TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
RADIO INTERVIEW WITH PAUL MURRAY,
6PR

12 April 2001

MURRAY: Good morning, Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER: Good morning.

MURRAY: That was a talkback caller to the programme yesterday called, Helen, who raised the effect of the GST on pensioners. Now, you’ve got some strong support for the long-term benefits of the GST this week from the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Ian Macfarlane, but it does appear that pensioners are still suffering under the GST. And I hear daily from them, from pensioners, who say they’re going backwards. Kim Beazley promised to help them if he wins Government. Will you help them in the next budget?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, before I talk about our position, Mr Beazley did not promise to help them, he didn’t.

MURRAY: He said, they will be at the top of the list….

PRIME MINISTER: Yes, but it was all conditional on something else, wasn’t it?

MURRAY: He said [inaudible]

PRIME MINISTER: Well, I heard the interview. I heard the interview. I listened very carefully and no pensioner could take any comfort from that interview, that Mr Beazley would give them more. He made every expression of sympathy, conditional upon that sort of age-old comment, I’ll see what resources are available when I get there. Now, can I say to Helen – and I did hear her question – that I don’t think it’s easy for pensioners. It’s never easy. It wasn’t easy under the former government, it’s not particularly easy now, and any future Government the country might have, it will not be easy either. But she raised the price of fresh food. Well, food is not subject to the GST, and there are always a lot of seasonal fluctuations. We didn’t cut the pension increase by 2%. What we avoided was paying the 2% we paid in advance twice. And this lie has been put around by the Labor Party and others that we, in some way, have cut the pen! sion. We haven’t cut the pension. We did provide an increase upfront of 4% and we have ensured that to provide compensation for the GST the level of the pension is always 2% real terms, that’s after inflation, not taking inflation into account you’re 2% ahead of where you would have otherwise have been. That’s after factoring in the impact of the GST on the cost of living index.
Now, I know it’s difficult for people on modest incomes. And I know many people on fixed incomes who have small investments don’t like lower interest rates. If you’re paying off a home or you’re running a business, low interest rates are great, but if you’re living off your investments low interest rates are not so great. And I want people in that category to understand that I am very sympathetic to their position and it’s a group of people that we would like to provide some help for. I’m not making any promises on the run but I do want to stress the point that any pensioner listening to Mr Beazley yesterday ought not to think for a moment that he’s promised them anything because he hasn’t.

MURRAY: Well, he’s certainly not given them any detail but he has said…

PRIME MINISTER: Well, he hasn’t even said that he will do something. All he said is that if I’ve got the money, I will. Well, it’s very easy….

MURRAY: Well, he said he will roll back the GST, that’s a long-standing policy of theirs, and yesterday he said that pensioners would be top of the list.

PRIME MINISTER: But he did say also that, I’ll see what resources I’ve got, and that gives him maximum wriggle room.

MURRAY: Well, yeah, but I imagine it’s exactly what you would have said in the same circumstances coming up to a Federal budget, the last budget in the electoral cycle.

PRIME MINISTER: I don’t think I would have been running the dishonest campaign on the compensation we’ve provided for pensioners.

MURRAY: On clawback…

PRIME MINISTER: No, well I mean, it was just a straight lie that and he knew it and the people in the Labor Party knew it. And I don’t think it’s right to scare elderly, vulnerable people with that kind of talk. I mean, by all means have a go at me but don’t mislead people. I mean, the elderly of the Australian community are entitled to be left out of the equation of partisan political point scoring. They ought to be given…

MURRAY: Well, they never have been, have they?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, to some extent, over the years, they have, Paul, because there’s common agreement between both sides of politics that we should have half-yearly indexation of pensions. And there’s been a lot of agreement over the last 20 years about the basic social security safety net. And there hasn’t been a great debate over that. It’s when you have a big beneficial change like the GST that you start to get some of these allegations being made. Now, the Australian people are entitled not to be misled about dishonest campaigns on clawback.

MURRAY: This is the way I think pensioners see it – you’ve fixed up small business with your changes to BAS, the Business Activity Statement…

PRIME MINISTER: Well, we have certainly responded to their concerns and we’ll go on listening to concerns about the administration of it.

MURRAY: You’ve tried to fix up the bush on fuel prices, you’ve fixed up drinkers in the brewery with alcohol excise, all associated with the GST. Pensioners, I think, take the view, they don’t have the political grunt of these other groups.

PRIME MINISTER: Well, that’s not the case, if you’re suggesting that we haven’t, quote, fixed them up. The original compensation package involved giving them an increase that was 2% greater than the calculated impact on the cost of living of the GST – 2% greater, 2% greater. We didn’t just compensate them for the cost of living impact of the GST.

MURRAY: Well, they keep saying they’re going backwards…[inaudible]

PRIME MINISTER: I guess that’s human nature. I understand that but I also have an obligation to argue the facts. And Mr Beazley has an obligation not to distort them.

MURRAY: Okay, Senator Stott-Despoja, the new Leader of the Democrats, told me on this programme earlier in the week that she will negotiate with the Labor Party leading up to the election on roll back. Does this improve Beazley’s position going into the election?

PRIME MINISTER: Well, I’m not a political commentator. I’m a competitor and I’m not going to give a running political commentary on Mr Beazley, I’ll leave that to you.

MURRAY: Okay. The talkback lines are open for you now – 9221 1233 – we see the Prime Minister is in good form today.
Good morning to you, Don.

CALLER: Yes, good morning all. I’d like to propose a question to the Prime Minister, if I could, on the pensioner rate or deeming interest rates where the current official rate is 5% and the pensioners can get deemed up to 5.5%. Now, being a pensioner I think it’s a section that’s hard done by when we can pay up higher deeming rates than the general public or businesses.

MURRAY: So what’s your point here, Don, what are you asking…

PRIME MINISTER: You want to know whether we’re going to alter the deeming rate. I think that’s what Don is asking.

CALLER: Yes, that’s right.

PRIME MINISTER: Don, that’s been considered by the Government since the most recent cut in official interest rates. We’re getting a mixed signal from people representing pensioners on this. I think a lady, Dorothy Maguire, who’s President of the Pensioners and Superannuants, asked us not to alter the deeming rate. She was actually quoted in the press because there’s a bit of a catch up involved in relation to previous adjustments of interest rates. And we’re just considering what is the best way in which we can most fairly treat pensioners and we will certainly do that.

MURRAY: Okay, thanks a lot. Good morning to you, Bob.

CALLER: Good morning, Paul, good morning, Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER: How are you, Bob?

CALLER: I’m on about the gold cards. Prime Minister, I’m an old fellow, I’m over 70. When I joined the army in 1951 it was compulsory to be in the Defence Forces Retirement Benefit Fund. I then served on after Korea. I did my tour to Vietnam. I got out of the army in 1972 after 20 odd years.

PRIME MINISTER: Were you in Vietnam, were you?

CALLER: Yes.

PRIME MINISTER: And Korea.

CALLER: Yes. And under the DFRBF law I had to take a pension. This stops me from getting the Gold Card and this will happen to the troops that you sent to, first sent along with the Australian of the Year, to East Timor [inaudible] because times have changed now, even if they get out of the army they will be in compulsory superannuation in the workforce.

PRIME MINISTER: So your argument, as I understand it, is that getting the DFRB, disentitles you to the Gold Card.

CALLER: That’s right…[inaudible]

PRIME MINISTER: Well, let me have a look at that.

CALLER: I come under…

PRIME MINISTER: So you’re over 70.

CALLER: Yes.

PRIME MINISTER: Okay, let’s have a look at that.

MURRAY: Good on you, Bob. We’ll give the Prime Minister’s office your phone number. Bob rang earlier in the week. We’ve had a lot of discussion on the Gold Card in recent weeks on the programme.
Good morning, Jim.

CALLER: Good morning, Prime Minister. Again, the issue of the Artillery Barracks. We’re very pleased that your comments the other day, that you would uphold the original agreement but there’s some broader issues in there. This was an issue that arose about 12 months ago. And our concern is that the only way we’ve been able to get any movement in this thing for nearly 12 months is to talk to you on talkback radio. The Department and the Ministers seem to have their own agenda.

PRIME MINISTER: It’s a pretty open democracy, isn’t it?

CALLER: It’s an open democracy. It’s not the democracy I’m worried about, it’s the quality of decision making.

PRIME MINISTER: Well you’ve got the decision you wanted haven’t you?

CALLER: Yeah but if we hadn’t have been able to catch onto you that decision…

PRIME MINISTER: Are you talking about the comment I made two days ago?

CALLER: Absolutely.

PRIME MINISTER: Well the only reason that I made that comment was because the Western Australian Government had misled people about our position. There’s never been any suggestion that we would go back on our word on this, we made a commitment during the Western Australian election and the line that’s been put around by the new government that because the Liberal Party didn’t win we were going to welch on that commitment. Now that’s right.

CALLER: Well Prime Minister with respect I sat in a meeting with Brendan Nelson on Wednesday when the proposition that was put was very different, very very different.

PRIME MINISTER: Well you’re talking about what is represented by the commitment that was made, the commitment that was made was not as put to me on radio the other day. I mean look we will honour what we said we would do, and I think, I don’t think you can ask more. I mean we gave you the decision before the election that you wanted, we’ve repeated that and we have been the subject of verballing by the new Labor Government in Western Australia and I don’t think it’s fair. I mean we’ve done the right thing on this and we’re going to keep our word.

MURRAY: Okay Jim I think you’ve had a good go, and yes talkback radio is a wonderful thing for our democratic system. Good morning Adrian.

CALLER: G’day Prime Minister, g’day Paul. Look just a couple of things, first of all I think it’s very hard to make hard decisions, and it’s very easy to tell people that you’re going to give them this and that as Kim Beazley is doing and I think you’ve done an excellent job so far in holding firm on a lot of your issues. The one question I wanted to ask was whether if the GST had been implemented how it was proposed before the negotiations started with the Democrats, would it be a lot simpler or a lot different system?

PRIME MINISTER: Well it would be somewhat different, I don’t think it would be a lot different. It would have applied to more things. The other thing is that people would have been paying lower income tax, particularly people in the upper, middle to upper income tax bracket. We wanted to bring the top rate of tax in at $75,000 a year and the Democrats and the Labor Party said that was too generous. I think that was short sighted because you need to encourage people in this country to work harder, you need incentives, you need a fair tax system but you also need an incentive driven tax system. I think it was a pity they clipped it back but we had no alternative but to agree to that because we didn’t have the numbers in the Senate. But our position now that the new system is in is that we’re not going to propose in any future election that you extend it to things that it was meant to apply to in the campaign in 1998, such as food. I mean we’ve had that debate, it’s over and it applies to the things it applies to now.
I think the other point I’d make is that the last thing the Australian public wants is a complicated rollback of the GST. There’s a big adjustment process involved when you bring in a new tax system and it was inevitable that people would have some difficulty in going through the adjustment process. I understand that and I sympathise with them but having now passed through that process I think small business wants like a hole in the head to sort of go back to the drawing board with rollback. I mean wherever you mention rollback to small business they just shudder because it would just be more confusion, more change, more adjustment. Now we’ve had one big lot of change, and we’ve worked our way through that and we continue to listen to expressions of concern. But the last thing they want is rollback. I mean it’s almost as anathema to them as the return of union power which is now occurring here in Western Australia with the Labor Government.

MURRAY: A big talking point, we might talk about that a little bit later. You’re talking with Prime Minister John Howard this morning, we’re only going to take one ad break during this half hour to get as many of your calls to the Prime Minister as we can. It’s 12 minutes to nine, we’ll be back with more of your calls.

[advertisement break]

MURRAY: You’re talking to Prime Minister John Howard on 882 6PR. Prime Minister I’ve had an e-mail question for you from Jenny. She says the voting tax paying public would feel far less hostile to the two major political parties if either one of them was prepared to release Australia from any treaty that it signed with the United Nations that forces us to detain illegal entries into this country and to provide them with benefits that are not enjoyed by the majority of tax payer Australians. And to make the transnationals and the super-rich pay their fair share of tax. Neither Liberal nor Labor has so far been prepared to make these changes, in fact I view the Labor Party would even further entangle us with treaties with the United Nations let alone reverse them. These subjects are constantly being raised in letters to the newspapers and talkback radio, do you have any plans to address these issues?

PRIME MINISTER: Well we have addressed the United Nations treaty issue, we have in fact said that we’re going to scale down our involvement in many UN committees until the treaty system, or more the committee system, is reformed. And we were attacked for doing that by the Labor Party, we have a very strong position on that. And in relation to transnationals and so forth there’s no treaty that we’ve entered into that in any way restricts the right of this country to tax multi-national companies and our policy is that they have to be taxed like everybody else, and they have to pay their tax and most of them do.

MURRAY: I suppose Jenny’s question directly goes to the refugees…

PRIME MINISTER: Well one of the reasons is that the Senate, by courtesy of the Labor Party and Australian Democrats, through a combination of going slow on some amendments and rejecting others has made our task that much harder. What we’re trying to do, and I think Phillip Ruddock’s doing a great job in this area. We have to balance our right to deal with illegal entries into Australia, we’ve got to balance that against our humanitarian responsibilities not to turn people back into the sea so that they will drown. I mean you can’t turn a leaking boat back into the sea and just close your eyes and forget about the humanity that is involved in that. What you should do is to send very powerful messages around the world that this country is not a soft touch and that is what we are doing. I mean it’s the Labor Party that keeps sort of raising the issue of whether we’re doing the right thing in relation to refugees. They keep arguing that we’re being too unreasonable. We’re being fair. We’re defending Australia’s interests but we are treating people in a humane fashion and that is what has always been the Australian way.

MURRAY: I think the thing that really upsets people are these stories about refugees, people claiming refugee status, coming in destroying their papers. [inaudible] can’t be genuine.

PRIME MINISTER: Well of course and that is why we have detention centres. I mean it’s our critics that are saying we should let the people go into the community. It’s our critics that are saying just let them come and do nothing about it. I mean of course you need detention centres, of course you have to deal with people who are jumping the queue. But in dealing with them in a firm fashion you also have to respect their right as human beings and we are a humane country. I mean that is what distinguishes us from other countries. We treat people in the end decently. And it’s a difficult balance because I understand the anger of the community about queue jumpers and illegal immigrants and I want them to know that we will maintain detention centres. We have a perfect right to do that. They are appropriate for the circumstances. People are treated well given that they are illegal immigrants.

MURRAY: Even Mr Beazley yesterday supported detention centres.

PRIME MINISTER: Well he ought to get some of his warriors into line on this subject. I mean he might support it when he’s pinged by you but he’s not being too flash on it in other circumstances.

MURRAY: Let’s go back to the lines now. Sam’s there. Good morning to you.

CALLER: How are you going guys. Just bear with me. I was just listening….not what I actually rang up for but the average person I don’t think would begrudge a pensioner $5 a week extra even if, I’ve listened to your arguments John, I’ve heard that you’re saying that they’re not entitled to it. But the bottom line is that we all have parents or family members or grandparents who we perceive to be struggling and I would think it would be a vote winner for the public to actually think that they’ve been penalised again.

PRIME MINISTER: I didn’t say they were not entitled to $5. I don’t know where you got the $5 from

CALLER: Well I’m just speaking that as a ……

PRIME MINISTER: Well don’t verbal me please. I mean you know it’s a two way process. I mean I’ve never said anything about denying pensioners five dollars. You said that. You better get onto the subject you rang about.

CALLER: Yeah I better. You’re going to hammer me on this as well.

PRIME MINISTER: It depends what you say. If you talk a lot of sense on this I won’t.

CALLER: Well the first homebuyers scheme. Now I’m just wondering if there’s been any consideration to extend that to perhaps people who used to own homes and say due to marriage breakdowns or whatever, say maybe on $500 a week paying child support and will never be able to save the money to actually get a deposit together to buy their own property?

PRIME MINISTER: In other words turn it into a….not a first homebuyers but in certain circumstances a second or subsequent. Well the answer Sam is that it hasn’t. We do allow in situations where a couple are buying a home and one of them’s been in that kind of situation and the other hasn’t… their first home, well the couple get the benefit of the grant.….

CALLER: My understanding is that’s not the case.

PRIME MINISTER: Well that’s my understanding and I better check that. It’s different from my understanding. Who told you that?

CALLER: I owned a house for six months in a previous relationship about five years back, and my partner’s never owned a house and we don’t qualify.

PRIME MINISTER: Really?

CALLER: Yep.

PRIME MINISTER: News to me. Let me look at that. It’s been a more productive discussion than you may have thought.

MURRAY: Good on you Sam. Thanks for that call. Are you disappointed with the lack of progress being made in the States?

PRIME MINISTER: Well I think Peter Costello’s put a bit of a bomb under them and I mean there’s no excuse. They’ve got the guarantee of the money, absolute guarantee of the money, and there’s no excuse. Now I’m also disappointed that the banks are apparently, well not all of the banks and financial institutions are willing to take the $14,000 into account in deposit calculations. Now we will pressure the banks as much as we can to change that policy. And this is $14,000 in the hand and how they can discard it as far as a deposit is concerned is beyond me because people get it. I mean if you say to a couple we’ll lend you X thousand dollars providing you have a deposit of Y, and the Y’s boosted by $14,000 from the government, why on Earth would you discount it. I just can’t….

MURRAY: I thought a Reserve Bank cheque used to be worth something.

PRIME MINISTER: Well I just can’t believe….well I hope….sure it is.

MURRAY: Well let’s talk to Michael about that. Good morning Michael.

CALLER: Good morning Paul, g’day Mr Howard. Mr Howard I’m a small businessman.

PRIME MINISTER: What sort of business Michael?

CALLER: I’m an importer. I’m supplying goods, I employ five people. Since this GST came about though and half destroyed my business, and also the Australian dollar now is worth 49 cents in the dollar, it was worth 30% more five years ago, six years ago. [inaudible] put your hand up, like today’s newspaper says, the cartoon, give the sign, please resign, give someone else a go…..

PRIME MINISTER: Okay well I take note of your political sympathies. Thank you.

MURRAY: All right. Good on you. Thanks Paul. I don’t think that’s going to get much more of an answer. Hi Ken.

CALLER: Good morning. Good morning Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER: Good morning Ken.

CALLER: I’m just ringing up to find out why when you promised pensioners over 65 the $1000 bonus and then you only gave it to the pensioners that have got plenty of money?

PRIME MINISTER: Well we promised it for people who have savings.

CALLER: No. You said on TV that every pensioner over 65 would receive $1000 bonus and as far as I’m concerned you only said that so you could get your rotten GST through?

PRIME MINISTER: Well I don’t agree with you. I don’t think your representation of events is correct. The bonus was in relation to people who’d accumulated savings whether they were pensioners in relation to one part of it, or whether they were pensioners and self funded retirees in relation to another.

MURRAY: Okay. Thanks Ken. Prime Minister, a couple of weeks ago, we’ve only got 30 seconds left, you were criticised by Paul Kelly in the Australian for actually going to the people on talkback radio. Do you have any problems with talking to people….?

PRIME MINISTER: No I don’t. I think it’s part of the democratic process. It certainly is part of the democratic process and I think you’ve got to talk to all people in the media. The great advantage of talkback radio is that you talk directly to people. I mean look at this morning. I think we’ve done well in terms of some direct communication and I hope both the callers and the Prime Minister have both learnt something.

MURRAY: Okay, thanks. Good to see you again.

PRIME MINISTER: Thank you.

END