3 0 M ay 19 9 7-TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
INTERVIEW WITH ALAN JONES 2UE RADIO
E O E
JONES: Prime Minister good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Alan.
JONES: You offered a personal apology at the National Reconciliation Convention. Your critics seems to say that's
not enough.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I thoug~ ht it was. I meant every word of what I said. Alan, I have read this report. There are some
horrific stories in it and it's quite plain that a lot of people were affected very badly and continue to be
affected and ithat can't be denied or ignored. It's also true, as you said, that the practises were meant, at the
time, to be doing the right thing. They were thought at the time to be benefiting the people involved. And
there is no doubt that in many cases, however wrong we now see the taking of the children away from their
own natural homes, that in many cases those people received a very happy home life and a very, very happy
upbringing. In many cases they didn't. But sadly, even as we talk, there are children in Australia and children
all around the world who are having a happy home upbringing and others who are having a very unhappy and
neglected one and that is a sad fact of human behaviour. But my view was that this generation can't be held
accountable for the mistakes of past generations. I did make a very strong and unambiguous expression of
my own sorrow and distress at what had happened and I meant that. I meant every word of it. I didn't tend
to what is called an official apology. One of the things you've got to bear in mind is that we have received
legal advice to the effect that an unqualified apology delivered on behalf of the Government and the people
could have quite significant legal implications.
JONES: In other words, that could be construed as an admission of wrong doing...
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes.
JONES: and therefore action...
PRIME MINISTER:
Give rise to compensation claims and the like. Now, we got that legal advice in writing from the Chief
General Council of the Attorney-General's Department. And that is a factor that I ask Australians who think
that I should have gone further to bear in mind. I have an obligation to them given that we take the view that
cash, monetary compensation is not appropriate in this situation. And having taken that decision and made
that submission to the commission, I have an obligation to the Australian taxpayer to avoid using words that
could give rise inaudible... compensation claims. Now, it's easy when you're in Opposition, it's easy when
you're outside the loop of responsibility to call on the run for all sorts of apologies and statements. We will
give a very considered and sympathetic response and sensible response to this commission... . report. We'll do
it in a measured way. We'll take our time, but not a lot of time to do so. And there are many things in the
report which I'm sure that we'll be able to respond to in a positive and helpful way and we'll want to do that.
But we do hold a strong view about compensation and we've stated that and we've expressed our sorrow for
what happened. But as for a formal apology it does have the difficulty about being an admission of liability,
of giving rise to a stronger legal claim that I've referred to and that is the reason why this week I have
stopped short of doing . is one of the reasons why I've stopped short of doing it.
JONES: The convention the Reconciliation Convention began last Monday and you made your speech there. I'm Just
wondering for the benefit of listeners who've heard a lot of rhetoric and a lot of emotion and a lot of anger,
how widely circulated has this report been? How many people at that convention would have read the
report? How many people actually commenting upon now and advising you or criticising you for what you
should or shouldn't do would have actually had access to the report?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's very, very hard to tell. I think at the convention itself, probably not a large number would have
had access to the report....
JONES: So in other words they're calling upon you, are they, to do things without actually knowing...?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well many of them, many of them would, although to be fair to them there had been extensive press briefing a
few days earlier of the contents of the report and there had been some of the case histories in the report
published widely in newspapers.
JONES: Should that have happened prior to it being tabled in the Parliament?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, but it wouldn't be, Alan, the report that's been released before its been tabled in Parliament. But
certainly that, technically speaking, shouldn't have happened. But the thrust of the report, the themes of the
report were pretty widely known, although perhaps the detail of it and certainly no opportunity to scrutinise
the detail of it would have occurred before that conference.
JONES: Well do we have any documentation 1 mean, if we just take a figure of $ 100,000 and he apparently, Sir
Ronald Wilson's, got 535 cases and I don't think we need to go on about how tragic it is that people are
abused in any walk of life, indigenous or otherwise. But is there any documentation about those Aborigines,
indigenous Australians, living today who've been educated and cared for under that kind of regime who may
not have been with us if they hadn't been removed from the dangers of their childhood environment?
PRIME MINISTER:
I can't give a precise answer to that. I can tell you that in relation to some of the case histories I read in the
report the individuals involved acknowledged that they had received good support and good education, they
have been well looked after. Although, then going on to say that despite that, they felt a separation from their
own culture, from their own families and so forth. But certainly the emphasis of the report is on the tragic
side of it. Now, if you're asking me is there a fair and full documentation of the good things that occurred in
the context of the overall practice, I'm not aware of that. But I don't I'm not in a position to pass
judgement about how comprehensive the report in acknowledging that in some cases people did receive very
good education, very good care. I mean, there is no doubt that in some cases the children involved did enjoy
and receive the benefit of an upbringing and an education and of support...
JONES: That was to their benefit.
PRIME MINISTER:
But equally ( inaudible) is a report document say, well, you know, all of this was fine, but, I was separated
from my family and that was very, very heavy negative in my early years and it remains so.
JONES: But you would be aware, wouldn't you, of the stigma 25, 30, 35 years ago of pregnancy, teenage pregnancy,
of having children out of wedlock and daughters of Catholic unmarried girls were taken from them at birth
without the mother even seeing the child?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am aware of that and the point I'm not going to go in to whether you know, going to start talking about
those practices on your programme or indeed any other one. The point I simply make with that illustration is
that once you start going down the path of trying, through the compensation system, to make amends for
what you believe to have been wrong practices in the past, you open up a pandora's box where does it end?
If you were going to pay compensation in relation to the stolen children then are you going to have people
who at birth were taken from their natural mothers now claiming that that was a breach of their human rights
and that therefore they are entitled to compensation despite the fact that their mothers may have been at a
very young age and may have wanted them to be adopted, or in some cases not wanting them to be adopted.
But it was simply the practice of the time because it was thought to be in the best interests of the child that it
not be left in the care of somebody who clearly was unable at that time to care for the child. Now, this is the
difficulty of imposing backwards the standards and attitudes and today...
JONES: And it is also a difficulty, as Prime Minister, is it not, to try and make decisions in the interests of all
Australians? How much has that been a factor in what you've tried to do?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is. I mean, I take the view that the best thing we can do to repair the hurt of Aboriginal people who
today continue to carry the scars of having been taken away from their families and continue to be affected by
it, the best thing we can do is to help them now to build a better tomorrow. I would have thought if we
understand that it happened, but if we say to them, how can we help to address your genuine disadvantage? I
mean, those that aren't disadvantaged well, they don't need any more assistance than the rest of us. But
those who are, and there are many Aboriginal people in Australia who don't need any special assistance and
who are not asking for any special assistance. They're saying, look I've, you know, I've succeeded, I'm part
of the Australian community, I'm proud of my heritage and my culture but I'm not asking for any special
help. JONES: Well, one other dimension of this debate which hasn't been -and I raise this with you, because it's quite
separate from this notion of taking the children away because in the interest of their safety and help they were
going to be better off I read where AO Neville, a Chief Protector in Western Australia from 1915 to 1940
so he was the bloke legally in control of Aboriginal children argued in 1937, and I quote what he said.-' the
pure blooded Aboriginal was not a quick breeder, on the other hand the half cast was' his solution ' our
solution is to separate one from the other and let the Aboriginal race die out'. Now, was there a policy really
to that would be of some concern to us all that there were active and legally sanctioned decisions taken to
really exterminate the Aborigines?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I can only conclude from a statement like that, and I've read statements of that type, I can only
conclude that that was the view of some people at the time. I don't believe the totality of the report is as
severe as that but certainly there were at that time and it continued up to the 1970s in the minds of some
people a view about the unworthiness of Aboriginal people. And you still get it in today's society and I have
to say these are the sorts of attitudes that can be very, very genuinely hurtful and quite distressing in relation...
JONES:
Absolutely. PRIME MINISTER:
I mean, anybody who talks about, you know, inferiority of race, anybody who talks about the lowliness of
people in the social spectrum, I mean, that is intensely offensive and totally unacceptable.
JONES:
Repugnant. PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely repugnant to all of us.
JONES: Just on the legal side and one final question on that. Native title requires a traditional connection with the
land. Have children who were stolen been denied the benefits conferred on others by the native tittle
legislation? PRIME MIN][ STER:
Well, I can't answer that question yet. One of the reasons I can't answer it is that the existing Native Title
Act is so obscure. We know from the Mabo decision that there has to have been a continuous connection
with the land in order for native title to be established. A question of whether a child removed from his or her
family has thereby been denied the continuity of physical connection could come back and make a native title
claim is something which, at this stage, I can't answer. Some of the lawyers very steeped in this area might
be able to do so. I guess it's one of those questions which throws up the almost never ending difficulty and
complexity of the Native Title Act which, of course as you know, we are very keen to amend with our
Point Plan which not only deals with the Wik decision and delivers certainty and stability to pastoralists in the
mining industry but it also protects the Mabo principles of native title and provides a more efficient system
and I hope prevents some of the more extraordinary ambit claims that have been made under the act over
recent times.
JONES: Just one thing before you go. Last night you talked about tax. Are you aware that there's a tremendous push
in America through the presidency for a debits tax and given that the Treasury have figures that there are
$ 200 billion of withdrawals from financial institutions every day, a one half a per cent tax on that would net
about $ 250 billion a year, $ 65 billion more than you actually need you could pay of your debt in the term of
one Parliament and there'll be no tax, no tax returns needed, no file numbers, no deeming, no nothing. Is
that likely to get on the table for debate?
PRIME MINISTER:
Alan, once you start a debate on tax reform anything can get on the table.
JONES: Well you've started the debate.
PRIME MINISTER:
I've certainly started the debate. I mean, there are some distributional problems with that sort of tax if I
remember rightly from some work I had done about 15 years ago. It sounds simple on the surface but it can
have some sort of very awkward distribution, particularly with multiples...
JONES: Well thank you for your time, we've got to go to the news. Appreciate your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks Alan.