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19 December 1996 TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON. JOHN HOWARD MP
RADIO INTERVIEW WITH PRU GOWARD, RADIO NATIONAL
E& OE
Well Prime Minister thank you for joining us this morning. You've certainly had your
successes with policy, sometimes I think even to your own surprise, but is Rupert
Murdoch right that we are in danger of becoming a backwater if there's not faster
reform? PRIME MINISTER:
No I think the remarks Rupert made indicate just how disconnected he's becoming
with Australia. Anybody who's been in Australia over the past few months,
particularly the past couple of months and has really followed things closely could
barely say that we haven't achieved some quite fundamental reforms. The industrial
relations legislation which won't come into operation until the first of January..
GO WARD:
But a lot of business people say it's quite a serious compromise.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they should wait and see it operate. If it had compromised fundamentals we
wouldn't have accepted the compromise.
GO WARD:
All right. What about tax reform though, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we made a commitment that there would be no GST during the first term and I
repeat that commitment. I have no intention of dishonouring it but we made a change
to the capital gains tax so far as it affects small business which has enormous
consequences. Any small business operator with a business valued less than $ 5 million
can sell that business and move into another business of like value, it doesn't have to
be the same kind of business, and could in fact do that three or four times during his
working lifetime and it was correctly described by the Business Review Weekly as the
biggest tax reform in decades. So whilst a GST is not on this term, I've said that, and
it's not going to change and I just repeat that, to suggest that there have been no tax
changes at all, particularly a change like that that will help literally 70 80% of small
businesses in Australia in a quite mammoth degree...
GO WARD:
But Rupert Murdoch makes the point that terms here are very short, three years. You
say no tax reform this time.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I said no GST.
GO WARD.:
Sorry, no GST this time.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, there's plenty of tax reform and we've fixed the capital gains tax burden for small
business. That's a pretty major reform given they employ so many Australians.
GO WARD:
All right but if it is going to be next term and you've got a chorus of business people
calling for it, is it time you started indicating your sympathy to it, I mean, where you're
going to go with it? We don't really know whether you even want a GST.
PRIME MINISTER:
I haven't said anything about anything being next term. I've only just started this term.
The time to talk about next term is when next term is approaching. I haven't finished a
year yet. Everybody should just have a holiday at Christmas and I hope they do but we
look back on nine months of doing all the things we said we were going to do and
anybody who has really followed Australian politics closely would have to
acknowledge often to their surprise and against their predictions that my Government
has actually delivered on all the essential commitments it made at the last election.
GO WARD:
And a double dissolution for this term is now out of the question.
PRIME MINISTER:
You never say never about anything in politics but I like the idea of governing for three
years at a time but I'm not going to say " never" about something like that. I certainly
don't have it in contemplation but you can't ever say never in politics.
GO WARD:
Howe Leather was a big issue when President Clinton's visit was upon us. Cabinet
was to have decided what to do to help those 500 workers hanging out for Christmas.
What did you decide on that this week?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that matter is still under discussion.
GO WARD:
So it was not raised at Cabinet as Mr Moore indicated.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't normally talk about what was raised or not raised at Cabinet. I simply say
to you it's still under discussion.
GO WARD:
Those 500 workers might like to know.
PRIME MINISTER:
I understand that and thank you for taking up their cause and I'm very sensitive to it as
well. GO WARD:
But it is about industry policy isn't it and a complaint that business makes that there
isn't one.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is. I mean, industry policy is low inflation, low interest rates, industrial
relations reform, other microeconomic reform. There is a debate, the debate is about
the extent to which governments should specifically intervene or provide specific
support to particular industries. I mean let's cut through...
GO WARD:
Like Howe Leather, yes
PRIME MINISTER:
let's cut through the generality, the verbiage. The debate about industry policy is the
debate about the extent to which governments should explicitly intervene to give
subsidies or incentives...
GO WARD:
Or tariffs.
PRIME MINISTER:
or tariffs. Although tariffs are really increasingly on the way out in an era of floating
exchange rates. I mean, our general tariff rate's down to five per cent apart from the
motors and the textiles. So it really is about the extent to which you specifically
intervene and give a nudge in a particular direction. That's what the debate about
industry policy is about. So it's a pretty limited debate. Nobody surely would contest
the proposition that if you have a low inflation, lower interest rate climate is a more
benign atmosphere for investment.
GO WARD:
And the waterfront, that is one of your challenges there are reports this morning that
you're prepared to send the troops in. Rupert Murdoch might like to hear that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that didn't come from me or from any of the Ministers I've spoken too unless
they had conversations that were totally different from the ones I've had. Sounds as
though somebody's been to a Christmas party too many.
GO WARD:
What, a Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, it hasn't come from a Minister. My understanding is that when you say a
senior source you don't mean a Minister. Anyway...
GO WARD:
But you deny it, you don't think you'll go that far?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh look, we don't have any plans to use troops. And as far as putting unionists in
gaol, the only circumstances unionists would go to gaol would be like you or me, if
they or we break the criminal law.
GO WARD:
There is also some concern about the Government's determination to get on top of the
deficit, the Government deficit...
PRIME MINISTER:
Really. Most of the commentary this year has been that we've gone too far.
GO WARD:
But I think you'd agree that economic commentators are concerned that there won't
be... PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. And most of them... there are one or two... there will always be one or two
who, for the purpose of as they see it, keeping everybody honest, they want to push it
a bit further. I mean, they operate on the principle that it's DR plus one deficit
reduction plus a bit more. And even if you put the thing into surplus they say you've
got to have a bigger surplus. That's all right, I accept that. But nobody seriously says
we squibbed fiscal consolidation. We did a terrific job.
GO WARD:
But is that the end of it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we're having a mid-year review. What I said on a sister programme to yours last
week was that we didn't have in mind a repeat of the magnitude of last year. But as to
precisely what we do in the budget, we have a parameter of getting it into underlying
balance if we can in year three, we want to hang on to the $ 7.2 billion of savings over a
two year period.
GO WARD:
And the ' if we can' is not a proviso?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, look stop... you people, with great respect, do spend too much time sort of
grabbing on to something. We've set ourselves a goal and we're working towards that
goal. But the thing I said was not sort of going through an exercise similar to last
year. But that doesn't mean to say there won't be further savings sought and
particularly if people want to spend more money in their portfolios they will need to
find offsetting savings.
GO WARD:
Now, the social issue debate of the year Rupert Murdoch, amongst others, says
you've been distracted by others.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, he said... I1 was fascinated with his comment that we were distracted by the guns
debate. Well, yes I was. I plead guilty to that. I think the Australian public wanted
me to be distracted by that. They, in fact, didn't regard it as a distraction. And safety
in the streets and in public places and in the home is a mainstream social issue in this
country, as it is in the country of Mr Murdoch's residence, the United States. I'm
surprised that anybody, anybody would see concern about that as being nothing better
than a distraction.
GO WARD:
You might have considered the race debate an initially a distraction, but would you
agree now that it is feeding into real things like university students not wanting to enrol
here? PRIME MINISTER:
Whenever anything. I mean, if people, either before or after Pauline Hanson made her
speech, are the subject of any kind of racial insult, I mean, I find that absolutely
repulsive. And I want to take the opportunity of saying that students from Malaysia,
indeed foreign students generally, are very welcome, very welcome indeed in this
country... GO WARD:
He's talking about bringing them home.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we'll wait and see...
GO WARD:
But it is feeding in, isn't it
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, can I just finish. They are very, very welcome in this country. We've not had a
race debate. We've had a debate about responses to a speech and nobody in the
Government, nobody in the Opposition, nobody is seriously arguing that we should go
back to the White Australia policy. I've made that very clear under no circumstances
is that going to happen. We have a non-discriminatory immigration policy and we
always will. The level of that immigration intake is something for very legitimate
debate. We're really having a debate about responses to a speech and I've expressed
the view before that I think if a lot of people, including many in the media, had
followed my example on that you probably wouldn't be asking me that question this
morning. GO WA RD
And the Republic, Prime Minister, you've promised a Peoples' Convention half
elected will you deliver that?
PRIME MINISTER:
We are looking at all of that at the moment. What we will deliver is a process that will
fuilly involve the Australian people.
GO WARD:
But it might not be that half elected Peoples' Convention.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we are looking quite honestly at whether there's a different way. You can have
half appointed, half fully elected. You could have half appointed, half elected in an
indirect fashion involving local government and State governments. You could have
some kind of indicative plebiscite first and then have some kind of convention. We are
looking at a whole range of ways...
GO WARD:
The word ' Convention' will appear eventually?
PRIME MINISTER:
I would be quite surprised if at the end of our deliberations the process does not
involve ' Convention'. But what's important in this is that we don't wrap it under
push it under the carpet but equally we don't push it with unnecessary haste and also
that we have a process that involves everybody fuilly and I can assure the Australian
people that will happen. But I'm not going to be, sort of I'm not going to have a
timetable forced on me by visiting commentators.
GO WARD:
All right. Just two quick ones Prime Minister. Health reforms do you consider there
might be a need to change the community rating principle?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it's a central element of our policy and I'm going to obviously look at the
Productivity Commission Report. I'm going to read it over the holiday break and see
what it's got to say. But I haven't read it yet, I've only read the newspaper reports
and a brief summary provided by my Department. So all I can say is that until further
notice the current policy stands.
GO WARD:
And finally and I guess in a way this is a curiosity item, it's an insight into you why
won't you send a good will message to that gay Mardi Gras rally in Sydney? Just why
not? PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't send messages to everybody who asks me for one. I've actually got... . it's
not a question of a view about homosexuality but there are certain groups in the
community who are sort of subject to ridicule in that parade. And some of those
groups, I mean they've had a bit of a shot at Catholic nuns for example, they've had a
bit of a shot at other public figures who I've had sort of cordial relations with. I just
choose for those and other reasons. But it's really got nothing to do with a view about
homosexual conduct. I think people who know me and know me well know that the
last thing that I am is in any way hostile towards individuals who are homosexual
quite the reverse. But I choose for those I've stated and other reasons not to. And the
fact that I'm apparently alone doesn't trouble me. I haven't sought out to be I
haven't sought out to do that but if that's the situation, that's the situation, so be it.
GO WARD:
Prime Minister thank you and happy Christmas.
PRIME MINISTER:
And you too.