Yesterday, the ALP released a document alleging that the Prime Minister had on 27 occasions deliberately misled the Australian people. The following is a detailed rebuttal of each of these false claims.
23 August 2004
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LABOR'S LIES
Mark Latham's document "Truth Overboard" released yesterday is both false and misleading.
In seeking to portray the Prime Minister as untruthful it uses selective quotes out of context.
The following FACTS rebut each and every one of the 27 claims.
FACT 1: MEDICARE
The Minister for Health, Tony Abbott's comments that "no one can guarantee bulk billing" and that "Medicare has never been universal bulk billing" are correct.
These comments are consistent with those of the architect of Medicare, former Labor Health Minister, Dr Neal Blewett.
Dr Blewett said in his famous 1983 speech to the Doctors Reform Society that "direct billing will be available to everyone, where the doctor agrees so that the patient does not have to claim a refund for the cost of medical treatment. But this is a choice left to the doctors."
In 1987 (after three years of Medicare and when the bulk billing rate was 60 per cent), Dr Blewett said "what we have mostly in this country...compassionate doctors using the bulk billing facility to treat pensioners, the disadvantaged and others who are not well off or who are in great need which was always the intention."
Dr Blewett never asserted that the Government of the day would provide some kind of universal guarantee in relation to bulk billing.
In his 1983 speech, Dr Blewett also said that the foundation principles of Medicare which comprise the universality of the scheme were the entitlement of all Australians to free treatment in a public hospital and the payment of a medicare rebate for all GP consultations.
These are the fundamentals of Medicare that John Howard made a commitment to in 1996.
Since coming into office the Howard Government has strengthened Medicare. Medicare remains an article of faith for the Howard Government. The figures proveÿit.
Federal health spending since 1996 has doubled.
The Government's Strengthening Medicare package has added $2.9 billion to the system including bulk billing incentives for children and concession card holder worth up to $7.50 per GP consultation in country and some outer metropolitan areas; and $1 billion for work force measures to ensure that by 2007 we have 1,500 extra GPs and 1,600 extra nurses in general practice. These measures strengthen Australia's health system and the new safety net and support bulk billing.
As a result of the Government's policies, there are indications that bulk billing rates are now starting to increase.
FACT 2: MEDICARE
Medicare has been retained in its entirety.
The dental plan referred to by the ALP was never part of Medicare.
It was a four-year Keating Government program to reduce waiting lists on State public dental schemes. When she launched it, Dr Carmen Lawrence acknowledged that it was a time-limited program.
The Government has strengthened Medicare through the introduction of the Medicare safety net which the ALP has pledged to abolish.
FACT 3: PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE
The Howard Government's Private Health Insurance rebate has in fact reduced the cost of health insurance for nine and half million Australians.
At the same time it has saved the Australian taxpayer millions of dollars that otherwise would have been spent on the public health system.
Research by Professor Ian Harper of the Melbourne Business School shows that every $1 spent on the rebate saves some $2 in health costs that would otherwise be met by taxpayers.
The ALP has not given a firm guarantee that it will retain the private health insurance rebate in its present form. Mark Latham has called it the "maddest piece of public policy that one will ever see out of the Commonwealth parliament. This is a first-rate absurdity."
If the ALP put a means test on the private health insurance and took it off everyone earning $50,000 a year, it would mean that four and half million Australians would face a 42 per cent increase in their private health insurance premiums.
It they reduced the rebate to 20 per cent it would mean that nine million Australians would face an immediate slug of $250 a year and that could threaten the viability of the system.
FACT 4: HECS
The quote attributed to the Prime Minister has been taken out of context.
The Prime Minister was referring to Australian Government commitments in the context of the HECS scheme for financing Higher Education.
It is a fact that there are no $100,000 university degree courses under the HECS system.
The great bulk of course costs will continue to be met by the Australian taxpayer. The proportion of the total course costs to be met by the student will increase from about 26 per cent to 28 per cent by 2008.
The Howard Government has given an unprecedented level of funding for Australia's universities.
The average HECS debt in Australia currently is $8,500. Ninety per cent of people who owe the taxpayers money for HECS owe less than $18,000. A university graduate has a lifetime unemployment rate that is a quarter of the rate of someone who has not been to university.
FACT 5: HECS
There is no interest rate on HECS or under FEE-HELP.
FACT 6: HECS
There is no deregulation of fees under HECS.
The Howard Government has endeavoured to provide universities with access to additional funding and has done so by allowing universities to increase fees for HECS places by a maximum of 25%. In fact, some universities have decided against an increase in fees.
FACT 7: GST
The quote attributed to the Prime Minister is accurate, however, the Prime Minister rejects the premise that this is a deception of the electorate.
The implication is that a Government cannot ever change its mind on policy and present a revised policy to the electorate for acceptance or rejection.
It is a fact that in 1997 the Government decided to change its policy and introduce a GST in the context of overall tax reform.
The Howard Government was honest and candid with the electorate and laid out a detailed policy position which was subsequently endorsed by the Australian electorate in October 1998.
Having won the election with a mandate to introduce the GST, the Howard Government implemented broad tax reform.
This openness compares with the deceit of the Keating Labor Government in 1993.
The Keating Government went to the 1993 election promising income tax cuts (L-A-W) without a GST and then after the election introduced massive indirect tax increases and without compensation.
FACT 8: GST
The excise on fuel was reduced following the introduction of the GST to offset the impact of the GST on petrol prices.
The Government also removed the automatic indexation of fuel excise which has resulted in savings of more than 5 cents a litre to petrol consumers.
The ALP's claim that the price of automotive fuel was 10.4 per cent higher in the September quarter following the introduction of the GST is misleading.
The price of petrol reflects a number of factors which are not related to the GST.
The world oil price averaged $US28.90 per barrel in the quarter before the GST was introduced and averaged $US31.70 in the quarter immediately after.
When converted to $A this represented a 14 per cent increase in the world oil price. This more than explains the 10 per cent rise in petrol prices.
FACT 9: GST
The Government's stated commitment was that the change in excise on beer would be limited so that as a result of the GST the retail price of a carton of full strength beer need only increase by the estimated general price increase associated with indirect tax reform, ie 1.9 per cent.
Because of the ambiguity in the reference to ordinary beer, the Government agreed to make further legislative changes in relation to the excise on draught beer to contain the price increase as a result of the GST to no more than 1.9 per cent.
Labor's claim that beer prices rose by 4.8 per cent in the September quarter 2000 deliberately seeks to confuse price effects stemming from the GST and broader underlying inflation.
FACT 10: GST
The ALP's use of a quote from the National Tax and Accountants' Association about the length of the Tax Act is highly misleading.
It appears to relate to the Tax Act as a whole and not the specific number of pages relevant to the GST.
In any case, the ALP's opposition to the GST and the need for substantial amendments to get the agreement of the Australian Democrats added to complexity of the GST.
FACT 11: TAX
The Howard Government has dramatically cut taxes while consistently maintaining budget surpluses.
This includes income tax, company tax, capital gains tax and the abolition of a number of taxes at the time of the introduction of the GST.
Under the Howard Government, total tax receipts as a share of GDP have fallen from 23.1 per cent in 1995-96 to an estimated 21.0 per cent in 2003-04.
FACT 12: ETHANOL
The ALP selectively quote their own MP's question to the Prime Minister on 17ÿSeptember 2002.
The rest of the question by Labor MP Anna Burke specifically asked "Was the Government urged to take action to prevent Trafigura Fuels Australia from importing a shipment of ethanol from Brazil at a commercially competitive price?"
The Prime Minister has made clear on a number of occasions including to the House on 11 August 2003 that the imports from Brazil were not known to him or anybody in the government when the meeting with Dick Honan took place on 1ÿAugust 2002.
FACT 13 14: PENSION 'CLAWBACK'
There was no pension clawback. In the context of tax reform there was a bring forward of an indexation adjustment and pensioners were indeed overcompensated for the introduction of the GST.
An independent assessment of the New Tax System undertaken by Econtech found that in the 12 months following the introduction of the GST, the age pension increased by more than 8 per cent.
Econtech found that pensioners were more than compensated.
FACT 15: CURRENT ACCOUNT DEFICIT
As a result of the Howard Government's economic management the Australian Government's net debt will have been reduced by around $70 billion.
Under the Coalition the General Government share of net foreign debt has fallen from 17.2 per cent to 5 per cent.
The success of the Government's fiscal policies has taken pressure off the current account deficit.
FACT 16: LABOUR MARKET PROGRAMMES
The Howard Government has provided better targeted and more effective labour market programs.
After the 1996 election, all areas of Government spending were reviewed in light of the ALP's $10 billion Budget deficit.
The Coalition's approach was to promote growth through good economic management and restructure labour market programs through the introduction of the job network to provide real jobs rather than continual rounds of training placements with no improvement in job prospects.
The result has been the creation of over 1.3 million new jobs since 1996, the lowest unemployment levels to the lowest in 23 years and a more effective approach to the needs of disadvantaged job seekers.
FACT 17: JOB NETWORK
The ALP's assertion regarding Job Network sites involves selective use of statistics.
It ignores the fact that under the new employment services contract announced in June 2003 more services are being provided from a wider range of operations.
Compared with a total of 296 sites under Labor's Commonwealth Employment Service, the Howard Government has over 2500 sites dedicated to providing employment services Australia wide.
FACT 18: MR SCRAFTON
The only reason the Prime Minister spoke to Mr Scrafton is that the then Minister for Defence, Mr Reith had instructed Mr Scrafton to go to Maritime Headquarters in Sydney and view the video from HMAS Adelaide.
Mr Reith told the Prime Minister that Mr Scrafton could give him an assessment of the video. The Prime Minister rang Mr Scrafton who advised him the video was inconclusive.
The Prime Minister instructed that the video be publicly released the following morning so that it was available for public scrutiny.
The Prime Minister has consistently maintained that the conversations with Mr Scrafton related only to the video.
FACT 19: SIEV IV
The assertion that the Defence Strategic Command chronology of 10 October 2001 - provided to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet - only stated that "there is no indication that children were thrown overboard" is false and misleading.
The next sentence in the chronology which the ALP left out is "it is possible that this did occur in conjunction with other SUNCs jumping overboard." SUNC refers to Suspected Unauthorised Non Citizen.
FACT 20: SIEV IV
Mr Reith has publicly confirmed that he did not discuss Air Marshal Angus Houston's comments with the Prime Minister.
He was seeking further advice because his conversation with Air Marshal Houston contradicted previous advice to him from the Australian Defence Force.
This point has been made consistently.
FACT 21: IRAQ
As found by the Flood Inquiry, the only Government not convinced of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction programmes was that of Saddam Hussein.
The Shadow Spokesman for Foreign Affairs, Kevin Rudd said on 15 October 2002 "Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. That is a matter of empirical fact. If you don't believe the intelligence assessments, you simply read the most recent bulletin from the Federation of American Scientists, which lists Iraq among a number of States in possession of chemical, biological weapons and with a capacity to develop a nuclear program."
FACT 22: IRAQ
The statement by the Prime Minister in the House on 4 February 2003, made it clear that it was the judgment of the British Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) that "Iraq continues to work on developing nuclear weapons - uranium has been sought from Africa that has no civil nuclear application in Iraq."
Earlier this year, Lord Butler's UK Inquiry into Iraq intelligence observed that "statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa...were well founded."
The references to intelligence in the Prime Minister's public statements on Iraq, now quoted by the ALP, were cleared prior to delivery by the relevant intelligence agencies.
FACT 23: IRAQ
The ALP's selective quote from the Prime Minister's press conference on 22ÿJulyÿ2003 implies that the Prime Minister's case for going to war was on the basis of Iraq's failure to comply with UN resolutions and that he had shifted ground from making the case on the basis of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
It was always the case that the decision to join the "Coalition of the Willing" was soundly based in international law because of repeated Iraqi breaches of United Nations Security Council Resolutions.
However, the next sentence in the transcript of the Prime Minister's press conference specifically refers to weapons of mass destruction "We had intelligence assessments of WMD capability and we reacted appropriately to those assessments."
FACT 24: IRAQ
The ALP selectively quote President George W Bush's response to whether Australia was counted as part of the coalition of the willing.
The full quote makes it clear that President Bush said that what the term meant was for the Australian Prime Minister to decide.
The full quote from President Bush is "Yes, I do. You know, what that means is up to John to decide. But I certainly count him as somebody that understands that the world changed on September the 11th, 2001."
FACT 25: GOVERNMENT ADVERTISING
The Howard Government continues to adhere to the advertising guidelines which applied to the Labor Party when in office.
Governments in the Labor States such as New South Wales and Victoria have guidelines similar to the Australian Government.
The guidelines recommended by the Auditor General to the Joint Committee on Public Accounts (JCPA) in 1998 were impracticable and unworkable.
In particular, the requirement that an information campaign could not be liable to misrepresentation as party political.
If Labor wants to adopt such a policy, why don't they ask their State and Territory colleagues to impose such a requirement on themselves.
Labor's rhetoric rings hollow. The ALP's Shadow Finance spokesman, Bob McMullan admitted on the 730 Report on 16 June 2004 where he said "This is not a campaign about 'did the Keating Government do something wrong'? They may have. Doesn't matter."
FACT 26: PUBLIC SERVICE
In quoting the Coalition's 1996 Election Campaign Document, the ALP omitted from the quote the following underlined words "Our plans to reduce department running costs by 2 per cent will involve not replacing a proportion of those who leave, up to 2500 positions over the first term of Coalition Government - a process of natural attrition with no forced redundancies."
The ALP seeks to deliberately confuse a measure on running costs with broader changes in staff numbers which would have been driven by a variety of factors over a three year period.
No Government can give a commitment to freeze existing public service numbers and configurations indefinitely.
This is illustrated by the ALP's record in Government.
The ALP conveniently overlooked a paragraph of the 1996 Campaign Document which related to their period in Government. It read "According to the APS Statistical Bulletin, total retrenchments in the five years from 1991 to 1995 numbered 1529, 1584, 2655, 2636 and 5162 respectively."
The Howard Government has created over 1.3 million jobs since 1996. This includes new jobs in the public sector, which has helped to lift employment numbers in the public sector to 1997 levels.
Again, the ALP's rhetoric rings hollow. A Latham-led Government has promised to cuts thousands of jobs from the public service, including from the Defence Department, the Department for Communications, Information Technology, and the Arts and the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.
Even the CPSU said of the ALP's planned cuts "Public sector workers today could be forgiven for feeling that they are rapidly becoming collateral damage in the battle for the Lodge." (Australian Financial Review 3 April 2004).
FACT 27: SAVINGS BONUS
The Government always made clear the eligibility conditions that applied in relation to the granting of the aged persons savings bonus and self-funded retirees supplementary bonus.
In the Prime Minister's Address to the Nation of 13 August 1998, the Prime Minister made it clear that "people over 60 years old with investment income will receive a one-off income tested savings bonus of up to $1,000. For self-funded retirees of pensionable age, the savings bonus will be up to $3,000."
The Address to the Nation on 13 August 1998 was the context for the Prime Minister's comments in subsequent interviews which are now cited by the ALP.