PRESS OFFICE TRANSCRIPT WEDNESDAY, 19 MARCH, 1980
PRIME MINISTER INTERVIEWED BY MIKE PETERSEN, CHANNEL 7,
CANBERRA Question Prime minister, for the moment it seems we have averted another
crisis. But how far is the Government prepared to go to see
that Mr. Laidely and others like him survive in their business?
Prime Minister
We are prepared to go a very long way indeed to see that small
business, individuals, have economic freedom in this country.
This is what it is all about. We have had a situation where under
the auspices of the Commission,. and in a sense well, we
condemned that as something that ought not to have happened
but under the auspices of the Commission agreements were reached
in which AMOCO said it was not going to supply petrol and
the Transport Workers' Union certainly did not want Mr. Laidely
to get supplies. If we are going to have a situation in Australia
where large business and large and powerful trade unions can
come to an agreement explicit or implicit that a certain
person is not to be supplied products, it might be oil one day
it might be groceries the next, then something very previous
and important to Australia is lost. The Government is not
prepared to see it lost.
Question How far are you prepared to go in the event that another petrol
strike happens?
Prime Minister
We will uphold the law. We will support the law. We will
strengthen the law, if it is necessary to support-the right of
small businesses in this country. Nobody wants confrontation.
We do not want confrontation. But it was people who were wanting
to shut off Mr. Laidely's lifeline that led to confrontation
in the first instance. Then a situation arose as a result of
that where people must have said: " well, it's easier to
sacrifice Mr. Laidely than to have an argument about a principle".
So' far as the Government is concerned, we are prepared-to have
an argument about that principle because it is about a principle
that'is of fundamental importance to the kind of country this is.
Let's take it another step. If you are going to say a trade
union can say where Mr. Laidely can get his product, or whether
he can get it, you would have a trade union saying to you what
you can put on this television screen and what you must not put
on this television screen. That would not be a power that you
would accept very willingly. You would fight it I believe, very
hard, and so you ought. But the Government is in the forefront
of this battle and has to be. Because when you have large and
powerful bureaucracies of different kinds a private one, the
corporation, a * trade union which is another bureaucracy of
a kind then, it is the Government that has the responsibility / 2
PETERSEN2 Prime Minister ( continued.)
to defend the interests of people, small businesses, that
may not be able to stand without Government support.
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