PRIME MINISTER'S PRESS CONFERENCE
PARLIAMENT HOUSE, CANBERRA
THURSDAY 11 APRIL 1974
PRIME MINISTER: Ladies and gentlemen, I announced in the House of
Representatives last night that the Governor-General had agreed that
there should be a simultaneous dissolution of the Senate and the House
of Representatives. He required to be assured on two matters. First
that there would be supply for the public service until the election,
and the other that the electoral machinery was adequate to conduct
the elections on any date that he determined. I this morning gave
His Excellency those assurances and he has agreed that there should be
an election for both Houses on 18 May. The timetable is that the writs
should issue on Saturday 20 April, the nominations should close on
Monday 29 April, the polling day on 18 May and the writs must be
returned on or before 29 June. As you know the Governors of the States
issue the writs for the election of senators and the Governor-General
will be approaching the Governors with a view to obtaining their
consent to the same timetable for the purposes of the election. On
April the Governor-General will also issue writs for the Referendums
to be submitted to the people on 18 May. The four referendums will be
Simultaneous Elections between the two Houses; for the Mode of Altering
the Constitution; the Democratic Elections and for Local Government
Bodies. Perhaps I should say that the referendum for Simultaneous
Elections is all the more relevant on this occasion because when there
is a double dissolution the term of senators elected at it dates from
1 July preceding. So the senators who will be elected as the Constitution
stands at the moment would have their terms dating from 1 July 1973.
If this referendum is carried then their terms will date from the day
of the election. You will remember that's what happened in 1951 when
there was last a double dissolution. The senators had in effect two
and five year terms whereas the House of Representatives was permitted
to have three years. So the way to bring them together will be achieved
if this referendum is carried.
QUESTION: Where will you make your policy speech and when?
PRIME MINISTER: This is still being arranged it will be announced by
Mr David Combe, the Secretary of the Australian Labor Party. I would
expect it will be in Sydney and about three weeks. before the polling
date. QUESTION: Do you envisage any major changes in policy~ any new policy
initiatives at all when you do make your speech?
PRIME MINISTER: The Government's policies are clear. It's because the
Government's policies have been delayed and frustrated in the Senate
that this election is taking place. The principle forms in which the
folicy will be carried out are already in bills which have been before
he Senate. As you know, six of those bills have been twice rejected
by the Senate. Three of them are on electoral matters, although they
were all mentioned in the government's policy speech which I delivered
in November 1972, and, of course, in the Australian Labor Party's
published platform before the 1972 elections. Then there are two bills
to carry out the health insurance scheme which was detailed in my policy
speech in November 1972 and incidentally in November 1969, and is also
in the Australian Labor Party's published platform; and finally the
Petroleum and Minerals Authority Bill which is in accordance with my
policy speech and the Australian Labor Party's publi -, hed platform.
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Those are six bills which have already been twice rejected by the
Senate. So people know quite clearly what we will do when we are
re-elected in those six basic matters. On top of that the Senate
has rejected bills to make the industrial organisation and settlement
of disputes easier in Australia, carrying out, incidentally, a
program which the industrial Court recommended as of the utmost
urgency in February 1969. Our predecessors did nothing about it
and the four States concerned, all three of them Liberal States,
have not hitherto co-operated in that five-year-old urgent plan.
So that's one. Then there is Workers' Compensation for Public
Servants; there is the Superior Court of Australia Bill,
incidentally carrying out a proposal which Sir Garfield Barwick
made and got through Cabinet when he was Attorney-General in 1961,
which Mr. Snedden when he was Attorney-General also worked on, and
which Mr. Justice Bowen when he was Attorney-General actually
introduced in the form of a bill in 1968. Mr. Justice Bowen, as
you know, has paid tribute to what the Chief Justice and Mr. Snedden
have done in working on this bill. When we bring it up its rejected,
and it was on the Senate Notice Paper, but they hadn't got round
actually to a vote of rejecting it a second time. Then there is the
Trade Practices Bill, including, of course, proposals which were put
by former Liberal Attorneys-General Greenwood and Bowen and Hughes;
and it also has consumer protection, which we added. Then there
was the proposal for interchange of powers at a referendum between
the Australian Parliament and the State Parliaments, which five of
the six Premiers welcomed last September. Then there is the
Australian Industries Development Corporation Bill and the National
Investment Fund Bill which accompanies it. They've been rejected.
And then I suppose there are some lesser ones which I needn't worry
you with. Land acquisition in the Australian Capital Territory and
seas and submerged lands royalties on minerals all these have been
rejected once the last one actually has been rejected twice but
all the others were waiting for rejection. Now when we're elected
we will bring those bills in. So the clear lines of our policy are
already known. By contrast I suppose one could say that the Liberals
resent it if anyone discloses any drafts of their policies.
QuIESTION: What is your prediction as to the outcome of the election
for both Houses and secondly, what do you think are going to be the
major issues in the election?
PRIME MINISTER: It will be very difficult. I think it will be
unlikely that we can get more than 30 senators or all the parties
opposed to us in the Senate can get more than 30 senators. That being
the case, if the Senate were again to reject any of these six bills
upon which the Governor-General has granted the dissolution, there
would be a joint sitting of two Houses and if there was an absolute
majority in favour of the bills at such a joint sitting they would become
law. Clearly there will be a more ample majority in the House of
Representatives than one could ever hope in the Senate. At a joint
sitting then I would expect all these bills to go through. The
major issues will be these matters which we in accordance with our
platform and my policy speech and which we have introduced into the
Parliament and where we have been frustrated by the Senate. In six
cases, these matters have been twice rejected by the Senate. There
are over six matters where there has been a rejection by the Senate
and a clear intention to reject when they came on to a vote one,
two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.
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QUESTION: The Senate has been the cause of the current situation?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes.
QUESTION: If you do win the elections will you intend to carry
out Labor Party policy of abolishing the Upper House?
PRIME MINISTER: I've been asked that before. It is not a high
priority. It would require a referendum and this is one referendum
which would have to be carried in each of the six States. No
alteration of the Constitution which affects the representation of
a State can be carried without the approval of the electors in that
State. Clearly since each State is represented in the Senate any
abolition of the Senate proposal would have to be approved by the
electors in each State. There was no commitment in my policy speech
to put such a referendum. I do not propose to put it in my policy
speech in a couple of weeks' time.
QUESTION: Could you tell me: have you an opinion, political or
legal, about the Australia Party's move in the High Court?
PRIME MINISTER: I believe that the Australia Party's move in the
High Court has great constitutional merit. I tried to get the
Australian Labor Party to take the same move when the last
distribution was under way in 1968. We couldn't find the money
to mount the challenge. Unquestionably in the United States such
a challenge would succeed. The Australia Party is trying to have
the High Court give the same interpretation to the Australian
Constitution as the Supreme Court of the United States has given
to exactly the same words in the United States Constitution. One
of the referendums which we are putting to the people, the
democratic elections one, is to write into the Constitution of
Australia the interpretation which the United States Supreme Court
has given the Constitution of the United States. Nobody, however
critical he may be of other aspects of the United States Constitution,
has ever asserted that the United States Supreme Court decisions
of the last ten years have done other than build democracy,
congressional democracy, in the United States. The United States
Congress, for better or for worse, now thoroughly represents the
United States people. That's as a result of the interpretation given
by the U. S. Supreme Court to the U. S. Constitution in case after
case over the last ten years.
QUESTION: Will the Australian High Court be able to delay the
election? PRIME MINISTER: I doubt it. What has happened I don't want to
appear too dogmatic on matters like this because obviously the
High Court has the jurisdiction, the duty, in these matters but
what has happened in the United States Supreme Court where challenges
have been made close to an election, as this challenge is being made,
is to require an assurance that any decision will be applied at the
next election. The United States Supreme Court has not delayed an
election while any such challenge has been heard.
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QUESTION: Two questions actually on behalf of the gallery:
would you repeat the undertaking that you gave at the last election
to meet us regularly in Canberra for a press conference on Tuesdays?
PRIME MINISTER: I have carried/ 6ut every promise I made before the
last elections. I faithfully carried this out. I've enjoyed it,
if you enjoy it and repeat the request I will comply.
QUESTION: I repeat the request.
PRIME MINISTER: I comply.
QUESTION: Senator McManus forecast yesterday that because of
disunity amongst the Opposition parties, Labor might be returned
in the House and win a majority in the Senate. Now if his forecast
goes slightly astray and you win a majority in the Senate but find
yourself in a minority in the House, how would you deal with the
legislation of a Liberal/ Country Party Government coming before
a Labor majority in the Senate, legislation with which you had
fundamental objection? How would you deal with supply bills, if
circumstances arose which you saw in the same light as the Liberal,
Country Party and D. L. P. parties have seen last week?
PRIME MINISTER: The second question is utterly hypothetical, clearly.
The first matter concerns a prediction by Senator McManus. I think
he was correct.
QUESTION: Mr. Snedden has undertaken that if he is elected, in his
first Budget he will cut income taxes by $ 600 million a year. Will
you match that promise?
PRIME MINISTER: I shall not.
QUESTION: Will you tell me what attitude you will take towards
taxation? PRIME MINISTER: Mr. Snedden, of course, had scarcely made the
promise before it was . rejected by Mr. Anthony, who asserts that
he will be the Treasurer if there's any change of Government. You'll
remember quite clearly that Mr. Anthony has said that he will be
non-commital on any such proposal. Please don't ask me questions
about my opponents' policies when they are not clear among themselves.
This at least was a specific one by part of them. It was not made
before it was disowned by the other one.
QUESTION: To clear up your answer to a previous question: In the
new House exactly what majority do you expect to have and which seats
do you think you could pick up and which could you lose?
PRIME MINISTER: How many seats we pick up will depend partly on the
candidates, and there has been some speculation on that. I'm clearly
not going to suggest what seats we could lose, but I don't believe
that we will lose any seats.
QUESTION: To what extent can any Federal Government control the
rate of inflation in Australia at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER: Where an Australian Government, the Commonwealth
Government, can affect inflation my Government has taken the
appropriate action. There are, however, two fields where the
Australian Government cannot take action. There are some components
of inflation where the States can take action and the Australian
Government cannot. One very clear example is land prices.
It is open to every State to control, to regulate, land prices.
And in times of inflation people invest in land because they
believe it's one form of investment where the inflated price
of land will keep pace with inflation elsewhere. People believe
that it's a sound investment. When there's inflation people
speculate in land. Every State Government could stop it. The
Australian Government can only stop it in the Territories. You'll
notice that in Canberra the rise in land prices which we inherited
has been brought to a halt. There are other aspects of inflation
which in the case of trading countries cannot be stopped by those
countries without stopping their trade. And the present fact is
in the world that all the trading countries Australia, Japan,
the United States, Canada, Britain, Western Europe are suffering
greviously from inflation. They are trading with each other they're
importing each other's inflation.
QUESTION: Do you think you will be announcing any new antiinflationary
initiatives during the campaign?
PRIME MINISTER: I don't expect so. I notice that Mr. Snedden
has already said that he would abandon or reverse all the antiinflationary
steps that we have taken. And these are antiinflationary
steps which everybody has praised us for taking.
It took some courage to make some of them, but we took them.
QUESTION: Do you think a floating exchange rate would be a good
thing in this situation?
PRIME MINISTER: I'm the head of Government and I will not
speculate on matters of currency. No head of Government can
speculate on the rate of exchange between his country's currency
and any other country's currency. I gather that Mr. Snedden has
said that we should cut the link between the Australian dollar
and the U. S. dollar. Mr. Anthony has supported that proposition.
His motive is very clearly to devalue the Australian dollar.
I believe that would be an utterly irresponsible and highly
inflationary measure. The Australian dollar is not overvalued.
It has appreciated in value very greatly under my government.
It was because it was undervalued under our predecessors,
particularly when Mr. Snedden was Treasurer, that there was so
much hot money coming into Australia. That was producing
inflation, and it was buying up our assets on the cheap. It
would be highly irresponsible to devalue the Australian dollar.
QUESTION: Will you be making any fresh promises in your policy
speech?
PRIME MINISTER: There will be developments of initiatives we've
already taken and there will be many commitments in the light
of expert advice which we have received in the meantime. For
instance, only yesterday we had the report of the Kangan Committee
on Technical and Further Education. There will be reports quite
soon concerning Data and Statistical matters from Professor Crisp.
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There will also be a report on retraining schemes from a committee
under Professor Cochran. These are matters where you can expect
that we will make commitments. But in other matters I would expect
that there will be more details on questions such as pre-schools,
day care, child care and also on house insurance. Clearly the
shortcomings of house insurance have been very greatly brought to
mind by the fact that people who were flooded in Brisbane in
particular. Ipswich and other places, found that their policies
didn't cover them against floods. Even the Treasurer of Queensland
had taken out house insurance on the house for which he had got a loan
from an insurance company and he found they hadn't covered him
against flood. He was left high and dry in that respect at least.
QUESTION: Prime Minister, will you be moderating your views for
Sydney's second airport. Will it be at Galston?
PRIME MINISTER: This matter, as you know, is under consideration.
I see in one of the papers that Mr. Snedden has said that if there
was a change of government that government would extend the
operations at Mascot. I believe that, and I commend Mr. Snedden
for being so frank about it, this is the first time he has been
prepared to commit himself on this issue. He wouldn't find that
the Premier of New South Wales would support him on that. The
fact is that no electorate in the vicinity of Mascot will support
a party which is committed to expanding operations at Mascot.
Everybody knows that.
QUESTION: Could you elaborate on your plans for the rest of today
and the Easter weekend? For example, are you still intending
to go to Cairns to have a rest and work on your policy speech?
PRIME MINISTER: I am going to Cairns. I doubt if it will be a
rest. I will be working on my policy speech. My ministers have
already provided me with suggestions as to the way to present
our policies, to present the further development of the policies
to which we have been committed and which we have done our best
to implement hitherto and, also, of course, summaries of what
we have already achieved. My present plan is to attend a meeting
of the Administrative Committee of the New South Wales Branch
of the Australian Labor Party at about 3 o'clock this afternoon.
I will then touch down at Brisbane. I will meet Lord Mayor,
Clem Jones, there. He has commitments in Rockhampton tomorrow;
I'm taking the opportunity to discuss various issues relating
to the forthcoming election with him on the way between Brisbane
and Rockhampton. And then I will arrive in Cairns tonight.
QUESTION: Prime Minister, when you saw the Governor-General
yesterday did you put before him all those matters that you read
out to us earlier about what the Senate has done?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes.
QUESTION: Or was your advice based mainly on the events of
yesterday? PRIME MINISTER: I followed the precedent that Sir Robert Menzies
set in the letter of 1951 to Governor-. General McKell. Sir
Robert Menzies referred to one bill, the Commonwealth Bank Bill,
on which there had been two rejections by the Senate. He did
in fact then go on to list the course of obstruction by the Senate.
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My list was, of course, very much more formidable.
QUESTION: During the last election campaign, when you didn't
have control of the Senate anyhow and it didn't matter, you
promised that there would be no change in the first-past-the-post
voting system during the life of the still present Parliament.
I wonder now that there is some chance that you may get control
of the Senate and the thing becomes feasible if you would outline
your intentions in that regard?
PRIME MINISTER: You are quite right. There was no promise
to the people in this respect at the last elections and therefore
when we brought in our various electoral bills we made no promise.
We made no provision for first-past-the-post voting. There will
be no amendments of the electoral laws under my government in the
next Parliament other than those which are set out in the policy
speech.
QUESTION: On the question of inflation and the economy, which
will be major issues in the campaign, how do you reconcile the
rate of inflation today running at around about 14 per cent
with the five or six per cent of your predecessor?
PRIME MINISTER: There are two reasons. We inherited some
policies which were just made for inflation. The currency was
undervalued and furthermore the last Snedden Budget in 1972
encouraged inflation. There was a very great deal of domestic
money infused into the economy and of course that, added to the
overseas funds coming in, just produced the inflation. Since
then the imported inflation has grown because in 1973 all the
countries I mentioned earlier have much higher inflation than
they had in 1972. If, however, we had not taken our steps to
upvalue the Australian currency to regulate the flow of loan
funds from overseas by having the variable deposit requirement,
if we hadn't taken steps such as that and the unpopular but
inevitable interest rate increases, then our inflation would
be very much worse.
QUESTION: Assuming you are returned to office and assuming either
Mr. Young or Mr. Hawke are also elected, would you hope that either
or both of them would be in your next Cabinet?
PRIME MINISTER: I only have one vote in the Caucus so I'm not
going to answer a question like that. I've never run tickets
for Executive or for Cabinet. The Caucus will be able to make
up its own mind between all those who nominate themselves.
There are two things required: when the Caucus has its first
meeting aspirants nominate themselves and then in a secret ballot
everybody, including the aspirants, have to state whom they think
they should have as the Government of the country.
QUESTION: Do you think the 16 months period was sufficient
for your government to show its paces?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, I think we've set a very good pace and
I think the people have been encouraged and exhilarated by it.
There is unquestionably a very much greater interest in politics
in Australia among Australians than there was 16 months ago.
And there is unquestionably a very much greater interest in
Australia among the countries of the world than there was 16 months
ago.
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QUESTION: I was wondering why the Government in the Senate
let the Opposition parties off the hook last night in voting
on the Appropriation Bills?
PRIME MINISTER: They didn't let the Opposition off the hook;
they impaled them on it. Because when this adjournment motion
was moved by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, this
hypocritical schoolboyish motion, and when that motion was
supported by the Leader of the Country Party in the Senate
and by the Leader of the D. L. P. in the Senate, the very next
speaker was the Leader of the Government in the Senate, and
he moved that the question be put. He said: Let this be
resolved immediately. If the question is not put, that is,
if you won't vote on supply, this will be taken by the Government
as a refusal of supply. A vote was taken immediately to put the
question, the vote was defeated. That meant the question could
not be put; the amendment moved by the Leader of the Opposition,
the Leader of the Liberal Party in the Senate, the vote couldn't
be taken on what he moved. That mean we couldn't proceed with
supply in the Senate. The Senate wouldn't debate or vote on
supply. Thereupon we did two things: we put in the House of
Representatives immediately the remaining supply bills, the ones
which enable a Government to carry on after 1 July and sent those
to the Senate and they got to them at I o'clock. At 7.30 I
waited on the Governor-General and by 8.30 I told the House of
Representatives, and the Leader of the Government in the Senate
told the Senate, what the Governor-General's intentions were.
And after a great deal of humming and harring about dates and
that sort of thing, which are not their responsibility, the
Opposition senators then voted supply, all of them; but they
were not going to vote, they had refused to vote on it. They
refused supply; the tactics were obvious. There was no humming
and harring; we put them on the spot immediately, we impaled
them on the hook at once. They refused supply to the Australian
Government elected 16 months ago the first time that any
Opposition has ever threatened it in the Senate.
QUESTION: Would you do the same thing if~ jou were in opposition?
PRIME MINISTER: This is an utterly hypothetical question.
It is a totally unlikely situation. ' I think that the Australian
public are anxious to have a Government which will get on with th~ e
job. That is, they want to elect senators who will be cf the same
mind, the same date as members of the House of Representatives.
QUESTION: What is the state of the A. L. P. funds? Is there plenty
to carry out an unlimited campaign or will there be some
restrictions? PRIME MI* rISTER: There h, . ve never been unlimited funds. I'm
assured, I believe, there aren't on this occasion, but
contributions will be thankfully received; they will be in
a good cause, and people know that what we promise we shall do
our best to perform and in a new Parliament we will be able to
perform more promptly, more fully.