22. Jan. 96 16: 1o No. 014 P. 01/ 1S
PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON PJ KEATING MP
INTERVIEW WITH JOHN LAWS, RADIO 2UE 22 JANUARY 1996
E& OE PROOF COPY
JL: Paul Keating, good morning and welcome.
PM: How are you John nice to be back.
JL: It's gopo to be here, having been in Singapure for a couple of nights and
hearing about your visit there. You impressed the people In Singapore
PM: Well, I think they are very interested in Australia nuw, and it's Interesting
to see how much they had changed. Two weeks agu they were declared
a developed country. Their average per capita theie is now around
$ US30,000 I think it's a lesson to everyone that if a nation focuses on
its option, and pursues them, how far they can go. But I think Singapore
sees Australia importantly as part of its security picture, they have a lot
of regard for the economic changes we have made here, and in fact, just
on 2000 paid to come and here the so-called " Singapore Lecture", so I
was pleased to be able to give them an Australion perspective.
JL: You got very good reviews in the Singapore newspopcrs because I
checked it out while I was there. Listen, this has got to be the longest
election campaign in the history of the world, and the election hasn't
evun been set yet. Do you think this ele. tion speculation is damaging?
PM; I don't think so. I meari for a year I had John Hewson in this parliament
saying Keating is going to call an election. Then I had Alexander
Downer saying Keating Is guing to call an election, John Howard the
same. We had the newspapers saying when we brought the Budget
down in May it's an election Budget, and of course, It wasn't. Then when
we introduced Accord Mark VIII and the Republic. they said clearing the
decks for an election, and it wasn't. I have always said consistently,
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right through I think the public don't like trickiness out of politici. iis and
the political system, they expect the parliament to run its full time. And
that's always been an old-fashioned view of mine, but I think that is as it
should be, and I think the public are correct in it.
JL: So, a May election Is not beyond the realms of possibility?
PM: Well, just that May Is technically the end point of this parliament.
JL: Yeah, well, if you want to run the length, that's it then?
PM: Yes, but John Mvwdrd saying " come on, bring it on, bring it on, bring it
on I have got no puli. ies. I have got no hands" He's a bit like the
Black Knight out of the Munty Python show " come on, I've got no arms,
I've got no legs, but give me a punch, give me a punch" And I say hang
on John we'll get there. Doi't worry we will get therA, all in good time.
JL: What was that film, when the fella got his dains cut off, and then his legs
cut off?
PM. That was the Monty Python one The Holy Grail.
JL: That was a funny film.
PM: " I got no policies come and fight me, fight me, fight me." And I say, well
all right, we'll get down to it just don't get yourself flustered there.
JL: Does this mean then that we can wait till May?
PM: Well, look, there's a natural sort of again, it's very hard to beat the
natural order of things. The thing has its own sort of drum beat, and I
think at the right point, it will become clear to us what the best thing is to
do. Anyway, at the most WA are talking about a couple of months a
couple of months In three years
JL: So, in other wurds, it's more likely May than anything else?
PM: No, not necessarily. It's nut necessarily May than anything else.
JL: I though I had you there for a minute.
PM: It's just that May is the end point.
JL: Come on, give us a break I need all the help I can get.
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PM. Oh no, you have gone well without a lot of help, I have got to say.
J L: While on the subject of John Howard, I'm not sure if it's one of your
favourites or not, but he's going to make some changes to the unfair
dismissal laws. And I think that the majority would welcome those
changes.
PM: Yeah, but I mean, he was out there the other day saying after 15 years
of espousal of policies to, as he calls it, reform the labour market, which
is code for basically cutting wages for the bottom half of the work force.
That is, removing award protections, removing overtime penalty rates
and the rest holiday leave loadings and all the other things. He is now
saying " I didn't mean all that -didn't mean all that. I have really got a
policy the same as the Government's I'm out there for workers' rights".
And what I said was well, if you believe that, you will believe anything.
But I think an important thing to say about this, is if this was the United
States, if a senior national politician held a strong view for 15 years, and
then just before an election, changed it, the debate wouldn't be about the
policy matter, but about their character. I mean, it would be just a
discussion more about their character than policy. And I think what John
Howard -has got to recognise is this both as Treasurer and as Prime
Ministerf, I have run a system here which has produced an inflation rate
between 2 which has seen a strong real increase in real wages,
which has seen a 20% increase in household disposable income per
capita, which has seen the lowest level of industrial disputes since 1940.
I'm the fellow who has been sitting on that running that system,. He's
the one that wants to run the system he is the one who has got to
propose something better.
JL: Do you think that, although the things you are saying in your mind are
true, and in the minds of many are true, that after 13 years some voters
assume that Labor is tired, that you're tired, and do you think voters are
ready for a change just for the sake of change?
PM: Well, there could be a bit of that around, but I think the energy the
Government has shown in the last three years, John I mean, just look
at the last six or eight weeks. I mean, we put together this Treaty
between Australia and Indonesia, we have brought down the most
important forest policy the country I think has ever seen, in terms of
those Regional Forest Agreements, and Deferred Forest Areas 6
million hectares of forest put away. Today, I'm meeting the Canberra
Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons...
JL: Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about this this is something that is very
important, and should be very important to all Australians whether you
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are Prime Minister or not Prime Minister as far as this is concerned, it is
immaterial it's something that is important for the world. Do you believe
that a country like Australia can lead the world to rid itself of nuclear
armaments?
PM. Well, I think we have got to Start somewhere. I mean, we have got a
fortuitous lapse in the nuclear arms race the Soviet Union collapsed,
the Warsaw Pact countries in Europe the Warsaw Pact evaporated.
Nato's traditional enemy has folded its tent. So, there is a window of
opportunity to get in and say well, look, this bi-polarity between the US
and the Soviet Union is gone this bi-polar game is gone. But what we
have to be careful of is that we don't get into a multi-polar game that is,
with many other countries, the likes of Iraq, perhaps Iran, Pakistan,
North Korea, Israel that are developing nuclear weapons....
JL: But do you believe that a group of people led by Australia, and not in
any way wanting to be demeaning of my own country, but Australia is not
the biggest or most powerful county in the world. But do you believe that
a group of people led by Australia could actually cause this to happen?
PM.' Well, I think we can make a very good start. It may take decades to
happen," but we have to make a beginning. And if you look at the
countries in, if you like, the first rung of economies, we associate
ourselves with and have done strategically the United States, Britain
and for instance in the Second World War, France these are all
nuclear weapon states. If you go to countries like Australia, which are
not nuclear weapon states, we are at least as important and as
significant among those, and as capable among those, as any of doing
it, given the fact that this initiative is unlikely to come from the nuclear
weapons states themselves. And I think the other thing to bear in mind,
John we were a leading part of the move to the Chemical Weapon
Convention. We have put in place a convention for the elimination of a
whole category of weapons with chemical weapons biological weapons
and so we have already proven our abilities there. And you can also
look at our effort at the peace accords in Cambodia, the development of
APEC, our role in the GATT round I mean, Australia has always
punched above its weight, particularly in the years of this Government.
And this is something there is an opportunity here, and I think we have
LW. It,. tu14L* Q ulyti otivuIImlIem itib : 6izea it, ano we nave
these distinguished people from around the world to help is.
JL: Well, when you look at the list of people former US Defence Secretary,
a Nobel Peace Prize winner, a former French Prime Minister, and others.
When you look at this group of people, there are many people who are
obviously serious about it, but did they come here at your invitation,
T2EL2:. Jan. 96 16: 18 No. Ola
were they prepared to come because they have the same belief as you,
or because they wanted to discuss it with you?
PM: Because I think they realise this is an issue. You see, both the major
weapon states Russia and the Untied States have declaratory
statements about the removal of nuclear weapons, and the Nonproliferation
Treaty has at its end point ' the removal of nuclear weapons,
but these are simply long-term declarations they don't have any policy
force. But you see, we have got people here like Leigh Butler the
Commander-In-Chief of the US Strategic Air Command in 1981-82, and
then after that, the US Strategic Command in 1992-94, where he had
responsibility for all US Air Force and Navy nuclear deterrent forces, and
was closely involved in the development of US nuclear doctrine. And
then there is Field Marshall Lord Carver, who was Commander-In-Chief
of the British Forces in the Far East, and then Chief of the Defence
Force from 1973-76.
JL: And all these people have come because they believe this is worth
discussing?
PM: These people have actually run the system. I mean, they are not just
people from outside you know, well-intentioned academics who want to
make a contribution they run the system. And they have come
because I think they see the value of taking the opportunity now of
looking at the possibility of going beyond all the start treaties, down to
the removal of nuclear weapons.
JL: And all this begins at lunchtime today?
PM: Yes it's actually beginning now. Gareth Evans opened the Commission
meeting this morning, and I am meeting the members of the Commission
for lunch, and then they are going to Canberra for the week, and I will be
seeing them again on Thursday.
JL: Just back to this Asia trip that you did the Singapore Lecture, as it is
called. Probably, it was the most important foreign speech of your
career why did you tie in so much domestic issues; labour skills and
environment. The cynics are saying that you threw in the environment
because you recalled in 1990 the green vote took care of you, and put
you back into power?
PM. I No. I mentioned the environment... well, first of all, the basic philosophy I
put there was that with the Cold War over, and as I say, there is tension
between the two super-powers gone, it's now possible for regions to
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actually organise themselves and actually do some good and clever
things together.
JL: Do you think that tension between the two super-powers has gone
temporarily, or permanently? I mean, Russia doesn't look too stable at
the moment, does it?
P M. No. well, you know, one can never know which way the Russian political
system is going. But what has happened is that, you know, we have seen
this amazing change since 1989. 1 mean what was then East Germany,
Poland, they have gone and become Separate states and we are seeing
this change across a number of the former Russian republics. So we are
not talking about the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact as we were.
Whatever happens with the vagaries of Russian politics, it will be Russia
and they have still got, of course, a nuclear arsenal and there will still be
those tensions there.
But what the economic development in South East Asia and North Asia
means in Singapore, in Malaysia, in Thailand, in the Philippines and,
for instance, even in countries like Vietnam, along with Japan and the
great emerging economic power, China is that we are able to look at
things regionally. And Australia has put essentially APEC together as an
economic body to deal with regional economic problems, opening up
trade opportunities and fuelling and resourcing the East Asian growth
phase. So what I was doing in this lecture was to say there is a possibility now for
regional organisation where if we threw everything into the great melting
pot of the UN, all these issues these ones I am speaking of would be
largely lost. But here we can actually meet in a cooperative way in APEC,
for instance, or in ASEAN the Association of South East Asian Nations
and get things done.
Now I mentioned the environment for this reason and I gave some
statistics. The Chinese shortfall of food in about ten years time is going to
be about six times Australian wheat production just in grain. The green
revolution which has produced so much food has relied on fertilisers, has
relied on things which have essentially attacked the environment and we
can't believe or rely upon the fact that we can continue to yield this sort of
productivity from the earth.
The demand for energy is doubling in East Asia every 12 years. It
doubles in the world every 28 years. So finding the coal, the petroleum,
the energy, the food and then, of course, the pollution in the air, the
urbanisation, the sanitation, the water quality, the impact on the fisheries,
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these are real issues for the developing world of East Asia and the East
Asian hemisphere which Australia is a part of the East Asian economies
which Australia is a part of. So that is why I mentioned the environme nt.
The real challenge to keep the growth going in East Asia is really food
security, energy and water.
JL: This, that I am about to read to you, is a description of your pluses and
minuses as a leader. I am not sure if you want to hear them.
PM: Who has written this?
JL: Michael Gordon in The Australian.
PM: A Canberra correspondent.
JL: Okay, now tell me if you agree? " A focus on big picture ideas", you would
have to agree with that because you are telling me constantly about the
big picture?
PM: Well, I mean, the thing that I just spoke to you about is about that very
thing because if you get those things right, the other things tend to look
after therfiselves.*
JL: Okay, so these are the pluses. " A focus on big picture ideas, charm."
PM:-Well I am like you I can be charming when I wish to be. Just like you
were with that Mortein ad a bit earlier.
JL: It wasn't Mortein, Prime Minister.
PM: What was it?
JL: Raid.
PM: Raid. Sorry, sorry. I have gone and done it now.
JL: You see, but you have got a very good memory because it is 14 years
since I did one for Morte in.
PM: Well that is right, I mean, it is a bit like Valvoline you can't, sort of, forget
them.
JL: Okay, you are back on equal terms now. Let's listen to more of your
pluses. " The ability to form close and constructive bonds with regional
leaders."
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PM. Yes, I think you can form bonds with the people who lead the region by
trying to see the region through their eyes and understanding their
problems and then put the argument about Australia's relevance and how,
together, we can do more and end up with a stronger, better regional
society.
JL: And also, " the capacity for sustained bouts of serf discipline".
PM: Oh yes, well we are all I hope into that sustained bouts.
JL: Is it difficult?
PM: Do we have lapses? Well, of course, we do. We all have lapses in
self discipline.
JL: Do you regret the lapses?
PM: Well you can't be an automaton. You know, one of these people who are
wound up in the morning you know programmed and wound up and
they go out there like a parrot and say things. I mean any political leader
that workt like thatyou will never get anything from. I mean there will be
no creativity, no spontaneity, no ideas, no real leadership. In the end, the
one thing that people want you to provide in this business is leadership
and any leader providing it must have the capacity to think themselves,
generate their own ideas not from a department, not in a brief, not from
personal staffs, out of your own head and that means having the sort of
creativity to do it. I don't believe anybody who is doing those things can
run like a wind up person. You know, wound up and sort of disciplined
and stays on the lines.
JL: Well I tell you what, you went a hell of a long way around there to not
answer the question.
PM: No, I am just saying that..
JL: That that was self discipline?
PM: we have self discipline, I hope. We have lapses off it.
JL: Yes.
PM: We do because we are not wound up.
JL Do you regret the lapses?
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PM: Oh, some I do. Yes, some I do. But in the big swim of things what I am
most interested in is making the policy changes. You see, in the end, the
value of people in the political system, in political leadership, is to make
changes. The system basically runs itself. What doesn't run itself are the
new directions.
JL: Let's look at what he said on the negative side because it is interesting.
There is " a short fuse", he says. You would agree with that?
PM: Oh, no, that is not quite right. I am very understanding of why people say
and do things. I make big allowances, I have big discounts in their
behaviour, If you didn't, you couldn't stay in public life a long time.
JL: So you don't think you have a short fuse?
PM. No, well, look, I have been a Minister for 13 years. I think if you ask any
person, or anyone who knows any person on my staff, I have never been
sharp with them or abused them in that time. Not ever.
JL: Street fighter instincts?
PM: I don't believe in rudeness. I don't believe in personal effrontery and
rudeness. I would rather go through life without that sort of behaviour
JL: I know that you believe that personally. But there would be people out
there who would be saying, wow, well what about the stuff he says in
Parliament?
PM: But Parliament Is the clearing house of national pressures. This is where
people fight about whether we have Medicare, or we don't have Medicare,
you know whether you have protection of awards, or you don't. I mean
they are things that matter to people and we are not just going to trade
them away politely and say, yes, you want to be rid of them? You can
have them. You know?
JL:-But you do get a bit abusive there in Parliament?
PM: Yes, but what I don't get is personal. You see I have got the Liberal Party
up there now saying what's her name, the Senator from South Australia
I am like Goebbels. Then I have got Senator Bishop reading extracts
from a psychiatric manual on radio saying I have got psychiatric
tendencies. And John Howard has got Michael Baume every day in the
Senate trying to say I am corrupt. I mean these are the things I have
never done against Howard, Hewson, or any of my political opponents. I
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might, occasionally, give them~ a corporate slur. But one that doesn't
matter, like knuckleheads, or something like that. But that is different to
saying you are corrupt, psychotic, or you are a fascist, which is the sort of
stuff they do to me. I mean the personal attacks I have taken from the
Liberal Party. If there is anyone who stands up who can actually defeat
them, like Whitlam did, is in for it. Like Wran did, is in for it. Like I have,
is in for it.
But the Labor Party has always taken the wider, I think more decent view,
that you don't go after people, personally, under the privilege of
Parliament and I don't. I don't and that is the point I made earlier. But we
are talking about two points here. We are talking about political points
and personal behaviour short fuses. I don't believe in rudeness. There
is no place for it and it is not needed and people say, oh well I am working
under pressure. Well look we all work under pressure. But it doesn't help
for people to go off the handle and I don't like it. I don't like it when it is
done to me and I don't do it to others.
JL: Michael Gordon also says that you have " a capacity for vindictiveness".
PM: No, I am-not vindictive. Look, I would say this. I have been in politics
now sinc4 1969 -1I have been in the Parliament. I have been attacked by
all sorts of people. I don't wish ill of any of them. You know that? I could
say both in the Labor Party and in the Parliament and we have had
factional battles in the Labor Party over 20 or 30 years, I have had, you
know, Party battles in the Parliament over the same period I must say I
have no real enmity, no enmity, towards anyone.
JL: What are the polls showing at the minute because I have been away and
that? Are you looking good in the polls?
PM: Well we are on the published polls, on two-party preferred terms
behind the Liberal Party. But I think that the community has not yet got
down to focus on the issues of an election.
JL: Why do you think you are behind?
PM; I think all incumbent governments are behind these days. I mean we are
something like, on the published polls, 5 to 6 percentage points behind.
But look at the British government, it is 30 percentage points behind, or
percentage points behind. The government is in a winning position.
But I have always said, John, the only place to be in an election is one out
and one back.
J L: Explain that to me?
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PM: Well, like in a horse race one off the rails and one back.
JL I didn't know you were into horse racing.
PM: Well I am not. But I know the place to be in a poll and rather than being
1m. e an going to an election out in front is a difficult position to hold all
the way through. The key point, I think, for me and the government is that
the government has had a huge energy over these three years, it has got
a real vision for Australia it puts it into place, and the burden on John
Howard is going to be to put an alternative philosophy. So far he hasn't.
The headland speeches have been empty and voids. He hasn't
articulated policies and he is really saying, look, if I wait long enough, will
you give me the Prime Ministership. He is really saying this, look, I will
tell you what I will do with you. I won't say anything you don't like, I won't
propose policies you think might hurt you, I will keep my head down, I will
cuddle up and look as much like the government, if only you will vote for
me. Whereas what I am saying is I believe Australia has an unparalleled
opportunity, we are the only nation in~ the world with a continent to
ourselvet, we live in the fastest growing part of the world, we have now
opened the Australian economy up, we are integrated with East Asia as
never before. we have got a period of excitement and opportunity ahead
of us, and the government is articulating the policies.
Anyone that wants to knock the government off its perch, has got to have
an alternatively lucid strategy. And I think when the voters, when the
community, when Australian men and women, focus on those issues
when an election is actually on I think then the polls will change.
J L: When do you think that John Howard might start to articulate some
policies'?
PM: Well I think it is too late for him. I mean I think it is the height of.. it is
rude, I think. Rude to say to people I have been hiding my policies from
Mr Keating, where really he has been hiding them from them. It is they
who vote. I get one vote. It is they who vote. He has been hiding them
from them and then say, I am going to play you all off a break and I will
drop some little tid-bits in the last couple of weeks of an election and that
is good enough for you. If you don't pick it up then, bad luck.
Whereas what the government has said is, look this is our strategy and
these are the fine print of our policies and they are all in place. They are
there all the time. It doesn't matter whether you are talking about, you
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know, trade with Asia, or the environment, or forests, or our strategic
situation, or wages, or the Accord, or the Budgets, they are all there.
They are not just in the mind where you get a quick look at them from the
sleeve you know, the sleeve policy that is pulled out of the sleeve,
waved for a couple of weeks and then say have a vote. John Howard
thinks that because the government has been in office for 13 years, all he
has to do is sit there and say nothing and slide into office.
Well I think people have got to remember that he has been there longer
than most of the Ministers in this government. He was a Treasurer before
I was ever a Minister and Australia was an industrial backwater and
Industrial archaeological museum. It had, in the end, no future, high
inflation and high unemployment. So I was just saying, market himself as
a new person. I mean, new person John Howard, Tim Fischer, have a
look at Tim's antics in the last week or two, Alexander Downer. I mean
Tim will be the Deputy Prime Minister, Alexander Downer would be the
Foreign Minister, Mr Costello would be the Treasurer. This is the new
team.
JL: Well if all this is as bad as you are intimating to me it is, why is he in front
in the polls?
PMV: Well it is the old point about incumbency. I think the public are also quite
clever about polls. It is a bit like by-elections, they see them as an
opportunity to needle the government and push it along and good on
them. In other words, they are not going to say, oh yes, no, no, the
government is fine, that is alright we are going to vote for the government.
But others say, well I am thinking about it, I am undecided, or I am against
them at this point. And they see that, I am sure, as actually encouraging
governments to do better and good on them for that.
JL: Good luck with the meeting that you have at lunch time today. I know it is
very important not just to you, but to the entire world.
PM: Well, I think, we have a strategic lull. I mean this is very rare in the world.
I mean we didn't have nuclear weapons before 1945.
JL: So if it is going to be done, it must be done now?
PM: There have been 130,000 nuclear weapons produced. At the moment,
there are 50,000 warheads..
JL Lying around.
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PM: 50,000 warheads lying around and I think what we have got to tell people,
including the nuclear powers. It Is not just the five of them the
United States, Russia, Britain, France and China. It won't be just five of
them. As countries get more wealthy and they think their strategic
position is deteriorating, they will all consider having a nuclear weapon
too. And, then, the discipline that the Soviet Union and the United States
had through the Cold War years won't be the sort of discipline and threat
assessments that all these other smaller states will have in the future.
So it is not just five and nothing it is heaps of countries having nuclear
weapons.
JL Yes.
PM: So if a country like Australia doesn't stand up and say, well listen we are
going to have a go and try and get the best people and pull the best
thoughts together and drive some of these lessons home, well you know
we have got nothing to lose other than our confidence in ourselves and
our regard for what we think is an important international contribution.
JL: Okay, well as I say, good luck not just for your sake, but for the sake of
everybody and I mean the world because it is a pretty important issue.
PM: Well chemical weapons, now, we have got a convention to eliminate
them. Australia was principally involved in eliminating a whole category
of weapons. If we had done it with something which is much harder to
verify chemical weapons and biological weapons it can be done with
nuclear weapons.
J L: And should be. I trust we will have time to talk to each other before the
election in May?
PM: I hope so. I hope so. If you'll have me on.
JL: You didn't deny May.
PM: Well, I mean, I opened up with a Raid ad, I suppose I can absorb any
culture.
JL: Good to see you. I am glad I am back and I hope that we talk to each
other soon.
PM: Good on you, John.
ends TEL