PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF UNEDITED INTERVIEW W1T BRIAN REDHEAD, BBC
RADIO 4, LONDON, 20 JUNE 1989
E & O0E-PROOF ONLY
R. EDHEAD: The whole world I think heard and witnessed your
deep concern and upset about China. For a man who's been in
politics a long time, why were you so personally concerned
about it?
PN.: I had a lot of myself invested in China. In a sense,
as I put it in talking to some of my close friends, a little
bit of me died when that happened. I've spent very, very
many hotirs with the Chinese leadership but most particularly
with Zhoa Ziyang in Australia in ' 83 and then in China in
' 84 and ' 86 and what has been happening in China before this
tragedy is many senses one of the most significant things in
the century because we have there this population of over
one billion people coming out of an irrelevant system, a
closed society, to a position of significant economic reform
which meant much to the people of China, meant much for the
region, meant much for the world. To see the possibility of
that war being closed down and being done in a way which
involved the massacre of innocent young people who had no
crime other than to seek a freer society with a tragedy of
immeasurable proportions.
REDHEAD: Can Australia help in any way offering perhaps
sanctuary, not only the people from China, perhaps to people
from Hong Kong, perhaps the Vietnamese boat people?
PM: Well you're mixing up the number of issues there. As
far as the Chinese nationals are concerned we have some
15,000 of then in Australia, including some 10,000 students,
which on a per capita basis is more than anywhere else in
the world I think. I made the decision, we announced that
as far as those people in Australia are concerned we've
extended by another year their visas, their time when they
can stay without concern in Australia and we will review
that position later if it's necessary. So we're doing all
that we possibly can to give a sense of safety and security
to those who are within our borders. As far as the question
of Hong Kong is concerned, we've had for some time a
migration program which has attracted people from there,
PM ( cont): including under our Business Migration Program.
That will be continued as far as the question of the
Vietnamese people are concerned, it's a quite different
issue because the essential characteristic of those who are
leaving Vietnam nov, is that they are not political
refugees, they are economic refugees and that demands
different criteria from all of us and we were prepared to
operate where you had a situation of genuinely a political
refugee.. REDHEAD: Does Australia want to increase its population?
Would it help Australia to be a more populus country?
PM: we obviously have an immigration program which is
directed to that end. We are running an immigration program
with approximately 140,000 a year. We obviously want to
increase our population. I mean immigration has been the
life blood of a growing Australian economy in the period
since the end of the war. We had seven million people at
the end of the war, we are now nearly seventeen million
people which has been predominantly influenced * by our
immigration program. We are going to continue to do that.
REDHEAD: But very controlled?
PM: Well only controlled in terms of your economic
requirements. There is no element of race at all in our
immigration program. The figures that we set for annual
intakes are done essentially in terms of an assessment of
our economic capacity to absorb. The elements of our
immigration program are these. There is the occupation of
shortage category, if I can put it that way. There is the
business migration element whereby people with a significant
amount of capital and the prospect of businesses are
welcome. We have family reunion and we have a refugee
component. All of those elements are then brought together
in terms of the umbrella criterian, if you like, of the
economic capacity to absorb.
REDHEAD: But has it the great economic capacity to expand?
In the Pacific basin which everyone says is going to be the
future of manufacturing in the world, will Australia be a
poor neighbour or a very strong neighbour?
PM: we are a strong neighbour and if we continue to make
the sensible economic decisions which under my Government
are made which you couldn' t guarantee under a successor
but there won't be a successor, we'll continue in Government
if we continue to make those decisions we will be a very
strong partner in the most rapidly growing, most dynamic
region of the world.
REDHEAD: I turn to the environment. You still talk of
Australia as the country of what is it, the flying f ox in
the drifting sand. So in a sense you had awareness of the
environment before other people of the damage that man could
do. PM: well yes we live in what has been historically a harsh
environment. That is those who've settled in the period of
European setttlement I refer to, since 1778 those who've
opened up the continent have had to battle with the harsh
realities of our environment, We haven't always been
sensible in the way we've handled the issue. In fact one of
the incredibly important environmental issues for Australia,
which I'll be significantly addressing in a major
environmental statement I'll be making soon after my return,
is the whole question of soil degredation. We haven't been
sensible in doing all those things that are necessary to
retain your top soil. So we're going to have to do more
about that and we will.
REDHEADz As setting an example to others?
PM: If there are things that we can do which set an example
to others, well and good. I mean the unobvious area where
we have just recently set an example I hope to the rest of
the world is on the question of the Antarctic. We made a
decision that we would not sign the Minerals Convention and
I'm very pleased to say that just in the last two days we
have acquired very significant support. Firstly, Rajiv
Gandhi of India has indicated support for the Australian
position and I've just come from Paris, where as a result of
very interesting discussions I had with Prime Minister
Rocard and President ! 4itterrand, France has joined us in
what will now be a joint mission to try and pursuade other
nations to work for the establishment of an international
wilderness reserve in the Antarctic to make it free from the
deprivavations of mining and other unacceptable forms of
human activity.
REDHEAD: Now what particularly, and this is a final
thought, what particualrly do you want to talk to Mrs
Thatcher about?
Pic Well there are many things that we'll be talking about.
I suppose the most central continuing theme of the days that
we will be here, which will be reflected in my talks with
her and the talks between our other Ministers and her
Ministers and in the 300 odd Australian and UK businessmen
seminar that we'll be having, will be the ways in which we
can strengthen economic and trading links between our two
countries. That will be the single most continuing and
dominant themes, but there are so many other issues that
we'll be talking about as well covering bilateral relations,
PM4 ( cont): regional issues, international political issues
and environmental issues.
REDHEAD; And will you have time to go to the Test Match?
PH: I will have time to go and deliver on the program that
I indicated to the Australian captain Alan Border, before
the start of the first test. We sent a cable wishing him
luck. I said you will win the first test, I will see you at
Lords on Friday when we go into that Test one up.
REDHEAD; Somebody said I also ought to ask what's going to
happen to somebody in Neighbours, but I'm not a Neighbours
fan who is she Daphne. What's going to happen to Daphne
in Neighbours?
PM: I try and keep my fingers on the total Australian pulse
and I have to say that I must confess an ignorance of
Daphne's impending fate.
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