in places since 1988. So, we
have got roughly 600,000 people in universities 240,000 of those
people are there only because of HECS. So, in other words, if we
want the bigger participation, can I just make this point to you, there is
not much point the Government saying to young people ' stay in year
11 and 12 and when you qualify, sorry, there isn't a place for you'. So,
we have added this enormous number of places to the system 60 per
cent but 37 per cent since 1988. The reason we have been able to
keep up the high growth in university places is through HECS. All of
the HECS proceeds go back. I mean, there is this sort of notion
around that it goes to the Government. It doesn't. It all goes back into
higher education and as I say, we only ask people to repay it when
they join the workforce, after they have graduated and their income
goes up to average weekly earnings. It is only then that in the tax
system that it starts to be repaid. So, it is the fairest thing you can
imagine and that is why a lot of other countries are now coming to
Australia to look at it, to think about adopting it themselves.
Remember this, I think this is also important to know, that HECS only
covers 20 per cent of the cost of the education, roughly 20 per cent of
a university degree is covered by HECS.
C: And so you are saying that all of our HECS goes directly into the
education budget?
PM: The lot, every dollar. Nothing goes to the budget.
AC: Mr Keating a fax came this morning, it has an interesting question for
you. You were quoted in The Age on the second of March as saying
access to the national information infrastructure should be no less a
right than water, public transport or electricity. Is there any money in
the Budget to fund access for everyone to the Internet through the
public library system?
PM: Well, we are extending through Creative. Nation, we are extending
access to multi media including through the Internet and we are
looking in the first instance at schools and such institutions as public
libraries. But, of course, the great access will come with the roll out of
the cable, that is the fibre optic cable. You know this
Telecom/ Newslimited venture is rolling out the cable which will be
largely paid for by pay television, but it will then be the telephony
revenues that will also help to pay for it. Now, once you have that
piece of glass under your front door you are then connected to the rest
of the world and that is basically going to be the great liberator. And,
that we are trying to do in a sensible way and you have got Optus
Vision which is also there and it will be competing with Telecom to get
your attention and for you to pick their piece of glass rather than some
one else's. So, I think that is how it is going to happen, but you are
asking me a question about the priority. The priority in our view has to
be for the educational institutions and for the dissemination of
information, but that is going to go way beyond that to everyone's
personal computer.
AC: Are you on the Internet?
PM: No, my office is on Internet.
AC: Have you got an Email address? Bill Clinton does.
PM: Yes, we have an Email address. We are just getting a bank of stuff to
go on. I mean, Bill Clinton has something on there about his cat or his
dog or something.
AC: Well, you have got a dog haven't you?
PM: We have a dog, but we haven't got him on the Internet.
AC: Mr Keating, can I throw you a few hypotheticals?
PM: Sure.
AC: Apart from yourself, obviously, who would you like to see as next PM
of Australia?
PM: Well, someone who has faith in the country's identity and culture. That
is, someone who is a believer. Someone who believes in Australians
and can take the nourishment they all provide to make the country
stronger and greater and not somebody who is harking back to the
1950s and someone, if you like, excepting the leadership of any other
society. So, that is who I believe should be next Prime Minister of
Australia somebody who has those core believes. That is, faith in
Australians, faith in what we have become, confident about what we
have become as a nation and able to advance it at home and abroad
and not to be, sort of, picking up any derivative culture.
AC: Do any names spring to mind?
PM: Well, in my Party, there is a clutch of people. There is and I have
mentioned them before and I am happy to mention again, Gareth
Evans, Kim Beazley, Carmen Lawrence, Simon Crean, Michael Lee,
Michael Lavarch, Laurie Brereton. You can look at all these
contributors to our Cabinet, all of them in various ways could handle
that leadership role. And, of course, some of them have, you see
Simon has done it with the ACTU. Gareth has done it with his great
stewardship of foreign policy. Kim has done it in major policy areas
and now as Minister for Finance. Ralph Willis who has been an
outstanding Minister and Treasurer.
AC: Which other country of the world would you like to be Prime Minister of
given the chance?
PM: None. I mean, I think this is the only nation in the world that has a
continent to itself. We don't share a border with anybody. We have
got this great old country, this is one of the oldest parts of the world's
crust and the age of Australia and the colour of Australia and the light
of Australia and the flora and fauna of Australia are something, I think,
if you are born with you get to love and to appreciate and once one
has picked up the resonances of Australia, to go back to the old
societies of Europe, the old tribal wars, the old problems of Bosnia's et
cetera, or even the difficulties of North America, I mean Australia is
now such a country of opportunity and such a great spirit of inclusion.
You know, this is still a kind society, this is not a winner take all
society. This is not a dog eat dog society. So, it is the values, the
landscape and this great opportunity. For the first time ever we are
living near the fastest growing markets in the world. Always they were
in Europe or North America. Now they are in Asia, right on our
doorstep so Australia picks itself out. I mean, I happen to be the Prime
Minister of Australia, but if I had had a choice it would have been this
country because, in a sense, it picks itself out.
AC: Who do you look up to, everybody looks up to somebody, who do you
look up to Mr Keating?
PM: Well, I think, there are people I admire and I look up to, but they are
all, in a sense, they are not public names, they are all unremarkable in
that sense, but they are quite remarkably personally.
AC: Who?
PM: Well, they are just people I know. Friends of mine, people who I think
have got good values, have shown great fidelity to, if you like I think,
core values, good principles. In my political life the two people in my
younger political life that I was interested in were Franklin Roosevelt
and Winst ' on-Churchill. One was a great builder, the other a great
adventurer and both great leaders. But, as life goes on and your set of
problems become complex and overwhelming the role models tend to
drop away because all of a sudden the role has changed and it keeps
on changing. So, I think, it is not a case of looking to people, but
looking to experiences, but being sustained by the joy of knowing
people who have got value and substance. I think that is the point, I
mean, all my friends, people if you like who nourish me, are names
that most people wouldn't know.
AC: Could you, given that this is radio after all, describe to the listeners
what you are wearing? Is it an Armani suit?
PM: No, I'm not sure what it is. I think it is a Zegna suit, what I normally
wear, they cut, but I'm sure of this. I know one thing for sure, the wool
came from Yass.
AC: Did it now?
PM: Yass, because this is where the superfine wool comes from and this
again is another point. Here we are with this tremendous industry
where we are almost alone, we have a monopoly on this particular
fibre and I just hope that fashion, we have got to be selling creativity, I
think, all the things that we need to do are to sell. Whether it is film
and television or clothing or fashion. I mean this is the thing to be in
selling our brains.
AC: Ironic though that we probably export the wool to be
PM: But we are doing better now. We are now starting to make the fabrics
here, we are changing.
AC: Mr Keating, we have got 50 seconds. What finally made you come on
Triple J today?
PM: I think it is important, I mean, we had a debate, for instance, we had a
few questions, a debate about HECS and up front student fees, it is
important to say we were never going to do those, there is no change
to the size of each students HECS debt et cetera. It is important, I
think, to say what the Budget means for young Australians and to
make the point I made right at the opening. This will be the first
generation of young Australians who won't have to worry about the
security in the latter part of their lives. They might say ' oh yes' but
they'll know that this is something of value to them. So, I've got the
chance to come and say this and to talk to you so why not take it.
AC: Good on you and you had better come again or else! Mr Keating, it
has been lovely to meet you, lovely to have you on Triple J.
PM: Thank you.
ends