PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP
QUESTION AND ANSWER SESSION, NATIONAL PRESS CLUB, THURSDAY, 24
AUGUST 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
Q: Tony Wright, Sydney Morning Herald. Prime Minister, is it still your view as you stated a
few weeks ago that the Western Australian Royal Commission doesn't matter a tinkers
cuss? Will the Government continue to try to ignore the fallout from that Royal
Commission and would it ignore a finding that Dr Carmen Lawrence lied about her role in
the Penny Easton affair?
PM: Well, the Liberal Party have got Carmen Lawrence on trial for the suicide of Penny
Easton, that is what is on here. You know it is on. It is unjust and it is immoral and we are
not going to be any part of it.
Q: Jenny Hewett, the Australian Financial Review. Do you think it is politically acceptable for
a Minister to lie? Is there a question of morality or ethics involved or is it what you can get
away with politically?
PM: I think, I hope, probity in public life and integrity in public life are the stock and the core
things about public life and as I have just said to you, all honesty and integrity in politics
starts with policy not tricky, slick statements by politicians at doorstops. But, if the
imputation of your question is that Carmen Lawrence is untruthful or has lied, you have
prejudged her and not even given her the opportunity unfairly of you to put her view.
Q: Lenore Taylor, The Australian. You spoke in your speech a lot about marketing and
products. John Howard has been outpolling you by and large in recent months, even
without a product. How do you explain that? Why don't you think the voters are focussing
on the product, they seem to be agreeing with his marketing even without policies
released yet?
PM: I don't think you should jump to conclusions about the polls. I honestly think they vote on
policy. The Government has won five successive elections. We have won them all
basically on policy. We won 1984, after our first election, on the huge changes to
economic policy between 1983 and the end of 1984. We won in 1987 because we were
responding to the worst terms of trade Australia had enjoyed since the great depression.
A huge change to fiscal policy, a huge reorientation of national savings. That is why we
won. We won with the May Statement of 1987 and two months later we won an election
with it. We won in 1990 because we had given Australians the growth phase and the
employment that we promised them. We trebled the rate of employment growth that the
Coalition was able to provide over its seven years of office. We won in 1993 because of
the changes I have mentioned One Nation, the commitment I gave as Prime Minister to
restart growth and employment. We won because of the commitment to those age old
Australian values of egalitarianism and fairness. We won because we had a view of
Australia which was the view of the enlargers of Australia and not the straighteners and
punishes. And we will win next time because the Labor Party alone has the capacity to
change Australian inexorably, to give it a long run low inflation period of growth, to see it
adopt a productivity culture, a savings culture and to give it a place in the Asia-Pacific the
Liberal's could not even have conceived of.
They are the things that win elections and while, no doubt, the public always like to think
they have got a choice in their opposing party's leadership, particularly after the
disappointment of Mr Downer and the then rush, the lift and the buoyancy of the poll
support which Mr Howard has got, it is gradually coming off and it will come off most
obviously on election day.
Q: Ian Davis, The Canberra Times. The Reserve Bank said in its annual report yesterday,
despite improvements in public and household savings Australia still needs to improve its
savings performance, lift living standards to improve. Does the-Government accept that it
needs to go further in improving national savings? Is renewed tax reform part of this
necessary equation?
PM: No, I don't think so. I think what the Bank was referring to was a need to cut back on such
things as double dipping and superannuation, through the need for tighter preservation
rules and access to lump sums, these sorts of things. Over time, of course, with the
remedial changes we have in place the grandfathening provisions from the pre-1983
changes, those were in place, a need to continue to deliver on the budget balance. That
means we will have a budget balance in place as the Reserve Bank report notes, but need
to keep it there and that is a message not only to the Government, but to the Opposition
and the Senate. I think, the need for the Senate to support the Government's fiscal
tightening strategy, I think, that is another very clear imputation or implication of the report.
I have already mentioned in the speech that superannuation is going to be worth about
four per cent of GDP in savings. The budget balance will have shifted from last year over
the next two years by about four per cent of GDP. That is eight per cent. Alright, it is in
an up-cycle. Knock one or two out of it if you like for an underlying number and we are
looking at a six percentage point savings change to deal with what, a 1.5 percentage point
problem? We have had the current account deficit running at about 4.5 per cent of GDP.
It is stable at about 3 or just under. So we have got a 6 percentage point fix in for a
percentage point problem. I think the Governor and the Bank are right to say to the
nation, to say to the political system, keep your eye on the public sector. And also, keep
your eye on the big change in occupational superannuation.
Q: Alan Sunderland, SBS TV. Mr Keating, you have said that the next election will be won on
policy. Do you think that your Government needs to come out with a major new policy
statement, an economic statement or some sort of other big picture, non risk averse
package before the next campaign, or do you think you will fight and win the next election,
essentially, on the sort of policy mix you have outlined?
PM: It is hard to get the signals from you. You are telling me big statements don't work and
then you are saying maybe we need one. This has been the government of change in the
post-war years. From 1983 until now we have changed Australia to make it an
internationally competitive country. Look at those numbers we mentioned. We are 40 per
cent more competitive today than we were in 1983. Not four. Forty. We have had a
per cent increase in household disposable income in the period. We have had a 20 per
cent increase in household income per capita. -We have seen exports grow from 13 per
cent of GDP to 22 per cent of GDP. We have seen over two million jobs created. We
have seen 680,000 jobs in two and a half years. It took us from 1788 until 1983 to get to
six million and we have added over ten per cent of that in two and a half years. We have
created a complete culture of change in productivity in the country, a change of attitude in
the industrial workplace on the part of unions, on the part of managers, of businesses.
We found ourselves a place in Asia that Australia of the past had never had before. It has
come from a Labor Government and we will keep on doing it.
Now, having pulled the sock inside out, I don't know whether you want me to pull it back
the other way. That could happen of course, we could go to sleep again, we could put the
tariff wall up, we could run the flag up and ask people what they think about higher tariffs.
If they don't like it run it down slightly again. We can hang on the monarchy. We can do
the Native Title Act in. We can refuse to talk to the General-Secretary of the Vietnamese
Communist Party even though the US Secretary of State is quite happy to speak with him.
We can turn our back on the region and we can go back to sleep. We can do all that by
electing John Howard.
Q: Glenn Milne, Seven Network. You accused, I'm not sure wether it was us before or the
Opposition, of prejudging Carmen Lawrence by suggesting that she should have her day
before the Royal Commission. Does this mean that you are effectively suspending
judgement on her version of events until she testifies or do you believe that Carmen
Lawrence is telling the truth?
PM: I can always rely on you to keep on the main game, Glenn. There is only one clear
message here. The Liberal Party have Carmen Lawrence on trail for the suicide of Penny
Easton. That is what it is about. And that can't be made to stick. I notice just a day or so
ago we had a reference from the person who has been her chief accuser in a sense,
within the former government or if not chief accuser one of them, her former deputy, he
said I couldn't pin down any direct relationship between the death of Penny Easton and
the petition, no one will ever be able to do that.' Her mother, Barbara Campbell, went on
to say these things what about the suicide note, Mrs Campbell?', The questioner says
the section that has been published in the media refers to the petition, but there was
more to it I gather? Does that offer any clues to a suicide? " Oh yes, it offers an awful lot"
says Mrs Campbell. Other clues beyond the petition?' " Oh yes, definitely. I mean the
background, the family court. She mentioned the family court needed to be looked at. I
mean, you know there is also the case that we are all accused falsely of committing
perjury in the family court, that these are issues to be looked at'. ' Beyond the petition
itself?' ' Yes, definitely. I mean, there was bankruptcy proceedings and all sorts of things.
She was still there when she died. There was a High Court hearing still to be had on who
had precedence the bankruptcy court or the family court. ' So, her life had become very
confused' says the questioner ' lots of things apparently going wrong, things drawn out,
she felt brought this all about. So the petition was just one factor? Mrs Campbell ' Yes,
definitely". Now, we have had the Liberal Party, under Mr Howard's leadership yesterday accusing
her of Penny Easton's suicide. No such link, I think, can be made. If the petition has no
established link to her suicide what is the point of the Royal Commission? What is the
relevance of it at all? At all? Other than who said what to whom in a former Cabinet three
years ago. And that is why, in the end, if people want to go chasing down motives for the
death of people we have processes, we have coroners inquiries and then we have the
courts. But these things can't be resolved in a Royal Commission which is not even
looking at, on the expression of the Royal Commissioner, the actual suicide or the motive
for it itself. So what therefore is the relevance of the inquiry.
Q: Niki Savva, Herald-Sun. Would you as leader tolerate the tabling of a petition containing
details of a Family Court matter, in order to embarrass a political opponent?
PM: Well the answer is I wouldn't. No, I wouldn't. I wouldn't anymore than I would let MPs in
my Party stand under the privilege of Parliament and accuse somebody of being
principally at blame for the suicide of somebody as John Howard did yesterday. But can I
just say to you that on that theme, I think that I don't think I would agree either that
Mr Lightfoot, who was among the first who raised this in the Western Australian
Parliament, who said this " Is the Premier aware the two passports of Mr Brian Easton, the
Commissioner of the Western Australian Public Service, had been confiscated by the
Federal Court? Has Mr Easton sustained his resignation? If so, on what date did he
resign? Is he to receive an ex gratia or severance payment exceeding normal public
service regulated payments?" He goes on. And the answer says this " I am asking you for
confirmation." The then Premier says " I know Mr Easton is passing through some marital
problems at the present time and I suppose that is another story, but it may have
something to do with that. I hesitate to say that because I do not know. I have no doubt
that if he will not provide the identity of the MP that the MP will not provide the identity
of the avenue through which the information is coming, it will be disclosed in the next
week or so." I wouldn't approve of that either. Could I also say that I endorse the
sentiments of the then Speaker, who said this " I refer Members to certain Questions
Without Notice which were asked by the Member for Murchison Eyre on Tuesday of this
week. It has been suggested that those questions were based on information concerning
proceedings before the Family Court. The lease of this information may well have been
unlawful. The point that does concern me, however, is whether the privilege of the
freedom of the House might be being used to circumvent an explicit order of a court or a
written law of this country. Obviously it makes a mockery of observing a subjudice
convention if the House tolerates or encourages speeches or questions aimed at
subverting an order or rule given in an appropriate court. Likewise, this Parliament should
not permit its privileges to be used to circumvent the written law of the Commonwealth
aimed at protecting the personal privacy of citizens." That is in response to a number of
issues related to this marital separation and difficulty made by members of the Liberal
Party beginning with Richard Court. I wouldn't approve of those either. But, hence, Mr
Easton's petition and the tabling of it, which refers to some of these matters about what
money he was to receive, how can you take the view with any justice that in some way all
of the burden of the pressure of this issue has come via that petition and then take the
further view that it came at the behest of Carmen Lawrence? I mean the Liberal Party
started using Family Court material in the Western Australian Parliament. The beginner
was Richard Court, followed consistently by a number of MPs and they were rebuked by
the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. And even after the petition I think was lodged,
or about the same time, in 1989 there was a further reference by one of the MPs in the
Legislative Council. Mr Masters on the 9th May 1989 " which former employees of the
Western Australian Development Corporation, EXIM, received a payment from the
Government or EXIM following their employment with WADC or EXIM for services
rendered to either a subsidiary or some other Government Department." If you read the
petition from Mr Easton it refers to these matters and the Liberal Party were in this right up
to their neck. I mean where have you been living? Under a rock? Don't you read?
Q: Randal Markey, The West Australian.
PM: Oh it is such a high toned publication.
Q: Earlier in an answer to a question you were saying it would be unfair to prejudge Carmen
Lawrence and deny her the-opportunity to put her side of her story to the Royal
Commission. Doesn't it say that it must flow from that that you will accept and abide by
the findings of that Royal Commission. Otherwise, if not, the Government is contradicting
itself because on the one hand you are saying that Dr Lawrence deserves her day in court
to put her side of the case. And on the other you are saying that you will not commit
yourself to abide by its findings.
PM: Let me correct the question. It is not her day in court. It is not a court.
Q: Her day in the Commission then?
PM: The relevance of the reference to the Commissioner if Penny Easton had not
committed suicide there would, of course, be no inquiry and yet the Commissioner made
very clear, very clear indeed, that he was not about, and his terms of reference were not
about, any inquiry into the motives or circumstances of Penny Easton's suicide.
So, therefore, in both real and political terms the terms of reference lack all relativity to the
event and, therefore, lack political relativity.
Q: Tony Vermeer, AAP. The Reserve Bank yesterday warned about the dangers that
inflation may be on the march again and you said after the Budget that the Budget had
taken the pressure off interest rates. Do you now acknowledge that the pressure is back
on and can your Government win an election with interest rates higher than they are now?
PM: I don't think you can conclude from the report at all that the pressure is back on. In fact, I
think the last line of the report, if I can go to it, says " The balancing of these and other
risks for activity and prices will be the key focus for monetary policy over the coming year.
In the Bank's judgement policy is presently well positioned to respond as necessary to the
evolving economic situation." It " is presently well positioned". So you can't adduce from
that the imputation I think you were making there. And the Bank make a couple of other
points: it says " The incorporation of the 2-3 per cent inflation objective into the Accord
Mark VIII agreement", which is a very welcome endorsement of that objective, " should be
helpful in this regard". That is, holding inflation. So there are any number of references of
that kind and, of course, you know on some other general points, some very strong
references to the public sector saving, a reference to a change in the trend of dis-saving
by private individuals. I mean there is not much in the report the Government wouldn't
endorse.
Q: Bruce Juddery, Freelance. Prime Minister I would like to get back to your speech if we
may and more particularly to a couple of omissions from it. You went through many of the
achievements of the Government. You didn't mention the efforts the Government has
made to transform higher education from an elite to a mass system and your own
initiatives which came out over the last couple of years to add to that dimension through
technical and further education. As you will appreciate, although a lot more money has
gone into higher education in particular over the years, there are people who would argue
like the Vice Chancellors Committee and others have argued that okay you have said
you can take so many more students, but then you haven't given them enough money to
[ inaudible] but the challenge the clever country is being fallen short of because you are
not providing for research infrastructure and lots and lots of other things that they
complain about, which we won't go through now because we haven't got all afternoon. Is
there any chance of an improvement or a rejigging of the lot of technical and further
education and higher education between now and the next election?
PM: An improvement in
Q: In the lot of higher education. What is going to happen in the Innovation Statement which
will impact on higher education and technical and further?
PM: Okay. Well let me approach the issue this way. You know that about 40 per cent of the
completions in secondary education, 40 per cent of those students who have gone
through to higher education. That has been the pattern in Australia, roughly. But, of
course, when the completions were a small number, it meant that higher education was a
relatively elitist thing. What the Government has done is to improve the access and,
therefore, the equity of education to get those completions up and we now have them to
around 8 in 10 students. They were 3 1/ 2, from memory, in 10 in 1983. So it is a
revolution in participation in education. But we have kept up the 40 per cent largely
throughput by adding places to higher education. We have added, I think, just on
275,000 places. We had 350,000 people in higher education in the early 1980s, we
have now got just on 600,000. We have created the equivalent of about 20 universities
of a campus size the same as Sydney or Melbourne University. So it is a huge change.
One of the things that pleases me greatly is there is an increased participation by young
women, in both secondary education and higher education.
But the other thing, of course, we had in One Nation was the Australian National Training
Authority, the renaissance of technical and further education building a national TAFE
system to sit beside the Universities. Because this has always been the Cinderella of
Australian education. That is, for the 60% who did not gain access to higher education,
they cascaded into a system without training. And basically, what we are doing now is
rapidly growing the TAFE system to pick those people up. And in fact we had more
people apply for entry into TAFE last year than we had apply for higher education,
because there is often closer job prospects and job relevance, and a closer profile with
the labour market, with vocational education, than is the case with higher education. So,
we are.-hoping to have 2 mature competent systems. And, of course, in that we have
had generous payments for students, HECS has revolutionised participation in university
every HECS dollar goes back into places. Every HECS dollar goes back into places.
And, as a consequence, I think our education policies remain, now, the foundation of the
modem Australian society and industry, of our thrust into Asia, of our future.
Q: Sid Maher from the Courier Mail newspaper. Just with the election approaching, I was
just wondering if you are guaranteeing, sort of Acts of God notwithstanding whether
you will stay around for the full term of the next Parliament if you are re-elected?
PM: I'll see you off the course, old son. If we could have a slow time-frame camera at these
tables and this lectern, you would see me aging gracefully and most of you disappearing.
Q: Prime Minister, Malcolm Farr from the Telegraph Mirror. Back to interest rates, and your
appeal for endurance from voters. The low inflation recovery is restricting the capital
gain that many home-owners can expect on their property and many of those homeowners
are mortgage holders but there is no equal and opposite reaction from low
inflation in terms of interest rates. In fact, people are paying something like more than 3
times underlying interest rates for their mortgages how long do you expect them to
endure that? And as you were asked before, do you think you can go to an election with
that situation still in place?
PM: Well, Malcolm, I think if you draw a line through, let's say, the most.. . the property market
which has probably put on more value over time than any of that is the Sydney property
market, and if you take that over 20 years, I would be surprised if it does much more than
keep pace with inflation. I am sure you will see a great shift in values, 2 or 3 years, or
every 6 or 7 years, and then it stops. It drops, it drops, and then it levels back out. So I
don't know if people will whether people beat inflation anyway. That's the first thing, and
the second thing is during the periods of high inflation, the housing interest rates have
been much higher than what they are now. And we have got housing interest rates
roughly around 10% some are lower, of course. But they were 15-16% some higher.
And, of course, in the days when you had cocktail loans, you had some of them even
greater again you would have x% at 14-15%, and then you would have a lump at
So, there has been a big increase in disposable income, coming off those falls in interest
rates over the last few years, and, you know, as the sustenance of low inflation becomes
obvious and endemic to Australia, the whole view of the capital markets both here and
abroad start to change about the premium the nation pays for its savings. So you are
getting up with a better result in other words, a lower risk premium, if you like.
And so I think.... . and the other thing I think most Australians also care about their
children about what happens to their housing. I think it is a big issue with people. And
the system we had, of high inflation, was building mortgages and values for them that
essentially enslaved them for all their working life. You know, trying to buy their first
home in the prospects of ever-increasing housing prices. Affordability we have seen
very stark increases in affordability in the last couple of years, and I think this is a very
good social trend it's not a bad social trend, it's a unambiguously good social trend. But
I just also see I think it was in the Herald today that someone in the real estate sector
saying medium property prices in Sydney are lifting. I mean, these things will go on, but
whether over time if you wash the inflation out... . if you wash the inflation through, they do
better than inflation I don't know. But the point is having a roof over your head not
having a lump of inflation over your head, because that ends up meaning having an
inflationary mortgage over your head. So I think there is no low inflation is an
unambiguously good thing for Australia it will give us higher real incomes, higher
employment and a higher standard of living than we have ever been able to obtain
during the periods of high inflation.
Q: John Ferguson from the Adelaide Advertiser, Prime Minister. Did Sir William Deane's
views on the republic influence your decision to back his appointment, and was the issue
discussed at that meeting prior to his appointment?
PM: I have never discussed the republic with him. Not ever. We have never discussed it.
Q: Prime Minister, Alison Carabine from Radio 2UE. There is probably little doubt that the
Penny Easton affair has caused problems for the Government what's your assessment
of the damage? And secondly, did you encourage Carmen Lawrence to bring forward
her appearance before the Royal Commission, to try and limit that damage?
PM: I think she takes the view that I mean, I think her appearance before the Commission
can be answered this way she takes the view that there is a sequence about her
appearance, and that it is fairly difficult to ask of her, to appear, to rely on information
that basically should be provided in the first instance by the petitioner, by the person who
presented the petition, and the Clerk of the Upper House who drafted it. Now, one would
think that was a logical starting point for such an inquiry. And not unreasonably, I think
she wants to follow those people through the inquiry, relying upon not what she knows
and hearsay, but the actual evidence they provide.
Q: Paul Bongiomno, Network 10, Prime Minister. While I accept that the Easton Royal
Commission has all the appearances of a political witchhunt, which is given potency by
the death of Penny Easton, isn't the problem for you and your Government and I would
suggest dynamite for Carmen Lawrence is that at this point of time, 8 of her former
colleagues contradict her recollection? So that on the balance of public probabilities, for
fair-minded people looking at it, Carmen Lawrence's credibility is in tatters?
PM: But what was the word I can't remember you used about the 8?
PB: Recollection?
PM: Yes recollection. But a recollection about what?
PB: About when a Cabinet meeting was held, and what was discussed at it?
PM: But the outcome of which was what?
PB: Well, the outcome was that I think it was about 5 days later....
PM: No the outcome wasn't an established link to the suicide of Penny Easton.
PB: I accept that. But...
PM: Right. If you accept that, well let me answer it from there if you accept that, then...
PB: . but Carmen Lawrence told the Parliament 3 days later something different?
PM: Hang on you asked the question. Once you accept that, you must accept the next
point the logical point of that that the discussion doesn't have a causal connection or
relevance to the suicide. And once you accept that, it is basically a set of recollections
by people about a Cabinet meeting that has in the broad politic no particular
relevance, and where honest people have different recollections, and where the person
herself has not yet had the opportunity to put a view.
ends.