" IMEET THE PRESS##
TELEVISION ITWERVIEW GIVEN BY THE
PRIME MINISTER, MR JOHN GORTON, OH
CHANNEL 7, MELBOURNE 12 APRIL 1970
Panel Reg Leonard
Vince Matthews
Trevor Sykes
Chairman Frederick Howard
Chairman: The choice of an opening topic for our discussion with the
Prime Minister was dictated by the echoes that are going round the
country from the disorder in Parliament earlier in the week.
Prime Minister, we would value your comments on that, and I vould
like also to have your opinion on whether there is behind this type of
disorder some frustration and strain indicating that the Parliamentary
system is not functioning these days as it should.
PM: You would like a comment first on the actual disorders?
Well, the comment I would give is that disorders of this kind in
Parliament which have not been seen in any Australian Parliament
before and I think probably in no English speaking Parliament in the
world, are not an attack on a government; they are an attack on
the institution of Parliament itself. If this sort of thing were to
continue, then the institution of Parliament would become unworkable,
and if it did, then the best method of government with the opportunity
for freedom and the opportunity for the provision of order mould
become unworkable and the whole process of democratic government
would be attacked at its roots.
Q. Isn't one of the major problems, Prime Minister, the urgency
with which the Government is trying to push through a pile of
legislation and not giving the opportunity to the Opposition to debate
this legislation?
PM: No, I don't think it is. I don't think in the Session of
Parliament so far there has been any indication of an attempt to push
through a great pile of legislation. There is a great deal there.
It has been brought in. It has been left at the Second Reading
stage and it must eventually be brought forward and debated, but I
think that the functioning of Parliament must depend not only on the
Standing Orders which Parliamentarians make, but on the way in / 2
which they are applied, Now, there is a requirement for a government
to give to an opposition an opportunity to debate, an-opportunity to move
amendments, an opportunity to bring forward matters of public
importance. This is a requirement. But there is also a requirement
on the Opposition not to abuse the Standing Orders in order to prevent
legislation coming forward, in order to waste time. And I believe
that the Opposition in this case has in fact been seeking to abuse the
rights they have in order to waste time. Can I give an example of that?
One of the things that an Opposition should be able to do is to bring
forward matters of public urgency which they think ought to be
ventilated something is wrong somewhere and they want to make that
public. And when that happens, always in the past there have been
three or four speakers aside, by agreement, and then you have gone
on to the ordinary Parliamentary business. And this is important, but
it shourld only happen at spaced intervals. You can't have it every day.
If it was done every day, then the time of Parliament would be taken
up every day for the purposes of the Opposition, and this is what the
Opposition have been trying to do. They have almost every day been
bringing forward urgency motions expecting or hoping to have three
or four speakers aside. And if that were permitted, then the business
of Parliament would be taken out of the Government's hands. This is,
I think, an attempt to abuse the right, and it forces the Government
to gag.
Q. Apart from what they claim to be the over-enthusiastic use
of the gag, the Opposition also claims that the Leader of the House
broke undertakings. What is your comment on that? Is it so?
PM: Well, I am never a party to undertakings. They are made
between the Leader of the Hcuse and the spokesman, whoever it may
be generally it is Barnard on the Opposition side. So I can't speak
from direct participation. I can only say that I just don't believe that
this has happened, and I haven't seen evidence produced that it has
happened. It is claimed that there was an agreement broken in the
necessary Constitutional one-day sitting, but I don't believe that
was so, and there was a claim that on another occasion an agreement
was broken. I have seen nothing to support that whatever. On the
other hand, the Leader of the House tells me that there have been
many occasions on which agreements have been made with the
spokesman for the Opposition, and the spokesman for the Opposition
has later come along and said " Sorry, I can't keep this agreement.
I can't control my own boys. Now this is a sort of an agrument
between the people making the arrangements. / 3
Q. But woulcxi't the Opposition have more time for its urgency
motonsand the Government more time to conduct its business if
the Pairltiment sat more often? There was quite a long break over
Christmas.
P M: We had a long break over Christmas indeed, and I think
that the results of that long break are probably showing up in the
greatest legislative programme perhaps that has ever been bmvught
before the Commonwealth Parliament. There is a need, you know,
for Cabinet to sit with its advisers and to work out the details of the
legislation which it wants the Parliament to pass. And the programme
that was brought forward in the Governor-General's Speech reflects,
I think, the work that was done in this direction over that break.
Q. Moving on to another field, Sir, it seems from Canberra
these days that you are a much more confident Prime Minister than
you were when you fought the election last October. Some of your
closest advisers even insist that you are a changed man. Why have
y you developed this new confidence and what has been responsible for
the change?
PM: Well, I don't know that I would agree that I was a changed
man. I hope whoever it was that said it would agree that it was a
change for the better. I am not sure, but I don't really think I am.
I suppose one becomes more confident when one has won an election
in one's own right, even if o-ne has only just won it. We have a team
of Cabinet Ministers which I have picked myself completely and I
think it is a good team and I think it is working very wiell indeed. I
think we have got a programme which has been brought forward
showing just where we are going in defence, just what our goals are,
what our foreign affairs approach is; and on the legislative side,
the tidying up of a great deal of legislation, and the bringing in of such
important things as the Health Bill, the Industries Development
Corporation, off shore legislation for minerals, a whole number of things
which I believe are quite important to Australia. Perhaps that is the
explanation, I don't know.
Q. In contrast, last month only, I think it was, you gave an
interesting interview in which you said one reason for your added
confidence might " maybe I have a new philosophy" were your
exact words. Now what does that mysterious sentence mean? / 4
PM: Well, I think it means that one understands precisely
what it is one is seeking to do in many fields not in every field
one is convinced after long thought that the reasons for those goals are
proper reasons, one seeks to get a team behind one and explain them
to the Aust ralian people and why they are good, and one says that as
long as all this is done and genuinely done to one's own satisfaction,
there is always going to be an awful lot of people vAio disagree with you
and who criticise you on everything. Well, that's too bad. I am not
going to let that grind me down any more.
Q. Looking at the Liberal Party, it was assumned when you
came to power that you were determined to make changes within the
Par-ty and its philosophy and thinking. Is this assumption still correct?
Are you determined to push the Party in the direction you think the
events are moving it anyway?
PM: I don't know that any one man, even a Prine Minister, can
push a Party in any direction that it doesn't want to go, but I think
it is possible to get a Party rethinking, re-examining the basic dogma
if I can use that word which it has had for such a long period of
time, and I do want, and I think I have succeeded, in getting the
Liberal Party to stand off and have another look at a number of things
which had previously been taken for granted. And I think that this is
good.
Q. Prime Minister, you mentioned just now, a couple of items
that were on your agenda. The were things we intended to question
you about, anyway. One was the Industries Development Corporation,
as I see it in relation to olir overseas credit, and the other was the
Health programme. I wonder if we could look first at this Industries
Development Corporation which I believe you have recently two
days ago been talking about in Perth. Does it lend itself to a layman's
explanation in simple words?
PM: Oh, I think it does, but I should give this preliminary
statement. We believe that we must have overseas capital flowing
into Australia for development and for processing minerals and for
all the expansion which is required. We can't generate enough inside
Australia and rather than not progress, it is much better to have
overseas capital flowing in. Anything I say is not directed against
an inflow of overseas capital, because this is essential, but there
is a price to pay for the inflow of overseas capita there are
great benefits but there is also a price to pay. There are the
e 9.
requirements to pay interest payments overseas when the enterprise
becomes viable. -There is repatriation of capital. There are all sorts
of prices which need to be paid. And we would like to keep that price
as low as possible by seeing as much Australian participation in
enterprises as is possible. Statistically, this isn't now happening.
Statistically, the amount of Australian ownership and control in nmany
industries is dropping, and this is due to either one of two things. Either
there is no will in Australian industry for Australian participation
and ownership. I discount that. I am sure there is and I am sure
there is a will. Or there are not sufficient avenues by which the
Australian ownership and control can be retained, and this is an attempt
to provide another avenue by which this ownership and control can be
maintained. You see, many of our smaller industries must expand.
They have got to become more massive than they have ever been
before if they are going to compete on the world with the big companies
of the world. If they are going to be able to sell inside Australia with
a minimum of tariff protection, they hi ye got to expand, so they have
got to get capital. Now, at the moment, very often they have to take
in an overseas partner, maybe a majority partner in order to get that
capital from overseas. We are seeking to set up a corporation to which
a small company can go a relatively small company in world terms
to which it can go and say " You, the Industrial Gorpoiation have a status
and a standing internationally at least as good as Comalco or Hamersley
or any other of these companies. Will you, if you judge that our
proposition is a good business proposition, will you try and borrow
overseas capital for us so that we don't have to give away our equity",
and this is the basic objective of this new exercise.
Chairman: Mr. Sykes, would you like to come in on this?
Q. How high is the danger that this corporation could be used
as a political tool?
PM: The legislation will divorce the corporation entirely it
must, from any governmental or any ministerial con~ trol. The board
of directors will be drawn predominantly from private industry,. It will
be required to make its judgments on the same sort off business judgements
that any other private board of directors would mak', e, and it is completely
and utterly essential to the scheme you put your finger on it that
it must be divorced from government control.
Q. Was there any thought when Cabinet agreed on this one
that it was necessary because the Australian Resources Development
B. nk was not doing the job that it was set up to do? / 6
Q. If the economy is overheated, the farmers suggest they
are in a deep freeze.
PM: They are.
Q. What is the Government proposing to do about the
plight of rural industry? Mr. Nixon addressed some farmers here
and suggested he was taking a message loud and clear to the Cabinet.
Was that message received loud and clear?
PM: You asked what the Government is going to do. One of
the things we have done and one of the things for which we have been
attacked by, I think, some rather troglodyte economists, is we have
not raised the interest rate for the farmers because they are that
is for people who draw the major amount of their income from rural
production because they are in this difficult situation. You see
the objective of raising the interest rate was to make money dearer,
to damp down demand, to damp down requirement. Well, the farmers
haven't got the demand, they aren't making the requirements, because
wool is at the lowest price it has been since i942, so we felt it was
using a kind of a bludgeon to hammer people who weren't in fact
putting out inflationary pressures. That is one thing that we have
done. You asked me what we were going to do. Yes, Mr. Nixon
and Mr. Fraser both brought back to Cabinet their reports of the
meeting that was held in Melbourne. That meeting didn't put forward
any proposals, you may remember. It just said " We would like
things to be better, and it is now up to the Government to seek to put
forward proposals". Well, what are you going to do? Take wheat,
for example, you can't just go on growing increasing quantities of a
commodity that the world market doesn't want. It is just impossible
to do that, or that if it does want, it will pay a price that isn't viable.
And so there, quotas on growth are coming in, and I believe that
will reach a stage where the demand will meet the supply. Dairyfarming
we are still seeking to iron out with the States and have
almost reached the stage of reconstruction of dairy farms. Wool
is a commodity which is different, because there the world does
want it. There is no question that everything that is produced is sold,
but they are not prepared at the moment to pay the price that is
required for it. Now we have got to look into whether the marketing
methods are sufficiently good, whether more could be obtained there,
whether fringe benefits in the way of core testing andi sample selling
and these sort of things could be done, and we are waiting now on a
report from the committee set up by the Wool Board on vii ich we will
finally do what we can to help this industry. / 8
Q. Prime Minister, another section of the community which
is rather hot and bothered is general practitioners and the health
insurance. Can you tell us anything about the prospects of a
compromise or a settlement with them?
PM: Well, all I can say on that is that we said that there should
be no economic bar to a patient going to a specialist and getting
specialist treatment if he needs it. That he should not, as he had
in the past, have to pay the difference between a general practitioner's
fee and a specialist's fee. He must be protected. Anid this we will
not depart from. This must happen as far as the Government is
concerned. Anybody who needs to have specialist treatment and Vhio
has paid his insurance should be relieved of the fear of great expense
as a result. And differential rebates are absolutely essential. Now
if there are areas in which we can have discussions the general
practitioners, I think, call it updating of rebates N~ hich in fact
means periodic increasing of their fees, if these sort of things can
be worked out, fine. But the basic thing is that we must continue
to prctect the patient. Now the general practitioners fear that if
we do this, everybody will go to a specialist even to have a boil
lanced or a toeache looked at or something of that kind. This is
just a fear they have expressed. Only experience can show whether
it will be true or not. I don't think it will, because even now you have
got to wait awhile before you can go and see a specialist. If everybody
went it would be weeks before you could get in. Also, I think people
would trust and rely on their general practitioner family doctor.
If tnat did happen, and I don't believe it will, we would be just as
disturbed as the medical profession because of the cost to the taxpayer.
We would then have to see whether there was some referral system
that could prevent that. But basically, we have got to protect the
patient as we said we would against the great cost of specialist fees.
Chairman: Could we now have just some quick, short questions.
Q. Could I just ask one, coming from the tropical North? We
are interested greatly, of course, as other places are in offshore
development of various kinds. Has your Government any specific
programme for control particularly and for the preservation
of Australian rights in these enterprises? a / 9
PM: In the enterprises which may enter mineral exploration
off shore? Well, we are bringing legislation forward to resolve the
question of who it is that has the sovereignty and owns the right
over the sea bottom from low water mark to the continental shelf.
Both the State Governments and ourselves now claim it. We are
bringing legislation forward to put it beyond doubt. if it is challenged
in the High Court, then that will be it. It will be settled. That
would have to be decided before we could say yes, vie had intentions
of doing this, that or the other. But were it decided in our favour,
then we would want to see two things. We would want to see that
th ere was no danger from a conservation point of view, or a pollution
point of view or changing the ecological balance point of view, and
we would want, insofar as it was possible to see, that Australians had
some share in anything that went on in that way.
Q. One quick one, Sir. Do you propose to go to New Guinea
this year?
PM: Yes, I do. I can't tellI you when, but I definitely wish to
go at some stage before the end of the year.
Q. Another quick one. In the potentially menacing economic
situation, when are we likely,, if ever, to see an easing of the load
on the middle income-earners taxation load?
PM: Well, what we have to do is to make sure that the general
economy grows but that inflation is restrained. This is essential, as
I think you would agree. We have set forward our aims in regard
to reducing taxation on middle and lower income groups and this is
an aim which I thinkqas I said before, is an aim which we will achieve
with responsibility, as soon as we can.
Chairman: A last quick one.
Q. D oesn't the imposition of higher interest rates just to put
the brakes on inflation hurt a lot of little people?
PM: Well, it probably could be argued that it did. You might
have housing in mind.
Q. I have.
PM: Yes, I thought you might have housing in mind. It could well
be argued that it did, although I am told that in most cases the yearly
cost to those people will not be greater but the period of time over
which they have to pay off what they owe will have to be extended. But
that has to be balanced against what would the cost to the house builder
be if inflation were not to be checked in this way. The capital cost of
each house to somebody who now moves in would rise considerably, and
I think in the long run they would be worse off.
Chairman: Prime Minister, I am afraid our time for questions has run
our. One of the easiest question times I am sure you have had: