PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF DOORSTOP, FORESTRY OVAL, CANBERRA, 19 FEBRUARY
1989 E 0 E PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: What tactics will you be employing today
against PM: Well I hope they will be winning tactics. No, we are
just going to have a good time and see if we can get the
right result, but you people in the Press have a much larger
pool upon which to call than I do from my office so we've
really got our backs to the wall.
JOURNALIST: That sounds like an excuse.
PM: No it's an explanation.
JOURNALIST: On the economy Mr Hawke, is that on the rail~ s?
PM: On the rails? Well I don't know what you mean by on
the rails.
JOURNALIST: Some commentators are suggesting that the
economy, we should be looking at a mini budget or to
rethink the economy?
PM: Yes, well we've been in office for six years now and.
different sorts of economic circumstances people have been
telling us what to do. I mean characteristic of this period
is that we've known what to do. We've done what has been
necessary to deal with the problems without blowing the
economy apart and that's what we are doing now. As I've
just said on another program, no politician in his right
mind would want to have tight monetary policy for a moment
longer than is necessary. No one gets any joy out of higher
interest rates, but the fact is that we have an economy
which is booming. Just some sort of indication of that is
that if you look at new factory approvals, in the first six
months of this year 51 percent up on the same period last
year. New hotel approvals 57 percent up. Investment higher
the proportion of growth domestic product than it has been
for 35 years. So we've just got to pull things back because
we can't sustain a level of imports associated with that
level of activity and so we are bringing things back. Now
that means higher interest rates. We will bring inflation
-2-
( PM cont): back and we'll do all these things without what
our conservative opponents did when they were faced with
these circumstances destroying the economy. We've got
employment growing very very strongly. 300,000 new jobs in
the last 12 months, growing in employment terms more than
twice as fast as the rest of the world. Now those are the
sorts of things that we can do but it means a bit of
toughness in the monetary policy area. Now there's no need
for panic and we don't panic but we won't get complacent.
JOUNALIST: Can we afford the ACTU's wage tax claim?
PM: You can't afford not to have a combined tax/ wage
movement. There must be wage increases and there must be
tax cuts and we
JOURNALIST: The full amount though that the ACTU want?
PM: Well, it's a question of timing. I haven't committed
myself to precise amounts, but the concept is right. We
will discuss it with the ACTU as we will with employers,
just what the right rate of application of these things is.
ends