TRANSCRIPT Oil THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING, MP
INTERVIEW WITH PAUL BONGIORNO, FEBRUARY 26 1992
E& OE PROOF COPY
BONGIORNO: Thanks Mr Keating for coming.
PM: Good Paul.
BONGIORNO: The big question seems to be tonight is where's
the money coming from?
PM: It's coming from a hard won, tight fiscal
position which this Government took eight years
to put into place. All those huge structural
surpluses that I produced in the late 1980s are
sitting there, that structure is sitting there
now so when private spending is down, when
private investment is down the sensible thing to
do is to lift public spending, public investment
uip. And we can do that and bring the budget back
into surplus by 1995.
BONGIORNO: But how do we re-pay that $ 2.3 billion?
PM: I: t will be repaid by the growth coming off the
economy, as receipts pick up, as growth picks up,
as employment picks up, the budget swerves back
iLnto surplus and basically cover those funds. In
other words it's the time when other people are
not spending in investment, now's the time for
-the Government to be spending in investment and
particularly on long-run investments like the
rail system, the ports, the highways, the roads,
-the electricity grid. They're all the long term
things that can only come from government
investment.
BONGIORNO: But haven't we seen here tonight Paul Keating
' the gambler'? You're taking a big risk, even on
your own projections three years out spending and
demand will be powering along and imports, for
example, will be well ahead of exports. To deal
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with that in the past you had to up interest
rates.
PM: You saw what the Treasury said in tonight's
document, that they expect the debt to stabilise
in about 1994-95, that this is no gamble. It's a
$ 2.3 billion package in a budget of $ 100 billion.
It's a package from a budget which has got a
structural surplus underneath it. There is no
gamble, this is just a sensible thing to do and
it's part of a plan, it's a four year plan to
stimulate growth, employment, private investment
and public investment, a partnership between the
public and the private sector. And two years
from now we provide tax cuts to Australians to
take their tax rate to 30 per cent while the
budget goes back to surplus, and 30 per cent
without Dr Hewson's 15 per cent consumption tax.
BONGIORNO: See, the suspicion is that the Statement tonight
is; to get you over the hump of the next election,
that it's really very cleverly politically aimed.
PM: Well it's got to get Australia over the hump. We
don't want to be in a recession for any longer
than we need to be and it's about getting us over
that. It's a quarter of a century since we've
invested in the rail system, we need a national
rail highway, it's absurd for it to be breaking
up highways with trucks carrying bulk
commodities, we need a sensible airline system,
we need ring roads around the cities. These are
things that are needed and now is the time to
build them when the economy needs activity.
BONGIORNO: On your own projections tonight we still have
unemployment running above 9 per cent for the
next three years. When will Australians begin to
feel confident again about their jobs, about
employment?
PM: Once the trend is going down. It's the trend
that matters, I think, rather than the rate.
It's now at about 10.3 10.4 per cent, we expect
it to go 10 9.5 8 and at the end of the
period, four years, to have a 7 in front of it.
BONGIORNO: Why is it that you gave families a boost in
spending, the $ 125 boost to the family allowance?
What about the pensioners, they've been hit very
hard by the recession?
PM: Pensions have been adjusted for inflation fully
right through the 1980s, but wages were cut less
than the inflation rate. So it's tax payers with
children who have had less support than the full
adjustment for inflation under the pension
system. This is about recovery. We've tried to
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see how we could spend quickly, put some stimulus
into the economy quickly before the rail and road
projects build up, and we can make this payment
in April and it will go to tax payers with
children-families, it will go to where it's
needed. If it was Dr Hewson he would have thrown
it up the top end of town, it would have been the
high income tax payers or the wealthy companies.
We haven't done that. We've given it to the
people who need it most.
BONGIORNO: Is this a vote winner? Can it help you win the
next election?
PM: First of all it is a job winner. It's a plan for
Australia, it's not a miserable change of the tax
system from income to expenditure, taxing the
food you put in your mouth and the clothes you
put on your back, it's not that. It's a typical
Labor thing, it's building Australia, it's doing
all the big projects like we always have the
rail system, the roads, the ports, the airlines.
We're the only ones that ever done these things,
Paul, and it's obviously a plan with vision and
with vista and it gets beyond the miserable
accountancy of Dr Hewson's tax package.
BONGIORNO: OK, thanks very much Prime Minister.