E&OE.............................................................................
QUESTION:
John, congratulations on an excellent speech. Over the last 20 years
I have heard most of your outstanding speeches and this has beaten
them all, and I think it is the most credible, brilliant package that,
it does fulfil all that we have been striving for. And with all of
the themes that you mentioned, one of the best you didn't happen
to include just now, and that was what we are doing for average families.
Could you say something about our family package?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it does represent a huge further level of support for families.
I am well known for the commitment I have for a greater sense of tax
justice and choice for Australian families and the biggest benefits
under the income tax changes are for families in low and middle income
brackets. One of the very, very strong features of the package is
that we have a 30 per cent marginal tax rate for everybody who earns
less than $50,000 a year. And can I remind this audience that that
is 81% of all Australian taxpayers. Eighty one per cent of all Australian
tax payers earn less than $50,000 a year. At the moment, only 30 per
cent of Australian taxpayers have a top marginal, are on a top marginal
rate of 30 cents in a dollar. As result of this plan that will now
become 81 per cent of all Australian taxpayers. On top of that, we
have doubled the tax free threshold from $1000 to $2000 for each child
under our family tax initiative. We have also doubled from $2,500
to $5,000 the additional tax free zone that a single income family
with a child under five can have. And that means that the aggregate
tax free zone for a single income family with a child under five,
at least one child under five, will be $13,000.
Now the purpose of these changes is to increase the choice available
to parents. It is not the role of the government to dictate a stereotype.
It is not for the government to say that one parent should be at home
when children are young, or that both parents should be in the workforce,
that's not our business, that's the business of the parents.
But it is our business and it is our responsibility to facilitate
choice. And I think young parents now want greater choice. They want
the opportunity, if they so choose, for one of them to be out of the
workforce for a period of time while their children are young, and
then perhaps when the youngest child has gone to school, or even before,
the parent at home might move back into the part-time workforce and
then over another period of years, back into the full time workforce.
In other words they want choice, they don't want the government
saying, you will do this, or you will do that and rigging the tax
scales to bring about that result. And what we're in the business
of doing is to facilitate choice, and I think this plan will do it
to a much greater extent.
QUESTION:
Thank you Mr Chairman, Di Wilkins, Chairman of Women's Council.
Prime Minister, Baden has actually pre-empted what I was going to
ask you, but I would like you to scotch a nasty rumour that is around
in the media, print media and the talk back radio, even in today's
Advertiser, that the one which says that we, the Liberal Party,
really want all women to stay at home behind the white picket fence
looking after children. I wanted you to reassure me and the many women
around Australia that the new tax system acknowledges the diversity
of today's family unit and continues to enable choice for women
today. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, of course it does. But I mean what is on at the moment, I mean
you should understand that there are a section of our critics and
sections of the media who look at everything that the Government does
through the frame of reference of the Labor Party, through the frame
of reference of the Labor Party, and therefore they make these outrageous
allegations that in some way we are trying to stereotype a particular
kind of behaviour. Of all the revolutions that have occurred in the
way people lead their lives in the last 30 to 40 years, none has been
greater than the change in the role of women. I have said in a speech
I delivered in Melbourne a few months ago that when I thought about
the three women that have influenced my life most, my mother, my wife
and my daughter, and I think of the social circumstances into which
each of them had been born, and the way in which they conducted their
lives, one could see the progression and yet one could also have a
sense of continuity that each of them has, in the circumstances of
their period of time and the age into which they were born, a deep
commitment to the importance of family in their lives.
But they would exercise that deep commitment and they would express
it in different ways because of the circumstances of their time. And
I have often talked to my 24 year old daughter about this, and she
is a person who has a commitment to family but also has a commitment
to a career. And she's a woman of the 1990s and understands the
importance of career choice but also understands the immense value
of the stable home environment, as all of us do. And what you have
to do is to find, to set a paradigm that allows people to freely choose
how to organise their lives. And we don't want one side of the
argument saying what the others are doing is wrong. I am fed up with
people attacking women who stay at home full time to look after their
children. I am fed up with those people being sort of treated as somehow
or other they're second class citizens.
Equally, the women who have a career and who are looking after their
children and are making their own arrangements in the way that they
think fit for their own families, they shouldn't be told that
they are neglecting their parental responsibilities. So, in other
words, we all ought to recognise that what we should be on about is
choice and respecting the decisions that parents make. It's for
parents to make the decision. It is for us to set the framework to
allow them to make the full range of the decisions that they want
to make.
QUESTION:
Hi, Alex Smith, Young Liberal President. Mr Prime Minister, last night
the Young Liberals tried to move a motion through this body to reaffirm
South Australia's support for one of your early and very great
achievements upon coming to office in 1996, and that was your gun
legislation. Given that debate on this motion was adjourned last night,
I was wondering if, here today, you would like to reaffirm your support
for the gun legislation moved a couple years ago.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that's very easy. I mean, I know there are some people
who didn't agree with that, but can I say, I am proud of that.
I think it was a good thing for Australia. I think it has delivered
a safer Australia. I think it has something that has particularly
strong support from the women of Australia. And I won't budge
an inch on those gun laws. Now I don't want to influence the
debate in any way, but there are some things where you, people should
be in no doubt, I am not interested in any compromise on those gun
laws. I am sorry if that offends anybody, but I am not interested
in changing the Government's position and I won't.
QUESTION:
Gene Lorry, Price FEC. John, when the election comes along, health
is going to be a major issue. It seems to me that we're trying
to do something to bring people back into private health. But when
I go into a supermarket and pay for my goods, I pay for them. When
I go out the door I wouldn't like to be asked to pay for them
again. And it seems to me that that's the problem with out health
system. I think, if we could have a system whereby people either pay
the levy or pay for a private fund, we would find people would come
back in droves to support the private funds. Is there any possibility
that we could make such a change?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, no. We are committed to the maintenance of the Medicare system.
And we can't afford to leave any doubt, and I will not leave
any doubt in the minds of the Australian public about our support
for the basic Medicare system. Our health policy is built upon support
for the basic Medicare system, and I don't use that "basic"
in any qualifying sense. It's unqualified support for the Medicare
system, supplemented by very strong support for the private part of
the health system, through the sort of incentives that will be provided
under the plan announced a couple of nights ago. You need a balance
between public and private. We recently announced the injection of
an additional $915 million into the public hospital systems of the
states.
That now means that over the next five years there will be a real
increase of 17 per cent across Australia in federal money flowing
to the state governments for the public hospital system. You need
a strong public hospital system. You also need to give people more
incentive to take out private health insurance. And we are doing that.
This initiative will mean that from the 1st of January
next year, from January next year, and this health initiative starts
next year - you don't have to wait until July of 2000, the health
initiative from January of next year, if you have a policy of say,
$2000 you will be able to get $600 of that off your tax. And that's
30 per cent of the cost. And that applies to everybody. There is no
income test. Let me repeat that - there is no income test. And that
means that it will be available to everybody, irrespective of their
income. And it will be available for people at the low end of the
income bracket who don't pay enough tax to get it back through
their tax, to get it as a direct payment. Indeed anybody will be able
to get it as a direct payment.
But, there is a lot of public support for the essential thrust of
Medicare, there really is. And I don't think it is not good policy,
and nor is it intelligent political management to be canvassing any
kind of change to the essentials of Medicare. What we have to do is
to build on it. And what we have to do is improve the weaknesses in
the private area, and one of them is to give people more incentive,
and I know people have concern about gap insurance, I understand that.
I have frequently said in the past when I have been asked about those
things that health is an area where you never completely close the
book on making further change. But the change that I announced on
Thursday was a very big one and I am sure that it will result in a
large number of people coming back into private health insurance.
QUESTIONER:
I hope so John.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
QUESTION:
Thank you, Margaret Wilson from Eastern Metropolitan Convention. First
of all Prime Minister, I would like to congratulate you on the courage
for, to reform the taxation system before an election rather than
afterwards. Secondly every three or four years I have a trip to New
Zealand, and I have always noticed that supermarket prices over there
have been higher than here in Australia. And I thought that that was
partly because of the exchange rate difference, partly because they
have a smaller market, and partly because I don't have the opportunity
to shop around. But this time in June when I was back there, there
was the added GST, in their case of 12.5 per cent. So I was expecting
prices to be of the order of more than 30 per cent higher than they
are in the supermarkets here. And I was pleasantly surprised to find
them only 10 per cent, maybe 15 per cent and in many cases, much cheaper.
Now could we please ensure that that message gets through to the general
population that a GST is not going to make their supermarket prices
12.5 per cent higher, because there are many other factors come into
it as well. Including the reduction of these other taxes and they
may even find many of them, including food prices lower for having
a tax on it.
PRIME MINISTER:
We certainly will. And the point that has to be made again, and again,
that the GST will replace existing taxes. I mean there are many services
that will be cheaper. Medical services will be cheaper because they
are GST free, and the people who provide them will be able to deduct,
get back the taxes paid on their inputs. Same with dental services.
The same with child care. Three very critical things where the cost
of those services ought to fall. Fall. Not just relatively but in
absolute terms ought to fall. And if there is enough competitive pressure
that will happen.
As far as the supermarket is concerned, the average increase in costs
across the whole community is going to be about 1.9 per cent. We will
be undertaking, and it has already started, an extensive public education
programme. You will have seen the three full page advertisements in
The Advertiser this morning listing the features of the plan,
listing the tax scales with individual cameos. We started a television
advertising campaign last night, and that is going to go on for several
weeks, so that people fully informed. This is not propaganda, it's
providing people with information. I mean, they are entitled to know
what's involved in this big change. And one of the things they
will get is a householder booklet, sixteen pages long. Everybody will
have it within two weeks and it will explain the detail of the plan
and it will also point out that the GST replaces existing taxes and
as a result, many things will fall in price. Others will go up but
in net terms, people will be fully protected and better off because
they will either get an increase in their pension or benefit plus
a tax cut, or if you are a self funded retiree, you will get a number
of other individual benefits. But I agree with you, it's an important
message to communicate.
QUESTIONER:
Mr Howard, thank you for what you are doing for us. This room here
who has never been hungry, are going to benefit in enormous ways but
taxi drivers I have had two or three recently and their agony
and their talk is, but what about these poor people who don't
have enough food half the time. It's going to be more. I think
from what you just said, you are sending the booklet out but can you
do a simple ad directed to people who are often hungry, that they
are going to be better off. The taxi drivers need reassurance.
PRIME MINISTER:
I am quite certain that the advertising campaign will be comprehensive
enough to include that information. We must accept that our opponents
are going to run a fear campaign. They are going to try and exploit
fear. Remember in 1993, Mr Keating said you can have a tax cut without
a GST. And when he got back into office, he and Mr Beazley, what did
they do? They took away the tax cut and they gave the poor of Australia
a GST without any compensation. I mean, let me just spell out to you
that the impact of a GST is virtually the same in percentage of GDP
terms as the indirect tax increases that were brought in by Mr Dawkins
in the 1993 budget. They brought in their own GST after then 1993
election, they provided no compensation to pensioners, there were
no 4% increases, there was no compensation for the elderly, no compensation
for the unemployed, and for good measure they took away the tax cut
that they promised before the election.
And Mr Beazley is going to do the same thing. You can see it coming
down straight at you like an express train. In a couple of weeks he
will stand up and say, you can have this tax cut and you don't
need any of this GST business. Forget about that. You can have this
and you don't need any reform. And he will cross his fingers
and he will close his eyes and he will hope it will work because he
will remember what Keating did in 1993. Remember L-A-W law. You can
have the tax cuts, we're not going to have Hewson's GST.
We're going to give you all of these goodies without any reform.
Now we all know that's not possible. That's unrealistic.
But Mr Beazley is going to try it again. You can see it coming. I
can write the script. I could almost do the first interview. Because
he's got a lot of form on this. I mean, he was there by Mr Keating's
side. I mean, it was really the greatest con job of all time. You
offer a tax cut, you say no GST. You win the election, you take away
the tax cut and you give them a GST without compensation and you wonder
why people don't trust you.
Now they are shaping up to do it again and I just hope that the Australian
people on this occasion, and I have great confidence they will recognise
that and they will know that if you really want serious reform, if
you really want benefits, you've got to have serious reform as
well. And I think we can succeed on this occasion in doing that.
Thank you.
ENDS