E&OE...............................................
MILNE:
Prime Minister, thanks for your time. Only hours before Peter Costello
brought down his Budget, you briefed your MPs to stand by for an
early election. Why did you do that?
PRIME MINISTER:
It's just a normal precaution. You just want them to be ready.
This has been a very important Budget for the future of Australia
and I wanted to put the whole thing into proper context.
MILNE:
Well, you are obviously happy to fight an election on the Budget...
PRIME MINISTER:
We won't be going to the polls until we've unveiled our
tax package.
MILNE:
But the implication of your remarks is that it could be before the
end of the year.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, anything's possible after the first of July, but I don't
think anybody should jump to conclusions just because I say "be
ready" that it's going to happen tomorrow. It won't
be happening tomorrow and there'll be quite some time to elapse
yet before the election takes place.
MILNE:
Well, just mentioning the tax package, the Budget's going to
be through by June hopefully. Does that mean that we can look forward
to the tax package around July?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't want to get into timing. The Treasurer and I have done
a lot of work. The broad architecture is there, but we still have
quite a distance to go and a lot more work to be done. But it will
be a very good package, a very comprehensive one, it will contain
significant personal tax cuts for families.
MILNE:
You've achieved a surplus in the Budget, but let's look
at the costs for a second. Cuts to services, cuts to the CES, childcare
and the like, hospitals. Has the pain been worth the gain?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look at the enormous gains. Look at the lower interest rates.
$3,800 a year saving for the average family. $320 off the average
loan. The equivalent of a $100 a week payrise from the boss. I think
the gains out of having a surplus are enormous.
MILNE:
You've mentioned that your tax package is going to offer big
personal tax cuts. Will it also do something to re-establish the
services that have been cut? Will you be using some of the revenue
to do that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that's a separate issue, the question of the social bonus.
We are yet to make a decision on that, but I don't believe
that any of the changes that we've made in the first two budgets
were unreasonable. I think we still retain very high quality services.
Our health offer to the States involves a 15% real increase over
five years and we've maintained very strong support for spending
on schools. They've been completely untouched. So the basics
have been untouched by our cost cutting.
MILNE:
Gareth Evans has now admitted that Labor left you a $10.5 billion
deficit.
PRIME MINISTER:
He's admitted that we were left in debt.
MILNE:
The point I wanted to make to you though, is that when you were
Treasurer, you also left the Hawke Government with the same problem.
What's the difference?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there was a difference. And there was an enormous difference
and in the case of Mr Evans, the significance is that Mr Beazley
has been denying it for the past two years, and Mr Evans has pulled
it right from under his feet.
MILNE:
There's not much hope for the jobless in this Budget. You're
forecasting lower growth, but you are also forecasting an increase
in employment. That's an heroic assumption isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think any of the assumptions in the Budget are anything
other than conservative and the best thing that we can do for the
jobless is to keep interest rates down and that means a healthy
surplus and it means not letting Mr Beazley put interest rates up
again with his spending policies. Business will invest in a climate
of low interest rates and business will employ people in a climate
of low interest rates. We have created
280 000 new jobs in the last two years. That's not a bad achievement.
MILNE:
Prime Minister, thank you.