PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P J KEATING MP
DOORSTOP, BENDIGO ART GALLERY, BENDIGO, 12 DECEMBER 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
J: Prime Minister, the Queensland by-election has been announced for
February 3, how does that affect the timing of the federal election?
PM: It doesn't. They are just separate issues, completely separate issues.
I think people know that.
J: Will you be going to Queensland to see if Wayne Goss is going to
want some help with the election?
PM: It is a by-election. I can't remember one Prime Minister ever involved
in a State by-election not ever.
J: How do you think the Government will go?
PM: In the by-election, you mean?
J: Yes.
PM: Oh, I think the Government will win it because I think Wayne Goss has
got in there, got on with the job. It has got a very good feel about it
Queensland. I think it has got tremendous potential, particularly with
the Asia-Pacific growing the way it is and its links with it and the shift
of population. It has got the wind behind its sails and he is driving it.
J: Mr Keating, did you have any talks with Mr Goss about the timing of it?
PM: No. I haven't spoken with him in the last two days either.
J: Will Joe Helper win the next election in Bendigo?
PM: Well I think he will and this city and this electorate needs someone like
him to represent them in the national government and to do some
more things like we have done today.
J: Do you think Bruce Reid is strong enough to win though?
PM: Well, to be honest with you, I hardly know their names of some of
these Coalition fellows because you don't ever hear from them. And,
today, we have said we will take the historic gallery of this city, you
walk through that facade into the old galleries of it. It is one of the
historic cities of Australia and the art gallery ought to be the place of
recording some of its history. So we are going to join the city and
bring it back to life. Now you know Joe was on my back about it. I saw
the sense of it. We have gone and done it. Today we also announced
the transfer of the tourist information centre down to the former
post office, which is $ 213,000. We are spending just on $ 400,000
here in these things, on top of the $ 2 million we will spend on the
gallery. So these are, I think, for the core precinct of the city, all strong
for its tourism, understanding the great heritage which is here and
using it as well as the community facilities. I mean we have got a full
office here of the Department of Employment, Education and Training.
We have got very large labour market programs for the unemployed
and the long term unemployed and that is growing. I think this year,
I am relying on my memory, but in terms of support for
Local Government, other Commonwealth payments to Bendigo, I think
it is somewhere of the order of around $ 55 million. And that is,
of course, outside the Social Security system, outside of Medicare and
outside all the mainframe programs.
So that is at the time when Victoria is pulling out money for education,
pulling out money for health. The Kennett government is withdrawing
funding from here. We are the ones interested in the place and so that
is why we want him here.
J: Mr Keating, there was a handful of.-East Timorese demonstrators at the
lunch in the park today. In an interview, the newly appointed
Indonesian Ambassador has described the Dili massacre as merely an
incident and wants Australia to get tough on flag burning.
PM: I have not seen the interview. I don't know what he said, Peter
( Harvey). I have no idea. I have never seen anything he has said
about issues affecting Australia and Indonesia, or Australia and Timor.
J: I realise that, but he said this in Paris.
PM: Well let's see what he said, Peter, and we will give a remark later.
J: Mr Keating, fuel prices, the difference between what city people are
paying as compared to people here in Bendigo and other regional
centres. What is being done at this stage?
PM: Well, petrol discounting comes and goes, I know. But you do get
regional disparities in petrol prices. I mean, essentially, these things
are set in the market. We have a freight equalisation scheme which
does Affect beneficially many parts of Australia. But, I am just not sure
to what extent it affects Bendigo.
J: Mr Keating, any response to Jeff Kennett calling you a jelly back?
PM: Poor old Jeffrey. I mean, I don't know what he puts on his rice crispies
of a morning, the old Jeffrey. Some days he sprinkles them with
Valium other days he sprinkles them with chilli.
J: Is Community and Nation federal Labor's backflip on City Link as Mr
Kennett has claimed?
PM: Community and Nation is a very great reform of Australia's public
housing system, that's what it is principally. Getting support for
tenants in both public and private housing, to kick on the private
housing sector in the rental market and to kick on the development of
the community housing sector as well, that is, the public housing
sector. It is a very great reform and I am very glad it was greeted as
such by most newspaper editorials and by the industry. But, how it
affects Victoria and these various projects is just a matter of how we do
see a value in international linkages to cities like Melbourne and
Sydney. In Sydney we are reserving land and a transport system to
Sydney west airport from Kingsford Smith Airport. We have just spent
$ 250 million on Brisbane International Terminal and in the same way
we are looking at what linkages there can be from Tullamarine to the
city of Melbourne. I don't see this being in any way at odds with
anything the Premier wants to do in his traffic policies.
J: Mr Keating, do you intend going to Singapore and Malaysia next
month?
PM: I have been invited to give the Singapore Lecture in Singapore which I
am prone to do and currently we are seeking to put into place, we are
talking to Malaysia about arrangements. I might be able to go firm
about that in the next day or two.
J: Mr Keating, I wonder if you would care to comment on Andrew Olle
who remains in a critical condition in Sydney this afternoon?
PM: Only to say as a relatively young man I am desperately sorry to see
the condition he is in and I am desperately sad for his family and as
someone who is well known to the community I am sure there are
many Australians who think the same.
J: Prime Minister, I have been talking to Aboriginal leaders in this region
and they were saying that the Mabo legislation has been watered
down to the extent that it will lose many of the benefits for them.
PM: No, it is not going to be watered down. It is going to take a while to get
the claims moving and to get them up, but in the end if one can
establish a custom or traditional association with the land, that is the
criteria for the legislation. I don't doubt that in any of these processes,
various groups will get frustrated with them, but the strength of the
legislation is there and the Government is not going to be changing it.
J: Prime Minister, the State Housing Ministers met in Melbourne today..
( inaudible) does that place it in jeopardy?
PM: I haven't heard what they have said, but I know Brian Howe came to
the Cabinet with some very strong support from State Housing
Ministers about it. They have been looking for a reform of this kind for
many years and the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement hasn't
changed really that much since 1945. It really needs this sort of
change now.
J: The State Housing Minister for Victoria says that the Victorian
government is not prepared to pay any money because the Federal
government isn't going to put in any money.
PM: Well, the whole thing is that it is revenue neutral. You see, the money
that Victoria would now spend on rental subsidies in public housing,
they wouldn't need to spend, we would spend it. That is where the
adjustment comes in. In other words, it wouldn't affect Victoria's
budget and, I think, these things need to be understood. But, there
would be a little bit of politics being played here by Jeffrey and the
boys as well. So, you can put a big discount through most of what
they say for a while.
J: Mr Keating, John Howard has nominated small business incentives as
the main electoral issue in Bendigo.
PM: That is why he was out supporting our incentives package, our
innovation package last week saying it was his own. He called it the
imitation package. Of course, it was about supporting innovation in
Australian business and one of the great reforms we have in there is
bringing the banks into the equity position, rather than debt. That
banks can actually invest in companies. You saw the company I
visited here in Bendigo this morning with Joe, we went to see AUSVAC
producing vaccines. Now it may be that that company through its own
retained earnings has got enough capital, but if it hasn't, it would be
the sort of company that the banks would actually take equity in rather
than debt. That is a very novel change as is all the extension services
like TradeBlazer, the reaffirmation of the 150 per cent R& D
concession, all these things are very much supportive of the small to
medium business.
J: Will the superannuation funds be invested into the housing industry?
PM: Well, they are now.
J: More so through your program announced last week?
PM: Well, we are seeking in our program the other day, to teach super fund
trustees to educate them about opportunities for investment in the
market and how better to get a result from their investment fund
managers and there is no doubt that as we see more competition in
the housing market we will see more mortgages bound up and sold
into the bond market and Australian super funds will be buying them.
J: Mr Keating, your forest agreement prompted quite a bit of interest in
and around Bendigo, but the Box Ironbark forests which surround
Bendigo weren't included in the reserve system.
PM: Our view was that there is in the Box Ironbark forests which are part of
the national forest estate and those on private land, that they are of
sufficient size to represent a representative reserve system and that is
the key point. What the government is seeking to do here in forestry is
develop representative reserve systems and we are seeking these
Deferred Forest Agreements, deferred forest areas and as well as that
putting areas away for regional forest agreements which we'll then
enter into at some couple of years down the track. Our forest
statement is the biggest reservation, I'm sure, the biggest reservation
of trees in Australian history. Over six million hectares of important
forest and that is why, I think, it was greeted so well by serious people
interested in conservation.
ends