17
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING MP
DOORSTOP, PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA, 27 SEPTEMBER 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
PM: Well, we have seen Mr Howard, the old Mr Howard. It took a while for
us to take the layers of new political clothes from him, but there he is
just as he always was: without ideas and without principle. He is now
going to strike down, if he can, the largest change to the micro
economy in the State of NSW and, for tourism and air transport, the
largest change in Australia in the last 20 years, the third runway in
Sydney. This is the runway that he enjoined this Government to build
for years and for years. This is the runway he said was not being built
because of political cynicism on the part of members of the Labor
Party in seats around Sydney airport. It has now been built, he now
wants to cut its capacity dramatically by again opening the cross wind
east-west runway which would mean a dramatic increase in the risk
factor of aircraft intersecting a downwind runway and at the same time
dramatically cutting the capacity of the airport. This would have flow
on effects to Melbourne and Brisbane and the whole east coast grid of
airline connections.
It means that all of his rhetoric about micro economic reform which we
have had ad nauseam, how he will be the tough guy, that will hop into
the waterfront, he is the tough guy that is going to hop into the unions,
he is the tough guy that is going to hop into the seafarers. When it
comes to one micro economic change, and a big one, he starts to
backslide on years of statements by himself for a handful of votes in
his own seat of Bennelong. We hear these headland speeches, as the
Minister for Transport said in the House this morning, the only.
headland he is interested in is the one between Lane Cove and
Woolwich the one that worries him about his three per cent margin in
the seat of Bennelong.
So, here he is saying I am the new John Howard, I have been
airbrushed, my old past has been airbrushed away, I am a new person
but when it comes to the first test, even as Opposition Leader, I don't
think I can pass it, I don't think I can support the Government in a
policy I have supported for years.
To add insult to injury, bad enough that he puts asunder this micro
economic reform, he wants to stamp his foot and abuse his powers in
the Senate by tugging away at $ 2 billion of the budget by pulling the
Kingsford-Smith airport sale out of the sale of the FAC airports. As the
Minister for Transport made clear yesterday, there is no way that
people are bid for the other smaller investments until the big one
Kingsford-Smith and Badgery's Creek are settled first.
So, if Mr Howard refuses passage of the Bill before Christmas, it
means that the budget will miss out on a $ 2 billion change, $ 2 billion
which has produced the surplus and it will be all at the hands of John
Howard. I hope the business community are looking at all this because it is no
accident that he left the likes of me and other ministers to do all the
dirty work of the 1980s that he left behind. He wanted to float the
Australian dollar, but he never got around to it. He wanted to
deregulate the banking system, but he never got around to it. He
wanted to free up the labour market, but he never got around to it. He
wanted to remove the tariff wall, but he never got around to it. He
wanted to improve the micro economy, but he never got around to it.
And now, when we have got around to it and got around to it on this
important feature of aviation he says " No, I'm not having it, I want the
cross wind runway open", and even though he knows it will cut the
traffic volumes by nearly half, he says, " that is all right providing I am
safer in the seat of Bennelong."
This guy is not fit to be Prime Minister. He is not fit to lead a major
party and you don't need my claims about that, you have got it right in
front of your eyes over night.
J: You mentioned the business community, what about the local
community which feels that your government has created an
intolerable situation for them in their daily lives?
PM: We have got now the largest noise abatement program anywhere in
the world. What we are seeking to do is to immunise those areas from
the airport noise. But, as Mr Howard's own the Mayor of Hunters
Hill said rather eloquently yesterday, if they were to put light aircraft
even on the tail end of the east west runway they will take them out of
the main parallel runways which will only then fill up with larger wide
bodied aircraft which will only compound their noise.
PM: The other thing is the Government has made, I think, very important
changes now, all the aircraft do take off from the end of the seaward
runway, if they are taking off to the north. And by the time they get
over Hunters Hill and these other places, they have got 3000 or 4000
feet under them, and this has made a very great difference.
J: People are still very angry, though, do you accept that this is a
dangerous political issue for you, and that John Howard could be just
playing smart politics here?
PM: Well, if you think that tugging away at the largest micro-economic
change, destroying the largest micro-economic in Civil Aviation in the
last quarter century, and knocking $ 2 billion out of the Budget is smart
politics, I don't.
J: Is it a dangerous....
PM: lI think it is a dangerous issue for him so dangerous, I think, it has
really painted him as he really is. I mean, Howard in policy terms has
never amounted to a row of beans. I know that, because I have had to
do amongst others most of the work in areas he had former
responsibility. And what he is showing you again is that no matter how
much he has been air-brushed by Andrew Robb and the Liberal Party,
and how much the Liberal Party want to make him over as a New Age
person, he is the same tired, old character cynical character that he
always was.
J: Do you accept that this issue is hurting you, electorally?
PM: No. I think the Government Governments that do things the nation
needs are generally rewarded. The nation needed this change, and
the Government put it into place.
J: Prime Minister, you say he has been air-brushed, too, on IR what is
your IR message to workers for the election?
PM: My IR message is that we're now in the lowest level of industrial
disputes since we have been keeping the records they are one-sixth
of what they were in the late 80s, we have had a fair wages system
which has made Australia competitive, but given Australia high
employment and fair wage outcomes, and all the protection's that
working people can only get under the award system. We have given
them flexibility with protection, and this will go under a Coalition
Government.
J: What about wages? Will they cut wages?
PM: The Coalition the result of their policies will be substantial cuts in
wages for Australians as they lose, without compensation, penalty
rates, overtime and other elements of the wage package. Because
there will be no guarantee and when pressed, Mr Reith, their
spokesman, always falls back on the same expression: " We will be
keeping Federal awards". But, that's not a choice that is going to be
made available to the 1.7 million people a year who either join the
workforce for the first time, or change their jobs. 43% of Australians
changed their jobs in the last 3 years. That means that 43% of
Australians will have no award protection under a Coalition
Government.
J: But workers still see executive salary increases going through the roof
all the Government does is criticise them, what do you intend to do
about that?
4
PM: The Government does criticise them, and executives who take these
decisions know they they induce a problem in their own companies
under an enterprise bargaining system. All of this is noticed by the
workforce. But executive salaries are not set in any Industrial tribunal,
and therefore, the Government has no option to appeal them when
these remunerative packages are set.
J: Prime Minister, the temperature seems to be picking up around the
place are we still looking at a poll next year?
PM: That has always been my intention to stretch the Parliament out, to
give the public the value they like from them.
J: It still is, Prime Minister?
PM: It is, indeed. And, you know, we have had... when a very high hurdle
was set for the Government with the Budget, and the Government
jumped it a surplus Budget without all these mooted increases in
income tax and the rest instead of saying good jump, generally it was
said [ that we were] " clearing the decks for an election". When the
Government introduced Accord Mark VIII, pinning the inflation rate to
it was said " clearing the decks for the election". When the
republic framework came down, it was said " clearing the decks for the
election". That was months ago, and there has been no election.
What the Government is going to do here, is keep on governing, and
one thing is very clear the more time we give John Howard, the more
obvious we make our view known, and that is that he stands for
nothing, and he represents nothing but cynicism and low principle.
J: Mr Keating, there is a poll out today on Carmen Lawrence a 2-1
majority now of people who think that the Carmen Lawrence affair is a
witchhunt do you think that issue is now over as a political problem
for the Government?
PM: I think it's over in respect of any damage that it is likely to be doing to
Carmen Lawrence, and because what matters to her matters to us, it
means that, I think, most Australians think the process has been unfair.
J: Is it true, Prime Minister, that you will be doing big hit policy
statements?
PM: No. But I'm always considering policy statements.
ends. 1-:-1
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