7) FE.
-PROOF ONLY
TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE -17 AUGUST 1984, 5.30 P. M.
PM: Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry that you haven't yet
E-en able to receive a copy of the repjort. We tried to
expedite that to you. I will make a statement to you,
and read relevant sections of the report. Once I have made
that statomeont Mr. Young and 1 are Faiiable foz any questions.
I hope thaL will satisfy everyone. I make thiEs point if when
you get the report which should be availab" e -uery shortly, i-ff
you wanted to speak to me again I hope it1 won't be ncessary
but if you do w-ant to, I am prepared to meet you again.
The report wIas made available to me this morning in Melhou~ cne
when Mr. Black. and Counsel Assistinc), 1M1r. Dunn, geve me th?-
report in my Melbouyne office and I hall tlte opportunity of
discussion ., 7ith them thien, I am very pleased to be able to say
that the report completely and unequivocally clears Mr. Young
of any suggestion of impropriety, intention or-attk empt to
evade custo-ils duty or to use improperly any in:' luence ani in a
complete exoneration of Mr. Youngj in resrject o. 2 anvy suaggst. ions
that have bec: r,,. made acrainst him. And Speaking personally, of
course, and on behalf of the Gove -nment T welcnmeci thatI -f: indinq
and am glad that now-M~ r. YouncT is fully re-instated into theic
Government because on receiving the rE: ro-rt an-" -reaci.: inq i.-I
immediately signed the appropriato lotters on ] ciy return to my
Canberra office to 14r. Young ai~ d to Mr. Bowen and to Mr. Peazley,
And so as of this afternoon Mr. Young is fu~ lly restored to his
position of Special. Minister oi StLat-L, and cf Leadler of the llousZ..
The report will be tabled J t: he Parliaii-ent on Tuesday and if
the opposition so desire! s an opportunit1y will bo macde avail&. ble
duriiig the week for deb; ate on the rcpor-' c,
JOURINALIST: M~ r. Hawke, does this mean tha~ t r. Young did not
make any false declaration to Customs. is that whot the report
says?
P11: Lot me read to you. I ind~ iiated that If w, ulci read. to you
the relevant passages . which of coursc are properly to he un( orstood
in the context of the vholc report. I %-iJll ) ead what is Ann1otated
now ar; page 132 on the copy that 1 have. Part 13. Vniethcr any
impropriety may have occurr: ed in the actions of the Honourable
MJ Young. " Befure expressing mry final conclusions it is
necessary to consider w'c: ther any impropriety may have occurred
in the actions of Mr. Young in the making of the Customs
declaration. I have concluded that there was no intention to
evade duty, no attempt to evade duty, and no attempt wilfully
to mislead any Customs Officer. Very strict standards are
expected of persons holding high public office in their approach
to the completion of documents of the nature of a Customs
declaration. I conclude that Mr. Young, notwithstanding the
] ifficulty with which he was presented by the circumstances and
by the wording of the form, should have taken more time and
exercised greater care so that questions could not reasonably
have arisen about its correctness. On the facts, as I have
concluded them to be, I am of the -view that the circumstances
fell short of impropriety and that a positive finding that there
was no impropriety should be made. No other aspects of Mr. Youn. g's
conduct require further consideration in this context."
He then goes on on the following page to conclusions and I read
the relevant section. It goes on, The Honourable MJ Young:
" There was no impropriety in the actions of the Hon. MJ Young.
Mr. Young did not at any stage use or attempt to use his official
position to his advantage or to divert any person from the
proper and impartial performance of his duty. I express no
conclusions as to whether any breach of the law of the Co. Konw?. alth
may have occurred. My reasons for taking this course appear in
Part 12 of this report, It should not be inferred that I make arny
finding that a breach of the slawo: f the Commonwealth may have
occurred in the actions of the Hon. MJ Young."
Clearly you would need to read Part 12 of the report that he
refers to there, but if I may attempt to summarise for you Part 32
of the report, and I do that in the sense that after you have re: ad
it yourself, of course I am available for questions. But
essentially what Mr. Black says in Part 12 of the report is that
section 209 of the Act deals with the process there for sumnarily
dealing with the situation where the form has not covered the
declaration of goods and that process he finds was appropriately
applied. And he refers to the fact that under Section 209 of the
Act it is specifically provided that once that process has bcen
followed, which he specifically find.; was in all respects
appropriately followed then no further action can be taken. He
then says he looks hypothetically at the question of Section
234e of the Act which deals with the question of the filling in oF
the forms and on that he deals with the question of knowledge and
the line between knowledge and belief. ie deals with the submis. sion.
of Mr. Young's Counsel in which he says he finds merit and says
that there is no statement of the la-on the matter, but it is not
appropriate in those circumstances and indeed would be unfair to
go to that hypothetical question. That is the essence to the
reference to Part 12 of his report.
JOURNALIST: Mr Young who paid for the charter that brought
you to Canberra today, an.. why C'id you use a charter?
YOUNG: Well I received a message from the Prime Minister to
return to Canberra as quickly as I could and as you are probably
aware now, you may have been aware earlier, that I'd been
invited some days ago to partake in a sort of 60 Minutes
extravaganza. They take a bit of time to do it. They had
been with me for the past three days. Arrangements were made
for us travel down here on a private jet which their company,
I understand, will pick up the bill for and send me an
account of the three fares of myself andi'my two staff members.
JOURNALIST: Mr Young do you feel as though you were unfairly
treated by your colleagues and in particular do you resent
the fact the four Parliamentary Leaders didn't advise you
of the new information before they took their decision.
YOUNG: Well Milton, let me say this about the enquiry. As
you know I'm on reco:. rd as saying I didn't think it was
necessary and I suspect we all feel that way when what
we know to be true is challenged and I suspect it becomes
a difficult and complex question for a government to decide
when they received this new information as to how best to
clear it up. As I sac.. id at the time I didn't think the enquiry
was necessary and I'm; pleased that I've b(-en vindicated and
that the views have been tested,, my views which have been tested
over three fairly exhausting weeks both by myself and my family
Shave vindicated what I said then.
JOURNALIST: Do you think you should have been confronted
by the new information before the decision was taken.
YOUNG: Well I think that's a difficulty which the four
leaders have to deal with when they're given it. And obviously
they chased it up and I was made aware of it after they'd received
their reports back from their primary investigations. And it
seemied to the four leaders then it was the best course to follow,
it was the enquiry., As you know I disagreed because it was like
someone giving infcrnation well Mick's not telling the truth.
And I knew what the events of the day were on July 5th, I knew
what had occurred an. I was confident all along that Mr Black,
QC, would find accordingly.
HAWKE: I should say in respect of the matter generally, a point
I should have made at the beginning, that not only did Mr Black
find as I've indicated in respect of Mick,, but naturally he
has found in respect of Mrs Young and her sister, Mick's sisterin-
law, complete honesty and straightforwardness on their part.
And in respect of officers, public servants of the Co. monwealth,
has also found no impropriety on the part of anyone else.
JOURNALIST: M~ r Young do you Lhi~ nk people were out to get
you? YOUNG:. I suppose in politics they always are, sometimes
you've got diffic-flty sort of pinpointing the enemies
and I think that I don't thin]: that Mir Black has found
anybody, that was out to get mec in terms of the case that' s
been presented. I think it's always difficdlt in these
circumstances -tthen someone in.-public office is caught up
in issues like this. So I'm just happy that -he report
says what it does.
JOURNALIST: Do yo'. think: that calthough. you did not behave
improperly you w-ere perhaps foolish?
YOUNG: Never been foolish,
JOURNAUjST: I hope you're not goDing to makel the sax,, e
mistake again.
YOUNG: I'm not going to admit it ' Co the Parliamentary
Press Gallery anyhouv~ r
JOURN! LLIST:-Mr Youig what tonig ' it is your friendship Jike
betx, een yourself ar-d Mr Ka % kIe, IsF i4 j. sh ap?.
YOUNG: V7er. y good shapc and you'll see it in full action
at the forthcoming election,
JOURINALIST: Would you -ct to be involved in the forthicoming
election YOUNG: I'm chairiaQ-in of the National CamPaIgn Cornrittea.
HAWE. He's certainly chai.. rnao.-of the . National Carapai , gn
Committee. And jut let mo say irespact of your alucstion
that there is and can be no gugg-sti. on -that Yx Younq returr
to the full assiumtitjon of his po~ rtfolio in anY -lay di:. 1ii shc c.
rc&= 1-uTas that 1? oY. Lfoli. o in at vxyi: wac wl ent
he will exnect and the GoNFvMIC17 A-72M a-Xl jeCt comrpletc. and
undiminished discharge of is duti. es thr. re, and as Lead. er
of the House, and E& s he scaid as Chairman of -the Nationrl
Campaign Cormittee-. And lie wpill be: ,. as he has been for
many years, a very considerable thiorn in the side of the
Opposition. JOURNALIST: Mr Yoi: ng-vwhich particullar forthxcom. ng election
is that you are referring to?
HAWYE: There's got to be one so-me time doesn't there?
6. JOURN. iLIST: 1,1r Hawke dcsiewihat Mr I-41ack has found and wi de
secu'-. ons of the muedia ha. ve been saving of Mr Young that. he's
an accident prone Jinc., is -thc!. Lt un~ fair label now for
him to wear?
HAVWKE: Yes.
JOURNALIST: Mr H-awke will the Gov ernment be moving to change
the Customs Law.
HIAWKE: That's a good question and I think-O when you read the
repo--t in full you will see that 1, r1 Black aadresses himself
to this question arid rai! 5es tho. poin-: as to whether in fact
there m-, ay not be a case, for another box of ' Yes', ' Don't
know!. And it's very interesting that lie goes to the point
of this question of the distinction between knowledge and bel-ieff.
and indicates that the).-o is no 6efini:; tive statement of the
law on the points. So your question is a go--od one, I think thatr
it will makc sonse that-in the light of Nr 3lack's repor-t that
the Gov ernment should examine with thec relevant M~ inister anc.
officials as tCo w-. hethler there can be a clarification of these
formTrs wNYich I know personally, aF., d I think anyone who has
travelled ov.; erseas and had to fill1. them in, can pose cr~'~
diffCiculties at times, And a good q,, ues3tion you raise a-nd
I think wc'll give attention to it.
JOURWA-LIST: Does the t-ort, el with. valuation procedures?
HIAWKE Yes indeed. I'm glad you asked that: qinestion. There's
a. very detailed ex.% mri. ntion of that-ruestion, And. I can Say
this that when you read that Fcction of the report I awo oerta-Ln
that anyone who reads it' will be tCot-. lly convinc ed of the integrity
of evcryonc that was involved in that evaluation. That is 14-Younc,,
waho wasn't di5rectly in\ olved in th~ at, it -was Mrs Young an(:. 4.-si
Hughes and the Cust-o-fs officials. An~ d i-t i5 beyond any qutstion
of doubt that involved ac'Ced co'ipletCe integrity and3 indeed
you will. find from the,-report thmt tleo. xmJssJoner finds -that
if anything, on L~ alancc, tC. he amuunt may have-been overstated.
JCUIU14ALIST: Mr. Hakif Mr. Young ha! s done nothing wronc;
at al., is he to be rcf-' unded teCr pcnalty duty he has pai-i
PMi: What action Mr. Young would seek -to -take in that matter
is a question for Mr. young him-se-, lf.,
JOUR~ NALIST: Could we ask Mr. Young?
YOUNG: Yes, you can. It is not at the top of my priorities.
-A