TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, AWA, HONEBUSH 20 MARCH 1989
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, did it take some quick talking to
make sure that Senator Walsh remained in Cabinet?
PM: It wasn't a matter of quick talking. I can be quite
straightforward about what happened. Peter Walsh has had an
extraordinarily difficult portfolio. Being Minister for
Finance at a period when you're cutting billions of dollars
in outlays is a very very unrewarding, politically
unrewarding business. He's been under a lot of pressure and
he just straightforwardly spoke to me and said it was
getting him down and of course added to that was the fact
that he comes from West Australia, that has imposed another
strain. He raised the question with me as to whether he
could go on. So I had a talk with him and I pointed out
that I understood what a terribly difficult position it is.
Because it's always very hard for a Minister no, no, no.
It's a lot of things which intrinsically are worthwhile, but
taken in the overall scheme of things you've got to say no
too. The Minister for Finance is the focal point of
everyone's bitterness when they can't get things or have
things taken off them. So it's been a difficult time and we
had a very straightforward talk about it and I said how much
I appreciated a) the work he'd been doing and b) the strain
under which he'd been operating. I asked him to consider
that position and I'm very pleased to say Peter said,
alright then I'll stay on.
JOURNALIST: easy to relieve that kind of pressure that
he's been feeling?
PM: Not in the immediate sense. He'll be associated with
the preparation of the April statement, but I hope that
after the April statement has been completed that Peter will
have the opportunity of getting a bit of a break because he
really deserves it.
JOURNALIST: Some of the senior Government Ministers seem to
have been a little bit concerned about general direction of
the Government. Are you happy with it at the moment, the
long term direction?
PM: I'm very happy with the long term direction. We've got
difficulties that we've got to deal with like the external
position. That's why we're doing what no Prime Minister
likes doing, I'm running a tight monetary policy with high
interest rates. I hate having to do that and any Prime
Minister in his right mind would hate doing it. But it's
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PM ( cont): necessary because we can't keep that high a
level of activity going which is going to keep sucking in so
many imports because we've got this external deficit
problem. But we're on track. Look at what we're doing in
the area of employment. Still high employment growth 1.3
million jobs, 4% employment growth in this last year, four
times as fast as our predecessors, twice as fast as the rest
of the world. Those things have been done and our
microeconomic reform is on track. The very difficult area
is the waterfront, the maritime industry, but we'll have
significant progress made on that during this year. So I
think, as I've said before, just about any other country in
the world would give their eye teeth to be in Australia's
position. We have enormous advantages, our prospects are
great, but we've got to recognise as a nation that we can't
have everything all at once.
JOURNALIST: Well what can we have with the runway? Will
you be making a decision tomorrow?
PM: That'll be before Cabinet tomorrow.
JOURNALIST: Has apparent indecision over the runway and
Wesley Vale hurt the Government at all?
PM: Let's take them in order. Wesley Vale, where we've
made the decision, the agreement with the State Government
which is accepted and understood is that they would deal
with it at their level, they would negotiate. My Minister
made, throughout the process, indications of the sorts of
things that needed to be taken into account but the actual
agreement was that they had to negotiate with the State
Government. When the State Government had made its decision
we would then pick it up. obviously it was a difficult
decision. You would like to have the big investment, the
new mill which would help in substituting imports for local
production and also adding to our exports. But, as I've
made it clear and I make clear again, as long as I'm Prime
Minister we're not going to have development at any price.
I was not going to accept a situation where as it stood you
were going to be each day pumping 13 tonnes of chlorides
into the ocean. You can't do that. It wasn't a difficult
decision in the end. As far as the runway is concerned, let
me make it clear that this decision has been around for a
long time, governments before ours, the Fraser-Howard
government had seven years, they dodged it. we started
dealing with it by making the decision to acquire land at
Badgery's Creek because whatever the decision is, third
runway or not, there will have to be an airport built at
Badgerys. So we made the hard decision to identify a site
and now we'll be making a decision tomorrow as to whether
there's a third runway or not at Kingsford Smith. It's not
an easy decision. I've got to face up to the fact that
there are some tough politics in it. There are some tough
politics, a whole range of considerations, but we won't
dodge them, we'll make the decision that on balance is the
right one.
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JOURNALIST: With the third runway, will you look at
compensating the residents affected by noise?
PM: I don't want to get into a hypothetical of what we'll
do if. Let's face that decision if it has to be faced after
we make a decision in the Cabinet tomorrow.
JOURNALIST: Will you definitely make a decision because you
have postponed it quite
PM: I would . think the decision will be made tomorrow.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, do you worry that Mr Punch has been
damaged by the airport issue?
PM: I don't think he has been damaged but the decision will
be made on the merits. It won't be on the basis of one
individual.
ends