E&OE..........................................................................................
CARLTON:
Down to business, national affairs. The big issue of course, the
Government's tax reform package including the GST which we
get next week. You've heard in the news that today the Prime
Minister moved on health and hospitals with another cash offer to
end the brawl on funding for the States. And there's other
questions around as well of course but you could perhaps be forgiven
for thinking there's an election on the way and sooner rather
than later. With me in the studio, the Prime Minister. Good afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER:
Hello Mike, nice to be here again.
CARLTON:
Thanks for coming. The critical question, I think most of us want
answered, is the merger between the St George Dragons and Illawarra
which seems to be on the cards. Are you in favour or not?
PRIME MINISTER:
Providing they keep the colours red and white and play under the
name St George, yes. As patron of the great St George Rugby League
Club what else should I say and indeed what else would the supporters
of that club want. I don't think anybody, if they had their
druthers, would want any mergers anywhere. The reality of the game
in the late-1990's dictates otherwise. I hope the mergers that
must occur do so in a way that preserves as much local fervour and
support and enthusiasm as possible.
CARLTON:
Okay, but St George, Dragons and Steelers is all right with you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, on those conditions.
CARLTON:
On those conditions. Got to be red and white otherwise....
PRIME MINISTER:
And the same name too.
CARLTON:
And the same name?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes. You can't possibly trade the greatest name in the
world as far as club rugby league is concerned. It is, after all,
the most, has been the most successful rugby league club in the
world without exception.
CARLTON:
Otherwise there will be a Prime Ministerial veto.
PRIME MINISTER:
Indeed.
CARLTON:
Some of the more serious matters. A simple person might think there
was an election in a couple of months.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know when the election will be. I haven't made
up my mind. It will be at the right time and sometime between now
and when it's due.
CARLTON:
Why have you gone over the head of your Health Minister, Michael
Wooldridge, with this extra offer on funding?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I haven't gone over his head. We've talked about
it for some weeks. What we're prepared to do is put another
$915 million over five years into the public health systems of the
States and Territories. Now that is a very good additional injection
of money.
CARLTON:
That will be a total of $3.8 billion?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, it will be a total of $3.8 billion and what it means is...
CARLTON:
But the States want 5.5.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, but the States wanted $5.5 billion more and we've been
prepared to give $915 million more and it will mean that there's
been a 10.2 percent increase and 17 percent increase over the five
years from now through to the early part of the next century.
CARLTON:
It's still less and they are asking a lot.....
PRIME MINISTER:
It is less, but you always get a bit of ambit in claims made by
States on the Commonwealth. The important thing, and this is good
news for the people of Australia because the public hospital system
is really the core element of health provision in Australia and
the public hospitals are the responsibility of the States but we
have obligations to contribute. Now we made a very good offer at
the Premiers' conference....
CARLTON:
And they walked out.
PRIME MINISTER:
They walked out. I thought that was silly but that's history
now. The important thing is the outcome, the outcome is good for
the patients in the public hospitals and to put another $915 million
into the public hospital system over five years is, in anybody's
language, a very healthy injection of cash and it will help the
public hospital system which I have a great deal of faith in and
the Government is a great believer in. Public hospitals are integral
to our health system. They are indeed the very essence of our health
system.
CARLTON:
Is this the last and final offer, not another red cent, that's
it?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no this is it and it has been accepted by....it has been
formally accepted by every State except New South Wales and New
South Wales will undoubtedly play a political game until 11:59pm
on the evening of the 28th of August 1998.
CARLTON:
And that's the deadline?
PRIME MINISTER:
That's the deadline for them to accept the offer. I have no
doubt Mr Carr will accept the offer.
CARLTON:
Really, I'd be surprised if they do.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they don't get the extra money unless they sign the agreement.....
CARLTON:
And that's it?
PRIME MINISTER:
That's it. The other States have signed up and Queensland
and the Northern Territory, that had previously indicated their
agreement, they will of course share in the additional base funding.
CARLTON:
Right. Why not just put the extra money into the public hospital
system, why not just shove it straight in there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we can't because we don't run them.
CARLTON:
But you can earmark it for that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's what we are doing.
CARLTON:
All right. There are still other strains on the health system that
drain the stampede away from private health insurance, it's
placing enormous strain on the public hospital system, what are
you going to do about that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't think you have seen the full working through
of the measures the Government has already brought in. There's
not only the health insurance rebate that's worth $450 a year
for a family but you have also got the impact of that high income
earner surcharge. I don't think it will be for another month
or two but a lot of those people when they get their tax assessments
and find that they have to pay this extra amount because they haven't
taken out private health insurance, I think you will then see a
possible return of some of those people into the private health
insurance system.
CARLTON:
Are you going to subsidise more people into private health insurance?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, we've got a policy on that and we....
CARLTON:
Are you going to up the rate....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we are not in the business of sort of just putting and taking
on policies like that. We have got a policy. I don't think
it has fully worked its way through as yet and I don't think
you can make a judgement on the policies that are already in the
pipeline until they have had an opportunity of fully working their
way through.
CARLTON:
Have you got something on that in the tax package next week?
PRIME MINISTER:
Good try Mike. The simple rule on this tax package...I can't
say yes or no to anything. If you do, you then say well what about
the next thing, the next thing.
CARLTON:
Exactly.
PRIME MINISTER:
Exactly and that is why you asked me the question, and that is
why I neither confirm nor deny anything that I am asked about the
tax package now, no matter how close or wider the market may be
depending on what the question is.
CARLTON:
All right, but chunks of it have been comprehensively leaked
10 per cent GST, not on health education, childcare, income.....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well all of that's been speculation.
CARLTON:
Comprehensively leaked by persons close to either the Treasury
or the Prime Minister's Office.
PRIME MINISTER:
No. No.
CARLTON:
Is it good speculation?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am not going to confirm or deny it. Michael, this will be a tremendous
plan for the future of Australia. It will give us a tax system for
the 21st century and it's not an end in itself tax
reform or tax relief. It's part of the process of building
a stronger and more competitive economy and we have done a lot of
other things. And the next thing that needs to be done is to change
the taxation system and there will certainly be personal income
tax relief, particularly for families, and that will be of enormous
benefit...I mean a goods and services tax is only part of it,
the whole plan. It's far more than a goods and services tax.
I can assure the Australian public of that.
CARLTON:
You are starting to sound like Arthur Daly! The big concern we
get here at 2UE is from retired people. People on pensions, fixed
incomes, people with a nest egg put away. Now they are not paying
a lot of income tax most of them, they are very concerned they will
be hit with prices, higher prices for everything without any compensation,
now you must be aware of that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh look I can understand in this sort of five minutes before midnight,
five minutes before the release of the plan, I can understand a
lot of questions arising. I wish I could start answering them now
but....
CARLTON:
Can you tell them now?
PRIME MINISTER:
Can I just say to them Michael that when they see the plan and
they see the provision that has been made for people on the pension
and for people on fixed and low incomes, they will agree with my
claim made over many months that it is a very fair package.
CARLTON:
That is a huge concern for that age group....
PRIME MINISTER:
Mike, I understand that and both as an individual, as an Australian,
as well as the Prime Minister, I am very conscious of that. That
generation of people have made an enormous contribution to the Australian
community and they are entitled to have security and protection
and not be....
CARLTON:
You've got that in there, that's what you are saying?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, yes.
CARLTON:
Iron clad?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. They will love it.
CARLTON:
They will love it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
CARLTON:
They are very concerned that with a GST they'd be paying tax
again having paid tax all their working lives and here's John
Howard going to clobber us in our retirement.
PRIME MINISTER:
You just...I just say to them, have a look at the whole plan.
Don't under any circumstances imagine that the plan I am bringing
out is a plan to dump a goods and services tax at whatever rate
people might think it will be.
CARLTON:
10 per cent.....
PRIME MINISTER:
I say nothing about the rate. I am not going to dump this GST at
x' per cent on top of the existing taxation system. It
has always been intended as a replacement indirect tax, to replace
things like the wholesale sales tax which have all these hidden
rates of up to 45 per cent. 22 per cent on many household items,
32 per cent on your television and video. I mean that is a crazy,
uneven, lopsided system and wouldn't it be more logical to
have a different rate, lower rate, on everything.
CARLTON:
Can you say to these people now, many of whom are listening, that
retired people, people on fixed incomes will not be worse off?
PRIME MINISTER:
I can say that, they won't be worse off and when the plan
comes out I invite them to have a very careful look at it and they
will find they are not worse off. They will find they have been
fully protected and better off.
CARLTON:
Will the States get a better deal out of the GST?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think the States will find it a good deal. I am going to talk....I
have had some discussion and I am continuing discussions with the
Premiers but they certainly won't be any worse off.
CARLTON:
Will they get a guaranteed share?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, they will get a good deal out of it. I am not going to go
into the detail of that, I am sorry, except to say that the States
will certainly not be worse off. And I believe they will find themselves
better off.
CARLTON:
Will it be a move away then from the annual brawl of Premiers'
Conferences and Loans Councils, or whatever they are called these
days, COAGs or whatever they are? The horse trading that goes on...
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know that you will ever eliminate that, but this will
certainly be a cleaner, simpler approach.
CARLTON:
All right. You are sure you have got it right. No confusion over
birthday cakes, candles etc?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am ready for the first birthday cake question.
CARLTON:
All right, okay, I am sure you are.
PRIME MINISTER:
I am all primed up for birthday cakes, but I probably won't
get asked.
CARLTON:
Bet you're good on cakes. Unemployment. The new figures today
starts rising again 8.3 per cent in July. You had a problem
there, it was going down, it is going up again.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the participation rate has gone up. That is there are more
people looking for work now because they think things are better.
If it were going in the other direction it would mean they were
thinking things were getting worse. The total number of jobs went
up again....
CARLTON:
By 10,000.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, we have now created 303,000 jobs 303,000 jobs in two
years and four months. That's not bad.
CARLTON:
This is the same script that Bob Hawke used to trot out and Paul
Keating used to trot out and Simon Crean used to trot out
"it's created more jobs". Unemployment hasn't
shifted.
PRIME MINISTER:
It is a question of whether it is right.
CARLTON:
Oh all right.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we have created 303 000 jobs.
CARLTON:
The Budget forecast is 7.75% unemployment, going down. Yours is
going up.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you have to understand that it does bounce around from year
to year month-to-month, I'm sorry.
CARLTON:
Are you concerned that this Jobs Network thing has got faults,
flaws and holes in it, that it needs perhaps repairing, fine-tuning?
PRIME MINISTER:
The information I have as of yesterday is no, that inevitably when
a very different and new system like that is brought in, that you
have some settling-in challenges and problems, but the preliminary
statistics - and I know Dr Kemp will be having something more to
say about this very soon - that it has been in a number of important
areas more successful than the CES.
CARLTON:
A lot of the private companies are saying they can't make
it work for them, they're not making an income out of getting
people into jobs, they're not getting the computer access they
need, and there are suggestions that there is chaos in some parts
of it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you have to understand that when you have a multiplicity
of people involved, you are going to get, I guess, a multiplicity
of reactions. I mean, this is something that is quite new, it has
never been tried before, and inevitably there will be some settling-
in problems and it really is too early to be making a judgement
of the kind that is being made. I notice one of the newspapers -
The Australian - is running a series of articles condemning
it. I mean they ran a series of articles a few months ago alleging
that the National Heritage Trust of Australia had been rorted in
favour of Coalition electorates, and yet when we threw it back to
the Auditor-General he said that that claim was completely wrong.
I would ask of Job Network that it be given more time before people
start making adverse judgments, otherwise they may end up with very
red faces on the subject.
CARLTON:
All right. Pure politics now, perhaps. Has One Nation got the Coalition
rattled?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. I think it has unnerved some individuals but ....
CARLTON:
It's unnerved the National Party.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't believe it has unnerved the leadership of the National
Party, and I don't believe it has unnerved the great bulk of
the Nats. I think some people in Queensland were surprised at the
result in that State. You've got to remember that was the State
election. I find it quite astonishing that people suggested that
some how or other it was a judgment on the Federal Coalition.
CARLTON:
People like Bob Katter for example.
PRIME MINISTER:
Because after all it was a State election. The only way that you
can deal with One Nation effectively is to offer the Australian
public something better. This idea that there is one....
CARLTON:
But they are having a... their shadow is looming larger. Things
like the back down on Telstra and so on.
PRIME MINISTER:
You have to take a medium and longer term view of these things.
You can't react in an overnight sense to One Nation or indeed
to anything else. In the end you are judged by the quality of the
positive things you do, not by the way you react to your opponents
and the best thing that the Coalition can do is to govern well,
to continue to offer good policy and good leadership on important
issues and that is why we are pressing ahead with our tax reform
plan. Now this tax reform plan will be the biggest single change
to the Australian taxation system since World War II. It will further
strengthen our economic future. It will offer a sense of leadership
and direction into the 21st Century that neither the
Labor Party led by Mr Beazley or One Nation led by Mrs Hanson is
willing to do. On this issue Beazley and Hanson are inseparable.
Beazley and Hanson are both about....
CARLTON:
Hey?
PRIME MINISTER:
They are. Mr Beazley and Mrs Hanson on tax reform are absolutely
the same. Neither of them...
CARLTON:
What do you mean? They don't want a GST.
PRIME MINISTER:
They don't want to change the present system. They are content.
I mean, you can't walk both sides of the street on tax reform,
any more than you can walk it on any other issue that is important.
You are either for or against the present Australian taxation system.
And Mr Beazley and Mrs Hanson are in exactly the same posi