PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH WARWICK BEUTLER, AM PROGRAM,
23 MARCH 1990
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BEUTLER: Two of three major newspapers have endorsed you
today but the Australian rejects you. But even those
papers that do endorse you, do so reluctantly.
0 PM: Yes, I wouldn't say it was, you know, an absolute
black an white and that's, that's fair enough. I mean, I
don't claim that we have been perfect, nor do I claim
we're perfect now, but politics is about an imperfect
world and the electors of Australia, tomorrow, have a
clear choice and on that choice there is no doubt, in the
judgement of many, not only in the newspapers, that it
must be for Hawke and Labor.
BEUTLER: Yes, but the editorial writers and the voters
seem to be saying that you've had long enough. They're
sick and tired of the obfuscation, the excuses they're
not certain that the Liberals are any better than you
are. What does it say about you and what does it say
about our system if you have to win this election by
default? PM: I don't say that we'll win it by default. If we win
on the poll of the electorate we will win because in the
judgement of the majority of the people, we're the best
party to govern Australia into the future and that, in my
judgement, would be a correct decision. But one of the
essential features, I think, in the judgement is and will
be which Party is about fairness and equity as well as a
capacity for economic growth and I think the outstanding,
indeed, that glaring illustration, Warwick, of the
relative concepts of fairness and what I come down is
in regard to tax. Let me just give you these figures,
very briefly.
BEUTLER: Very briefly.
PM: But to me they starkly set out the difference.
Under the wage tax arrangement that we've just
negotiated, the person on average weekly earnings at
about $ 28,000 a year gets a tax cut of $ 7.50 a week. I,
as Prime Minister, get $ 13.25 so that's the
relationship, $ 7.50 if you're on average weekly earnings
and the Prime Minister gets $ 13.25. What Mr Peacock is
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proposing under his two tier system is that the person on
average weekly earnings gets a tax cut of $ 4.73 a week
and he gets $ 100 a week more than that, $ 104.46. Now
there you've got it
BEUTLER: Sure.
PM: The concept of fairness.
BEUTLER: Sure, but I think the essential problem that
voters are facing in this election is that they simply
don't believe either of you. They don't believe you and
they don't believe the Opposition.
PM: On the question of tax, on the question of tax
there's no question of belief or not belief. There it is
BEUTLER: Well they don't believe you on interest rates,
they don't believe you on interest rates.
PM: Well you sit there in the comfort of your studio and
assert that. I don't have any evidence to say they don't
believe us on interest rates, particularly, Warwick, when
the banking industry is saying that interest rates will
come down if the Government is elected and not only are
they saying that, but the market is saying that the
coming down of interest rates depends upon Labor. You
know what was on the Reuters screen the other night, they
are saying a further easing in monetary policy in the
next few weeks assuming, their words, assuming the Hawke
Labor Government is re-elected at Saturday's federal
election. So that's what the market is saying, but it
depends upon us being re-elected.
BEUTLER: And they don't believe you on another statement
of yours, that if you win, you'll lead the Government
into the next election.
PM: But it's very easy for you to say they don't believe
it. You haven't got one shred of evidence, my dear
Warwick, to, to sustain your proposition that they don't
believe that. You've got not one piece of evidence. All
you've got is the abysmal assertion' of Hewson that when
the Hawke Government wins, that I'm going to last there
for three months and then I'm going to resign. That's
all you've got.
BEUTLER: Well
PM: Hewson's assertion. Just understand what it means.
What it means is that these people in the Opposition are
frightened about the fact that the electorate seems to
infinitely prefer Hawke to Peacock and so they're trying
to say oh well look, if you vote for Bob, you're not
going to get him. There's one person who knows, one
person who knows Hawke's intention and that's a bloke
called Bob Hawke and let me tell your listeners, now,
unqualified, when we win on Saturday then I will be Prime
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Minister for the full three year term and Mr Peacock and
Mr Hewson in their desperation can try and peddle another
story, but they are wrong and they are desperate.
BEUTLER: But it simply doesn't sound like Bob, Bob
Hawke. Why not, why not got out on top? You win this
election, you retire within a year, you leave Paul
Keating or someone else a very real chance of winning the
next election. Isn't that the Bob Hawke
PM: I, I would suggest that I leave a better legacy for
the Party if I lead the Party for another three years,
take them into another election and they've been in for
ten years and then whoever is elected to succeed me,
takes over. I mean you are, you're really trying to
desperately build a straw man and you haven't got the
elements there, mate.
BEUTLER: OK. Andrew Peacock gave you a fright in 1984.
How tough an opponent was he this time?
PM: I said before this election started and you will
recall it, I said before the election started, I hope
that the Liberals and the commentators make the mistake
of assuming that 1990 could be judged in terms of 1984
and there is, as I see it now, a unanimous judgement that
1990, as far as the campaign was concerned, hasn't been
1984.
BEUTLER: What would Bob Hawke, as ex Prime Minister, do
if you were defeated tomorrow?
PM: Well, I heard Mr Peacock saying that he wasn't
contemplating defeat and fair enough, I'm not
contemplating it, so, you know, I think it's a totally
hypothetical question. I hope that I've shown in my
public life that I have the capacity to accept victory
and defeat with, with good grace.
BEUTLER: Alright. Well let's look at the other
hypothetical that you are returned tomorrow. What would
happen to some of the issues that you've been unwilling
to talk about in this campaign?
PM: What's the issue I've been unwilling to talk about?
BUTLER: Well, issues that you say are peripheral.
PM: Well, give me one.
BEUTLER: Privatisation, privatisation a peripheral
issue you called it.
PM: but you say I'm unwilling to talk about it.
That BEUTLER: You've called it peripheral.
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4.
PM: it is a different proposition I won't let you
get away with that it's a different proposition to say
that I've said it's peripheral, to say I've refused to
talk about it.
BEUTLER: No, I said you were unwilling to talk about it
PM: No, I'm quite willing to talk about it. Any
question that's been put, I've been willing to talk about
and I'll talk about it now for ten minutes if you want me
to.
BEUTLER: Well, will you be pushing for privatisation of
Qantas, the Commonwealth Bank? I mean, is it back on the
agenda
PM: OK, let's get it. The Commonwealth Bank, I mean,
you really are somewhat uninformed aren't you? I have
never argued for the privatisation of the Commonwealth
Bank so why would I, why would I argue for the
privatisation of the Commonwealth Bank now when I've
never done it before?
BEUTLER: Is privatisation back on the agenda?
PM: Privatisation is on the agenda in the sense that
I've talked about. That is that in regard to two
institutions, the two airlines, we have a Committee of
the ALP looking at the funding of them. If you want to
say that that has privatisation on the agenda, you can
describe it that way. It is a question of what's the
best way of dealing with the question of the capital
requirements of the two airlines. Now we have a Committee
which is looking at that when I have been asked this
question during the campaign, Warwick, I haven't dodged
it I have said that's what's happening and when we get
the report of the Committee we'll consider it.
BEUTLER: OK Prime Minister..
PM: But it is only in regard to those two.
BEUTLER: At the start of this campaign you used that
word bonkers. Have we gone bonkers?
PM: I think some people have gone bonkers but I
certainly haven't and you haven't Warwick and I don't
think the media generally has but it hasn't been a
bonkerless sort of outcome but I don't want to identify
the areas of bonkerness.
BEUTLER: OK. Good luck tomorrow.
PM: Thanks very much indeed.
Ends