E&OE....................................................
KELLY:
Prime Minister, Pauline Hanson has again accused Aboriginal Australians
of getting preferential treatment in Government funding. She says
she'll campaign against the existence of native title and she
has warned that Aboriginal Australians and the United Nations are
plotting to establish taxpayer funded Aboriginal states. Are these
sentiments racist?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I've read the speech she made last night and I've
got to say it is not only an inaccurate, dishonest speech, but it
verges on the deranged in various places. I said all along that
whenever she says something that is wrong or against the interests
of Australia I will attack it. And in a sense she has done the political
debate in Australia a great service by delivering the speech because
she has actually put down in black and white, in writing, her views,
rather than relying on a series of one-liners and nudges and winks
and inferences and general attitudes. And what she says about this
United Nations declaration is wrong on four counts. Firstly, it's
a draft declaration, is therefore not legally binding. It's
not a treaty. Secondly, the Australian Government has not conspired
as she suggests to keep it secret from the Australian public. If
she had bothered to turn up to Parliament more frequently than she
does, she would have known that one of the first things my Government
did was to introduce an open, accountable treaty making process.
We require treaties to be tabled in Parliament. We require a far
more open process. We have, as a Government, significant reservations
about this draft declaration. We have not approved it. We are not
in the business of trying to tear the heart out of the Australian
nation. It is not....to be involving the United Nations discussion
is not a treacherous sell-out of the Australian people. Now, you
ask me is it racist. The strict definition of a racist is somebody
who believes that his or her race is superior to other races. Now,
what she is doing, of course, is, I think, on this particular issue
and what she said in this speech is appealing to irresponsible racist
sentiment in the Australian community. It is a very irresponsible
speech and the more it is analysed the more reason there will be
for people not supporting her.
KELLY:
So she is racist in this context?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I've said, I mean, she is fanning racist sentiment.
Now, let's not sort of, I mean, you and I had a discussion
about the definition of a racist before we came on air and I think
we agree that a racist, strictly speaking, is somebody who believes
one race is superior to another. But by using this sort of language
she is, I believe, appealing to racist sentiment. And can I also
take the opportunity of saying that I saw an observation by Richard
Court in the paper this morning that one of the problems is that
there's been a vacuum left by the failure of the Senate to
pass the Native Title Amendment Act. If our Native Title Bill had
been passed by the Democrats and the minority parties and the Labor
Party in the Senate, this native title issue would now be off the
national agenda. And it wouldn't be possible for people like
Mrs Hanson to run around Australia saying that native title is going
to lead to taxpayer funded Aboriginal states within Australia. Now
I mean that is just plain hysterical nonsense.
KELLY:
Okay, if it's hysterical nonsense, if it's a deranged
account and if she is fanning racist sentiment, will you now declare
that the Federal Liberal Party will not give her any preferential
treatment when it comes to preferences?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look Fran, I have said on that issue that that will be dealt with
in the normal processes of the Party and I am not going to say any
more. I would remind you, however, that at the last election the
Labor Party, in my seat of Bennelong and in Mr Beazley's seat
of Brand, gave Australians Against Further Immigration, who have
now in Victoria merged with One Nation to form a single party, gave
preferences to that party ahead of the Liberal Party. What the Labor
Party has done in relation to the preference issue is to adopt a
stunt and to elevate it into a huge national issue. Now, parties
from time immemorial, major parties, have allocated preferences
towards the end of their ticket in a fairly hit-or-miss fashion.
You know that and so does Mr Beazley.
KELLY:
Isn't it a bit different here because what we see is One Nation
with a big block of votes, for instance, in this Queensland election?
PRIME MINISTER:
Fran, I will deal with the, if I may, we're in the middle
of this Queensland election. I will deal with the Federal electoral
implications of preference allocation at the right time.
KELLY:
But at the moment in the middle of the Queensland election you
are not uncomfortable with the fact that some One Nation candidates
may be elected with the help of Liberal and National Party preferences?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't believe that will happen. I am certainly not
uncomfortable with the stance that the Queensland Coalition has
taken in the Queensland election campaign. Their enemy is the Labor
Party and I take the opportunity of saying to a lot of decent people
who might be thinking of voting for One Nation because they may
feel economically insecure. If you go ahead and do so you would
be voting for a party whose leader has a very, very flimsy grasp
on reality in relation to certain issues, is prepared to deliberately
misrepresent the position of my Government. When she talks about
native title she has missed the large number of Parliamentary debates
on native title and if our position on native title which was a
moderate, middle-of-the-road position. We are prepared to give certainty
to Australian farmers and pastoralists and indeed, if our position
on native title had been adopted months ago by the Senate this would
no longer be a major issue in Australian politics and the people
who have got to carry the major responsibility for it still being
on the agenda are the Australian Labor Party, the Australian Democrats
and others in the Senate who have voted our compromise bill down,
I mean, what they have done is to create the opportunity for the
sort of speech that was made last night to be made.
KELLY:
Mr Howard, just before we move off this issue, yesterday you welcomed
ex-ABC broadcaster Rod Henshaw as the new Liberal Candidate for
the Federal Seat of Dickson. Last night Pauline Hanson said that
Rod Henshaw compered the launch of One Nation in Ipswich and shared
a lot of her views. Are people who share her views welcome candidates
for the Liberal Party?
PRIME MINISTER:
I understand that Rod Henshaw at the time was a paid broadcaster
MC.
KELLY:
Does that make it all right?
PRIME MINISTER:
Hang on, let me finish. He's also, as I understand, compered
four occasions or award nights for Wayne Goss. He's done some
work for Kim Beazley. He told my office that her observation about
his sharing her views on a lot of issues was rubbish but if you
want to know Rod Henshaw's views, I am quite happy, as a former
ABC broadcaster he would be delighted to be interviewed by you.
KELLY:
If I could just move onto tax now, Prime Minister. On the one hand
your promise to never, ever introduce a GST had a shelf life of
three years, or one term of Parliament. Why should voters think
that your latest promise, that the rate of a GST will not rise,
should have a life any longer than that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Fran, I am putting my position in front of the Australian people
before an election. There can be no more open, transparent way to
conduct public affairs in this country, to say, this is our policy,
if you like it vote for it, if you don't, vote against it.
There is all the world of difference between that and what the Labor
Party did in 1993 when they promised not to introduce a GST before
the election, and after the election they introduced their own version
of a GST. I mean, are you seriously saying that somebody can never
change their mind?
KELLY:
No, what I am saying is I understand that.
PRIME MINISTER:
I am glad you acknowledge that people are entitled to change their
mind.
KELLY:
But won't voters then also be led to think now that you might
change your mind about the rate of a GST?
PRIME MINISTER:
No they won't, because they will know that if I do have a change
of mind about anything, and I certainly, I am obviously referring
to the promises I made before 1996, I will put that change to the
public but my position simply is this, Fran, that we are going to
the next election with a detailed tax reform policy and that detailed
tax reform policy will be out in the open. If people like it, they
can vote for it. If they don't they can vote against it.
KELLY:
When will it be out in the open? You have promised on several occasions
that the tax package will be released well before the next election.
PRIME MINISTER:
Fran, that, with respect, is just a wasted question. You know I
am not in a position to say when it is going to be announced.
KELLY:
But it will be well before the next election?
PRIME MINISTER:
It will be announced in plenty of time for people to digest it before
they vote.
KELLY:
If an election was going to be held in August...
PRIME MINISTER:
Fran, don't waste my time asking those sort of hypothetical
questions.
KELLY:
The latest Newspoll out today has support for a GST fading. Does
that concern you?
PRIME MINISTER:
No it doesn't. I haven't seen the detail of that poll
but I imagine the question was just a straight question - are you
in favour of a GST or not? Now if it is, then I am not surprised
that people say no to that. I mean, I am not in favour of a GST
on top of the present tax structure and we won't introduce
it. I would only be in favour of a broad based, indirect tax if
it involved the abolition of the wholesale sales tax, at least,
and significant cuts in personal income tax. It has never been and
it never will be our policy to put a GST on top of the existing
tax structure.
KELLY:
You have said in Parliament that the Australian people will either
believe you or they will believe Labor. In a sense, do both sides
have a bit of a credibility problem coming into this and is that
really the whole, part of the contributing factor to the rise in
One Nation stocks, the credibility problems, the baggage that both
major parties carry?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think One Nation supporters are made up of three distinct
groups. I think there are a group of people in the community who
are racially motivated on some issues. That's one distinct
group. I think she got a few voters out of my strong stance on guns
and I am not going to compromise that stance, not under any circumstances
and I make that very plain to her and to her supporters on that
issue. The third group is a much larger one, are really just ordinary
decent Australians who are attracted by one line solutions. They
feel economically insecure. They think she has got the answers because
she is different.
KELLY:
And they don't believe the promises of the major parties?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it's more that they are, they have been knocked around
by life. They predominantly live in regional Australia. They feel
economically insecure and there are no easy solutions to many of
these problems and she comes along and says, look it's all
the fault of the foreigners and it's all the fault of the Aborigines
and it's all the fault of somebody else. And they say, maybe
that's right, we'll give her a go. Now the advantage in
one sense of what she did last night in making a detailed speech
was to expose her flimsy knowledge, to expose just how erratic is
the line of argument that she's using on some issues and I
think in that sense it's a warning to people who are contemplating
voting for her that she has absolutely no solutions and I particularly
in the context of the Queensland election, would say to those Coalition
people who may be thinking of voting for her, it is a wasted vote.
She has no answers. She has an insecure grasp of reality, in fact,
and you ought to support the Borbidge Government which is really
the only conservative alternative on offer. I mean, it's a
Beattie Government or a Borbidge Government and if you are a conservative
voter in Queensland and you want a conservative Government, you
ought to vote for Borbidge.
KELLY:
Prime Minister; thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
ENDS