TRANSCRIPT OF UNEDITED INTERVIEW WITH KEVIN HUME, RADIO
6WF, PERTH, 8 FEBRUARY 1990
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
HUME: Prime Minister, seven years in power and certainly
very difficult times you've had to face. Why do you
think you need more time?
PM: Well, I'm yet to find anyone who believes that the
0 world has stopped after seven years. We live in a
rapidly changing world and what we've had to do is to
take on an over 30 years of conservative inertia where no
attempt was made, Kevin, to change the basic economic
structure or attitudes of Australia. There is universal
recognition that in the seven years we ' ye done more in
the area of macro-economic reform and of micro-economic
reform than has ever begun to be attempted before. We
are turning this country around, we are making it more
competitive. The attitudes of the workforce and of
management are changing, but there's still a lot of work
to do. We've got it on the right track and I want to be
there to ensure that as we go now into this final decade
of the 20th century, we do make all those changes of
policies and, fundamentally, of attitudes and practices
which is going to make Australia competitive.
HlUME: The 1990s, a fresh decade some would say that
the Hawke Government, what it promises for a fourth term
is more of the same rather than a fresh agenda. Do you
think there is sufficient freshness coming through in
terms of ideas that Labor has got to promise something
different? PM: Well, let's have a look at what we've achieved and
whether people really don't want more of that. Let's
look at employment. We've created 1.6 million new jobs
and that's a rate of employment creation five times
faster than when we came to Office. I would think that
people would like that continuation. We've undertaken a
truly revolutionary social engineering change as far as
education in this country is concerned. When I came to
Office the conservatives had been in power for seven
years and the retention rate of kids in schools had
lifted by a magnificent two percentage points, from 34 to
36 percent. They went out of office leaving Australia
with one of the worst retention rates in the world
certainly in the developed world. Only really one in
three of our kids stayed on in school. I said that's
going to change. I've got that up to 62 percent. In
other words, they shift it from 34 to 36, I've shifted it
from 36 to 62 and rising. I would think Australians
would want more of that because this is the most
fundamental change you can make in this country. I
inherited a position where really there was a pattern of
privilege on the map, on the educational map of
Australia. If your kids came from Dalkeith or Vaucluse
or Toorak you could be sure they were going on in school,
but not if they came from the poorer or the poorer to
middle suburbs. Now the stream of kids from Australia
doesn't depend upon the affluence of your parents.
Similarly in regard to tertiary education. In seven
years they created 27,000 new places. By the end of this
triennium, we'll have created almost 150,000 new tertiary
places. I would imagine Australians want more of that.
I'd imagine Australians want more of a situation where,
when I came to Office a Professor of Economics, ANU, said
of the taxation system, for the rich in this country it's
a matter of choice for them as to whether they pay their
taxes. Now it's recognised that we have a fair and
efficient taxation system. I guess they want more of
that. HUME: Many people on the Labor heartland though who are
wondering whether they should vote Labor and give Labor
another go in the 1990s, would argue that the 1980s has
been a decade in which Labor has helped the privileged.
PM: Well, they're absolutely wrong and they don't say
that. That's a thing that's said by people like yourself
to try and stir up a Prime Minister perhaps, but they are
not saying that for the simple reason that the facts
don't sustain it. In the period since we've been in
Office there has been, in real terms, an increased
allocation of about $ 9 billion in real terms to social
justice programs unparalleled in the history of this
country. In the area of kids, for instance, now over $ 2
billion per annum going out in family allowances and
family allowance supplements payments never happened
before and I've just talked to you about a situation in
regard to education where it's the kids of the poor who
are now staying on in the education system where they
didn't do before. So the facts belie, with respect, that
nonsense. HUME: As far as the West . is concerned though, we've
certainly seen the 1980s being the decade of the big
entrepreneur and we're starting to see those
entrepreneurs topple like
PM: Some of them, Kevin.
HUME: Some of them
PM: Sure.
HUME: And the Labor Government here has been seen
certainly as the friend of big business, WA Inc and all
and I wonder whether, in fact, that doesn't provide
sufficient disillusionment for the election to be lost
here in the West.
PM: No, the election will not be lost here. Won't be
lost anywhere. We'll win the election and that's not
said with complacency, it's because I believe the people
of Western Australia are intelligent as I had cause to
say yesterday. I mean, I am a Western Australian, I grew
up here. I know Western Australians and I don't think
they're dumb, I don't think they're stupid.
HUME: But they're very disillusioned.
PM: They may be disillusioned with some aspects of
Labor's performance in this State, but when it gets down
to the line, and Mr and Mrs Western Australia has to go
into the ballot box, do you really believe he or she is
going to say, ' look Peacock has promised no health policy
other than the abolition of Medicare and additional
expenditure we can't be quite sure of, but it might be up
to $ 2.6 billion, I'm going to inflict an absolute mess
and chaos of a medical system upon myself by voting in
the federal election to put Peacock into Government to
give us a mess in health, in education. I'm going to
vote for Peacock to give billions of dollars to the, to
the rich by abolishing the capital gains tax. I'm going
to do that because I want to give Mr Dowding or the West
Australian Labor Government a kick in the tail'. I Just
don't think they're that silly.
HUME: But in Thomastown surely Victorians aren't that
different. What we've seen there is a massive swing away
from Labor
PM: But in Thomastown who was going to govern
Australia federally wasn't on the table.
HUME: But still straws in the wound that indicate
there's a great deal of mix in peoples attitude
PM: There is no doubt
HUME: State and federal issues and disillusionment
still?
PM: There was a lot of disillusionment in Thomastown
with the Victorian State Government and the Victorian
Premier and the Ministers have acknowledged that. Now
I'm not saying, it would be stupid for me to say, that
people have been entirely happy with the fact that
they've had to have high interest rates. But again, I
think the Australian electorate is intelligent. They
know Bob Hawke. They know that I'm neither, as I've put
it, a masochist or a sadist. I don't want to hurt
myself. I haven't had high interest rates for fun to
hurt me. I haven't had them to be a sadist to hurt the
people of Australia. The fact is that Australians have
been consuming more than they are producing and that's
flowed over into a level of imports that was
unsustainable. So we had to slow things down. It wasn't
as though we just relied on tight monetary policy we
had the tightest fiscal policy in the history of the
country, we had tight wages policy and we had to have
tight monetary policy to go with it. Now, it's working
and things are easing of f, but still there is a bit of a
residual there but when the chips are down do you
think they are going to say we' re so unhappy about
the fact that Mr Hawke had to do that that we're going
to, as I say, vote for Mr Peacock, the abolition of
Medicare, the reversion to a pattern of privilege where
health policy will be determined by how you put more
money into the pockets of the private health funds and
the doctors rather than looking after the people and
education is going to be a return to a situation where it
depends upon the wealth of your parents whether you stay
on in school or go to university'. They' re not going to
do those sorts of things.
HUME: But the cost surely of tightening monetary
policy, for example, and the slow down in the economy
which the Government obviously wants is going to be,
surely, more people out of work for example and less
revenue for the Government to provide the sort of
services that allow for the social justice agenda that
you're talking about.
PM: Kevin, with respect my dear friend, that's the
most facile exposition of economic analysis I've ever
heard in my life because it carries an assumption that
there is an alternative that we as a country can say to
the rest of the world thank you world, we know world
that you will look at us and say that we're not producing
as much as we want to consume and therefore world you are
going to continue to supply the balance of what we can't
produce ourselves, but we want to consume. And the world
is going to say to us that's alright Australia, you're a
special case, we love your sun-bronzed country. We love
your surfing beaches, we love you Anzac people, so we're
going to have different rules for you Aussies, different
rules for you. Now don't be silly. That's not the way
the world works.
HUME: I'm not suggesting that at. all. What I'm
suggesting to you is that, as far as local voters are
concerned, they think essentially with their hip pockets
PM: Don't you see
HUME: They look around and see, are there jobs for their
kids PM: Look, my friend
HUME: Are interest rates high
PM: My friend
HUME: Are the services there?
PM: All I can say, my friend Kevin, is that you regard
your fellow Australians and your West Australians with a
contempt that I don't. I just think, as distinct from
you obviously by your question, unless you're trying to
be funny
HlUME: I wouldn't say that at all.
PM: You do because you are saying that they have not got
the intelligence or the capacity to understand the
necessity of what's happening What you're saying, you
read your transcript, they're going to punish Bob Hawke
and his Government because they've made things at this
stage with high interest rates, a bit tough. That they
can't have all the things at the relatively cheap price
that they could have before and we're going to be
punished for that. I simply say to you I have a higher,
a much higher assessment of the intelligence of your
fellow West Australians and Australians, than you have.
HUME: OK, let's have a look at another matter. That is
the revolution that this Government has put forward in
the workplace. Award restructuring and all of that
PM: Yes.
HlUME: Again profound changes, changes of attitude that
you talked about at the beginning of our discussion. How
much patience do you think there is within the workforce
to accept that radical change within the constraints of
very tight wage limits?
PM: Well you've got to sort of look at, when you're
asked that question about what's happened to, not just
wages, but to real household disposable income. In other
words the welfare of a family is not just determined by
the wage they get. Now just let me give you a couple of
statistics, just to without swamping you with them, but
which are important to understand that point, Kevin. if
you look at the last two completed years and the
financial year we're in. That's 87/ 88, 88/ 89, 89/ 90. In
87/ 88, Kevin, the average weekly-earnings went up by 6.6
percent and it's true CPI went up by a bit more went up
by 7.3 percent so real earnings declined, but real
household disposable income went up by 3.6 percent. In
other words that reflected the improvements in income
which came from a combination of more employment, greater
social service payments and changes in the tax
system. So that was 3.6 increase in real disposable
income, household disposable income in that year, despite
a slightly lower level of real wages. The next year
88/ 89, same sort of pattern, earning 7 percent increase,
CPI 7.4, so real earnings down a bit but real household
disposable income up by 3.5 percent. Current financial
year, 89/ 90, what looks like being the picture for this
financial year is same sort of thing earnings up by 7
percent, prices up by 7.5, so real earnings down a bit,
but real household disposable income up by 4-percent.
Because, if you look at this here, what we brought in
in June was this massive improvement in disposable income
by the very, very significant tax cuts. So if you
combine tax cuts and the increase in earnings, you had
the income of the family increasing by very, very much
more than, than prices. And that's what we can offer
to the people of Australia. We have got a relatively
tight wages policy, but it's because we've had a tight
wages policy that we've had employment growth of 1.6
million. You can't have everything. I could have had a
wages policy when I came in which is a massive real
increase in wages would have had it for a year or two,
but then, collapse. That's what happened in the last
years of the other mob. They abolished centralised wage
control, you had a massive wage blowout and you had the
worst recession you've had for 50 years, unemployment
grew by a quarter of a million in their last 12 months.
So, sure, if you want to say we'll have massive real
increase in wages, beaut
HUME: So
PM: Delude yourself that you'll have it for 12 months,
but you destroy the system.
HUME: OK, just one indicator then for families
themselves. PM: Yes.
HUME: Need they fear that more of their members will be
out of work in a year's time or not?
PM: No, no. We will have, and it's generally accepted
that what we are aiming at we're likely to get. That's a
soft landing. A soft landing really means that we will
retain economic growth and we will retain employment
growth, but it won't be as massive a rate of employment
growth that we've had before. The average rate of
employment growth over the seven year period that we've
been in Office is 3.5 percent per annum which is very
high. We've had a rate-of-employment growth which is
twice as fast as the rest of the world. We won't keep on
doing that in the immediate period ahead, but it will
still be growth.
HUME: So another key indicator to many in our community,
the question of child poverty which you, an issue you
obviously feel very strongly about.
PM: I do indeed.
HUME: The pledge in 1987 that by 1990 no Australian
child-PM: No financial need.
HUME: Yes, need not live in poverty.
PM: Yes.
HUME: Same time we've seen yesterday, for example, the
Brotherhood of St Laurence and the Councils of Social
Service across Australia launch yet another campaign to
remind Australians that there are, by their count at
least, 450,000 young Australians living in poverty. How
do you regard that?
PM: Well, let me first of all give you the quotes of
what these organisations have said about the promise I
made. Last year Bishop Hollingworth in the George Syme
Oration, 7 May, ' In strict income security terms, it's
true that the Prime Minister's promise, Prime Ministerial
promise that no children shall live in poverty by 1990
will be achieved. This represents significant
progress'. 4 May, the Brotherhood of St Laurence ' this
pledge the most significant social commitment of the
century has been the subject of an historic package. We
congratulate the Federal Government on its work, an
historic breakthrough the solid foundation
HUME: But for
PM: Now wait a minute. I'm not avoiding that. But
so you see that everyone that's in this area has said
that the promise has been delivered. Australian
Institute of Family Studies, May 1989, ' by these means
the Government's pledge to meet the benchmarks has been
met'. In other words, what we did, and it's important
that understand and say that we will ensure that
there be no financial need and we didn't just pluck these
figures out of the air. We sat down and consulted with
these people themselves, with the social welfare lobby
and we said now, what's the way in which a Government can
do what it must do on behalf of the community to meet a
pledge that there'll be no financial need for the kids to
live in poverty. They said well, we'll have to have
these payments as a proportion of the pension. They
worked out the proportion that would be necessary so I
said, we'll deliver that and delivered it ahead of
schedule. We're doing it by, let me say, a financial
outlay of over $ 2 billion a year. Now, that did not mean
that you weren't going to have a situation where there
wouldn't be children living in poverty for a whole range
of reasons outside the fact that we were delivering on
our pledge. And that's why I met with the social welfare
people last year. What we've agreed to do is to meet
together, with the States now, and with other
organisations, and that meeting will be on 15 February.
There we are going to see what are the sorts of things
that we need to do in our areas of service delivery,
which are partly the Commonwealth, partly the States, and
in combination with community organisations to deal with
the areas of poverty that exist. Because you're still
going to have that despite the fact that we make the
money available to the parents. If the kids have left
home, run away, well the fact that money is going to the
parent in that situation doesn't mean that the kid is not
going to be somewhere in poverty. You've got to bring
governments of all types together, of all levels
together, to deal with this. I really think that the
most important comment that's been made about this, and
it's an absolute indictment of the Opposition, is again
what Hollingworth said on 22 August ' 89. He said this;
' the Government's made real advances in recent years in
building a more secure and adequate system of income
support for Australians living close to or below the
poverty line.' And this is what he then said, and this
should stick in the mind and may I say the craw of
Peacock and these people who are trying to make some
cheap line out of this situation. He said, this is
Hollingworth, ' These reforms are too important to be
caught in the crossfire of political conflict. The
Opposition ought to openly acknowledge the merit of such
reforms and move towards a more bipartisan stance on
welfare policies for children.' And that's the truth of
it. HUME: Politics obviously is very much still the art of
the Governments must move as popular pressure to
some extent dictates. The 1980s, as I've indicated
earlier, is seen by many as the decade of greed. Some in
fact have seen it as the decade of the revenge of the
rich on the poor. I wonder whether the 1990s you see is
a decade in which Labor's social agenda greater
priority. There might
PM: That's not
0 HUME: for greater regulation what's more of the
business sector.
PM: This crap, if I may, to coin a phrase. The revenge
of the rich upon the poor. How do you reconcile that
with the facts? I mean I know when people use phrases
like that facts are a bit of an uncomfortable thing that
you don't like to deal with. But just let me put the
factsup in terms of what the Government can do in regard
to the decade, because it's been our decade. The revenge
of the rich upon the poor. How do you reconcile that
with the fact that when I came to office and now,
comparing that, there's been a move from 50% to 59% in
the proportion of Government outlays, excluding payment
of interest on debt. From 50% to 59% on social justice
programs which involves what I said, in real terms, an
increase of over $ 9 billion. That's what the pattern of
the 80s has been under my Government. That's totally
inconsistent with this nonsense you've just been talking
about.
HUME: ( inaudible)
PM: Now wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a minute.
You've had your exposition Kevin. You've explained that
it's said that this is the decade of the revenge of the
rich upon the poor. Now you're going to let me, with
respect, answer that nonsense. Because the facts which
get in the way of that need to be put out. And I'm just
telling you, in the period ' 83 to the end of the decade,
an increase from 50% to 59% in the proportion of total
Commonwealth Government outlays to the poor. And how has
that happened? It's because in that period I've imposed
in part it's happened because I've made the rich pay
their taxes. When I came to office Professor Russell
Matthews said, as I put to you, said it was a matter of
choice as to whether the rich paid their taxes. That was
before Hawke. It is not now a matter of choice. If you
want to talk about revenge upon the rich, under this
Government, I've taken the revenge in the sense for too
long, after 30 years of conservative government, the rich
had it as a matter of choice or option whether they paid
their tax. Not now, because I've abolished the haven of
the rich, the protection of the rich, where they could
accumulate income through capital accretion and not pay a
cent of tax. Now, through the 80s, by the end of this
decade, they will, and into the last decade of the
the rich who had the haven will now pay billions of
dollars in tax that they didn't pay before. They accrued
benefits before through fringe benefits which they didn't
pay any tax upon. I abolished that. So if you're
talking about the 80s being the revenge of the rich upon
the poor, I mean it's a lovely phrase to roll off the
tongue in the ABC studios
HUME: ( inaudible)
PM: So why don't you look at the facts?
HUME: If I may simply just add one comment as a
postscript to that point of discussion. A comment by a
far more emminent gentleman than myself, John Kennett
Galbraith, looking across a whole range of Western
economies PM: But. you didn't-
HUME: including Australia.
PM: Yes, but the people listening to you when you rolled
it of f may have been excused that you were talking about
Australia. I don't have the responsibility my dear
friend Kevin for the rest of the Western world. I have
had in the 80s the responsibility for Australia. And if
there is one phrase that you couldn't use about Australia
in the 80s under Hawke, that it was the revenge of the
rich upon the poor, when I've hit the rich who were
protected after 30 years of conservative government.
Because you quote your Galbraith about the rest of the
world, I'll quote your Matthews. The foremost authority,
I repeat what Matthews of Australia said about Australia,
not the rest of the Western world. Before Hawke a matter
of choice whether the rich paid their taxes. Not after
Hawke. HUME: Ok, let's take up another matter then.
PM: I hope so.
HUME: Of revenge, if we may. And that's revenge close
at hand it would seem for the many areas of WA Inc that
Peter Dowding is likely to suffer.
PM: Yes.
HUME: It's said that you've endorsed Carmen Lawrence as
his successor. Have you?
PM: No Kevin, I haven't. I'd invite you mate to have a
look at the whole transcript. Now there was an attempt
by the media, and if I'd been sitting where they were and
looking at Hawke I would've tried to nail him. What
I had to do, and I hope I did it successfully, was say
look I can't enter into this decision. Nor should I.
It's a matter for the State Parliamentary party. And I
said really that's where it's got to be. I was asked a
question about did I know Carmen Lawrence? I do. What
did I know about her? I said from what I know of Carmen
she looks a capable no-nonsense sort of person. But
really Kevin I can't be coming in and patting either one
of them on the back. It's now a declared contest to be
settled on Monday. It's a matter for the State
Parliamentary party.
HUME: It would certainly help if Peter Dowding went, as
far as your own re-election chances were concerned though
wouldn't it?
PM: We will win the Australian federal election for some
of the reasons Kevin that we've been talking about.
We'll win I think. I'm not being cocky or complacent
about that. But we deserve to win for a lot of the
reasons I've been talking with you about and also the
inadequacies of the alternative. I, for the reasons I've
put to you, don't think West Australians are essentially
going to be different in their approach to who should
govern them federally than the rest of Australia.
HUME: You must be concerned though at the prospect, and
the very real prospect, whoever leads the Labor Party,
the Labor Government here in the West, that the
Opposition will combine its numbers in the Upper House
and force supply. It always causes a nasty taint in the
mouth, if you like, for Labor people with sort of long
memories back to Whitlam.
PM: Yes well it's a very
HUME: Is that a real prospect? Do you see yourself
something that you fear?
PM: I don't know. I don't know about the Opposition
parties here. What I do know is we probably have the
continuing hypocrisy of conservatism which has been their
characteristic over the ages. And that is that if you
want always to find the mouthing of commitment to
propriety, to law and order, to principle, go to the
rhetoric of the Liberals and the National Party. That's
where the rhetoric will pour out about how we as a
society must be committed to principle. But as soon as
they see the possibility of breaking every convention and
principle about allowing elected governments to govern
then the temptation becomes almost overwhelming for them.
Although I say to the credit of Hendy Cowan here in
Western Australia to this point that he has put principle
before opportunism. And-I haven't any reason,
personally, to believe that he'll change that.
HUME: So is the Labor Government lost here do you think,
or not?
PM: No, I certainly don't believe that at all.
HUME: You don't think that Western Australians, not
withstanding your comments about their undoubted
intelligence, are so dissatisfied here with Labor here in
the West that they may welcome the chance to throw the
Labor Government out?
PM: In the State? I think that they would say, no, if
the time, in the normal function time when it came for a
proper election, if at that time they were dissatisfied
with the State Labor Government they may make that
decision. But there's quite a long way before that
proper effluction of time. I would believe that the
State party Kevin would have the good sense to understand
that there's some level of concern about their
performance to this date. And after all they've only run
just over a year haven't they of this term of office.
There's plenty of time I would think for them to improve
their. performance. Because-you-see-elections are not
just about making a judgement about one side. It's
obviously true that there's dissatisfaction in this State
about the performance of the State Government. They
acknowledge that themselves. But when the time comes,
the proper time comes at the end of the fourth period of
the Parliament, then, as I say, two things will have
happened. I think they will have lifted their game and
dealt with issues of concern and then people will have to
make a judgement about that, whether they've lifted their
game. And they'll also have to make a judgement about
12
the alternative. If you look at the conservative parties
in Australia today it's a pretty unattractive prospect.
HUME: You're obviously enjoying the political..
PM: Love it.
HUME: Could I put to you the comments of Andrew
Peacock that a vote this time at the coming federal
election for Bob Hawke is a vote for Paul Keating. To
which Mr Keating responded a vote for Andrew Peacock is a
vote for Andrew Peacock. Is it as simple as that?
PM: Well these days Andrew unfortunately can very rarely
get anything right. His own party is appalled at his
performance. The Liberal Party throughout Australia is
full of despair about Andrew. It's not surprising. I
don't want to add to his problems. But that's a fact.
And in that situation he's saying some very silly things.
The fact is that I will lead the Labor Party in this
election, I hope and believe, to victory. And I will go
the full term as I have said for some time. Now Andrew
thinks that he perceives that Paul is not as well-liked
out there as I am. So he's trying to say because he
can't produce a health policy, he can't produce any
policies of his own. So what's he got to do? He's got
to fear, scare people. You might like Bob but Bob's not
going to be around for three years. It's going to be
Paul. Good try Andrew old boy, but like most of the
things, you're talking nonsensical hot air boyo. Now try
and put your time into getting a health policy together.
Something like that.
HUME: So at the moment of maximum advantage, is it
time now to call a federal election? You
PM: I've enjoyed the program with you. It's been very
good.
HUME: But you're not going to tell me?
PM: I think you should be rewarded in some way. I'll
get you a cup of coffee afterwards. But I can't give you
the real coup of announcing the election date. No.
HUME: Mr Hawke, thank you for joining us.
PM: It's been a pleasure. Thank you Kevin.
ends