Subjects: Petrol prices, interest rates, Minister Tuckey; Richard Court; Centenary of Federation; second hand cars; Mal Colston; POWs;
E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
BARTLETT:
The Prime Minister joins us this morning. Prime Minister good morning to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Liam.
BARTLETT:
How are you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Very well indeed.
BARTLETT:
Prime Minister, first and foremost before we get some calls up on the board for you. For the benefit of our country listeners can you explain to them why you refuse to drop the next increase in petrol excise during February?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well because that increase in factored into our budget, and at this stage I don’t know how that budget is going to end up at the end of this financial year. We have a lot of upward pressure on interest rates and if you end up having a smaller surplus and therefore paying off less debt than you might otherwise do as a country, that can exert upward pressure on interest rates. We always were operating on the basis that you have half yearly indexation of petrol excise and that’s something that the Labor Party had when it was in power, and in addition of course the Labor Party deliberately increased the level of excise on quite a number of occasions. So we have factored into our budget that we will collect a certain amount. Now, there will be some additional revenue collected from the resource rent tax as a result of the higher world price of oil. On the other had we’ll have to pay out more money for the huge success of the private health insurance rebate, and the huge success of the aged persons saving bonus under the tax plan. We may collect some extra revenue from other sources, we may have some extra expenditure, we won’t finally know until the end of the year.
BARTLETT:
How do you …
PRIME MINISTER:
You ask me why, I’m trying to explain, we’ve factored it in.
BARTLETT:
I just want to know how you balance the problem. I mean you talk about the inflation…
PRIME MINISTER:
That is my responsibility. You’re asking me how I balance it, I’m trying to explain that.
BARTLETT:
You mention inflationary problems.
PRIME MINISTER:
I didn’t mention inflation.
BARLETT:
Well you did, you mentioned the upward pressure on inflation.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no on interest rates.
BARTLETT:
On interest rates. What about the inflationary effects of the higher petrol prices to the Australian workers and business?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is some inflationary effect, yes that’s true. On the other hand the inflationary impact of the GST was lower than we had expected, certainly in the September quarter, so it may be that the one in so far as inflation in concerned, the one cancels out the other. So in net terms in inflation rate is no higher than we predicted at the time of the budget. Liam can I make it clear I am very unhappy about the high price of petrol, I know why people dislike high petrol prices but we’re losing sight of the fact that the reason they’re high is that the world price of oil is high, it’s trebled in the last 18 months. If you look at a graph of what’s happened to petrol prices in Western Australia that you will find that overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, the movement has been due to the world price going up. Now people can argue one way or another but you can’t avoid that happening, I mean I don’t like that.
BARTLETT:
That’s true but that has…
PRIME MINISTER:
I mean I really don’t like it…
BARTLETT:
If you don’t like that… it is in your power, it is in our power to stop it going further.
PRIME MINISTER:
We could skip the February indexation but there would be a revenue cost in that and I have to ask myself whether that is more important than either having a more secure surplus, and therefore being able to repay more Government debt, and we inherited about $80-$90 billion of Government debt when we were elected in March 1996 and we’ve payed a lot off but I’d like to pay more of it off because I think that will give us a more secure future. Or alternatively if we did have some resources, additional resources, then maybe it would make more sense to spend it on something else. A lot of people in country areas talk about roads, a lot of people want extra money spent on education and science in particular. There is a need for extra money to be committed to defence, so when you’re having a discussion like this, somebody in my position can’t afford to have a narrow focus. I don’t have the luxury of a narrow focus on this, I have to try and look at the overall situation and I would say to your listeners that the Government’s responsibility is to, if there were capacity and I’m not saying there is capacity because I don’t think it would make a lot of economic sense to aim to have a lower surplus and therefore repay less debt, I think that would be bad for interest rates. But I don’t think any body wants to see another rise in interest rates.
BARTLETT:
Prime Minister…
PRIME MINISTER:
Nobody wants that…
BARTLETT:
The Queensland Premier Peter Beattie thinks you’re making a tactical blue by misreading the feeling of the Australian people on this.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well do you want me to talk about political advantage or do you want talk about the merits of the issue? I can’t imagine that Peter Beattie as a Labor Premier would ever give advice to my political health.
BARTLETT:
Do you think, I can’t imagine that either. It’s an interesting comment, I mean do you think … the Australian people’s feeling on this.
PRIME MINISTER:
Liam, people in your position are always exhorting people in my position to forget the politics and think of the substance of the issue. So therefore I’m not going to get bogged down in a debate about what is the politically smart thing to do
BARTLETT:
All right well let’s just look… why maintain a surplus the size that you have at the moment when the effects of the petrol prices around the country are hurting people?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Liam, big debt hurts people a lot because you have to pay it off.
BARTLETT:
But there’s always a trade off.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is a trade off, yes, and if you have a higher debt there’s a negative flowing out of that. These are judgements and our judgement is that having a surplus which enables you to pay off debt, I mean the surplus doesn’t sit there, it’s not as if we’ve collected more than we’ve spent and we hang onto it and don’t do anything with it, when you have a surplus that’s only a statement of the annual excess of the revenue over expenditure. You use it to pay off debt, and we still have $40-$50 billion of debt that Mr Beazley left us with in 1996 and we have to pay it off. And it’s the debt of the Australian public…
BARTLETT:
I thought you said you wanted to keep the politics out of it.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I want to leave out, what I do want to leave out of it Liam is an assessment of what I do based on politics as distinct from a statement of fact. I mean it is a statement of fact that we inherited a debt of $80-$90 billion, I never said I’d leave that out but you’re asking me to make a decision based on my political health as distinct from what is the right thing for the country. And I think it’s better to pay off debt than to accede to the campaign that is being waged at the moment, by the Premiers, by the Opposition, by the motoring organisations. I don’t like the high price of petrol but it’s due to the world price of crude oil having trebled. Now you know that. You agreed a few minutes ago that that’s the reason.
BARTLETT:
When you take half the price and put it into Government coffers out of a litre of petrol, I think you’re still on shakey ground concentrating on the international price of crude.
PRIME MINISTER:
But that has been the position for years. We didn’t …
BARTLETT:
That doesn’t make it right.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, but what has made the price of petrol a major area of concern in recent months has been the massive increase in the world price. I mean, if I’d had been interviewed by you a year ago when the excise take was roughly the same as it is now, you wouldn’t be asking me about the world price – the price of petrol – you’d have been asking me about the GST. It wasn’t even on the radar screen so you can’t argue that the excise take, which for example in Australia is about 47, 48 per cent as distinct from say Britain where it’s 75 per cent, you can’t argue that that’s the reason why it’s back on radar screen. It’s back on the radar screen because the world price has gone up. Now in an ideal world, you wouldn’t have excise on anything, you wouldn’t have taxes on anything. Somehow or other money would fall out of the sky or grow on trees and we’d all be happy. And we’d have nothing to argue about. I’m not in that comfortable …
BARTLETT:
Well 12 months ago we didn’t have a GST.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have now and we have a better tax system. A much better tax system and a tax system, incidentally, that has gone far better than our critics suggested it would.
BARTLETT:
Our tax system in regards to petrol is unfairly hurting people in country Western Australia, more than the metropolitan area because it’s …
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the tax system is not imposing the burdens on those people. It’s the world price that’s imposing the burden.
BARTLETT:
(inaudible) discriminates, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well not the tax system doesn’t discriminate. It can’t. It is not constitutionally possible for the tax system to discriminate because …
BARTLETT:
(inaudible) $1.10 in country Western Australia is a lot more than 10 per cent on 90 cents.
PRIME MINISTER:
But that is not the fault of the tax system. Because we have a differential to subsidise that out and that was introduced by the Government to ensure that the tax did not worsen the differential. We have in fact got a system. We never said that we would remove the differential. What we did say was that we would introduce a retail subsidy scheme so that the differential would not be widened as a result of the introduction of the tax system. And I believe that that system has worked to prevent that occurring.
BARTLETT:
Let’s take some calls shall we. Nineteen past nine. And Peter is first up Prime Minister. Peter, good morning.
CALLER:
Good morning, Liam. Good morning, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Peter.
CALLER:
Yes, on Four Corners on Monday night the WA Premier Richard Court, he was asked as to why you gave Mr Tuckey the job as Minister for Forests and Conservation. Mr Court replied by saying that you have a sense of humour. If that’s the case Mr Howard, then I’d suggest that you have a bad sense of humour.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Peter, I’d say three things about that. Firstly I don’t know what Mr Court said so I won’t accept that he necessarily said that. I don’t know the context. Secondly I do have a sense of humour. And thirdly, but it’s not the sense of humour that induced me to give the job to Mr Tuckey. I gave the job to Mr Tuckey because I thought he’d do it well. One of the most interesting comments made on that Four Corners program came from a trade union person who said that Mr Tuckey now does the job for the forestry workers and the trade unionists that the union used to do. I can’t think of a greater accolade. You now have forestry workers all around the country, including in Western Australia, who see Wilson Tuckey as their friend and somebody who’s prepared to stand up for their jobs, which the Labor Party and the unions aren’t doing in Western Australia. And Wilson Tuckey more than any other politician in Western Australia – State or Federal, Labor or Liberal – is sticking up for the interests of forestry workers and I give him full marks for that.
BARTLETT:
Did you see that program?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I had a report of it. I didn’t see it.
BARTLETT:
Because on the program Wilson Tuckey gave a very clear indication that he wouldn’t mind if Richard Court’s Government here in WA was voted out of office at the next election because they’ve sold out the timber industry.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I didn’t see it and I make a practice of never accepting, with due respect to you or anybody else, interpretations of things until I’ve actually seen them.
BARTLETT:
Well would you mind if they lost?
PRIME MINISTER:
I would like the Court Government to be returned. I think the Court Government has been a very good government for Western Australia. A very good government and I think it would be detrimental to the State of Western Australia if the Court Government were defeated. But on the question of the interests of forestry workers, there is nobody in Western Australia, indeed there’s nobody in Australia, who’s done more to look after the jobs of working men and women in regional Western Australia then Wilson Tuckey. And good luck to him and full marks and no wonder he has a lot of support amongst people who traditionally are loyal to the Labor Party and to trade unions.
BARTLETT:
Alright Prime Minister, thanks. The next caller is Robert. Robert, good morning.
CALLER:
Good morning. Prime Minister, I’m a small business. I’ve been a Liberal voter all my life and I’m 71 years old but I’ll never vote Liberal again because the Liberal Government tells lies. In your policy on the importation of second hand cars from Japan, which is .47 percent of the Australian sales in this market, you’ve just put, the Minister, who in your Party Room was called a liar and a disgrace to the Party, with the stroke of a pen has just put 2000 small businesses out of business in favour of the multinationals. Prime Minister you’re a multinational party. I’d like to hear your response to that please.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t agree that we’ve told lies on that. I don’t for a moment. There’s been a big debate, including amongst small business men on both sides of the argument on that issue, and there are a lot of small business men and women who are going to benefit from the new policy that we have introduced. The new policy allows for a very lengthy transition period. We did take into account in putting that new policy together, the concerns which I understand you to be voicing, and I don’t think the criticism that you have made is fair. We spent a lot of time trying to get the balance right. It’s not a decision to placate the multinationals. It’s a decision based on a fair balance of the small business interests of a large number of people.
BARTLETT:
Robert thanks for your call. Alan, good morning.
CALLER:
Good morning, Liam. Good morning Mr Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning.
CALLER:
In February this year the national competition policy review of pharmacy was handed to you by Mr Warwick Wilkinson who was the reviewer. It was a national competition policy review which outlines that the governments, all the governments in Australia, wanted to review and reform all laws that restrict competition and left the benefits of the restriction to the community outweighed the costs and restrictions that are needed to attain the benefits. One of the elements of that was the location of pharmacies to receive pharmaceutical benefits payments. Now the findings were that these location restrictions should be removed. I’ll just read it to you. “The restrictions on pharmacy relocations have served little justifiable purpose since the major national rationalisation of pharmacy outlets was completed in the early 1990s and should be removed as soon as practicable.” Now, they go on further to say it’s clearly in the public interests after applying the public benefits test. Now this hasn’t been done. I’d just like to ask you why that hasn’t been done.
PRIME MINISTER:
I can’t give you a full answer to that. All I can do is to recall that when we got the report we implemented most of the recommendations. That is my recollection. As to why we apparently didn’t implement that recommendation I cannot recall at the moment, if you leave your name and address with the ABC in Perth I will find out and I will let you know.
BARTLETT:
All right, Alan hold the line there and we’ll follow that up for you, thanks for your call. Good morning John?
CALLER:
Yes, me is it?
BARTLETT:
Yes.
CALLER:
Yes, Prime Minister good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning John.
CALLER:
I love Australian history and my question relates to the artillery barracks down at Fremantle and I hope you are aware . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I am aware of that and it is something that is being examined at the present time. I know there are concerns about it and they have been raised in our party room by a number of Western Australian Members.
CALLER:
Is it . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
And I know that . . .
CALLER:
It’s a terribly important museum to us especially given our isolation from Canberra. Western Australians aren’t given the same opportunity. And I think the volunteers over the years have done a fantastic job in preserving our history. And I understand that you’ve given the Torrens Parade Ground in Adelaide as a Federation gift and I just wondered if there was any chance that you could be magnanimous and give West Australia the artillery barracks.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well John that issue has been raised and I know at the time it was raised the Defence Minister and the Assistant Minister undertook in response to a number of Western Australians who raised it to examine it and I am not as I speak to you aware of the stage of that examination but I will certainly inquire further and I understand the point you’re making.
BARTLETT:
Is that a chance Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it’s being examined.
BARTLETT:
So it could be an option?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well anything’s an option while it’s being examined yes.
BARTLETT:
All right, John thank you for that. Julie good morning?
CALLER:
Good morning. I wanted to raise something which is to do with getting people to feel one nation, one group of people . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes, to feel united and together?
CALLER:
United, that’s the word we need, isn’t it? Every time there’s an Australia Day fireworks I feel left out because I can’t get to fireworks. I hear the thump and crash and the kids say oh what’s going on? And I have to say oh that’s . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Where do you live?
CALLER:
Oh I live in a suburb but I have a young family and there’s no way I am going through the crush to try to get to see the things.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I understand that.
CALLER:
I was thinking that with this Centenary of Federation and other things that questions why the stars are on the flag, what was so important back then because with the lights on all night we just don’t get to see the stars out this way in the big city and all sorts of people in the country feel left out and the people in the city who feel left out and the kids who never get to see the stars might be interesting if all across Australia at one time of night everybody turns off the lights, you’d get a band of blackout going across the nation, people will look up and see the stars and everybody will be looking at the same stars.
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s an interesting idea. I will pass that onto the Council that’s running it. We had the big launch in Parliament House a short while ago of the programme . . .
CALLER:
Yes, that’s why I raised it, I thought . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Some of those sorts of events do bring people together. The Olympic Torch Relay was a very uniting thing.
CALLER:
That was another thing I didn’t want to go to that great big crowd. This is a thing where people can unite in their own backyards.
PRIME MINISTER:
I understand your point. I do, I do.
BARTLETT:
Thanks Julie.
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s an interesting suggestion.
BARTLETT:
Thanks for your call this morning. Ray, good morning to you?
CALLER:
Good morning Prime Minister. Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning.
CALLER:
Prime Minister last week in an event called Science meets Parliament which I am sure you will remember, 180 scientists joined in meetings with 160 Parliamentarians in Canberra and I was just wondering if that influence you personally to reassess your view of science. And what measures will your Government take to increase support for science?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I all ready meet quite regularly with scientists through the Prime Ministers’ Science Council and I’ve met them on a regular basis for three or four years and they have influenced me very heavily. I would have to say that one of the reasons why two years ago we doubled the amount of money going to health and medical research in Australia was a direct result of views that had been put to me on the Science Council by a lot of people. We are at present examining a whole raft of proposals relating to science, education, research, innovation, technology and I can honestly say to you that we are giving it very serious thought and we will be providing quite a comprehensive response. Now I can’t at this stage speculate as to what will be in it, but we are seriously listening to and examining views that have been put to us, including by the scientists who came to Canberra last week.
BARTLETT:
All right, Ray thanks for your call this morning. Prime Minister can I just put something to you that news from the UK, the British Government have made a compensation payment to World War II Prisoners of War held by the Japanese in line with some of the Canadian move. In the UK case, the Blair Government is giving each veteran a payment of £S10,000 and the ALP is saying this morning, urging your Government to do the same with Australia’s former Japanese POWs of which it is estimated there’s only about 3,000 left alive. What do you think of that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I will you know just examine what the British have done, I am not going to make any commitment on the run. I mean it is always wise to examine the implications of something like that before making any commitment.
BARTLETT:
All right, but you will have a look at it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we look at all those things on a regular basis but I am not going to make any commitment on the run.
BARTLETT:
Okay. Can I ask you, former senator Mal Colston, it’s been sixteen months since fraud charges were dropped on the grounds of ill health. Should the case have been reviewed before now?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that’s a matter for the independent Director of Public Prosecutions. The Government doesn’t control criminal prosecutions. We neither decided to bring it nor did we decide to drop it, nor did we decide that it be re-examined, nor will we decide whether it should be re-launched. That is entirely a matter for the Director of Public Prosecutions who is independent, he is not subject to my control or influence and I am not going to make a comment on it, I don’t think it’s proper to interfere in the in the administration of the criminal justice system.
BARTLETT:
Do you think the average Australian would have received similar treatment within the criminal justice system?
PRIME MINISTER:
The criminal justice system is complex, it treats people according as it best can to the circumstances of their case and I am not going to get drawn into a comment in relation to something that I shouldn’t talk about. There are too many instances in our community of politicians giving running commentaries on the administration of the criminal justice system. As far as I am concerned he should be treated like other Australians, no better no worse.
BARTLETT:
Okay Prime Minister I appreciate your time today, we look forward to our next session with you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay, thanks.
[ends]