N( O.
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
DOORSTOP, MELBOURNE
28 FEBRUARY 1992
E OE PROOF COPY
PM: and the States can't do it alone, and that's why
we've had a co-operative discussion with the Premier of
the State of Victoria and the other States to try and
get Victoria going. And it won't happen by taxing your
bread and milk and clothes and your dry-cleaning. That
will only happen with money. That will only happen
with government money brought to where it can be most
effective, rationalisation of facilities like this, to
make Australia a more efficient place. So, can I just
say this, that what I put to our opponents is, do they
oppose these sorts of changes? Do they want reform?
Do they want change of this variety? Are they going to
be in the partnership with Australians, with business
to change? Are they going to be whole-hearted
Australians or only half-hearted Australians? Are they
going to be confident Australians? Are they going to
make Australia different and better? Are we going to
get on with making this an efficient country? Because
if they are, they have got to pass our legislation.
They have got to agree to it, and they have got to
agree, that these are the basic first order issues for
Australia to get a container through a port quickly,
to trade of the world, and of course the world in which
we live: the Asia-Pacific.
So, this is a very graphic example of Governments
working together. Joan ( Kirner) and I have been
working{ on this for some time now, and she has with her
Government for a quite a long time now, as we have with
the Governments of the other States, and with business
which can make these things work.
J: Prime Minister, aren't you backing a loser the Kirner
Government?
PM: I'm backing progress, change for Australians, a
stimulus for the Victorian economy, and a lift in
confidence in Victoria and in other states of
Australia. And if I might say, the Premier has been
able to get more done in a short period in these vacant
areas and get an agenda running which can really make a
great difference and provide to the city of Melbourne
and the State of Victoria a new industry, a new service
industry, a modern efficient freight industry for
Victoria.
J: Is this going to be enough to win the Wills by--
election?
PM: Well, leave' that to one side. The real question is,
what have we got to do make Australia better? What
have we got to do to make Australia more competitive?
These are the things that have to be done. Equipment
which is 20 years old, running at 40 per cent capacity,
it's got to go. Roadways which take a circuitous route
to try to load a container train, it's got to change.
And it can only change with Government support. These
are Government facilities basically. They are not
going to be privately invested in, they will only be
changed if Government spent money on these things.
They will not be changed by taxing some low income
earners' bread and milk.
J: Mr Keating, what measure will you have what will
you say to the ACTU about the real cut in wages? What
can you say to them?
PM: Well, the ACTU know about these things and they are
part of the process of change. On the waterfront this
year, by the end of this year, waterfront employment
will have fallen by nearly 50 per cent in the last two
years. Enormous rationalisation, but now we have got
to rationalise the businesses that those people work
in. So the ACTU is right up to speed on efficiency and
it's up to speed on the other great objectives, the
national inflation rate keeping it low, and keeping
wage claims competitive, so we can run and keep that
core issue in competitiveness, that is a low inflation
rate.
J: can you tell us exactly what is in regarding
the wage claim this year then?
PM: I think, this afternoon, they probably will.
J: not just the tabloid press.., what you said about
British Do you regret the intensity to which you
made your point?
PM: No. The fact of the matter is, this country does over
three quarters of its trade, both in imports and
exports, with the Asia-Pacific area. We are no longer
tied to Europe, and we're certainly not tied to
Britain. Britain gave Australia up when it joined the
European Community. And Ministers got a polite " I'm
sorry" and " no thanks" in the 1960s and the 1970s. I'm
just simply making that point. And I'm making the
point to Australian politicians on the conservative
side who I say are half-heartedly Australian, who want
to keep doffing their lid to an old apparatus which we
have shaken off. We signed the Australia Act in 1986
which cut all of the links with Britain. And while
they will always remain friends of ours, and I'm sure
British people in the Government today don't share the
views, and understand really the world as it is, don't
share the views of Dr Hewson and Mr Howard and all
these other people who want to trek back to the 1950s.
The fact of the matter is, for us the way is clear. We
have to be aggressively Australian, whole-heartedly
Australian, proud of it, and go and trade with our part
of the world and forget this stuff about tugging the
forelock, and be more than about MBEs and Knighthoods.
J: They say you' 1ve got history wrong.
PM: Don't worry about I noticed some Englishman said
oh, Australia wasn't attacked. I noticed that was an
interesting bit of history.
J: Bruce Ruxton calls himself Australian and he says
you're a, in his words, a ' ratbag'.
PM: Well maybe Bruce is still looking for an MBE or a
Knighthood, ' I don't know.
J: So no apologies, Mr Keating?
PM: Just understand this simple point. This is about
Australia calling its own shots in the Asia-Pacific
running its race, living its life, and not having
Australians proposing themselves as leaders of the
Dr Hewson and Mr Howard looking back with
melancholy to the 1950s and all of the imperial bits
and pieces that came with it. It's all over.
J: No apologies?
PM: Absolutely not.
J: ( inaudible)
PM: I'm talking about the old links with Britain, the
Britain of the ' 50s and ' 60s, the thing which Menzies
and the other people tied them to in the past. I'm not
criticising the British Government or modern Britain.
J: You said they sold Australia out during the War.
PM: Well, I'm not going over the history. The fact of the
matter is we were left to defend this place for
ourselves.
J: real issue?
PM: Look, there's only one real issue in Australia to get
a recovery going. To get a recovery going. To do the
things which have to be done, Government and business
together, to get a recovery going. And that's what
this is about, it's about getting a recovery going,
it's about changing the basic infrastructure of the
place, and it's about Australians being whole-heartedly
Australians and coming together one nation to make
the place tick. It's not about regressive policies,
taxing ] ow income people, the food they put in their
mouth and the clothes they put on their backs, calling
it refor3m. It's not reform, it's savage regressive
taxation. The reform has to be in these places, in the
cranes, in the wharves, in the facilities, in the
airlines, the electricity grids, in the technical and
further education, in the inflation rate. These are
the first order issues, not a consumption tax.
ends