TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
INTERVIEW WITH ROSS WARNEKE,
RADIO 3AW
22 June 2001
WARNEKE:
Mr Howard, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Hello there, Ross, it’s nice to talk to you.
WARNEKE:
Prominent Aborigine and former ATSIC Chairman, Gatjil Djekurra, says Geoff Clark should stand down as Chairman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissioner. The unanimous support for Mr Clark from the Commission board seems to be breaking down with one member saying yesterday that he should stand down over those rape allegations. Do you think he should go?
PRIME MINISTER:
That really is a matter for ATSIC. It’s not a matter for me to be giving them advice about that. That is a matter for them. There is no rule that I know of, in relation to positions of that kind, that automatically require people to stand down merely because allegations are being made against them. So, that is a matter for the leadership of the Aboriginal community through ATSIC to resolve. I don’t want to get involved in taking sides. Obviously it’s a difficult issue and it has provoked a lot of debate about some of the very important issues affecting the Aboriginal community and also the broader community. But the question of Mr Clark’s future in the end is a matter for ATSIC because they elect him. We don’t appoint Mr Clark to that position. He is elected by the board of ATSIC. It used to be the case that the chairman of ATSIC was appointed by the Government. It is not that case now. In those circumstances it is a matter for the ATSIC Board to deal with.
WARNEKE:
Are you concerned, though, that the integrity of ATSIC, it’s performance, may be effected by this?
PRIME MINISTER:
I’m not going to…I’ve given you a response. I’m not going to get dragged further into the debate in relation to his position.
WARNEKE:
All right, let’s move on to nursing homes. There are not enough of them, it’s pretty obvious. That exerts pressure on the hospital system. There’s consistent trouble about standards and their enforcement. This week we’ve had the accusations against your Aged Care Minister, Bronwyn Bishop, about an allegedly substandard nursing home owned by a financial supporter of the Government. Isn’t it time for an independent inquiry into the whole industry, as Catholic Health Australia says?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, no, no, there isn’t. Can I just take your claims in turn. There was a backlog of about 10,000 beds when this Government came to office and we have very significantly increased spending on aged care, I think, from recollection, from about 2.5 billion in the last year of the Keating Government to about 3.9 billion in the current financial year. We have also introduced a lot of additional aged care packages which are facilities that allow people to stay in their own homes longer. You talk about the pressure on public hospitals. That allegation was made at the recent Premiers’ Conference by Mr Bracks. It’s been calculated using State government figures and not Federal Government figures that the contribution to the waiting lists of public hospitals made by the pressure of people who are awaiting a transfer from a public hospital bed to a nursing home bed is only about 1.4%. So the claim constantly being made that so-called difficulties in nursing homes is creating additional pressure and adding to the waiting lists is, according, for example, to State government figures, to the extent of only about 1.4%. Now, I don’t think that adds up to something that is creating a crisis for the public hospital system. In any event, my Government is increasing Medicare funding for public hospitals by 28% in real terms during the five-year period of the new Medicare agreement.
WARNEKE:
But Mr Howard, this morning in Melbourne we have a report from the Emergency Director of the Royal Melbourne Hospital [inaudible] saying it’s typical for elderly people to wait up to two months at his hospital for a nursing home bed. If someone stays six months, he says, waiting for a nursing home bed, there’s roughly 50 elective surgery patients who did not get in.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I can only…I mean, you quote one…I mean, if you rely entirely on one single example to prove a general case you always win. I mean, I have to deal with the facts that have been accumulated by State health authorities and I repeat, 1.4% is the figure. That was the figure I used at the Premiers’ Conference when a very ill-prepared Premier of Victoria raised this matter with me just to get a political headline. Look, this is a difficult area. I’m not pretending that it is an easy area but I don’t think it’s something that you can rationally deal with without looking at all the facts and all the circumstances. And can I just go back to this Yagoona Nursing Home and the allegations being made against Bronwyn Bishop. There’s been no evidence produced of any political interference. The Labor Party keeps saying there was political interference. The Minister has denied it and the Chairman of the Accreditation Agency has denied it and no evidence has been produced. I mean, if somebody could produce evidence to me that the Minister had interfered, she’d got somebody to heavy the Accreditation Agency, she’d got somebody to heavy the State Manager to reject the recommendation of the assessment team that the accreditation be withdrawn then I would be willing to do something. But no evidence has been produced. You just have people’s names being smeared in Parliament, under privilege, simply because they happen to know the Minister. That’s no crime. There were plenty of people appointed by the former Labor Government that were personally known to members of that government and we didn’t criticise it on that account. We only criticise people who didn’t have the qualifications for the job. And nobody has made out any case at all of any political interference, none whatsoever, and until there is a case made out I will continue to very strenuously defend the job that Bronwyn Bishop has done. I mean, this is just an attempt to smear a Minister relying on the sad circumstances of possibly an avoidable death, I don’t know, of an 81 year old lady. Now, fair go. If you’ve got a complaint, if you’ve got a case against the Minister give me the evidence, show me where she interfered, show me where she heavied and then I’ll listen to her but until then I will continue to stand by her.
WARNEKE:
Prime Minister, it’s reported this morning that you brokered, well I suppose we could call it a peace deal between your Health Minister, Doctor Wooldridge and the President of the Australian Medical Association, Kerryn Phelps, at a meeting yesterday. But is it really a solid peace deal when Doctor Wooldridge won’t actually apologise to Kerryn Phelps?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I’m not going to talk abut the possible legal proceedings involving some comments but I will talk about what’s important to me and that is the relationship between the Federal Government and the AMA. I want a good relationship between the Government and the Australian Medical Association. We have done a lot in health policy. We’ve put $2.5 billion into private health insurance, which is something the AMA wanted us to do. We have, I think, got an outstanding record in many of the public health areas like immunisation. The most recent budget contained about another $750 or $800 million for additional health programmes. Now, I don’t expect the AMA to always agree with the Government, and the AMA has a perfect right to criticise government decisions if they don’t think they’re in the interests of doctors or in the interests of the general community but I do want a relationship that includes the AMA in discussion and consultation. The AMA is an important body representing doctors. There are other bodies that represent doctors in other ways but the AMA’s an important and certainly the best known of all the organisations that represent doctors. Now, I thought last night’s meeting was very constructive and it will lead to further discussions on a number of matters quite soon between the Government and the AMA. That was the most positive thing to come out of that meeting last night. There are a number of important areas that I want further discussions to occur on between the Government and the AMA and obviously the Minister, in whom I have total confidence. I think Michael Wooldridge has done an excellent job as Federal Health Minister, an excellent job, and he has my total support and he has the confidence of his colleagues. Now, always in some of these more difficult areas you will have some tensions arise. That’s the inevitable consequence of people who feel quite strongly about important reform areas. There was some criticism of government policy and naturally the Minister was defending government policy. Now I think you can always work your way through these things. The important thing is to keep talking and certainly out of last night’s meeting there’s a clear understanding that there’ll be a lot of very close discussion on quite a number of issues and some of them were identified last night and I noted that the President of the AMA, she herself said that it was a very good meeting.
WARNEKE:
Was there any expression of concern from Dr Phelps about the announcement earlier this week that private health insurance companies were going to publish lists of surgeons who would do cut price operations?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t know that you are correct in describing those things as cut price operations.
WARNEKE:
Well cheap.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think it was a question of identifying no gap facilities. That issue was discussed. The AMA has expressed a view on it. The AMA has been critical of that. Well they have a right to be critical of it and the health funds have a right to put a view and to provide a service and the Government is respectful of the traditions and the professional standards of doctors, but we also believe that patients should have as much information as possible about the cost of procedures and the cost of consultations. We are living in an age now where people rightly demand accountability and information of all of us – prime ministers, doctors, media interviewers. Everybody’s accountable and everybody’s entitled to have information. So once again it’s an area that we can work our way through but there’ll probably remain some differences of opinion between the Government and the AMA on that issue. But there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t expect the AMA to agree with us on everything and it would be an odd world if it did.
WARNEKE:
Government advertising, talking about information going to the public. You seem to be spending a lot of money, in fact more money than companies like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s in advertising before the election. Do we really need it all? For example the advertising to elderly Australians about the changes to the tax system for them and their $300 bonus. It’s all explained anyway in the letters they’re getting from the department. Why does it need to go on television as well for so much money?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it’s amazing Ross how long it takes information to get through to people. Two years ago we expanded the eligibility of the Seniors’ Health Card. Two years after that decision there are still over 200,000 older Australians entitled to have that card who haven’t applied for it. Now it may be that some of them don’t want it and some of that 200,000 may be that lucky group in the community who never take out a prescription from a doctor and never need to go to a chemist. There aren’t I guess too many people whether of that age cohort or of a younger cohort are in that happy position. But however you look at it 200,000 is a very large number. That’s despite a lot of attempts in different ways of communicating things. And it’s just amazing how long it does take to get information of that kind across. If the advertising were critical of the Labor Party or if the advertising identified a particular philosophy of the Liberal Party or something you would be entitled to say well that is political advertising. But if you look at it, it is not advertising that is designed other than to draw people’s attention to benefits and encourage them to get details of it and I think people are entitled to have that. I mean, when we introduced the new tax system there was a lot of hoo ha about advertising in relation to that. The great bulk of the $500 million that people keep talking about in relation to that was spent on information pamphlets and seminars and training sessions and all sorts of things, grants to industry associations and the like, all designed to communicate information to people, particularly practitioners, who had to deal with the new system. Now if we hadn’t have done that we would have been condemned all around the country for introducing a new system, dumping it on the table and then walking away from it.
WARNEKE:
Prime Minister, I take up that point of yours about information taking a long time to get through, especially on tax despite all that advertising, despite those pamphlets. There’s obviously a lot of confusion out there particularly among small businesses and single person enterprises as we approach the end of the taxation year. Is the ATO, the Tax Office going to cut them a bit of slack this year with all the changes that are necessary?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the ATO I’m sure will by sensible and understanding and I would encourage it to do so. It runs the Tax Act. I can’t and won’t direct it. But I do encourage the ATO to adopt a sensible and sympathetic attitude towards compliance when it comes to small business because small business has carried a big load in relation to adjustment to the new system. I recognised that a year ago when I introduced, you know, when the new taxation system was introduced, I recognised that a year ago. But can I say as we are coming up to the end of the year that it is important to look back on the new tax system and to make a couple of assessments and I’ve got in front of me an assessment done by a respected economist, by Econotech. It’s an economic research unit that is widely quoted and widely employed and it shows that as a result of the introduction of the tax system after tax average wages have gone up by 8.2%, the age pension by 8.1%. They’re virtually identical rises. And the CPI including allowance for the impact of the GST has gone up by 6%. Now this is done by somebody independent of government and it’s clear simple and straightforward proof that people generally speaking have not been left worse off as a result of the new tax system, in fact according to these figures significantly better off. And I think what is important is that you’ve got an almost equivalent figure – 8.2% average after tax wage, 8.1% age pension , CPI 6%. So pensioners 2.1% ahead in relation to that comparison. And this is done by somebody….this is not done by the Federal Treasury. It’s done by somebody quite independently of the Government and I don’t think it’s a bad point to make in the, you know, in the midst of all of the claim and counter claim. Now of course when you introduce a new tax system it’s always hard and the easy thing for us to have done was to have squibbed the responsibility, walked away and done nothing about the old system. But we were determined to give Australia a new tax system. It has been difficult. I thank the small business community for the way in which they have adjusted [line break ] and the company tax falls to 30% on the 1st of July, imputation credits flow in relation to the past year, financial institutions duty is abolished on the 1st of July. I mean the Victorian Government will claim credit for that because it’s their tax but we gave them the money to abolish it. So it wouldn’t have been abolished if it hadn’t been for the new taxation system.
WARNEKE:
Prime Minister we have to take a break.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ad break]
WARNEKE:
Mr Howard we have a few listeners with questions for you. Joe’s the first one, good morning. Hello Joe?
CALLER:
Yes I’m here.
WARNEKE:
Yes Joe.
CALLER:
Yes. Just wanted to ask the Prime Minister what the explanation is behind not being able to say sorry to the Aboriginal people for the stolen generation. Whether or not it’s just a compensation issue.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it’s a combination, Joe. Look I am personally, John Howard I am personally very sorry and
I’ve said this on numerous occasions for injustices inflicted on any group of Australians in
the past. I’ve said that on numerous occasions. What I have argued against is a formal
national apology, I think there’s a difference between the two.
I mean I am personally sorry
whenever I hear of injustice and I have no reluctance about saying that, but as the Prime
Minister to formally apologise in relation to things that were done in earlier generations and
were sanctioned by the law at the time, I don’t think that is appropriate, and it’s not just my
view it’s a view widely shared inside the government and I suspect there are many in the
community who agree with me.
On the question of compensation, there’s a lot of debate this issue. I have no doubt that you would, if there were a formal apology given of the type that is argued for by the Labor Party, there would be I believe whatever may be the legal impact or not of such a statement. There would I believe be triggered as a consequence of that statement increased pressure for compensation. The Labor Party talks about having tribunals to asses the compensation quickly, having a tribunal doesn’t speed up or make cheaper the legal process, it often prolongs it and that’s certainly been the experience with immigration tribunals. My view is that we have to move on, that the best thing that we can do for Aboriginal people now is to address issues like health and education and employment and other difficulties within their communities. And we are doing that and we are making some progress. Unfortunately the debate on indigenous affairs is always bogged down in the negatives, there is very little exposure given to the good news stories and there are a lot of them.
WARNEKE:
Alright Elizabeth is next. Good morning.
CALLER:
Good morning Prime Minister. I worked for an aged care placement consultancy so I’m working at the call place with regards to aged care, assisting families who are trying with that very stressful process of getting somebody into an aged care facility. And I’m wondering what the Government is doing with regards to the enormous inequity, well the inequity with regards to say that payment of staff in aged care and working in the hospitals, and are you aware of the fact that there is such an acute staffing shortage that the aged care system here in Victoria is not working because of the acute staff shortage and the lack of qualified staff.
WARNEKE:
Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I have had views like this put to me and I know there are some differences between the pay rates of people in nursing homes and the pay rates in public hospitals. And the differences vary around the country, they may be a little more pronounced in Victoria. I don’t think it’s right to say the system has essentially stopped working as I think your comment implied, but this is an issue that does need to be considered, I accept that. I also though ask you to bear in mind that there has been as I mentioned earlier a very significant increase in the money allocated to nursing homes and also a very significant increase in the number of home care packages. These are programmes whereby people are encouraged to remain in their own homes for longer thereby taking some of the strain off nursing homes. We did find a few years ago when we came to office a very big backlog and we have been working very hard to increase provision of resources to eliminate that backlog. I don’t pretend that every problem has been solved. But I equally don’t think it’s reasonable for words like the system essentially not working or the system in crisis to be used. Look that’s just not true.
WARNEKE:
Just quickly Mick good morning.
CALLER:
Good morning. I’m a self-funded retiree and I have a small farming property that doesn’t really support us. We use our savings to supplement our income. We applied for the elderly citizen’s bonus and because we’ve made a loss for the year we were told we are not eligible. Now we had sufficient income from savings and that to qualify but because we’d supplemented our income from savings we’re not eligible but if we make $39,000 odd dollars are we eligible, because we run at a loss for the year we’re not eligible.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well your application was based on your taxable income was it?
CALLER:
That’s so yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
And because you were offsetting the loss from your farm with your other income it didn’t return a taxable liability. Is that what…
CALLER:
I think so.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I understand your point, I think the way in which the plan was administered was that you had to have a taxable income. Let me investigate that, are you saying then that you…
WARNEKE:
Sorry I think our caller’s gone actually. He can call back and leave a number…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if you pass on some of the information I think, I understood the man was claiming he did have savings but I’d like to have more detail before I can give a definite answer.
WARNEKE:
Once again a problem with information I suppose Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you make the point.
WARNEKE:
Thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
END
