PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, OPERA HOUSE 26 MAY 1989
3 0 8 PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST; Another late flight I believe. I'm just
wondering what your thoughts are on the state of our
airlines and why you've bought into the air traffic
controllers, dispute at the moment.
PM: I'm not prepared to allow this haemorrhaging of our
airline system to continue and they need to understand that
we are just not going to stand idly by and al -low it to go
on. So the CAA will be prepared to process those provisions
in the Award which allow punitive action and I have with Mr
Willis commissioned a group of three to advise us urgently
on what is the range of measures available to us to deal
with this situation. it is a nonsense that's going on, they
need to understand that they are not going to blackmail this
Government through pressure on the public to give them
massive wage increases and particularly in a situation where
we are acceleratinq our programs to upgrade the radar and
other relevant facilities at our airports. If they think
they are going to break the Australian economy by having a
wages breakout by imposing this sort of pressure then
they ' vewgot another thing coming. If it's necessary the
system wil be closed. That's not what we want. We want
sensible co-operation. There is a process within the
Arbitration Commission whereby there can be a restructuring
of the Award in accordance with the general principles that
can be accelerated so that their conditions under the
restructuring process are properly accommodated. BuL they
are not going toiget special treatment and they are not
going to blackmai this Government.
JOURNALIST: The airline bosses, they've expressed their
concern, Sir Peter Abeles was talking about the lack of
services airports. Has he made representations to you
about the air traffic controllers?
PM: The representations are being made by the airline
industry generally to my Government.
JOURNALIST: Home loan interest rates now
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Px: I've got no comment to make on interest rates, to say
anything other than I said in the Parliament and that is
that and i said it as recently as yesterday in the
Parliament and that is that no Government in its right
mind has interest rates hi~ her for a moment longer than is
necessary, It's not politically popular to have high
interest rates but I say to the people of Australia that
what we've got is an economy which is just running very,
very strongly and we are sucking in too high a level of
imports and this and future generations in Australia will
pay a very, very high price if we're not prepared to slow
down activity. Therefore it's necessary in all our best
interests, immediate and longer term, to bring back that
level of activity somewhat and the level of interest rates
that are currently operating are necessary to achieve that.
JOURNALIST: We're seeing the Westpac Bank today put it up
to 17%, a full one per cent. Is that increase justified?
PM: I'm not making any comments about particular interest
rates. The situation is, asI say, that monetary policy has
to be tight. we can't keep the current level of activity.
JOURNALIST: ( inaudible)
PM: I'm not adding anything, I'm not saying anything more
about interest rates so don't waste your time and mine by
asking any more questions about it.
JOURNALIST: Did the Government act too slowly and
PM: I've got nothing to add on the area which impinges upon
interest rate policy because any more statements could be
counterproductive and I don't intend to make any more.
JOURNALIST; What time limit are you giving the air traffic
controllers? PM: It's not a question of time, We're initiating the
action now, I hope they can see that we're serious about
this and that we're not goin gto tolerate a continuation of
this absurd situation where it's disguised industrial
action. They have a pattern of the taking of sick leave
which is an absurdity, including people taking sick leave,
coming back and doing some extra hours and then going off
again and suffering no loss but causing enormous
interference and sabotage to the system. It's not going to
be tolerated.
JOURNALIST; ( inaudible)
PM; Look I'm not saying anything more about banks so don't
waste your time and mine.
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JOURNALIST: Some economists, the Opposition, are saying
that a further tightening of policy though may send the
country into recession.
PMt: No-one takes any notice of the opposition in the area
of economic policy. They had their chance, they were there
for seven years and because they had no wages policy which
allowed a breakout of wages in the order of an increase of
16 or 17%, they did what had never been done before. I mean
they are unique, they achieved in that period before we came
to office, simultaneous double-digit unemployment an
additional quarter of a million people going on to the
unemployment scrapheap in the last 12 months of office. So
they have no credentials to talk about economic management.
we have wages policy very tight through the co-operation of
the trade union movement, we have fiscal policy tighter than
it's ever been, we've had now a second year of budget
surplus, three years in a row of reduced real Commonwealth
outlays. These are achievements which have been unmatched
in 35 years of the keeping of comparable records. We've now
got an economy which is running too strongly and we've got
to haul it back in. we don't need any advice from the
opposition, they have their criticism but the interesting
thing is that they have no policies. The distinguishing
charcteistioftheopposition on economics at the moment
is a total absence of pl icy which is not surprising.
ends