PM Transcripts

St; L-ate ren No 5 8 7
3 N~ ovember 1975
THE BUDGET
Mr Fraser can muster the votes of half thr. Senat.-ors
to delay a vote on~ the B~ udget. By various strcagatemEs he
is trying to use this half of the Senate to force an e). e ction
for -the House of epeetivs
The system of Government that Australia has
enjoyed for 75 yecars would be destroyed if any Prime : Unister,
now or in the future, were to give in to the type of b: lackmail
Mr Fraser continue s to use.
The Senate has never rejected a Budget. Mr Fraser
cannot muster the votes to reject the 1975 Budlget. The
Liberals are deferring a-vote on thce-Budget because they
are desperate. The Opposition has been making hysterical
accusations against the Government because it now realises
that Public Servants will not be bankrupted by any
Opposition refusal to pass the Budget. My Government would
not contemplate any raising, authorisation or expenditure of
money which was not within the existing Australian Conistitutional
and legal framework. My Government believes in Parliamentary demcocracy.
It has kept the Parliament sitting through its normal recess
because it asserts that the political problems of the day must
be settled in the Parliament not by some backdoor deal..
The Australian Labor Party has a clear majority in
the House of Representatives. While it retains that majority
it remains the Government.
on the particular issue of the Budget, the Government
in fact has the support of a majority of both Houses of
Parliament. only the creation of false numbers in the Senate
through the death of a Labor Senator and the destruction of
conventions by two anti-Labor Premiers has enabled the
Opposition to keep deferring a vote on the Budget.
I once again challenge Mr Fraser to free his Senators
to vote on the substance of the Budget that is to vote on
whether they will pass or reject the two Appropriation Bills.
It is intolerable that the present sham of deferring a decision
on these Bills should continue. The Australian people have a
right to know whether the Senate accepts or rejects this Budget
and the economic strategy it contains.
CANBERRA. A. C. T.