JONES:
PM, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Alan.
JONES:
Trust is the issue.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, trust and who can keep your mortgage rates low, who can guarantee that the 1.3 million new jobs that have been created over the last eight and half years will not only be maintained, but will add more to them. I mean who do you better trust on the delivery of health services? Mr Latham keeps talking about how he's on about health. I think people in the western suburbs of Sydney, for example, would look at the Carr Labor Government's performance on health and wonder, gee, if that is a harbinger of what might happen, or if that is a, you know, sign of what might happen under a Federal Labor Government, why would we vote for them? I mean they're the sort of issues that I have in mind, when I think of trust.
JONES:
Well Alan Mitchell, who is a leading economic commentator in this country, today says that you're going into the election where the economy could hardly be better - this is him, not me - he says we've sailed through the Asian crisis and the world recession, he says we're ready to enjoy the fruits of recovery, and he says even if there are higher interest rates, they're a sign of prosperity, he says, a sign of business and consumers brimming with confidence. He says national income has been boosted, that business is hiring and investing and unemployment is at lows not seen for years. But then he says that the economy may be of less concern to the electorate.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the people would only see it as less concern, if they imagined that a change of government would not change economic policy. But a change of government will bring about dramatic changes in economic policy. I mean interest rates are always higher under Labor governments. In the last 30 years, under every Labor government interest rates have gone up. Mr Latham says his great heroes are Gough Whitlam and Paul Keating. Well Gough Whitlam was the first Prime Minister in Australia to preside over overnight interest rates of more than 20 per cent. Under Whitlam, under Hawke, under Keating - interest rates went higher than they had previously been, and under us of course everyone knows that over the last eight and a half years interest rates have been hundreds of dollars a month lower than they would have been if the interest rates abtaining when I became Prime Minister had continued. Now that is a very important issue to many of your listeners Alan, because paying off the home and keeping interest rates affordable, is central to family living standards and to family budgets. Now, we are living in good economic times, but people should not take that for granted. We've cut interest rates, we've brought unemployment down, we've boosted job opportunities, we've repaid $70 billion of debt that we inherited, because we have taken hard, difficult economic decisions. We've changed and reformed the tax system. We've got the unions out of industrial relations, and the Labor Party wants to bring them back in charge of industrial relations. All of these things will change if there is a change of government. One of my predecessors truly said - you change the government, you change the country. And you cannot take a continuation of our economic prosperity for granted.
JONES:
Do you think that there has been a failure to communicate this to an electorate which in good times is often complacent. For example, you're right, the Government debt has gone from $95 billion to $24 billion.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
JONES:
The average interest rate under Labor, average, was almost 13 per cent. Under you it's 7. The average inflation was 5, under you 2.4. Do you think the public understand that? Have you yourself taken that success for granted and not sold that story well enough?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Alan, perhaps I'll find that out ultimately on the 9th of October. I try frequently, but if you are living in good times, you do tend to drift off to other things and think well, that will go on forever. And I think an election campaign is an opportunity to remind people of the 1.3 million new jobs, of the hundreds of dollars of savings each month, of the fact that we have repaid $70 billions of debt. Now when you repay debt, you don't have to pay so much interest, and we have $5.5 billion a year more available to spend on health, on education, on roads, on family benefits, on tax cuts. I mean that is every year. That is the interest saving that we have. And when I said yesterday in launching the campaign, that, who do you trust to keep the budget strong so we can afford to spend more on health and education, that's the key. If you run a strong economy, you have more money available to spend on essential services and on family benefits. And that is why we have always placed an enormous store on economic management.
JONES:
The Australian Bureau of Statistics says, coming back to your point about industrial relations, that the average days lost per 1,000 employees due to industrial disputes - the average days lost - under Labor were 198.4, the average under Labor 71.1 - that's per 1,000 employees.
PRIME MINISTER:
Under us.
JONES:
Under you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes - 198 down to 71.
JONES:
Now they are saying that Labor, the national platform says, will abolish the Workplace Agreements. What does that mean for business?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's bad news in that they will once again be subject to the complicated, intrusive awards system. We'll go back to a union dominated industrial relations system. They'll take away the secondary boycott protections in the Trade Practices Act that protects small business against union bullying. I mean the facts are there. Not only have the days lost fallen, as you described, but under us real wages have gone up by 14 per cent in eight and a half years. In 13 years of Labor, real wages went up by 2.9 per cent. In other words, the workers have done far better under us than they have under the Labor Party. I mean not only have we cut interest rates or delivered lower interest rates, but we have also delivered increases in people's wages well ahead of inflation, and we've done that because we have run an industrial relations system that has boosted productivity. I am in favour of people getting higher wages. We all want people to get higher wages. But those higher wages have got to be based on productivity, because if they're not based on productivity, firms go broke, other people lose their jobs, and unemployment goes up. Now we have achieved a combination of all three. We've got higher wages, lower interest rates and higher employment. Now that is what we have achieved over the last eight and a half years, and it's a treble that this country hasn't seen in a generation.
JONES:
Is one of the issues here though the Greens - not Labor and not the Liberals and not the National Party? It is now being suggested that they may hold a primary vote of somewhere up to nine per cent, now if they direct preferences to Labor it could result in an additional five per cent of votes going to Labor.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well obviously if that happens, Labor will benefit. But people have got to understand the true nature of the Greens. The Greens have an agenda way beyond the environment. Have a look at their policies on tax, their commitment to capital gains taxes and all sorts of other things. Have a look at their policy on drugs. Have a look at their policies on a whole raft of social issues. The Greens have a radical, non-environmental agenda, and many people who might contemplate voting Green, simply because they're concerned about the environment, should understand that the Government has a strong environmental record. I mean we are the people who established the Natural Heritage Trust. We are the first Government to tackle the problem of salinity. We are the Government that has led the States in reaching agreement on a national water initiative, and I will be announcing during the campaign further policies in that area to tackle...
JONES:
I was about to ask you something about water.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's fundamental to our future Alan.
JONES:
Yep. So you'll be having something to say about that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I will certainly be having quite a bit to say about that during the campaign.
JONES:
And what about the under 52,000 people that missed out...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there are some other policies that we will be unveiling during the campaign, and it's... I don't choose today to mention all of those. But Alan, deep down people have got to understand that the Greens have a radical agenda that goes far beyond just being warm and fuzzy about the environment. We are all warm and fuzzy about the environment. All of us are. The environment is a mainstream issue. It's not on the periphery. But people have got to understand the nature and the character of the other radical policies that the Greens have, and I think when that is communicated to middle Australia, many of them will drift away from the Greens.
JONES:
In the next six weeks, there will be millions of questions and answers, so I'll just wrap it up today with two questions. And out of left field a little... a story today that 4,000 people have been killed or injured in the past 10 years on the Princes Highway. We tend to focus on infrastructure building with the Pacific and the Hume Highways. Has any attention be drawn to you to this abominable statistic - 4,000 people in 10 years. And can the people in that area expect anything in relation to the Princes Highway?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have already made a couple of announcements in relation to some bypasses and we'll just see as the campaign proceeds.
JONES:
Okay, and the track and field... sorry, the Olympic team. There's talk about a parade, an opportunity for Australians to really demonstrate their appreciation of the phenomenal job that they have done. Would the Federal Government be part of (inaudible)?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I'd be very happy to work with everybody. I mean we all loved the success in the Olympics and this is something that all Australians, irrespective of politics and differences and other things, will want to unite together to participate in, and certainly we'll play our part.
JONES:
So you'll talk to the Premiers about what...
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely. I've already had a preliminary discussion with Mr Carr and the AOC. And they're coming home on Wednesday and I know there's a natural tendency for people to want to go home and see their loved ones for a while, but I think the idea of public acknowledgements is great. I think inevitably the different States will want to have their own local things. That's very understandable with a country the size of Australia. But this is something... I'll work with the State Governments and so forth to make sure that the right thing is done.
JONES:
Okay PM, we'll talk to you again. Thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]