Subjects: Australian Prime Ministers; Ministerial reshuffle; Sydney's Kingsford Smith and Bankstown airports
E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
LOANE:
Prime Minister good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Sally, nice to be with you again in this unusual ambience … It’s impressive.
LOANE:
It is, it’s wonderful. The Fuzzy Prime Ministers. Have you had a chance to look at your own portrait?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have yes. Yes.
LOANE:
What did you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I’ve seen much worse in cartoons. It’s quite humourous. It’s quite a nice idea and you can recognise them all and I think playing all those grabs of the various Prime Ministers is rather good.
LOANE:
It’s wonderful to hear the voices.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, it’s remarkable – some of the voices back in the 1930s and 20s. It’s quite remarkable.
LOANE:
We’ve changed a lot in the way we speak, in the way we look at things, I think the rhetoric’s changed.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh it has, yet the accent is unmistakable. Even though they come from different parts of the country its quite unmistakable.
LOANE:
Do you have a favourite Prime Minister? I think I know who you’re going to say.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes, Sir Robert Menzies.
LOANE:
Bob Menzies, yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think he was clearly the stand out Prime Minister in this country’s history. I think he was quite remarkable.
LOANE:
Have you had the chance to view his portrait here?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I’ve had a look at it.
LOANE:
Magnificient eyebrows you’d have to agree?
PRIME MINISTER:
Certainly that, but it’s all – it’s good to, particularly on the eve of Federation to have some reflection on the different contributions that people from different sides of politics have made and it’s very nice.
LOANE:
It is isn’t it. This is a reminder to us I think of our history which we’re often accused of not knowing very well.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that is changing. I find it quite encouraging just how many people are displaying interest in what we’ve achieved. And the thing that’s coming through very strongly is how very good and very early we were at important reforms. A lot of people don’t understand that women, for example, had the vote in part of Australia 20 years ahead of women in the United Kingdom and the United States. We pioneered many democratic reforms that other countries subsequently copied. So while we tend to focus sometimes a lot on the mistakes we made in the past, like any other country we have made mistakes and got some things wrong, weere a long way ahead of other countries. When you look at the extraordinarily difficult travail that America has had in finally working out who’s the President, …
LOANE:
Our democracy looks pretty good.
PRIME MINISTER:
And also our federal system has worked very well. We’ve made quite a success of federalism. We’ve got a clear identifiable Australian character but by the same token we do recognise that the country is different and a geographically large country like Australia does need a fairly decentralised approach to government. We seem to have got that balance as close to ideal as any country can.
LOANE:
We’ll be celebrating of course on January the first the Centenary of our Federation and this is a chance for a lot of Australians to think about our system and some of these positives that you were just talking about. Do you think the time is right now for Australians to think about that because there’s been a period I think in recent political times when a lot of Australians have become quite disappointed and a bit cynical in the political process, in the politicians. Can you generate in Australians do you think a new respect or interest in our …
PRIME MINISTER:
I think we’re living in an age where people are I guess faithless about all institutions – not just political institutions. There’s criticism of all institutions. It’s an era, a period or phase that we’re going through. People are very critical of business, very critical of the media, they’re very critical of the political system. On the other hand there is an opportunity in the Centenary of Federation to reflect on the strengths. I mean we have remained very internally cohesive and we’ve had I guess one event in my lifetime where there were stresses and strains put on the system – 1975 – but in the end that was resolved by the thing going to the people. What I was reminded of as I watched what was unfolding in the United States was that when we had what people described as a Constitutional crisis in 1975 what happened in this country was that it went to the people.
LOANE:
Not to the judges.
PRIME MINISTER:
Not to the judges and I think that’s the right balance. I don’t think judges should ever resolve what the people should decide. That’s an important part of the separation of powers. It is the people, electors to decide who should govern, not judges. And that shows the great strength in the flexibility of our system of government. It does have a lot of advantages because – you know there’s no device in America for the thing to be remitted back to the people of Florida. There’s no way that somebody could say right this is difficult, we’ll get everybody in Florida to vote again. Whereas in Australia we had this crisis and it was sent to the people. Now there were strong feelings but in the end the Australian people had an opportunity within a few weeks of voting for or against a particular side of politics. I think that’s, in the end, the great strength of our system.
LOANE:
Prime Minister let’s get to the big story today, of course, you’ve had your ministerial reshuffle. You look as though you’re on election footing already. Young guns I think one newspaper described them as.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is an element of generational change. The three ministers who are leaving are all very good and they were all doing their jobs extremely well.
LOANE:
Were you unhappy with John Herron?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. Quite the reverse. I’m amazed at suggestions that I was unhappy. I was one of his strongest supporters. He came under a lot of criticism in his early years in the job and I supported him very strongly. I know people are always saying I ought to sack him and I, quite the reverse, any suggestion that I was unhappy with him … and he would have been very happy to have gone on, as I think Jocelyn and John would have in their own ways have been happy to go on, but in the end you do get to a point in the lifetime of any government where a certain amount of generational change is desirable.
LOANE:
And you have some young guns…
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, it’s just a question of generational change and you have to keep doing that. It’s part of my job to maintain the momentum of government, to do that. I think the changes I’ve made are the right ones. Tony Abbott will do a very good job. He’s a very intelligent, articulate person. Amanda Vanstone’s fought back very well and deserves reinstatement to the Cabinet and I’ve brought in three new people who haven’t had ministerial experience before. Two from Queensland and one from Tasmania and they’re all good.
LOANE:
Is it difficult trying to get the states balanced up.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, yes. I said a moment ago …
LOANE:
Often you can’t go for the talent – you’ve got to go for the balance don’t you?
PRIME MINISTER:
You’ve got to have a mixture. You can’t ignore in a federation – I said a moment ago we are a federation and although I’m not a passionate states’ rightist, I’m an Australian nationalist – you can’t ignore state representation any more than you can ignore the necessity to have a balance between the Senate and the House of Representatives. That does mean that some people are a bit unlucky in that they are in the states where there’s a bevy of talent ahead of them.
LOANE:
Like New South Wales for example?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well may I say even more so – I mean there’s talent everywhere of course there is – but I think in Victoria you’ve got five Liberals in the Cabinet. In South…
LOANE:
Too many?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, not too many because they’re all good. You’ve got Peter Costello, Richard Alston, Peter Reith, David Kemp and Michael Wooldridge. Now all very competent people. I don’t think anybody would suggest that they’re not competent. The same thing in South Australia. You get that kind of thing and yet you do have to preserve these balances and it’s a juggling act – it’s the hardest part of the job but it goes with the territory.
LOANE:
Will Tony Abbott be modifying his style at all? He’s been described by the Opposition Leader this morning as the ideological bovver boy – the junior headkicker, presumably to the senior headkicker, Peter Reith. Will Tony Abbott be changing?
PRIME MINISTER:
I certainly hope not. I think Tony Abbott’s got an endearing style. I think he’s very articulate. I’m fascinated that the Opposition should be personally attacking him – it must mean he’s pretty effective. It’s always a sign that when the other side goes in hard in a personal way like that they treat him seriously so he’s won the first battle. He’s regarded as serious.
LOANE:
Would you expect troubles with the workers of Australia with somebody like Tony Abbott….
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
LOANE:
….they see as ideologically completely opposed…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t know that….I mean the Opposition [inaudible]. At any rate the average Australian will make their own judgement as they always do uninfluenced by what others say. They’ll decide. But Tony Abbott is actually, in his style, in the way he relates to people, a very down to earth person. In fact he’s less elitist and more down to earth than many Labor politicians I know. And I think his capacity with his rather ocker style and his capacity to relate to people will be very strong and will surprise many of his opponents. Perhaps that’s why they’re attacking him so strongly.
LOANE:
Do you see him as a future Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it’s always dangerous, just like people coming into the Australian cricket team for the first time and saying is he another Bradman. I never make those sorts of comments about people being future Prime Ministers.
LOANE:
He’s got the talent though.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’m not going to start putting tags like that on him. In the end the next Prime Minister of Australia will be chosen by the Australian public via who they choose at the next election, or and if we win, any time subsequent to that, a subsequent election, by the members of the Liberal Party. It’s not for me to decide. I’m not going to get into that.
LOANE:
Mr Howard so you expect some Cabinet stoushes between the, I suppose you could call Amanda Vanstone, she is stubborn at times. She has her own style, she has an aggressive style, a bit like Tony Abbott. They will be coming head to head over issues of welfare reform…..
PRIME MINISTER:
I doubt it, I doubt it. That’s really a bit of an invention to fill up a few columns in newspapers. They’ll have their own responsibilities. But Cabinet Ministers are expected to argue with each other if they have different points of view and we have a lot of vigorous debate. That’s how a good Cabinet works and I wouldn’t place any limitations on the vigour of the debate that goes on but I don’t expect a particular clash between them. I’ll keep you posted in case I’m wrong but….
LOANE:
You don’t expect to be knocking any heads together?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t expect so no. I think both of them will contribute very well. They’re both very good communicators and that’s very important because they have responsibilities where explanations to the public are crucial.
LOANE:
You’d be wanting of course the cost of the McClure reforms very soon I’d imagine with a new Minister in there. You’d want to come into the New Year with….
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we’re going to do that in the budget. We’ve said that, that’s what Jocelyn Newman said. The idea with McClure is that we’ve got a consultative group headed by Mrs Henry from the Smith Family and we’re going to talk to them about the detailed implementation of what Jocelyn announced last week and then we’ll have further detailed announcements with money, dollars and cents, in the budget. That’s the plan. The new Minister takes over at the end of January. What I’ve done with this reshuffle is announce it before Christmas but the actual hand over will occur formally at the end of January. It gives people an opportunity to sort of in a civilised way ease themselves in, say goodbye to people and so forth. It’s much better than doing it all in a huge rush and the idea with McClure is to announce the details and the money in the budget and we’ll be doing that. We’ve made a commitment to do that and we’ll stick to that.
LOANE:
Prime Minister you’ll be looking for an election in Ryan, John Moore’s seat in Queensland. When will that be? Has he given you any indication?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he hasn’t told me the exact date but he said that he’s going to leave Parliament early in the New Year. So I would expect there’d be a by-election probably, you know, sometime February, March, April I guess depending on precisely when he goes. I don’t really mind when. I will not take it for granted. It’s a seat the Government has always held, the Liberal Party’s always held. But I’m sure we’ll get a good candidate and I will work hard and I will not take it for granted. I never take anything for granted. Politics now is a lot more volatile and unpredictable than used to be the case and you can’t take anything for granted and I certainly won’t in this case.
LOANE:
Kim Beazley was on my program yesterday and he made a lot of allegations, he talked a lot about your own internal preselection processes. He mentioned words like branch stacking and he did mention the seat of Ryan. Will you be looking at that seat with particular interest to get the right candidate up, to get somebody that John Howard is pleased with up in that seat?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’m not going to try and superimpose a personal view over those of the branch members. Political parties find it very hard to get branch members these days.
LOANE:
Are you having trouble with some of them though with preselection ?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’ll come to that in a moment. And I think it’s very important that when you do get branch members that you actually let them play a part. And if I were an ordinary rank and file member of the Liberal Party or the Labor Party and I felt that when that rare opportunity comes along to have a say on who the new candidate is and then I’m told oh now out of the way this is too important for you. That’s the way you burn people off and I don’t want to see that happen in the Liberal Party. Look, preselection contests in all political parties are vigorous. We all know that. And people work actively to get preselection. There’s nothing wrong with that.
LOANE:
Are there any dodgy practices….?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’m not aware of any dodgy practices. I mean let’s be very clear, all of this stuff in Queensland started because somebody was convicted of criminal fraud. Nobody to my knowledge has been convicted of criminal fraud in the Liberal Party. I think this attempt to align preselection competitiveness with criminal fraud is a bit weak. I know that’s what Mr Beazley’s trying to do but it won’t wash because it’s quite different.
LOANE:
Prime Minister, you’ve got the whole of New South Wales listening to this program at the moment. A lot of these people of course use our regional airlines. Can you assure them that they will be flying into Kingsford Smith say in a decade’s time on their regional airlines, or will they be I guess financially pushed…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I can assure them that we’ve given a guarantee, a clear guarantee that existing access by regional airlines to Kingsford Smith is going to be maintained and we’re going to maintain the price cap, that’s very important. I have said that we’ll develop Bankstown progressively as an overflow airport. And as opportunity arises in terms of future growth there’ll be the prospect of that going into Bankstown with a view particularly in terms of the future of having fewer of the very small ones going into Kingsford Smith. But if you’re going their now and you’ve got access there now you’ll keep that access and you’ll keep it at the same price.
LOANE:
Prime Minister, we’re surrounded here by a great deal of history, well a hundred years of Australian Prime Ministers. I wonder when you first got the idea that you would like to be prime minister. Were you somebody like Bob Hawke who started with that vision from childhood? Or did it come . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I was interested in politics from a very early age. The first Prime Minister I remember hearing on radio was Ben Chifley.
LOANE:
That’s him behind you there.
PRIME MINISTER:
Behind me. And he, I can remember him in 1949 just before he was defeated by Menzies, he spoke on a school broadcast through the ABC when he opened the Snowy River Scheme, the inaugurated Snowy River Scheme, that was I think in September/October of 1949. That’s a long time ago. And he was the first person I can remember and I probably would have heard his predecessor perhaps when I was a very young child on radio but I am not conscious of that. He was the first Prime Minister that I was really conscious of.
LOANE:
Frank Clarke our historian said that he was a Prime Minister who was loved by both sides. Did you feel that? Was that the feeling in your family? Or not . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no I don’t. My father was the owner of a petrol service station and Ben Chifley was associated with petrol rationing and that was not popular in my household. And we were absolutely delighted . . .
LOANE:
[inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no, but people didn’t say he was a bad man. I mean I can’t remember my parents ever saying he was a bad person but it was…he wasn’t demonised as an individual, but certainly we were delighted when he lost.
LOANE:
The other prime ministers you see lined up here, Harold Holt, we’ve got a gallery of them of course, Sir William McMahon, right through there’s John Gorton – did you study these people as prime ministers as you were coming up through the Liberal Party? Were there things in them that you thought yes that’s a good characteristic that . . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes and no. I thought John Gorton had a marvellous Australian touch about him.
LOANE:
He could reach out…
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes he was very good and he had a lot of … I mean like all of us he had weaknesses as well as strengths, but he certainly was one who moved, in an audience, moved people, he was excellent. He certainly has those very great skills.
LOANE:
We’ve talked a little about your own life and times. I talked this morning earlier with Frank Clarke about your life and times. And many Australians of this generation would remember you first I suppose coming into the public arena as the Treasurer, as Malcolm Fraser’s Treasurer.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I was made Treasurer in, I think it was October of 1977.
LOANE:
Was that a difficult time for you . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh it was.
LOANE:
. . . you were bringing in a lot of reform and . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I had some differences and there’s no point in going over them now. It was a difficult period and it was also unexpected because Philip Lynch got ill and then there was some quite inaccurate and unfair allegations made about him and he stood aside because we were going into an election and that wasn’t the atmosphere to sort it out but it was an opportunity I had and it certainly changed my career, but that happens in politics. But it was a very difficult, well not difficult but it was a busy personal time because we had a very young family and our second child was born just after I became Treasurer, so it was pretty lively.
LOANE:
You weren’t home much?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well actually I probably got home quite a lot, but it was pretty tough and Janette was absolutely fantastic.
LOANE:
John Howard you’ve been, you were Leader of the Liberal Party several times, I think five times. Did you ever lose sight of . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh no I was Leader of the Liberal Party, I became leader in ’85 and I remained that until ’89 and then I was voted out and then I came back in ’95, so oh, I guess at various stages I would have thought there was never going to be any prospect of becoming prime minister.
LOANE:
Why did you hang on then?
PRIME MINISTER:
I just felt that I had a contribution to make and I particularly found during the early 1990s when there was a lot of debate about industrial relations reform that I had an opportunity to contribute in a big way in opposition as the spokesman on industrial relations. And if I look back over the policy things that I have been involved in the one of which in many ways I am just as proud of, pleased about as tax reform or even more so is industrial relations reform because I think we have changed industrial relations in this country and we do have a more open system, we do have one that’s more based on the workplace and one where individuals have greater say in determining their own futures. And I felt we needed a very big change in that in the early 1990s and I felt that I did make a big contribution in not only altering the attitudes of the Liberal Party which I achieved in the 80s but also turning the public debate around. So that was one of the policy things that drove me to stay in politics in the 90s now . . .
LOANE:
You must have lost sight sometimes. You must have lost a bit of faith that you would ever make it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes, I didn’t think when Mr Downer became leader I didn’t think there was any prospect of coming back.
LOANE:
Was that the closest you ever got to leaving?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes.
LOANE:
How close were you?
PRIME MINISTER:
I talked about it to a few friends and decided to put it on hold for another year.
LOANE:
Which friends twisted your arm?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh there were a few people that…the names are pretty well known, and my family of course I always talk to them. But that’s, life’s a bit like that. It can be a bit unpredictable and there were periods I know when Bob Hawke was trying to get into parliament he had difficulty getting into parliament when he sort of missed out. I mean I remember seeing a famous cartoon of him with some sort of heading you know - sorry you missed out on being in politics but actually, don’t worry you’re still running the ACTU. The implication being that that carried a lot of authority particularly in the climate of the times.
LOANE:
Do you see much of the other prime ministers now, Bob Hawke and . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh occasionally. I saw Malcolm Fraser the other evening. We had a dinner of fifteen or sixteen of the original members of the Fraser Government elected in 1975 which Doug Anthony got together. It was a very pleasant evening. And I see Bob Hawke around occasionally, Paul Keating. We don’t sort of have a monthly lunch or anything, but you bump into them because as it happens, what one, two, three, four of them are living in Sydney.
LOANE:
Your paths are bound to cross.
PRIME MINISTER:
John Gorton lives in Sydney now as does of course Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, so you just run into each other occasionally.
LOANE:
There’s a lot of young children here in the audience Prime Minister, some of them have drawn portraits of you. I think some magnificent likenesses too over in the corner. We’ve already . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I’ve met the authors. I’ve met them. The sketchers, they’re very good.
LOANE:
They’re excellent aren’t’ they?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. There’s quite a variety of them for a number of the people.
LOANE:
Do you like Bob Hawke’s tie?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
LOANE:
Well known symbol.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well known brew. It’s a very good brew too.
LOANE:
I wonder, just reflecting, just finally Prime Minister, if any of these children were thinking of going into politics, is it worth it do you think? Given the standing with which politicians have, we talked about that at the beginning of the interview, that a lot of people in Australia are as you say a little bit cynical about people in public life.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they’re cynical about, just about every institution.
LOANE:
Is it a good career though?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes it is. It’s very rewarding. It’s very hard. The personal scrutiny is enormous. There’s a tremendous strain put on your family. But in the end it’s the most rewarding thing you can do because you can make a difference in a way that nobody else can if you finally make it to a very senior position and certainly the prime minister. Now people may not always agree with the difference you make and they may want it to go in the other direction but you can make a difference and it is therefore immensely rewarding. I would not have changed anything if I’d have had my time over again and I don’t regret it but it is tough and compared with what people are you know, perhaps receive in other areas it’s not in that sense as rewarding but in a personal satisfaction sense it is extremely rewarding so I would commend it to men and women. We may have a future prime minister behind me somewhere, I don’t know but I would still recommend it and these things have swings and roundabouts and you do get a lot of personal satisfaction. And my experience is that most people who go into politics on both sides, I don’t just say my side but on the other side as well are committed Australians who do want to improve things and do believe in something and do try and make a difference and I think that’s always been the case. There are a few who are self-centred and who spoil it for the rest, but most of them are very dedicated men and women.
LOANE:
Just finally Prime Minister and I will let you go after this, I know you have mused about what you will do after your stint as Australia’s thirtieth prime minister is over, I wonder if you are thinking about that more and more these days?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. No different than what I said to another ABC interviewer on my 61st birthday on the 26th of July. I don’t have anything to add. I put it then exactly as I felt and I just sort of refer back to that rather than try and give an updated version because somebody might go darting off with another interpretation.
LOANE:
Prime Minister good to speak to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Merry Christmas to you and to all of your listeners.
LOANE:
Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]