PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH NEIL MITCHELLJ, 3AW, 17/ 3/ 92.
E & EO0-PROOF ONLY
MITCHELL: The building I assume is open and with me the man who
opened it, the Prime Minister, Mr Keating, good morning.
PM: Good morning Neil.
MITCHELL: The deed is done, is it?
PM: Yes, I was just saying, it's a change from the sort of
patina of the old radio station. You know they always have a
comfortable feel, those thirties radio stations. 3AW here and
2KY in Sydney was the same. You walked in and it was like
stepping back into the old days of radio, the days of the great
radio personalities, all that history came back over you.
MITCHELLL: A bit like the old Parliament House.
PMs Yes, a bit like the old Parliament House.
MITCHELL: Ninety days today.
PM: Somebody told me that.
MITCHELL: Ninety days, now we've had-the Sixty Minutes thing,
the family barbeque, we've had the bash the Poms, savage John
Hewson, the switch to vaudeville it strikes me has been thrown.
is it working?
PM: Well I think' we are the important thing is getting
Australia working again and I think that confidence is returning,
slowly but surely, and the statement the Government put together,
One Nation, was about pulling that together, and I think also a
sense of confidence about ourselves helps. That is not just the
mechanical things in economy but Australians knowing about
themselves and being certain and confident about themselves
helps. So in the full bloom of the statement and rhetoric, I
think, I hope, that Australia's going to be better. e a 6 / 2
-2-
MITCHELL: But obviously as a politician it's also about getting
the personal rating up and about being seen as the competent
leader and about regaining government. Is it working in that
sense do you think?
PM: Well I can only... if the polls are responding somewhat, but
I think the main thing is that whatever ambitions I have for
myself, they're greater for Australia and if I can engender
recovery, bring it on, we've got the national accounts out today,
I'll be surprised if they don't reveal Australia on the turn, the
economy on the turn, and I think and hope that the One Nation
statement will drive that on, power that on and consolidate a
recovery. I
MITCHELL: You do think then that we're coming out of recession.
I mean you took a long time to be convinced we were going into it
but you' re now, you're one of the first to say we're coming out.
PM*: I'd say that the economy has been on the turn and we have
given it an impetus, some added momentum by the package we
introduced into Parliament a few weeks ago, so I think that
should guarantee~ a recovery.
MITCHELL: When will we feel it? When will we get jobs? When
will people i3top having trouble eating?
PM: Jobs aria tied up with production. If you follow any
measures of production over the last thirty years, in our
national accounts you find employment running right with them.
So if we can lift production we lift employment, so the aim of
the game is to lift production and I think that will happen.
MITCHELL: But short term are we going to have more jobs or have
we got to wait for a year
PM: Oh no, well we've had quite a reasonable spurt of employment
growth in the last three months but it's just been that the
labour force has been growing by a greater amount than employment
growth. We've not been losing employment over the last three or
four months, we've actually been gaining employment, but
unemployment has gone up a jot because the labour market is still
growing. Tho point is trying to get that employment growth ahead
of workforce growth so that unemployment comes down. So we've
been seeing that growth coming through in employment, well we've
got to see more of it. ./ 3
-3-
MITCH-ELL: Your friend, or I think he is, Tony Sheehan, talks
about eighty thousand jobs here in Victoria, and a lot of that is
spinnfinlg out of the One Nation policy, but when will we see some
of them?
PM: I think you'll see them over the course of this year, you'll
see a fair bit: of'that. We think that we can produce about eight
hundred thousand over four years on the sort of forecast which
we've put together for the One Nation statement which are not
remarkable. They've got the economy growing at about four
percent a year and if we can't do four percent a year you'd have
to give the game up.
MITCHELL: It's based on confidence still, about international
recovery, isn" t it, both the United States and Japan, and I
noticed the Nikkei figures are very bad overnight.
PM: That's right Noil, the international economy does help us
obviously, or hinder us, and it has been hindering us. We've had
a recession really worldwide in the fallout of the stockmarket
crash of 1987 and I just made the point downstairs at the opening
of the station, thinking about Roosevelt's talk to the nation on
radio in the United States in the thirties. Four years after the
stockmarket cr7ash of 1929 American production had fallen by forty
percent, but four years after the stockmarket crash of ' 87 which
was bigger than 1929, American production had fallen by three
percent and ours had fallen by three. In other words we've
avoided an international depression but we've ended up with a
recession and that's a problem that we've got to try and pull our
way out of, and it will help us if those other countries come out
too.
MITCHELL: I'd argue though that we led the world, or one of the
first countriets in the world, into recession. Are you saying
we'll be one of the first out?
PM: I think we all went in about the same time and we probably
will emerge at-out the same time I think, but growth in America is
slow. But fortunately for us we're tied up with the fastest
growing part of the world, the Asia-Pacific, and growth rates in
this part of the world are now around five to seven percent.
That's Indonesia, Thailand, Japan, Hongkong, Phillipines, Taiwan,
in this area most economies are growing at about five.. . the whole
area's growing at about five to seven percent which is qtiite
fast, about twice the speed of the rest of the world. So we're
caught up in that fortunately and that helps tug us along as
well. / 4
-4-
MITCHELL: Yiou mention confidence. What do you base your
assessment on, that confidence is returning. I mean the latest
poll, the Morgan Poll in the Time today says quite the opposiLte.
PM I think that the economy has bottomed, is on the turn, that
it's on the turn for the better and that the One Nation statement
will consolidate that recovery. I think the banks are probably
seeing the end of their well at least they can see the bottom
of their own -problems and losses and with interest rates down
low now for quite a long time, deals can be made again, people
can do things again and they're starting to do them. So I think
there is Just that feeling coming, that people think things are
better, they're starting to see some light around and they're
starting to pick up assets and use them....
MITCHELL: Is it a gut feeling... Unaudible)..?
PM. Well a bit of well... people say things to you, you
know, there's an anecdotal view about the work that people have
in their place and how they see the next three months and this
sort of thing, and my impression is things are better than they
were three months ago.
MITCHELL: You mentioned interest rates. Room for them to come
down further?
PM: Not for the moment I don't think, but again, the Government
does regard low, inflation as a great Australian achievement.
We've broken the back of inflation now to one and a half percent
for the first time in twenty years and we want to make sure the
recovery is a low inflation recovery. But again we've tried to
get that balance right and that is at the same time engender a
recovery while holding inflation. We've taken interest rates
down about twelve percent, then our bill rates are now about
seven and a half, they're quite low by our standards, but of
course inflation's low. So there's scope there for lower
interest rates with a longer run, good inflation performance.
MITCHELL: End of' the year? I mean you're painting a pretty
optimistic picture about the end of the year if we're turning and
there's still room for interest rates.
PM: We have through ' 92-3 in that one Nation forecast growth at
four and three quarter percent through the year, and I think as
the stock cycle ' turns, as we're seeing better prices for
commodities, for wheat, wool's picking up, some of the non-ferris
metals, and we're seeing buildings starting to shift and
retailing starting, to modestly shift, I think you can see that
growth starting to come together.
MITCHELL: Good time for an election?
PM: Well I'm sure the public want value out of the political
system and out of the Parliament, so the best value they can get
is a Parliament that runs longer rather than shorter and from our
point of view the best thing to do is to get on governing.
MITCHELL: Would you be willing to say there will not be an
election this year?
PM; There's no point, X don't think, any government cutting its
options off about elections, but my intention at this stage is to
see the Parliament run through into 1993.
MITCHELLt Have you talked to Joan Kirner about election
strategies? P14: Never had a conversation with her about it ever.
MITCHELL: Because you'd want her presumably it'd be better for
the Victorian, Government to go first.
PM: I think that'll probably happen, didn't she say something
about the end. of the year?
MITCHELL: Certainly at this stage you wouldn't be looking at
this year?
PM; No.
MITCHELL: Might be tempting, if popularity keeps going up
and.... PM: No no no, I think the main thing is that the most tempting
thing for all of us is to get that growth going and get people
back feeling confident about the place and get commerce spinning
again. MITCHELL: Aborigines. Now you've taken a high profile on this
over recent weeks. Would you revive the treaty? 9 / 6
PM: Well I think the process which we have in place is a good
one, the reconcilliation council and its processes. I think what
last week's events reveal, that there's a long way to go in that
reconcilliation and it's important that non-aboriginal
Australians feel good about their support for the aboriginal
community and we see a material shift in the living standards of
the aboriginal community, I think that's the most important
thing. The shift in living stanldards and opportunities for the
aboriginal community is more important than treaties or any other
things which do not expressly or directly go to those issues.
MITCHELL: So the treaty is down the track, once you sort out the
other problems?
PM: I would think that. I think the work of the reconcilliation
council plus the work of ATSIC and the fact that the Government
will be responding to the Royal Commission into Deaths in
Custody, on law and Justice issues and the underlying things
which produce! the problem. The underlying problems in living
standards and opportunities, I think they're the things to be
addressed and, if they can be addressed as the reconcilliation
council addresses'the broader run attitudinal things, I think
that's the way for us to go.
MITCHELL: rs it time to put politics aside from it? Is there a
bipartisan approach here?
PM: I would always hope that was the case, that it is a
bipartisan matter and that the aboriginal community can therefore
enjoy that political support. We think this is the last
opportunity this decade to again make another material
improvement and advance in the conditions of aboriginal society
and that's why we'll be using this opportunity with the Deaths3 in
Custody response.
MITCHELL: I notice the reports today about vilification laws.
is this essentially a racist country do you think?
PM I don't think it is Neil. I mean you'd have a fair idea of
this as I would because you speak to many people here in the
station, but I don't think it's a racist country. This is a
tolerant place. We've made multiculturalism work here as well as
any country in the world could work. I just made the point at a
St Patrick's Day breakfast. a./ 7
-7-
I mean no two countries have, well if you like, eyed each other
off so sharply over such a long period as England and Ireland,
but yet a lot of Australian nationalism has come from those two
streams working together. I mean Australian multiculturalism, has
worked, I don't think this is a racist country though there'll
always be I suppose some racist attitudes. The issue is to be
rid of them.
MITCHELL: I was a little surprised by the passion with which you
reacted to the videos or that issue. Do you think the AH3C
should've shown the, videos?
PM: I think the ABC's entitled to reflect in its news issues in
Australian life, and it did, and it's important I think those
issues are on the table, that people know they have to be dealt
with. MITCHELL: Why the passion from you?
PM: Because I think it's time that that sort of racism one would
expect to see In the American South of the 1930' s and 40' s was
expunged from our society here in the 1990' s. I mean it was a
very, I think, nasty experience for that to happen, to have those
families, the families of those two people mocked in this way and
I think we have to be entirely resolute. Those of us who have
charge of government and in a sense some influence over
attitudes, it's entirely important I think that we set the
standard, we make the stand.
MITCHELL: There are some who say that your statement in
Parliament about the English was encouraging racism, or about
England was encouraging racism and was bashing Poms.
PM:. No no, it was not a complaint against the British or
Britain. It was only a complaint against those people in
Australia who don't have it in them to be wholeheartedly
Australian in their attitudes.
MITCHELL; But you were suggesting that the British had perhaps
deserted Australia at a certain time.
PM$ Oh yes, absolutely, I Baid it again this morning, that our
sacrifice in world War One for Britain was not responded or
reciprocated in kind in World War Two. a / 8
-8-
MITCHELL: The historians perhaps debated a bit.
PM: 6 Well London Guardian gave me a big tick and so did the
London Times. I mean I didn't get it in the tabloids but I got
it in the broadsheets.
MITCHELL: The Lizard of Oz.
PM: Yes well that was in the tabloids but the broadsheets, the
serious papers were good and the fact is that's past, but my
complaint is with people here, Australians, who can't not only
grasp the future but can't grasp properly and sensibly the past.
Don't understand enough about the past to let that influence the
future.
MITCHELL: But can you see that it may have been, for whatever
reasons, divisive. Certainly, I mean I've received all sorts of
abuse and threats because essentially I supported a lot of what
you said. But can you Bee it can be divisive in a community
which is essentially British?
PM: Well I don't think it is essentially British.
MITCHELL: well historic.
PM: I think it is now essentially Australian and I think
Australians are tired of this sort of ambivalence and they
want it's going to be very important to our economic future in
the region, to the way we portray ourselves to the world in
commerce, if the res~ t of the world knows we are clear about our
identity. Who we are, what we are and that we're proud of
ourselves and that we're not a derivative culture, that we don't
belong to somebody else.
MITCHELL: The Malaysian Prime Minister says that we tell lies
and we're hard to (; et on with. Don't they understand this
country? PM: Well I think there's probably, certainly in media terms, a
cultural difference in the way in which these countries relate to
their media, and that's a case of them understanding us and us
understanding them I think.
MITCHELL: How do we get the message across? It seems to have
been going on for a long time and still...
PM: I think that'sB right but I mean time will work that out I'm
sure.
MITCHELL: Are -you comfortable with this sort of pride that wetre
talking about in Australia, that we don't perhaps kowtow a little
to people like m4alaysians Or the Indonesians?
PM: I don't think we should kowtow to anybody.
MITCHELLt Do you think we do or we have?
PM: I don't think so, no.
MITCHELL: We seem to apologise whenever our media does
something.
PH: No, what we've said is we disassociated ourselves, the
Government disassociated itself from things which were
inaccurate, but I think it's also important for these countries
to understand that a free press is important, important to this
country and important to them and to understand the morays of a
free press. So I don't think it's a matter of we won't be
tugging the forelock to anybody, Britain or anywhere else,
Malaysia included.
MITCHELL: How Izish are you?
PM: Well my great grandfather was Irish.
MITCHELL: I noticed Conrad Black last night on Four Corners
suggesting that T1onyO'Reilly had been lobbying the Irish rump in
the Labor Caucus.
PHI And he did it pretty well.
MITCHELL: And he did it with you?
PM: Oh he did, he's a very charming fellow, Tony. Very
charming.
MITCHELL: Conrad Bla , ck also said that he believed that you would
be receptive to expanding his holding beyond fifteen percent. Is
that correct? too
PM: That's a matter of I think the Labor Caucus and the
Treasurer, before I became Prime Minister decided on these levels
and made a declaration, about them, made a public statement and
let Mr Black's company buy fifteen percent of John Fairfax and
Sons and said that would be as far as the Government was then
prepared to go. I mean that's our position. I mean we're
prepared to keep an open mind about it, to think about media
policy, to think about print and to think about ownership, but
not to be making any declarations about it.
MITCHELL: So it could be reviewed, the fifteen percent?
PM: Anything can hie reviewed on the application of a company to
the Foreign Investment Review Board or to the Government. I mean
in a sense that's always open but whether it'll be
sympathetically responded to is a matter for our decision, and at
the moment I think that's premature.
MITCHELL: Across t~ o South Africa, what happens if there 18 a no
vote in South Africa, what happens from Australia's point of view
then? The referendum's being conducted this very minute.
PM: Well let's wait and see I think, that's the best thing to
do. I mean there's been great progress there. Let's hope that
progress reflects itself in a Yes vote.
MITCHELL: just quickly because I know you have to go, the
performance in Parliament, your first week, you must've been
pretty pleased with that.
PM: Well yes but I mean the Opposition, Dr Hewson' s had an easy
ride of it, for now two or three months he's become the easy
rider in Australian politics and I'm sure he believed that
because his Fightback package was not subject to attack,
legitimate attack, that therefore the thing was beyond attack,
and the fact is it's very vulnerable. Anything that wants to put
a fifteen percent tai on the way in which Australians live has to
be subject to examination and some of that examination started a
couple of weeks ago.
MITCHELL: But it was the same colleagues who failed to attack
it, your colleagues.
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PM: Be that as it may, the fact is the Government'. now making
it very clear whait's wrong with Fightback and the fact that it's
basically limited, and when the Government brought down the One
Nation statement which is now going to basically rebuild a lot Of
the basic infrastruacture, which can only be done with government
money, the railways, the ports, the national electricity grid,
building up a TAFE system, all these things Australia needs but
Dr Hewson says they're irresponsible. I don't think it's
irresponsible to put kids that come out of year 12 and give them
a technical and further education. I don't think it's
irresponsible to build a standard gauge railway line from
Melbourne to Adelaide, I don't think it's irresponsible to be
able to carry freight from Brisbane to Perth, and this can not be
done by taxing your Weetbix.
MITCHELL: Graham Richardson says that you've exceeded his
wildest dreams.
PM: That's good, I'm pleased, very pleased.
MITCHELL: He says that all he can find in the Caucus are
backbenchers who claimed to have voted for you and he doesn't
know why the vote was as close as it was.
But there's two thiLngs I wonder whether you might've regretted.
One is the burble burble burble.
PM: No no, it was a sort of manifestation ! I mean that day Dr
Hewson was Baying that the ABC was in conspiracy with the
Teachers' Federation and the Labor Party and the Government to
sort of undermine his party. As well as that he'd given the
Central Bank Governor a bash on the way through, so I'm saying it
was gibberish.
MITCHELL: Yes but it's hardly very prime ministerial.
PM: No but the fact that it was a physical manifestation of that
gibberish, I was trying to demonstrate to people he may as well
have been strumming his lips as saying what he said.
MITCHELL: The other thing is mocking John Hewson' s speech
impediment. is that sensible?
PM: It's all part of the rough and tumble of politics, it's all
part of the theatre of-it all. I've been mocked uphill and down
dale, uphill and down dale. / 1
-12-
MITCHELL: How have they mocked you?
PM: Over the years, mocked, I've been mocked forwards and
backwards. MITCHELL: What for?
PM: Well there's a great littany of things there, a great
lit tany.
MITCHELL; what sort of things do they mock you for? The suits
and the rest of it?
PM: Oh anything, your lifestyle things and all sorts of things.
You know, I collect French clocks and this sort of stuff,, you
know. MITCHELL: Does that irritate you?
PM: It doesn't really, no.
MITCHELL: You see I don't think John Hewson's objecting but 1:
think the public's said well that's a bit rough. Do you think
you'd do it again or it might be time to back off?
PM: Oh no, look -the fact is he has the most sterile campaign of
taking Australia back down the time tunnel to late seventies
politics a la Margaret Thatcher. Don't worry about the elderly,
don't worry about the sick, don't worry about the weak, don't.
worry about the young, don't give them a place in TAFE, don't
change the infra: 3tructure, what we'll do is tax our Weetbix and
our Kellogs and our clothing and our drycleaning and that's going
to change the woarld, shifting income from the low paid to the
high paid. It's not a solution for Australia, he's not entitled
to portray it as a solution for Australia and if he wants to push
hard policies like if you're unemployed and you're on the dole
after nine months you're on your own, you go down the soup
kitchens, you go to the voluntary agencies. If he wants to push
those sorts of vicious policies then I think the whole complexion
of the policy
MITCHELL: But we've got the soup kitchens now, I had in the
studio yesterday a kid who sleeps in the boot of the car. Now
this is from the ( Government that said no child in poverty by
1990. -/ 13
-13-
PM: Yes, but you've still got an unemployment benefits system
that you don't have in the United States. in the United States
aft * er three months you'd huddle over a railway grate under a
newspaper to keep warm. This is not true of Australia but it
would be true under, Dr Rewson. Under Dr Hewson after nine months
they're out so anyone who's unemployed, nine months the
Government leaves you. Then its St Vincent de Paul, the Smith
family or your relatives. Now we say that's not the sort of
country Australia should be.
MITCHELL: Mr Keating I know you have to go. Are you enjoying
yourself? PM; Generally I ant Neil,, yes.
MITCHELL: What don't you enjoy?
PM: Not much about the Job really. I like most of the things.
Like this morning I had the St Patricks Day breakfast and the
opening at 3AW, now talking to you.
MITCHELL: You have to get up early though.
PM: That's okay.
MITCHELL: Are you used to that yet?
PM: I must confess I'm a late starter generally. I'm a nocturnal
character, I perform better later but one bends as the breeze as
the case may be. But look the prime ministership is a great
opportunity for anybody. It's in a sense the greatest compliment
anyone can be paid to be given the job and therefore I am going
to do my best with it; and my interest has always been trying to
push Australia along, to change it from the sort of post-war
torpor we're in to become an international place, to keep that
change going and in this case get out of the recession and keep
that big structural change coming through.
MITCHELL: Going to win the next election?
PM: Well we're going to give it a good shot. We're behind but
we're going to be -trying.
MITCHELL: I keep saying one last thing. Bob Hawke, is he a bit
of an embarrassment now?
PM: No, no.
-14-
MITCHELL: Doesn't worry you when he goes to the Logies and goes
overseas and does interviews?
PM: No, good on him.
MITCHELL: Would you let him interview you?
PM: Well I don't: think he'd probably bother, given then fact
that
MITCHELL: I've suggested it to him on this program.
PM: Have you? Well he's got this international retinue of
people to interview.
MITCHELL; But you're on the international stage.
PM: Oh well here, I mean he's been the former Prime Minister
and given the fact that I've replaced him he wouldn't be rushing
to interview me I wouldn't think. But the fact is, I look
forward to his in. terviews with other people because he's known
them over the years and he'll have a good opportunity to get
their views on important matters.
MITCHELL: Have you seen this tombstone in Queensland? Is it one
of your ancestors, 1884.
PM; Someone sent me a picture of it about a year ago.
MITCHELL: M4r Keating, thanks for your time.
PM: Good Neil, thanks for having us in.
MITCHELL: The Prime Minister, Mr Keating.
ends. I