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PRIME MINISTER1
TRANSCRIPT OF PRIME MINISTER, THE HON. PJ. KEATING, MP
DOORSTOP PRESS CONFERENCE
GATT ROUND SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1992
PM: A few of you have asked me for comments about the announcemenits over night or
yesterday about the agreements between the United States and the European
community on agricultuire and I'm quitc happy to amplify what I said yesterday
and that is this is the best news for Australia in a decade, easily in terms of
international trade. It allows for a completion, a successful conclusion of the
Uruguay Round in the other aspects and it means in the first time in a decade we
are able to see a reduction in price supports for domestic agricultural production,
particularly in Europe and the United States. We'll see a very large reduction in
export subsidics and a large reduction in export volumes, in practical terms about a
36 per cent reduction in export volumes, about the same in the value of money
spent on export subsidies,. You've often heard our opponents say of the
Govermecnt that we've been too intcrested in niultilateralism, well this is
multilateralism roaring, this is rnultilatcralism making a world statement that bilateral,
that is, arrangements between two countries, can't possibly make and it's
the first great break for Australian farmers in a decade. Our farmers are, of course,
efficient, they don't require the subsidies others have had, they'vc had to sell into
polluted markets and I'm pleased to be able to say that after six years of work on
the part of everybody, but particularly the Australian Government will bring, I
think, sanity to agriculture markets through the 1990s.
J Isn't there still a risk though Prime Minister that the French are going to pull the
plug on this because of the prcssure that they're coming Linder with their farmers?
PM: They are under pressure but it's a matter of whether President Mitterand exercises a
veto, we're told at this stage his inclination is not to but I'm also happy to say that
the White House today complimented Australia in its Support for these
arrangements, first of all in the establishnment of the Cairns Group, its leadership in
the Cairns Group and the fact that Australia has been right at the front of every
cheek by jowl negotiation over six years. So if we sce, as think we have now
every prospect of seeing, a successful conclusion of this in Geneva as we bring the
other things into the round likec rvices, trade in intellectual property rights etc., it
will set up for Australia and Australian farmers and Australian agriculturalists and
the agriculturalists of the Third World who have been so often left out a much
better international trading system in agriculture.
J: How quickly would you expect the United States to wind back its use of EEP
given that EEP is intended as retaliation against Europe?
PM: Well it means that none of these things can grow, they'll actually be declining and
therefore all these programs like EEP will go the way of all the other subsidies.
J: Do you have any idea what this will mean in dollar terms for Australian farmers?
PM: No, you can't quantify it in dollar terms but it just means that a 36 per cent
reduction in export subsidies and volumes over six years, it means everything is
heading the right way and in some of these reductions they just continuc after the
six-year period is over. So it means that thc whole backdrop in trade in
agricultural products world-wide will have changed for Australian farmers.
J: On a related issue, talking about the White House, do you have any comment on
the Clinton Administration's partiality to our system of
PM: Apparently the Administration has shown some interest and some data has been
collected on the Australian industrial relations system and by a number of
Democrats on our health -system, on Medicare. You know Governor Dukakis was
in Australia last year looking at this very thing. Hc spent two and a half months
looking at the Australian health insurance -system. So I think there are elements of
the Democratic Party and maybe the administration who think Australia can
provide some structure or some framework on health and on enterprise agreements
and it is, I think, thc nature of the enterprise agreements. is what they are interested
in. T7hat is, how in a consultative structure we can get productivity change and
workplace changc on a national basis.
J: Do you think that Australia should follow US lead on the issue of homosexuality'
in the Defence Forces?
PM: Well that's a matter we've got to discuss ourselves. But in terms of issues of
weight, the issue of weight here is overwhelmingly these sets of announcements in
Europe which I think are going to be phenomenally good news for Australian
farmers.
J: Mr Keating, do you think they'll have any impact on Australia's attempt to get 3
-per cent economic growth this year?
PM: I think thcy'll be a great confidence boos ter to world confidence. There hasn't been
that much leadership by the G7 countries in pulling the world out of the recession
but I think this, which is the essence of leadership, will mnatter a great deal in
confidence levels and let mec say I think President Bush deserves a high note of
congratulations here because I can't imagine any more important or sweeter note
that he could end his presidency on than setting up an historic set of international
arrangements in trade. When his presidency is completed this will go on for now
forever as one of the very clcar achievements of his administration.
1: Do you think this breakthrough could have an impact this financial year on the
world economy?
PM: No. But it will certainly have an impact on confidence and it will give all the right
signals to all the people that produce agriculture and not only that but all these
other things that will conmc with it trade in services, intellectual property rights,
It's giving us a proper background, a proper world order to trading arrangements
and hopefully it will do in agriculture and services what the so-called Kennedy
Round did in goods in the 1960s. I mean this, brought to fruition will be an
historic change.
J: Mr Keating, on anothcr matter, will you be announcing revised Budget forecasts?
PM: Michelle, that's something you should ask the Treasurer. I'm just not aware of
exactly where he is on the forecasts at all, or where the Treasury is.
J: Do you have any response to Dr Hewson's call for a series of debates on
PM: I notice Dr Hewson is being advised by cvcrybody about selling the GST. I notice
today we've got a group of Sydney luminaries telling him how he sho'uld-better
market his product. Thbe problem is the product is no good. It's not that the
marketing is no good. He has been to every city and every provincial city in the
country talking about it now for a year, one could hardly say the sales effort hadn't
been reasonably ambitious, but thc product is basically a dud, that's the problem.
This always happens with political parties when they have, I think a remark you
made, a very profound one Michelle over the weekend, that is, when political
parties have trouble with policies they say they have a communication problem.
The problem hcre is not the communication problem, the problem for the Liberal
Party is the product ' is wrong for Australia. I notice that commentators like Ross
Gittins and Max Walsh and others have said that Fightback, the GST, is no
solution to Australia's problems in restoring growth whatever one might think
about it in thc medium term. But even in the medium term, does anybody believe
that a tax on the whole nation's food, clothing, goods, services to abolish payroll
tax and reduce thc price of petrol is going to produce the new Australia. I mean
does anybody think that reducing the price of petrol and removing payroll tax is
going to, prcsto, produce a new country. TIs is what the Liberal Party has
advertised this policy as and the fact is this is a very crude lix switch which takes
money off one group of people and gives it to another and it's very disruptive. The
problem the Liberals have is that the product is no goo~ d, not that the sales program
is no good. It wouldn't matter how good the sales program is, they're selling a dud,
but they still believe in it.
J: But Treasury secretary Tony Cole said it was good for exporters?
PM: No he didn't. If you want to see what the Treasury had to say about this, read the
Treasury analysis three-quarters of all families worse off, a 4 to 6 per cent affect
on inflation, that is, putting our inflation rate back near double digits. This thing is
a macro-economic disaster and tic it in with their industrial relations and you've
got a full-blown disaster.
ends