PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, RADIO 2UE, SYDNEY,
22 MARCH 1990
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, when will Greg Norman start
commencing TV commercials?
PM: I don't know what the time will be, it will fit in
with his schedule. I think he would do it as soon as his
schedule allowed. All he's concentrating on at the
moment, of course, is preparing for the Masters and I've
wished him the best of luck in that. So it will be a
question of when it can be worked out with the Australian
Tourist Commission. But I'm thrilled, as I'm sure all
Australians will be, that this outstanding world figure,
this Australian, has been prepared to make his services
available free, as Paul Hogan did before him. It's a
magnificent gesture which is very much appreciated.
JOURNALIST: Who approached who?
PM: Well,-John Brown and I had been talking about it and
John talked with Greg and I mentioned it to Greg and,
John Brown has to get credit for this, in really getting
it through and I'm very fortunate of course that I'm a
close personal friend of Greg's and he really wants to do
it to help his country.
JOURNALIST: Indicative of the sort of bunker the tourism
industry's in then?
PM: Not some bunker. I mean, you know what the growth
figures have been. Before we came in less than nine
hundred thousand visitors from overseas, now almost two
and a half million. An enormous increase in investment,
three hundred thousand increase in employment in the
irrfdustry and already the signs being that the downturn
. after. 9B8and-the-problems--ith. the.-airline industry are
already being overcome and people are starting to come
back because we're already getting the impact of some of
the advertising that we've done as part of the special
package. But with Greg Norman in the action, it will
have an enormous impact I think.
JOURNALIST: Will that be more successful than the Paul
Hogan ads, given his international reputation?
PM: Who can tell whether they'll be more successful than
Paul Hogan? What you'd have to say is this, that at the
beginning of his advertisements he will be a better known
international figure than Paul Hogan was when he started
doing his ads. But we owe a great debt to Hogan, I mean
let's don't forget the great job that Hogan did. I'm
certainly grateful for what he did for his country and I
think Greg Norman will do an enormous job.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, earlier on it looked like attacks
on Mr Elliott would be part of the election campaign, now
that seems to have disappeared and today you said he was
respected. Why the turnaround on John Elliott?
PM: No turnaround at all. I'm saying that in regard to
the Multi Function Polis, a disgraceful episode brought
into the election by Mr Peacock, you had the situation
where I said a wide range of people who were respected in
the business community, I included Mr Elliott in that,
he's respected in the business community, no-one argues
that he's not respected in the business community, here
he was supporting it. Now I have my arguments with Mr
Elliott in regard to Liberal Party policies. Let me
remind you that in May of last year after the coup, when
Andrew Peacock knocked off John Howard, Mr Elliott went
out of his way to say that he had discussed with Mr
Peacock, in his capacity as Shadow Treasurer, the
economic policies of the Liberal Party, that he had been
involved in them. So I noticed that Mr Peacock said the
other day that he didn't tell Mr Elliott what to put in
his jam and he didn't have Mr Elliott telling him what to
put in his-policies. Well that's not what Mr Elliott
said in May he said he'd discussed those policies with
Mr Peacock.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, the Coalition is a taking great
deal, or taking some comfort, from the latest Morgan
Gallop figures. Are they right to do so?
PM: I find it rather amusing that they should take
comfort from figures which has us winning. If they take
comfort from a poll which has us winning, that's
interesting, an interesting comment upon them. The fact
is that if you take all the polls and I want to be very
careful in what I say if you take all the polls, it has
Labor winning, but I'm not drawing any solace from that.
I-ve taken the view from the beginning of the campaign
that . I! ve.. got.. to-fight.-hard,-. that-it's a tight election
and I've got to fight right up till tomorrow night. I'd
rather have the polls the way they are now, than have
them showing a Coalition victory. But I think that I've
done what the people want, I've talked about our policies
for the future, I've exposed inadequacies of the other
side and I've faced up to the questions that need to be
asked and answered. I think, as you get to the end of
the campaign Peter, it's an amazing paradox. You have
the Liberal strategy which started off saying that there
are questions to be answered, and if there's one thing
3.
that's characterised this election campaign, it's been
the refusal of Mr Peacock to face up to questioning and
provide any answers.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, you said today that the Liberals
couldn't achieve sustained falls in interest rates. Are
you conceding that after the election, if they did get
in, they could get interest rates down?
PM: No, I can't say what would happen, what the reaction
of the banking industry would be, because I know what it
is to us. Because they've said so. You don't need me to
quote again from the Reuters screen and the various
spokesmen for the banking industry which have said that
if Labor is returned, interest rates will fall. And
they've said it because they know what our policies are
and what it's producing. Now what their judgement would
be about the Liberals, I can't say. I know that looking
any way into the future they would have to be terribly
disturbed because the two elements which can sustain a
fall in interest rates are lacking in the Liberals'
policy. That is, an acceptable wages outcome is not
there, there would be a wages explosion and, in terms of
fiscal responsibility, the surplus that we've built up
the first government ever to do it would be dissipated
under the Liberals because they've got a six to seven
billion dollar unfunded set of bribes. Now, what
judgement the banking industry would make about that I
simply don't know.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, are you annoyed that your
relationship with Sir Peter Abeles has been raised in the
way that it has in the media this morning?
PM: No. Look, I've had this been thrown at me over a
number of years and the facts are simple. I've stood up
in the Parliament, when I was in Opposition and since
I've been in Government, where people have sought to
denigrate me because of my friendship with Sir Peter
Abeles. I've stood up and defended the man and defended
my friendship. I happen to be a person to whom
friendship is important. I don't dispense my friendship
lightly. My friendship with Sir Peter Abeles goes back
to 1970. He has never, in my period as President of the
ACTU or Prime Minister, asked me for a favour. He
wouldn't abuse my friendship by so doing. And as I
pointed out on the John Laws program, if there's one
. person. who. has._ acted against , the-interests of Sir Peter
Abeles, it's Bob Hawke. Because under the Opposition in
government, they created and kept going that cosy
two-airline agreement which was a licence to print money
for the Ansett organisation. It's Bob Hawke and his
Government who's brought that to an end.
ends