PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE. PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
DOORSTOP, ' LET'S GO AUSTRALIA' LIFE BE IN IT CAMPAIGN, MCG,
MELBOURNE, 11 MARCH 1992
E OE PROOF COPY
J: I don't know whether you might have seen him, but Ian
Botham is training with the rest of the squad down on
the ground. Do you have a mind to go out and discuss
certain matters with him?
PM: I'll sen~ d Norm down to see him, he's about his weight.
J: YesterdEay Dr Hewson accused you of phoney jingoism. Is
that what we've been hearing?
PM: Well, the thing about " Let's Go Australia", the thing
about this campaign, it is about getting away from the
negative! s. And Life Be In It, I think, has chosen the
right theme for this year, " Let's Go". There's nothing
to hold this country back. Basically we can come out
of the recession into a recovery, and see the place go
into a better decade than perhaps we've had for a long
time. So, there's much to be cheerful about, including
pride in ourselves. If Dr Hewson thinks that's
jingoism, that's his problem.
J: What do you do to keep fit, Mr Keating?
PM: Well I ( lid 25 laps of the Lodge pool this morning. I
was ' be: Lng in it'!
J: How often do you do that?
PM: Every day or so, if I can do it.
J: Is fitness important to the economy, then?
PM: Well it's important to keep the old respiratory system
moving, to keep the blood circulating, keep the mind
sharp. 49.
J: Do you think on the issue of sport, that perhaps
Australians concentrate too much on sport and not
enough on business, on the economy?
PM: Oh no. We've got a nice mix, we've got a good mix in
this country. We have a nice balance between what's
sensible and good for us, what's serious. And we've
built all this ourselves in 200 years, what we see is
what's been built by only a few generations. So we
have had it together for a long time, and we can keep
it together.
J: You said this country was on cruise during the 1980s,
does that include the Government?
PM: No, the country was in the Rip Van Wrinkle years in the
and ' 60s and early ' 70s, and I think it probably
got on the cruise in the ' 80s, and we've now in the
late ' 80s and early ' 90s got it focussing on the need
to be competitive, the need to nurture our growth
resource our people, our kids to produce innovative
products, to sell them to the world, and to understand
the quality of our lifestyle here, and to preserve it.
These are the things, I think, we have to be clear
about to make a success of in the ' 90s pulling it all
together, getting Australia moving, getting Australia
cracking.
J: It has been reported that you are going to visit
Indonesia, do you have
PM: I'll do questions to all that stuff later. OK.
ends