PRIME MINISTER'S
PRESS CONFERENCE, CASTLEMAINE 14 May 1974
PRIME MINISTER: at 11.00 o'clock and I wanted to see this
century old market at Castlemaine, following on Mr Justice Oakes.
Commitee on the National Estate report who we are going to
restore thexEmsk to the cost of 46,000. xTxhavxalso I also have
of course a a dutiable because my gxxahex grandfather Henry Hugh Gough
Whitlam was born here, in 1856. I am'the most Victorian of all
pi political leaders-in our nation. Are there any questions you'
would like to ask me gentlemen.
QUESTION: Mr Anthony has now said that it wouldn't be possible to.
^ n freeze food prices, Mr Snedden says he is going to. Do you have.-
any opinion on whether or not that it is possible
PRIME MINISTER: I'm ti d of trying to reconcile Mr Snedden and
Mr Anthony. My own view is that one cannot realistically freeze the
price of foods stuffs such as meat because as Mr Snedden himself
confessed if one tries to do that, then graziers and sheep men
will keep their cattle and sheep from the abitors. I don't regard
it as any solution to follow Mr Snedden's idea that in-that case
one could import meat. Meat hasn't been imported into Australia
as I said at the Sydney Opera House yesterday, since Bennelong was. a
lady boy, since Governor Philipp planted the Union Jack at Circular
Quay. My govt took this attitude when the Parliamentary Committde
on Prices made a recommendation about meat, the govt rejected the
recommendation, believed it wasn't a realistic one. I agree with
' Mr Anthony on this, I think Mr Snedden was just thrashing about on
this one matter an as he has on all his last minute proposals for
income and prices freezes. . J
QUESTION: I noticed that the Mr. Snedden said that the Liberal Govt
would spendx$ Af $ 200 Ezs million less on education.....
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PRIME MINISTER: I though t he said $ 300 million less....
QUESTION: You may be right....
PRIME MINISTER: I was going on the Sun-Pic which said $ 300 million
less.
-QUESTION: Would that amount be important, would there be many
S schools suffer.
PRIME MINISTER: He doesn't specify. in wki rx ia what field of
education he would reduce the prospective... what field or fields
Sof education he would reduce the prospective expenditure. It may
h be at the tetiary level, the universities, colleges of advanced
education and both Government and non-Government teachers colleges
for which my Government has made commitments. Presumbaly however,
: the reduction in expenditure would mainly be at the expense of the'
S secondary and primary schools. I suppose technical colleges are
partly secondary and partly tertiary. He doesn't specify where
Sthe reduction will be. It will be appreciated that the expa
expenditure that my Government has undertaken in education has in'
every case been on the advice of expert committees. For primary
Sandsecondary schools it was. on the recommendation of the Karmel
:~ Committee; the interim committee for the Schools Commission. On
S. behalf of universities, it's been on the recommendation of the
Universities Commission under Professor Karmel. In the colleges
of advanced education it's been on the recommendation of the
commission on advanced education under Swanson. Now so... And then
the prospective expenditure that we will make on technical and further
education will be on the basis of the recommendations of the tfn X
Committee which was tabled just -before the Parliament was dissoljed,.
It may be that there will be some expenditures which would relate to
education on the recommendation of the Cochran ; Committee on training
adult training and re-training and also of this inter-departmental A_
committee which has reported on its findings concerning re-training
1 ~-i
schemes in comparable countries. We haven't yet undertaken,
we haven't yet as a government yet collectively endorsed the
recommendations or haven't Sxax received the recommendations
of the x Cohrane Committee and we haven't considered the
recommendations of the Inter-departmental committee. The Kanla
Committees report we have accepted in principle. David Kennedy,
whose interest in education matters you'll all remember from
his 3 years in the House of Representatives reminds me that
there are on top of this, commitments concerning fees being
S abolished and also living allowances being increased in number
and amount. I mention all these matters they are all subjects
of reports which we have received and we have also au accepted
the recommendations of reports in the educational field and I
have no doubt that we will acceptxtk for the coming budget
that means for the scholarsatic and admñ cxaE academic year
1975 and subsequenti years the recomendations of these
. expert. After all they have been' uamxzxs unaminous recommendation.
from widely representative committees and nobody fxom has
. criticised them. Now I don't know which of these expenditures
Mr Snedden is threatening to cut I d never heard him speci. fy
what recommendations of these committees he rejects, in fact
I don't remember him speaking on education matters at all in the
S ' Parliament. QUESTION: Prime Minister, yesterday Mr Fairbairn challenged
you to give a undertaking that your govt wouldn't increase the
price of petrol, ( uncleac) he said that because of the ( unclear)
increases on petrol ( unclear) petrol prices?
PRIME MINISTER: Well about the prices o for Australian
crude oil. We will not allow that price to be increased before
the agreement expires in Sept next year. I would think it most
unlikely that thereafter we would agree to any increase in the
prices crude oil coming from deposits already discovered and
4.
operating. I believe that Mr Fairbairn has been too naive
in accepting the propaganda of the oil$ companies in the Bassy..
Strait case its an overseas oil company ESSO, there is not a
shred of. evidence to show that oil exploration in Australia is*
S more expensive or that discoveries are less profitable than is
S the case in any other country, its true that the price of crude.
oil since the September War last year has increased in most oil
producing countries it has increased not because of.* any increase
in the cost of exploration or extractionxfor transport, its
not been caused by any increase in the rake-off which the
oil companies exact, its because. of the increase in the taxes
and royalities imposed by the countries where the oil is found.
Andx There is nothing to sxwh show that oil-exploration in
Australia is more expensive or less profitable than in other
S country. Our attitude to oil exploration is shown very clearly
from our proposed legislation of the Petroleum and Minierals
Authority, we believe that the proper way for a country to
discover oil, one of the proven methods, of discovering oil in
Sany country is for some gaokx governmental instrumentality in
that country to take part in the search and the development and
. that means that the govt of the country becomes k party to the
information the the geoglogical formations and prospects, it
Salso is able to share in the ownership of any deposits that
are found as well as share, as well as share in the m knowledge
which is gained. This is the method ta-t the French use its
S the method : th4at the Italians its the method which the Canadians
are now adopting and Brazil and there are a great number p of these
countries have set up corporations of this character. Australia
would
S would I think,/ be the only country whexexthe the only industrialise
country, or the only country where it is som sought where their
are any indications of oil andxgHsx or natural gas that there
is not a governmental instrumentality taking part in the search
and the development of the oil and natural gas dsopx deposits.
The one that we have. been basing ourselves on for the last ten
years in our thoughts has been any. In Italy the na inte
nationale edro cabori and as in Italy and France, Canada to take
the cases where we are. most familiar with the operations, it's
not a Government monopoly.. The instrumentality as you know the
he's
bill sets out/ is authorised enter into consortia or arrangements
of any kind for discovery and development and processing and
. marketing with individuals or with companies and these companies
can be overseas companies or Australian companies or with State
Governments or with a combination of all of them. It's no secret
about this because the bill has been twice passed by the House
Sof Representatives and twice rejected by the Senate and it's one
of the a six bills upon which the Governmr-General granted us
a dissolution of both houses.
QUESTION: Is there a possibility of a two-teered policy for
prices and incomes?
PRIME MINISTER: That is a system which has been used in many other
S countries. The price remains constant for the existing discoveries.
The price is negotiable to new discoveries. That. is obviously.
a method which one could consider in Australia. If you have an
' instrumentality in the field such as petroleum and minerals
authority, you have the n knowledge of what the costs are and
S this is one of the reasons of oi^ d course why we want to get
S into the tanker trade as well so that one's able to discover the
cost of transporting. If Menzies hadn't sold out the Commonwealth
0
Oil Refineries, we would have been in a very much better position
. in all these respects as to regards search, transport and
refining and distribution.
QUESTION: Sir, could I ask you your reaction to Mr Snedden's
( unclear) indirect.. tax ( unclear)
c I-
,6.
PRIME MINISTER: I've been asked the questions before on thit,-
and I think I need only repeat the answers I've given previous l y.
I see no reason why taxes direct,. or indirect, need to be
increased in order to pay for any of our continuing commitments,
the continuation of programs we've already introduced or for the
introduction of programs for which we've already introduced
legislation but which the Senate has rejected or for programs
which I have undertaken in greater detail in my policy speech
for this election. In particular I undertook two new commitments.
One is to have a complete... to introduce a complete availability
of care and education for children under 5 everywhere in Australia,
city and country, new suburbs, old suburbs. That will cost an
additional 130 million dollars in the coming financial year.
It's mainly current expenditure. I'd emphasise it's not a
capital intensive program at all. It's not like a program for
schools or tertiary institutions. It's'a program based on people
operating xx in existing community. facilities or in fact in their
own homes or their own streets. The other proposal is to exempt
the matrimonial home during the lifetime of the survivor of a
marriage and the Treasury has worked that out as involving
million a year. There was another proposal I made to exempt
well to allow people to deduct from their for taxation purposes
the amount when they paid for the support of dependants even if
thos e dependants are not in Austalia. Treasury said there would
be no cost to the revenue involved. Now I read Mr Snedden's
statement yesterday and he makes no specific costings at all.
The new programs that I've pronounced, I have just gone over now
* and I have told you what the estimates of costs are. I put them
in the policy speech. It's not necessary to increase direct or
indirect taxes to pay for any of them. I issued costingcf those
items which wel'cut and which Mr Snedden says that he would restore.
I didn't purport to go through the whole of his policy speech
because it seemed to me it was deliberately... it was vague. Now
. that was either because of her was deliberately vague or because
She is constitutionally vague. But I did specify the cost of.
those subsidies 9-concessions, loopholes and lurks which we
had ended and which he said he'd restore.
QUESTION: Prime Minister, Mr Fraser says that all the
Treasury predictions has to make, Government would have to
Vc . K Government expenditure would have to rise by 5,000 million in
74/ 75 to make way for its programs. . He goes on to say that.
Mr Hayden told him that the Treasury estimates had been
. publisheadn d believed that they had gone to Cabinet or a..
Cabinet Committee. Is this true?
PRIME MINISTER: There has been no submission to Cabinet
there has been no document prepared by Treasury. Mr Fraser
baseds his allegations on a newsletter hyxsoma produced by
' some body called Syntec. Mr Fraser has made several statements.
I believe he is x the most prolific author of all the members of
Sthe Opposition and most of them are based on Syntec. I think
I heard him... Yes I did. I heard this and I saw this debate
between Mr Fraser and Sir Charles Court and Mr Hayden and Mr.-
Dunstan on Mike Willesee's show on Sunday and Mr Fraser mentioned
Syntec as the basis of this allegation. Mr Hayden said that
there have been no collation of departmental claims. That most
of the claims are not in. I can verify that in my own Department
claims, for instance in the Arts and so on are not in. It's
the practice for departments to make all their claims b' the end
of April. That's because a budget usually comes in in the middle
of August. The claims have been deferred this year because as
happened in 1951 k last time there was a double dissolution, the
budget will not come in until B~ Ezam September. And accordingly,
the claims will not even come in till the end of this month or even
into June and then the Cabinet will not be considering the
various claims until late in July or even August. It depends
when the first session of the Parliament take s place.
. QUESTION: On behalf of Patrick Whiteman and myself, it's
r got to do with your statement on public lending rights whether
Sit's 50 cents a year or it's 50 cents per volume'. Is it an
S. I annual or a lump sum?
PRIME MINISTER: I'll have to find out.
QUESTION: k( unclear)
S PRIME MINISTER: I don't know. I think your volumes are selling
very well. I do what I can to advertise them. I forget it
S may be it's only for each volume that goes into a library
and I would think that the run there is on your works that they
wwo. u ld have to be replaced in more fequently than yearly.
QUESTION: ( unclear)
SPRIME MINISTER: Well that's becasuse they're bound in HongKong.
I'm not aire if I'm right there but the authors get it but the
only b publishers that get it are those who are Australians.
Authors will get them even if they're even if they're overseas
but Australian. Publishers that is the printer -' the publishers
won't unless he's Australian. I think there's one other one isn't
' there QUESTION: But it would have to be annually?
:. PRIME MINISTER: I suppose so but that's only slow moving line.
Laurie would be wise to ask it for each volume.
': QUESTION: Mine will only be slow moving and I need it.
'' PRIME MINISTER: Look give you a copy we can give you a
copy of the report. I don't think there's enought copies to give
S. all round. but there's no secret about it. You'll be in
'. Canberra tomorrow and I'll show it to you.
QUESTION: The other question you were quoted in the Sydney
Telegraph on Monday I don't know where they got it from
it was some interview but government expenditure is going to
increase by 20% next year rather than 50% by suggested by
Mr Snedden. Can you give us details of that or verify it?
RIME MINISTER: I stated this on Frost so it will come out
I 4i.' tomorrow night and it would therefore be embargoed. until
9 tomorrow night. I know you wouldn't have broken the embargo.
J ., You were in the studio at the time but you must have seen it
Si-in writing somewhere. I'm not suggesting that you/ ask a
Squestion which hadn't been in print already which somebody
S' .: else hadn't broken the embargo on but I was asked on the basis
of Malcolm Fraser's quotation from Syntec. I think it was that
things would go up 40% and I said that that had never been
S suggested. There were no documents to that effect. And he said
* where would it be. I said I think it would be somewhere midway.
And that is purely a hunch. I point out that expenditure in
S. the Government's sector in fact is rising more slowly than in
the private sector. This is rot only in current expenditure
'. but still more in capital expenditure. The latest statistics
the statisticians latest bulletin shows I think -d I suppose.
'.' you can look it up I'm going from memory that the increased
capital expenditure by industries is respectively 40% whereas
we have quite deliberately kept down capital expenditure except
S. . where it would be cheaper than hiring private premises. But
I did say on Frost that * k I thought it would be about 20 which
is rather less than the estimates theprivate enterprise'is
giving. QUESTION: Would that b 20% across the border, Prime Minister?
PRIME'MINISTER: The average of the lot. It's obviously I would
think expenditue on public housing this coming year wouldn't
go up as much as the coming year wouldn't go up as much as the
year just ending because it's been shown that the money can't
be spent and there are many items which are continuing ones where
the expenditure would be less but I would expect that there
would be some items in the cities field, urban and regional
developmet which would be greater in the coming year than in
the year just expired because the expenditure we allocated in
last budget hasn't been all taken up by, the States. As you
know in transport and land development alone there must be
I'll have the figures precisely for tomorrow night at Bankstown
but there must be over 40 million available for the New South
4 ' Wales Government in Mr Crean's last budget which wasn't taken
S up. Well we would be making it available in the next budget.
Clearly the increase in expenditure would show up as a . considerable
expenditure in the next budget but it wouldn't be such a large
increase over the expenditure allowed for k in the last budget.
QUESTION: I think Mr Fraser is basing his...
PRIME MINISTER: On Syntec forward
QUESTION: yest on what has been said about/ anHx estimates...
' PRIME MIISTER: Well there aren't.... Forward estimates are not
S yet in. They may be for some departments but Mr Fraser's been
S a Minister. He knows that every departments puts in much more
than it expects to get. The estimates. which we got from
S departments last July were at least halved. And if we hadn't
a lot
been able to cut of these inherited lurks exposed by the Cooms
TAsk Force, they would have t had to be cut further still.' Some
of the Coombs Task Force recommendations will have their full
, x impact in the new year. The superphosphate for instance will only'
ibe half effective. It's meant no saving at all in 73/ 74. It will
only make a half saving in 74/ 75 because the Act doesn't expire
until;. the end of. December. 75/ 76 will be a complete saving.
S I rftrSI\ Q~ i0 9Q