ubject: Interest rates; Sex Discrimination Act; ALP’s national conference
E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
WILLIAMS:
Good morning Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Phillip.
WILLIAMS:
We’ve got inflation on the rise, now interest rate rise number five. This is starting to look politically dangerous for you isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think you have got to keep it in perspective. The average borrower, that’s a hundred thousand dollar loan is still even after yesterday’s rise on the assumption that it’s passed through in full is still $204 a month better off than he or she would have been in March of 1996. Variable interest rates now are still significantly below what they were when we came to office and of course, dramatically below the 17% that they hit when Mr Keating was treasurer and Mr Hawke was Prime Minister. Now interest rates in this country, official interest rates, are set independently by the Reserve Bank and I heard the shadow treasurer, Mr Crean confirm that that was also Labor’s policy. He acknowledges that interest rates are set independently of the government by the Reserve Bank. I don’t like from a borrowers point of view to see interest rates go up, of course not, but the bank explained its reasons. It said that the balance of risks was in favour of a slight tightening of monetary policy. We have to recognise that in the world environment in which we live, we can’t ignore global, anymore than we can ignore domestic circumstances. Now a government is never a question of things flowing all in the one direction, I’ve never pretended that.
WILLIAMS:
But Prime Minister, you have taken the credit in the past for bringing interest rates down. Do you now except responsibility for the reverse. Because by some calculations, the benefits even of your GST cuts, the tax cuts have been eroded severely.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is no way that can be correct because if you are going to take in to account interest rate rises, you have also got to take into account interest rate falls. And as I have just pointed out to your listeners the average borrower is $204 a month better off than he or she was in March of 1996 even after the rises have been taken into account so I don’t think the claim you refer to can be substantiated.
WILLIAMS:
But you have had to pare that back month as we’ve had interest rate rises [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Obviously there have been some interest rate rises, I’m not running away from that fact, of course I’m not, but I am making the point that the net position of home buyers and borrowers is still dramatically better than what it was when we came to government and people haven’t forgotten I can assure you that home mortgage interest rates hit 17% during the Labor party years, just as unemployment hit 11.2%. Now we would always like I guess from a borrowers point of view to see interest rates remain where they were or going down further, but the reality of managing an economy and recognising the role of the Reserve Bank is otherwise.
WILLIAMS:
You’ve had a great Labor party conference haven’t you? You have blown the Labor policies off the front page for two days. The ministers have been working overtime to get their counter message out. Some say you must be very nervous about your opponents.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I never take politics for granted. I always treat my opponents carefully. I have never had a smug view about winning the next election. If you’re saying to me am I displaying a certain amount of political caution in what I do, of course I am, I always do. It’s only the arrogant and the out of touch who pretend that they have some divine right to govern, I certainly don’t. And look the decision we took which you are presumably referring to in relation to the IVF matter, the timing of that was not ours, we had no control over the court decision.
WILLIAMS:
You had control over your response to it though.
PRIME MINISTER:
So I was meant to just wait for ten days out of courtesy to the Labor party, even though the Cabinet was ready to deal with the matter four days after the court decision. I mean what a ridiculous proposition, I mean with great respect Philip, that is the theatre of the absurd.
WILLIAMS:
Can we go to the essence of what you feel about this issue.
PRIME MINISTER:
What the government, what the government believes.
WILLIAMS:
Sure.
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s not just me, this is not a, can I just make this plain. This is not just a view that I hold, it’s a view that is felt right throughout the government.
WILLIAMS:
Okay, let me just quote back your words, “that in the end you have to do what you believe is the right thing and what matters here more than anything else are the rights of the child”. Now if that’s the case why leave it to the states because NSW and Queensland for example aren’t going to change their policies, they’re going to make these programmes still available to single women and to lesbian couples.
PRIME MINISTER:
The reason Phil is very simple. According to our advice, the commonwealth has no constitutional power. There is no constitutional head of power that would allow us to directly legislate in relation to these matters.
WILLIAMS:
Would you if you could?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that’s academic, we can’t. I mean there are certain things the Commonwealth under the Constitution can do and what we can do is to amend the Sex Discrimination Act to enable those states that want to legislate along the lines of Victoria to do so. I mean there is nothing particularly extraordinary about what the government is doing. The views I have expressed are also the views of Dr Geoff Gallop, the Labor leader in Western Australia. They’re the views if you can divine through the fog of his confusing statements also, I think Peter Beattie’s views and they’re certainly the views of Steve Bracks because Steve Bracks in Opposition voted for the Victorian legislation and three weeks ago he reaffirmed his support for it so I’m hardly expressing views that are anathema to at least three state Labor leaders, so there is nothing particularly extraordinary about what the government is doing. But the way we have been advised is that the only thing the government can do is to remove that part of the Sex Discrimination Act that prevents the states legislating the way Victoria has. We don’t have direct constitutional control.
WILLIAMS:
Couldn’t you use head of power, couldn’t you use external powers under the UN convention on the rights of the child?
PRIME MINISTER:
The advice we have is very very ambiguous at the very least about that, probably negative.
WILLIAMS:
Okay, if your belief that single women and lesbian couples shouldn’t have IVF babies, if that law was nation wide, if you could get your way, there would be who knows how many Australian babies that today simply wouldn’t exist, what would you say to them and their mums.
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, you are dealing in a hypothesis on a supposition and you are also turning on its head the reason why the government has taken its decision. The government’s taken its decision out of concern for the rights of the children. We have not taken our decision out of hostility to single women or gay and lesbian people.
WILLIAMS:
No, but you are saying that their living style or that their conditions, the fact that there isn’t a dad there makes them unfit to be mothers.
PRIME MINISTER:
No. What we’re saying is that the rights of the children should be paramount and they should take priority over anything else. See you, the critics of this decision constantly seek to turn it in to some kind of homophobic hostility to people who have a homosexual lifestyle, that is not the case. I mean I was one of those opposition members back in 1994 who voted in favour of the Keating government’s legislation to override the Tasmanian anti homosexual laws. Now this charge that in some way this is sort of based on hostility to homosexuals is quite wrong and it’s irrelevant to the issue. It’s based on a concern for the rights of children and that is the fundamental premise on which the government’s whole approach has been based.
WILLIAMS:
Okay, why do lesbian and single women make inadequate families?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well once again we are going back to the question of rights of children. Now we’ve been over this again and again. Look I understand the other point of view and in all of these things you can’t please everybody and the government had before it on Tuesday the question of whether it would legislate or simply let the thing go over its shoulder. Now we took the view that we should as a national government express a view that in these situations the rights of children were more important than any other rights.
WILLIAMS:
Okay, if you are really serious about this, why not axe the Medicare cover for those women that will get this treatment in the states at the moment. If you don’t want them to have this treatment, why not axe the Medicare cover? You can do that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well one of the reasons why we don’t think that is desirable is that that would open up discrimination between poorer women and better off women. Some people would still be able to afford to do it wouldn’t they?
WILLIAMS:
You are talking about a principal here.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I am and I think that’s quite an important principal isn’t it? Isn’t it an important principal not to discriminate against the less well off?
WILLIAMS:
But you are saying that you shouldn’t have this treatment at all.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is why using the Medicare device is an inadequate implementation of that belief. See what you are really saying by raising that is that what we should do is create a situation where people who would need Medicare to avail themselves of this procedure, they can be denied it, but those who can afford the procedure because they’re better off, it’s okay for them to have it. I don’t think that’s a very sound principal at all, I think that’s quite wrong.
WILLIAMS:
If it’s wrong for these women to have IVF babies…
PRIME MINISTER:
No I think it’s important for the rights of the children that we restrict it in the way that we are arguing.
WILLIAMS:
Isn’t it wrong for these women to have babies by any means, such as sperm banks or even the risky one night stand?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well once again you’re ignoring the element of the rights of the children. You see you keep coming at it from another angle. Now I understand why but for the purposes of the interview but it doesn’t alter the fact that the principle on which this is based is our concern for the rights of children.
WILLIAMS:
Just finally on leadership. At the national party’s convention, Kim Beazley said you didn’t deserve to reapply for the job at the next election because you won’t go the full term. Well you have made that pretty clear, he’s right isn’t he?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what I’ve said is that I will certainly lead the government to the next election if that’s what they want and then I signalled that obviously during the next term if I were re-elected I would give consideration to my position. I didn’t, incidentally go further than that. I think some people have sort of gone further than that, but anyway.
WILLIAMS:
I think you nominated a date.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, I didn’t, I didn’t nominate any date.
WILLIAMS:
A year, a year.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no I said that I would, as everybody knows I’ll be 64 in three years time, I’ve just turned 61 but look if we’re talking about leadership transition, we don’t have the Labor style. Remember the infamous Kirribilli pact, Kirribilli house pact when Mr Hawke and Mr Keating secretly agreed that there would be a leadership transition after an election. They concealed that from the Australian public. I’m certain that Kim Beazley knew all about that deal because he was very close to Bob Hawke at the time, then Hawke welshes on the deal and then they have an unseemly fight. Now all I have done is be perfectly open and honest with the Australian people. I have said that I am very enthusiastic to lead the government to the next election. I think anybody who suggests that I lack enthusiasm for the job are being totally disingenuous. I love the job, I hope to continue serving the Australian people in the job for quite a number of years and I don’t think anybody should see what I said the other day as anything other than just an honest statement of reality. Nobody goes on forever and isn’t it better for somebody in my position to be honest and open with the Australian people and to tell them the truth, rather than to enter in to some kind of secret deal and then go to an election in a fraudulent way which is what Bob Hawke did way back in 1990, presumably with the knowledge of his then senior colleague Kim Beazley who’s now the Leader of the Opposition.
WILLIAMS:
Prime Minister, thanks very much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]