TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, AUSNUSIC TRAINING CENTRE,
MELBOURNE 12 MAY 1989
E OE PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, did you lose your cool last night in
Parliament? PM: I wasn't in Parliament last night.
JOURNALIST: The ' recycled dunderhead' remark has been
reported, do you have any thinking on that?
PM: No, no, I don't have any regrets about a little bit of
tough language. The fact is that we have a leader who is
recylced but that's no reflection on Andrew, it's rather a
reflection on the Liberal Party. He's been there and it's a
reflection on the absence of a range of talent, there's
no-one else that they can go to, they've got to go back to
someone who's been there before and failed. I'm not trying
to make a personal attack on Andrew, there's no point in
doing that, but it does really involve a reflection on the
very very shallow pool of talent in the conservative ranks
in the Federal Parliament.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, it appears that the former
Liberal leader Mr Howard is now destined to the backbench.
Do you think that's an appropriate spot for him?
PM: Well, it means that Mr Peacock is having a great deal
of difficulty in getting his front bench together.
Apparently they've been negotiating for some time, Mr Howard
suggested two portfolios, one of two portfolios that he
wanted, Mr Peacock wasn't prepared to give them to him. I
think that is probably not a reflection of his judgement as
to the lack of capacity of Mr Howard for either of those two
portfolios but rather he's got a lot of bills out. I mean
he owes a lot. You've got a situation where if you've
promised 40 and there's only 30, you know 40 into 30 won't
go and particularly if you've made some special promises.
So I think that there is just simply no doubt that in any
current Opposition front bench John Howard ought to be part
of it. There's no way he oughtn't to be part of it. What
is certain is that it will be less than their best front
bench if he's not in it and that's quite clearly the case
now. JOURNALIST: But doesn't it also give Mr Peacock a
completely fresh start, a chance to start all over again?
-2-
PM: How can it's hardly a fresh start all over again when
you're having a recycled leader. That's hardly a fresh
start all over again is it? I mean it's the same players as
before so how can it. Mr Peacock is the last person who can
be having a completely fresh start. It just is
indisputable. Wherever you are in the political spectrum
it's indisputably true that the Opposition front bench is
going to be less than at its optimum, whatever that level
is, it's going to be less than its optimum if John Howard is
not part. Why is John Howard not a part of it? Because
Andrew Peacock refuses to give him one of the two portfolios
that he wants.
JOURNALIST: So do the events of this week give you the new
opportunity for an early election?
PM: That really is old hat. I was never going to call an
early election. You know who it was that started the story
of an early election? It was a bloke called John Howard.
John Howard was a bloke who was talking about an early
election. Why? Because he was frightened there was going
to be a challenge to his leadership so he thought if he
talked about an early election that would stave off a
challenge to him. Now like in most things John Howard was
involved in, he made a mess of it. Bob Hawke was not
talking about an early election, Bob Hawke delivered the tax
cuts as the delivery of a promise he made 12 months ago. So
I don't know why you go on with this talk about an early
election. The bloke who put the story around has just had
his throat cut.
JOURNALIST: Will Mr Peacock be more difficult to handle
though as an opponent than John Howard?
PM: No, I don't think so. I think it's obviously the case,
I would expect it to be the case that Andrew will get a bit
of a honeymoon from the electorate and in the polls. I mean
that's always the case, you get a new bloke in, I would
expect that to be the case but then he will have to face up
to he's had to face up to it before the question of a)
preparing policies, b) understanding them, c) being able to
talk about all the details of those policies both within the
Parliament and through the public gaze. We're confident
that we've got the superior policies and the superior
record.
JOURNALIST: The souffle not only rose again, do you think
it will fall again?
PM: Oh well, that's Paul's, I mean Paul's got a copyright
on that one. I think it was a pretty good line actually, I
wished I'd thought of it myself. But it's Paul's and I
don't want to intrude into that area of analogy. I'll leave
the development of that to Paul.
-3-
JOURNALIST: Do you think Mr Peacock got the better of you
in that clash yesterday in Parliament?
PM: No, what simply happened in the Parliament yesterday
was he tried to make a big issue out of the fact that
there'd been a slip that I'd made, eight per cent per annum
that I'd apparently said, as though I'd meant it. Obviously
it was eight per cent over the period since ' 83. All I can
say now is as I said then, if he thinks that's a big deal,
as I said, ' bung on boyo', because if that's the measure of
the importance of your first question. The second one which
didn't involve Mr Peacock, as I said, I simply made a
mistake in terms of assuming that a particular item was in
the $ 17 million that had been raised in the question by one
of the Members and I readily conceded that it was mistaken.
JOURNALIST: You don't think you overreacted
PM: No, I mean you oughtn't to be around Parliament if you
think what I said is something to be upset about. That was
pretty tender stuff really.
JOURNALIST: So what's Mr Peacock's future now?
PM: Well he's got his second time around as Leader of the
Opposition and if we are to believe what's in the paper
and I'm always a little bit doubtful about believing
everything I read in the press, I've been around a long time
and they do make mistakes but if we are to believe what's
in the press we're told that those who supported him said
he's got it on two conditions. One, that he's got one shot,
if he loses the next time, as he will, then he's finished
and secondly which I thought was very strange people
saying this that he's got to be non-controversial and lead
an impecable public and private life. That's nonsense that
sort of stuff, but they are the sort of conditions that were
laid down. Nonsense.
JOURNALIST: Who would you have preferred to face coming up
to an election, Hawke or
PM: Hawke?
JOURNALIST: No, sorry not Hawke, Peacock or Howard?
PM: I am quite relaxed about it, I really am. I suppose
what you can say is this, that the people had sort of got
used to John Howard and seemed to be giving a thumbs down.
As I said before, I think that Andrew will get a little bit
of a honeymoon. That's exactly what you'd expect so in that
sense there'll be a bit of an advantage for the Opposition
for a while. But there's a long time to go to the next
election and the inadequacies of the Opposition will come
through. This is not just a personality thing I'm talking
about in regards to Andrew. What will be on issue is
firstly the comparative record of this Government in our
-4-
PM ( cont): seven years in office and their absymal seven
years, and secondly the question of policies and relevance
of policies. We'll beat the hell out of them on both record
and policies.
JOURNALIST: So you're in a stronger position now than you
were this time last week?
PM: No, I think initially, as I say, there'll be a
honeymoon period for Andrew Peacock and the opposition. I'd
be very surprised if there wasn't a bit of a honeymoon. But
you see the fundamentals haven't changed. The fundamentals
simply are that this mob have been in Opposition for six
years and they haven't got their policies out on
fundamentals yet, like tax for instance. That reflects
their incompetence, their laziness, their internal divisions
and that's not going to change because they've swapped
leaders and put back a bloke who's been there before.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, a Melbourne paper has the Liberals in
an opinion poll well ahead of the Labor Party. Is that part
of their honeymoon period too?
PM: I would expect, I haven't seen this, is it out today is
it? Whose is it, whose poll?
JOURNALIST: It's a Herald poll.
PM: It's a Herald poll is it. well I'm not entirely
surprised. I've just been saying I expect them to get a bit
of a honeymoon but that won't last long.
JOURNALIST: Are you prepared to debate with Andrew Peacock
on your policies
PM: Parliament that we do that, happening, I hope
that he'll want to debate policies. I hope he'll give me
the opportunity of debating his policies in the Parliament.
But to have a debate about policies, about their policies,
they've got to have some. So the sine qua none for having a
debate with Andrew Peacock in the Parliament about his
policies is that he gets them.
JOURNALIST: what about a television debate Mr Hawke? Would
you have a debate with him on national television?
PM: What's this gimmick business of getting into television
debates now? There's no election on.
JOURNALIST: charisma factor that Mr Peacock's Do
you feel threatened by that electorally?
PM: No, not at all.
ends