TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH JANA WENDT, A CURRENT AFFAIR
27 FEBRUARY 1989
E O E PROOF ONLY
WENDT: The figures are not good are they?
PM: No, some of the figures are disappointing but I must
take issue Jana with an observation you made that we've
heard nothing but bad news. Can I remind you that we've
heard further very good news on the employment front which
gives us the fact now that we have got over one and a
quarter million new jobs, the unemployment rate down very
significantly and that's an employment performance which is
twice as good as the rest of the world. Now that doesn't
take away the bad news. It's not all bad, that's all I'm
saying.
WENDT: Alright, it's not all gloomy but it is pretty sad
isn't it? Your Government's budget forecast in relation to
inflation and trade figures were off course weren't they?
PM: Yes, and certainly on the external account the figure
that we were hoping for of $ 9.5 billion deficit on the
current account will certainly be well beyond that. The
only redeeming element, and I think all your viewers would
understand that we've got to look at this in the longer
term, and that is that we are in the middle of a very big
investment boom at the moment and there is no doubt that the
Australian economy as a result of the retooling, the capital
equipment that's been put in is going to be in a better
position in the period ahead.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, I wonder whether most of our viewers would
understand that they have to look at it in the longer term.
That forecast as you say was way off beam, wasn't it?
PM: Yes, we were under the figure, there's no doubt about
that.
WENDT: We've done in seven months what you forecast that we
would have done in a year. We've done more in seven months
that you forecasted we would have done in a year.
PM: That's right.
WENDT: It's a grave error isn't it?
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PM: It is an error, but economic forecasting is not an
exact science and what I'm saying is, and I'll be quite
happy about saying this when I go to the election Jana which
you mentioned, I will ask the Australian people to judge my
Government on its overall performance in economic
management. It's no accident Jana that the performance of
this Government in general economic management, and
particularly in terms of job creation, is held up around the
world as a model.
WENDT: But Mr Hawke it can hardly be that. 4.5 was your
inflation estimate in the budget. We're up to 7.7.
PM: Well as you know if you extract the housing cost
element, which is now the subject by the Commonwealth
Statistician of a review, the figure would have been 6.8%
for the year.
WENDT: But this problem in getting the figures right has
never been quoted by you or the Treasurer before. Why call
it in now when the figures are going against you?
PM: Simply because on this issue you are assuming on the
way it's done now that every Australian household is getting
a new house every quarter which doesn't accord with the
facts. Now this doesn't mean that there isn't a problem in
the housing area. Of course there is and that's why amongst
other things we're having this conference with the Premiers
later this week. But there's a recognition that it is not
necessarily an overall accurate figure and that's why the
Statistician, Jana, is reviewing the way he looks at this.
WENDT: But Mr Hawke can you understand why I ask you now
why should we believe you or the Treasurer when you have
been so wrong in the recent past?
PM: I suggest that you didn't produce this sort of argument
when we were so wrong earlier in our employment forecast,
the only difference of course being that we were
conservatively wrong. When I said in the first part of our
Government that we'd get half a million new jobs in three
years, people scoffed. We easily exceeded that and at every
point from March of ' 83 right through till now we have been
conservative, we have been wrong, below the line in terms of
the amount of jobs that we have created in the economy. But
we don't get attacked for that.
WENDT: Well we'll pay you your dues for that Prime
Minister, but you'd have to admit that this is a tragedy for
Australia PM: Of course it's a tragedy Jana. I want your viewers to
understand that there is no complacency on my part or on
Paul's part. We've shown the preparedness over the years to
make the adjustments in policy that are necessary to deal
with the circumstances that arise.
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WENDT: Your Treasurer hasn't until today admitted that
there was something a little wrong with his approach.
PM: But what you can always do, it's not only for a
Treasurer in this country, you'll find Treasurers in every
democratic country, once they've had the benefit of looking
at how things have worked out over a period of time they're
saying well now we can see what's happened, if we'd now had
the benefit of hindsight and known exactly what was
happening we would have made that decision.
WENDT: I probably could have done that too Prime Minister,
but I'm not the Treasurer.
PM: You're not, but let me just turn that to you. Jana, in
your personal life in decisions you take, if 12 months after
the event you had known the events of that 12 months, would
every decision you'd taken earlier been exactly the same?
We all are wiser with the benefit of the experience of the
previous 12 months, not just Treasurers and Prime Ministers.
WENDT: But Prime Minister, you run the country.
PM: I do run the country, yes.
WENDT: The Treasurer's responsible for the economic running
of the country and basically it's a mess.
PM: No I just absolutely refute the proposition that it's a
mess. The problem that we've got in this country now is
that we've got an economy which is running very strongly,
more strongly than we anticipated it would. Just let me
give you a simple statistic. With investment in this
country it's now running at a higher level as a proportion
of our whole activity higher than it's run for 35 years and
that is the problem of a strong economy which has got to be
slowed down a little bit.
WENDT: Prime Minister, in all of this Mr Keating has come
out and attacked people who own blocks of land and rotary
hoists. Do you think that was a mistake in hindsight?
PM: I think that Paul perhaps would've liked to have
expressed it differently in thinking about it.
WENDT: Would you have preferred him to have expressed it
differently? PM: It's no good in saying what you would like him to have
said, the actual words, but let's make this point, that what
Paul was trying to say was that in regard to the housing
problem that we have in this country that we ought to be
prepared as a community to ask ourselves whether for some
people, as a matter of choice that is, not as a matter of
imposition, some people may not prefer to have their housing
in a medium density type of situation because they prefer to
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be closer to their place of employment than further out
where they would have their separate blocks. Now it is the
case that a lot of people would like to do that. I think
what was unfortunate is that an impression is left that it's
not legitimate for people who want to have that type of
housing that that's still a legitimate aspiration, and
indeed that's how most people will have their housing.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, full confidence in Mr Keating?
PM: Full confidence in Mr Keating.
WENDT: Welcome back.
PM: Thank you.
WENDT: You have said you have full confidence in Paul
Keating. Have you been entirely satisfied with his
performance over the last few weeks?
PM: Well, yes, I mean what you have got to understand is
that the job of Treasurer is an enormously difficult one and
I look at Paul's performance over six years and I look at my
own. I know there are times when I could've said things and
done things better than I have. You are not dealing with
automatons and perfect human beings. And Paul himself would
say that perhaps he could have expressed things better and
more clearly, but I make my judgement about Paul Keating and
his overall performance and I still believe he is an
outstanding Treasurer.
WENDT: But when he does come out and attack ordinary people
with rotary hoists and blocks of land, I know we've just
spoken about that, don't you think it has the potential to
be outright insulting to people who've been tightening their
belts for so many years now?
PM: I think that some people would misunderstand it. I
accept that, but all I can say to your viewers, I know the
man. He is a person who is committed to trying to improve
the lot of your ordinary viewer and he is a Treasurer who
has, with me and in Government, provided jobs and just let
me come back to this, I mean, you think of jobs. He and I
have created jobs at a rate four times faster than the
conservatives and John Howard did in their seven years. We
are creating jobs more than twice as fast as the rest of the
world. Now I think common fairness, Jana, demands that that
not be forgotten. Now obviously things can be said in a way
which may be taken amiss and if your viewers have felt hurt
or not understood by some of the phrases that Paul's used,
just let me say to you it's not intended. What we want to
see is ordinary Australians have gradually improving
standards and I give them this commitment. It's unqualified
that in this period ahead as a result of what we'll do in
the wages area and in the taxes area that their standards
will improve. That's what they need, it's what they
deserve, it's what we will deliver.
WENDT: Are you saying in the short term or the long term?
PM: I'm saying in this coming financial year there will be
an improvement in standards resulting from tax cuts and
wage increases and taking that into account with inflation.
WENDT: Well, your Treasurer has said today that it's not
going to get any better, the trade figures at least.
PM: No, the trade figures for some months, he said, will
continue to be bad.
WENDT: Till the end of the financial year I believe.
PM: Well that's 88/ 89 in this financial year, we obviously
are not going to see the order of improvement that we had
hoped, but that is not the sole determinant. That's not
the sole determinant of the sorts of issues I have been
talking about and I want your viewers to understand that
while the jargon may be mystifying at times, and Treasurers
often have to talk in the jargon of economics, that what
Paul and this Government is about is trying to create an
Australia in which under the pressures, the external
pressures that exist, we will conduct policy in a way which
will keep going the increase in jobs so that they and their
kids will not only stay in jobs but there will be more jobs
for them and that they will be more rewarding jobs. Now
that's what we are about.
WENDT: Mr Hawke, I understand that you want to appeal more
to women. Here I am and there are a few million listening
to you now. What are you going to say to us?
PM: Well let me give you the background to that. The fact
is that if you look at the voting figures there is, what we
call, the gender gap that something like three percent or
so less women vote for our Party than do men. All I was
saying to my people and it's an obligation that we should
explain to you, to all the women of Australia, the things
that we have done, not just for women as such, but all the
general things that we've done which have made for a better
Australia. Now obviously there has been some failure of
communication. I accept that and I was saying to my
colleagues, we've got to remedy that. The sorts of things I
would like to say to you, Jana, and to all the women that
are listening and I've talked about jobs and I think that
should be important. I think the thing I'd like to say
mostly to the women of Australia is this, not just the women
who are adult and grown up now, but I want to say this to
them. As a result of what we've done over six years, their
girls, their young girls who are growing up are going to
grow up in an Australia in which those girls are going to
have a greater range of opportunity of occupation, of
training and education than has ever been the case before in
this country.
WENDT: Alright Mr Hawke, I hope the message gets through.
Thank you very much for your time tonight.
PM: Thank you very much indeed Jana.
ends