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PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
INTERVIEW WITH KATHY BORDER, ABC RADIO, BRISBANE
18 MAY 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
KB: Prime Minister, this announcement today what difference will it
make for the average person, their complaint being more often than
not, that legal help is simply too expensive, and it's not worth going
through the legal processes?
PM: I think that's right I think it's very threatening for people, and they
feel as though the justice system is there for the wealthy, or for those
in the know, or those who have contacts, or what have you. And this
is a very poor basis for us to continue the sort of deepening of our
democracy, the sense of participation that people have in it, so we
think this is a major grass-roots change to change the access to
justice, by removing barriers to justice, to removing the resort to go
to court and to litigation by resolving and preventing conflict, and if
you like restoring confidence in the justice system itself they are
the 3 elements of it.
KB: And it will be cheaper?
PM: We are going to add it will be cheaper, because there will be more
competition among lawyers for services. People will have a better
idea what costs will be. In fact, in the federal jurisdiction, we are
going to ask lawyers to actually outline what the costs of a particular
course of legal action might be, so that a proponent could have
some other avenue available. And part of that is always better
conflict resolving approaches. But the other we are going to do, is
we are reforming legal aid and providing another $ 17 million in
additional funds over 4 years for more assistance for civil and family
law matters. At the moment, a lot of the legal aid money is
swallowed up in the criminal law. We are going to even that up a bit
with civil and family legal matters. We are spending another
million over 4 years to expand the community legal centres, and
community legal centres are your really grass-roots access areas
the very things you are talking about. We're establishing 9 new
community legal centres in outer urban and regional centres, and
they will target more services to children and youth and human rights
and discrimination. So those sorts of things.
KB: Lots of initiatives. Can we move onto the Mt Isa Mines dispute it's
still in limbo there. management has agreed to talks, but only with 2
particular unions why do you think those 2 particular unions?
PM: I'm not party to the discussions. I think there is a demarcation issue
here, the one you identified about the unions, and there is also an
enterprise bargain going on at the same time so it's a bit of a mixed
grill. I think there's some good news in the fact that they have
agreed to talks, and I know that the ACTU s doing what it can to try
and bring the process along and so is my colleague, Laurie
Brereton.
KB: Do you think management should be giving more ground, though?
PM: I'm not party to the discussions, so I can't give you that sort of closein
comment. But obviously, the more goodwill there is from
management or from both sides towards a settlement people
have generally got to want a settlement. If they want a settlement, I
think we could probably get one.
KB: Variable interest rates lots of movement there lately. What do you
see happening in the near future up or down?
PM: I think for the moment it's down. I notice one of the Tasmanian
banks reduced its variable interest rates today. We saw a couple of
solid reductions from the major banks last Friday. The main reason
for that is, I think, that there has been a change in the financial
markets, and the long term bond rate has dropped from 10. 1% about
a week ago, to 8.9% it is now under The reason for that is that
the Budget changed the bond selling program the Commonwealth
sells bonds to fund the Budget deficit. Last year, we sold $ 21 billion
worth of bonds $ 21,000 million. Because of the Budget this year,
we will sell $ 6,000 million. So there is a $ 15, 000 million reduction in
the bond selling program of the Commonwealth, and that's what has
reduced the interest rate the yield on the long term bonds, and
that's having it's impact now on the variable housing rates.
KB: But isn't a bit of stability needed just today, we have got figures out
new housing figures showing that home loan approvals have
slumped. Will the Government be looking at stabilising that?
PM: The thing is, late last year it was running too strongly. It's either
going up, or it's going down. The aim of policy has been to slow the
economy down from these exceptionally high rates of growth we had
last year. Last year, in the year to September, the economy was
growing at which is far too strong for us. In the Budget
forecast, we have now got 3.75% for the year. In other word, those
interest rate adjustments of late last year seemed like they have
done the trick they started to slow the economy down. But part of
the slowing is there is a change in consumer sentiment that comes
with it. That impacts into housing, but it will change. As this lower
rate structure is moving into place lower interest rate structure as
there is more confidence around since the Budget, this will start to
have it's effect on the housing industry a beneficial effect.
KB: So you're happy just to let things go as they are at the moment?
PM: Basically, there is no shortage of housing funds it's really up to
people to want to bid for them. Before I became Treasurer in the
1980s, you couldn't get the funds at any price, because they were all
regulated. There was a certain amount of funds, and that was it. It
wouldn't matter how credit worthy you were, you couldn't get them.
But after we opened the financial markets up in the 80s, you could
get funds for housing it's really just a matter of whether you want to
apply.
KB: There is some controversy surrounding that the Health Insurance
Amendment Bill last night here in Brisbane we had hundred of
Doctors meeting, and they decided that they won't be signing any
contracts with private insurance funds or private hospitals do these
amount to underhand tactics, and what effect will it have on the Bill?
PM: Well, you get, I think, this sort of behaviour where they resist these
sorts of changes. But in the end, what we think is unfair for patients
is they go in let's say they go in for a hip replacement, or an
appendectomy, or whatever it might be and then they have the
anaesthetist charge added on, they have the diagnostic imaging
added on, they have the support of ward attendants added on, and
what we are trying to do is get the one price. So when you take your
insurance out, if someone says " I have got to go in for a hip
replacement", there's one price. But that means that the health fund
has got to be able to sign up, and the hospital, has got to be able
sign up the doctors. So the doctors agree to do it at a fixed price.
Now, sometimes they will do it more inexpensively than the price,
other times with a complication it will cost more. But they will get
an average price. It's the one way we can start getting some
certainty into private insurance, and it's one of the ways whereby
people will know that if they actually take out private insurance, and
they go in for some elective surgery or non-elective surgery as the
case may be, they are not up for a heap of other unforseen
expenses at the end.
KB: But if the doctors refuse to sign these contracts?
PM; Again, we are not going to get reform of the medical system quickly
or easily. I mean, you will always get these argy-bargies going on
in the end doctors want to protect... surgeons want to protect their
incomes, being able to charge as they see fit for the particular time
and attention they give a patient. And not to be party to, if you like,
arrangements with health funds, or with hospitals. If they want more
private people in private insurance and that's what you hear from
them all the time they're going to have to give some ground.
KB: On to the car war between the US and Japan you are, of course,
going to Japan shortly. Is the US, do you think, taking a too hard a
line with our Asian neighbours here?
PM; Well, the Japanese-US problem is basically a savings issue. The
Japanese are high savers, the Americans are low savers. And the
Japanese the high savings means that they have been able to run
very large investment programs, larger than the United States. This
has given their industries an enormous comparative advantage. The
Japanese, I think, also are at a bit of a crossroads. They want to
encourage greater consumer choice by buying products other than
those made in Japan and that is taking time. Probably more time than
it should of I think the Americans have probably got a point there. But
again, these are going to be evolutionary changes and they are not
going to happen by the United States taking a sledge hammer to the
Japanese. It is not really the way to get things done and we ought to
be concentrating on more open and freer trade generally and curing
some of these savings imbalances.
I think a lot of Japan's problems could be solved if more of their
savings were spent on themselves. That is, if they lifted domestic
demand, improve their housing stock, improved their infrastructure,
their roads, improved the environment. By doing that they would run
down these current account surpluses which would ease a lot of their
trade tensions they are getting out of a very high valued Yen. I think
that is the way it is going to come, it is not going to come by
bludgeoning.
KB: Just on that though, how do you think this car war will affect APEC?
PM: I don't think it will affect APEC. APEC is about the multilateralisation,
that is, getting the group of countries in APEC to agree to a set of rules
among them, that is, multilateral rules. The United States has looked
somewhat askance at all this because being the biggest dog on the
street, it has always taken the view that they will have what they call
unilateral rules: rules for one wherein they can decide what trade
deal they want to do or what trade deal they want to propose. The
whole emphasis on APEC is for multilateral solutions, that is, the
solutions of many, of all the countries in it. APEC is just a bit too good
for the Americans to pass up. So, unilateralism aside, I can't see it
really being any impediment to the continuing progress of APEC.
KB: We have, of course, got the Federal and a Queensland election
looming, Is this going to be your last election campaign as Labor
leader?
PM: I hope not. My God, you are pensioning me off already. I thought I
was going all right here! I mean, you have got me on doctors and over
to APEC, then onto health, I thought I was cracking along all right.
Now you have got me in retirement!
KB: How much longer are you going to be at the helm then?
PM: Look, you know what happened? In the 25 years before I became an
MID nothing happened in Australia. What happened is the public
system threw the pass. In the Rip Van Winkle years of Menzies and
Holt and Gorton and McMahon, very little happened and very little
happened in terms of structural change. I have been in that generation
of MPs that had a chance of remodelling the Australian economy into
an internationally competitive, externally orientated country and kicking
the policy changes through like we did last week with the budget, with
occupational superannuation for the whole work force. Every person
putting away 15 per cent of their income for savings. The average
person going out on a pension of $ 33,000 a year. Those sorts of
changes are what makes it worthwhile or APEC which you have just
spoken of or Mabo or Working Nation helping the long term
unemployed back into work. These are the things that keep somebody
like me in the game.
KB: Are you serious, you don't think anything was achieved until your
generation came into politics?
PM: No, basically what happened was Australia went to sleep. We just
picked up the post war growth and said that is it. We have just got to
sell a bit of gold, a bit of iron ore and a bit of wheat and we will be
right. Well, of course, we were not right so by 1983 the terms of trade,
that is the value of the things we sell compared with the value of the
things we buy, had changed so dramatically Australia had a big current
account weakness and all this exposure to international debt. We had
only three kids in ten completing secondary school. This year we have
got eight in ten. We were rapidly becoming an unsmart country. We
were massively uncompetitive and we are now 40 per cent more
competitive today than we were in 1983. We have had 26 per cent
employment growth sine 1983, household disposable income has risen
per cent since 1983.
KB: If things are so good you will want to go to an election soon then?
PM: Well, no, I am just making the point that good public policy look at a
country that has had a decade of good public policy and you'll see one
bounding ahead and Australia has had a decade of good public policy
and it is bounding ahead.
KB: Can you tell me what you see as the major differences between
yourself and John Howard?
PM: Answer in one word policies we have got them and he doesn't. You
notice Laurie Oakes in the Bulletin say this week of Mr Howard, it was
headed " Politics without Policies" and that really says it all in one
sentence about John Howard. John Howard thinks he can come back
into Opposition as Opposition Leader after having failed to distinguish
himself as Opposition Leader and as Treasurer and because we put
interest rates up last year, as we needed to do to slow the economy
down, he thought, " oh well, the Government will be a bit on the nose,
I'll slide in and become Prime Minister". Well, the thing about John,
what he is finding out is the public actually want some performance,
they want some policies, they are not going to give him the ticket
without knowing what he has in store for them-.
KB: What about as a person, are there any qualities about him you like?
PM: He is a fluffy enough sort of character. I don't mind having a chat with
him if I am sitting with him at something. But, the thing is, the problem
about John Howard is he belongs to the 1950s. He is a 1970s
politician with the 1950s values. Here we are in Asia, where for the
first time in Australian history we have the big economies of the world
at our doorstep. We are in the fastest growing part of the world for the
first time ever, but physiologically, John is still set up for Europe and
North America. He said ' if that Mr Keating can convince me about the
republic, why, in five years time ask me the question, I might be in
favour of it.' In other words, " if Mr Keating will lead again, I might
follow." That was the same on the floating of the dollar. That was the
same on deregulation. That was the same on breaking the tariff wall
down. That was the same on changing the education system. That
was the same on Mabo. That was the same on superannuation. So,
now he is saying ' oh, actually I agree with him on tariffs and I agree
with him about Asia' to which I say, well if you agree with me, if you
agree with us, why not let the authors of the policies be the
Government and not somebody who wants to appropriate their
policies. The thing is this, Australia has moved on from the Rip Van Wrinkle
years of Menzies when the country, in policy terms, was asleep. That
is John Howard's period. That is the period he looks to as a model.
Australians now want change and they know change has given them a
more interesting vital lives and higher incomes and more security and
particularly that linkage to Asia. They know that. They know there is a
low inflationary culture now that wasn't there in his time. They know
that we have inculcated in the whole generation of managers and trade
unionists a productive culture. Product innovation is the order of the
day. We have doubled, just about, the proportion of our exports to
GOP in a decade. All of those things have come about and they are
not going to take somebody who says ' well basically, look, I have got
no policies, but I can give you a smart quip on ' AM' or ' PM' or on a
radio program..
KB: You are not into smart quips?
PM: and, you know, I can duck through without any real policy." Well,
you can't duck through. It is all over red rover. They are not going to
cop it.
KB: Of course, you are here in Brisbane today, have you met with Wayne
Goss at all to discuss elections?
PM: No, I haven't seen Wayne. No, I launched the Justice Statement and
then I have just had a lunch with the Lord Mayor and we had a
discussion about some of the problems of greater Brisbane, about
water supplies, about transport and I had a chance to meet some of
the distinguished members of the media on the way through and all in
all it has been a good productive day.
KB: Thank you for coming in, Prime Minister.
PM: Pleasure.
ends