1996 Federal Election News

Week 3: Feb 09 - 11

Friday 9 February
Economic issues dominated the election campaign today. Prime Minister Keating, campaigning in the Queensland marginal seat of Moreton, currently held by the ALP's Garrie Gibson, announced that he would be detailing the funding arrangements for Labor's campaign commitments on Sunday and called on Opposition Leader Howard to do the same. Keating said the Government's spending commitments would be "at least Budget neutral - better than Budget neutral". Keating said the statement would cover any further commitments made in the course of the campaign, although the full details of these promises would be announced in the policy speech. Keating said that he was not going to let Howard off the hook of accountability during the election.

Howard, campaigning in the Victorian marginal seat of McEwen, called on the Government to authorise a briefing on the state of the budget by the departments of Treasury and Finance. "Why don't you throw open the books?" Howard demanded of the Prime Minister. Howard rejected the call for a funding statement on coalition policies, saying "we will release our costings and expenditure as promised at a time of our choosing, not his." Meanwhile, Victorian Premier, Jeff Kennett, today defended his gaffe yesterday over the question of whether the Federal budget was in surplus or deficit, saying it was an "easy mistake" to have made.

Treasurer, Ralph Willis, today called on home buyers to put pressure on their banks to cut home loan rates. This followed the announcement by the largest non-bank home lender, Aussie Home Loans, that it was cutting its variable rate to below 9 per cent. Willis predicted a general fall in bank rates during 1996, saying current rates at 10.5% had been "defying gravity".

Agreement has been reached for a televised debate between Keating and Howard on Channel 9 at 7.30pm on Sunday night. The debate will be chaired by Ray Martin and run for one hour free of commercials and network promotions. The ABC will also televise the debate. The agreement follows the failure of the Government to reach a compromise with the Opposition over a debate on the ABC with Kerry O'Brien. Keating tonight said he had agreed to Howard's conditions because he was "not letting him off explaining how he would fund his campaign policies.

Howard and his shadow Immigration spokesman, Senator Jim Short, tonight announced the coalition's immigration policy. In contrast to the policy it took to the 1993 election, the coalition now proposes to maintain the annual immigration intake at its level of about 83,000, plus 15,000 humanitarian places for the "near term". The policy pledges $60 million to settlement schemes, education and ethnic broadcasting, and aims to make citizenship ceremonies "more meaningful". The policy porposes more resources for migrant women's health and for programs to help the newly settled find work, as well as funds to English language programs and to accelerate the extension of SBS television coverage. Immigration Minister, Senator Nick Bolkus, labelled the policy a "bribe" to ethnic communities.

Nominations for the election closed at noon today. In Victoria, 215 candidates will contest the 37 seats in the House of Representatives, whilst 44 candidates have nominated for the 6 positions being contested in the Senate. The electorates of McMillan and Deakin have the most number of candidates, with 9 nominations in each. Corangamite and Wannon have the lowest, with 3 each.

Saturday 10 February
Election campaigning centred on preparations for the televised debate tomorrow night between Prime Minister Keating and Opposition Leader Howard. Speaking in Cessnock, where he promoted the ALP's industrial relations agenda, saying only Labor could address workers' concerns, Keating continued to emphasise the question of the Opposition's accountability to the electorate. Howard, speaking at a photo opportunity with his wife and children in his Bennelong electorate campaign office, continued to refuse to release Opposition funding arrangements until a later date.

The Sydney Morning Herald reported today the Government is now worried about New South Wales where the ALP holds 33 of the 50 seats in the House of Representatives. The paper reports: "Labor will also begin today a television advertising blitz against the coalition's industrial relations policy. The ALP hopes that by seizing the initiative on the increasingly damaging issue of 'where's the money coming from?' and by Mr. Keating confronting Mr. Howard directly over credibility it can get the breakthrough it desperately needs to get voters to focus on its warnings about the Howard alternative. The focus of Labor's concern about the campaign shifted to NSW following grassroots reports which reinforced internal polling done last week. Feedback from ALP candidates in key State seats backed the polling, which showed Labor's base vote in NSW had fallen into the low 40 per cent range. Officials believe there is a real danger of a swing against Labor of 4 to 5 per cent - which could see it lose eight seats. Some of them are concerned that the electorate's mood is similar to that during the 1988 State election when the Unsworth Government was swept away by a collapse of its base vote. The ALP's national campaign headquarters has been given assessments which indicate that NSW voters have been the least responsive to Labor's campaign messages. The feedback from the rest of Australia - including Queensland, widely regarded as Labor's more electorally dangerous State - has been encouraging. It indicates that Labor's main campaign messages, on leadership, Telecom and Medicare, are getting through and getting positive responses. But a senior ALP figure says the NSW feedback has been "very muted" and "quite worrying". The party is already pouring the largest proportion of its campaign resources into NSW because it was identified as the most vulnerable State before the campaign."

The Opposition Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, today announced the coalition's foregn affairs policy. Downer said the main thrust of the policy was to "make closer engagement with Asia our highest priority". Downer criticised the Government's policy on East Timor, saying it had been inconsistent, and promised to upgrade Australia's relationship with China, Japan and South Korea. Foreign Affairs Minister, Senator Gareth Evans, said the coalition policy was a "limp, feeble little popgun of a policy, which really isn't going to do anything to restore the Coalition's credibility in external relations." Earlier in the week, Downer, appearing on Channel 9's "Nightline", had been unable to name the Thai Prime Minister, whom he claimed he had met with during his last visit to Australia.

Sunday 11 February
Prime Minister Keating today detailed Labor's funding plans for its election promises, revealing a plan to crack down on massive tax avoidance amongst some of Australia's wealthiest people. Flanked by a diagram labelled "High Rollers' Trust Web", Keating and the Treasurer, Ralph Willis, claimed they would raise $800 million a year by attacking a tax rort that Willis claimed was the biggest since the Bottom of the Harbour scheme of the early 1980s. Keating said that in the 1993 financial year 80 individuals with a net worth of at least $30 million each had paid individual taxes of less than $20,000 due to a complex web of trusts. These individuals, so far unnamed, had even claimed Medicare exemptions, low income earner rebates, HECS exemptions and the like.

Keating said that the effect of the Government's instructions to the Tax Office would be to strengthen the budget's bottom line by $800 million a year. He said that "this must be the first election in Australian Federal history where the government has strengthened the budget during the campaign". Keating said that the ALP was making campaign commitments of $3.5 billion over a three year period and was proposing to reduce the deficit by $2.4 billion over the same period. In addition to the tax clampdown which would raise $2.4 billion, the government proposed reducing tariff concessions to business, at a value of $1.8 billion, as well as making general savings in government expenditure of $800 million. These savings would come from clamping down on medical over-servicing, government consultancies, travel and other measures.

Opposition Leader Howard, who was briefed by the Tax Commissioner, questioned the timing of the government's announcement, saying that it was curious that Keating had been going around for 13 years in a hairy-chested fashion saying "I've fixed it all up", only to find massive tax avoidance on the eve of the election. "Isn't it very convenient," Howard said, arguing that this money was found at just the time the Prime Minister "needs some dough." He also demanded to be shown the books on the budget, arguing that if he could be briefed by the Tax Commissioner, then he ought to be briefed by the Secretary of the Treasury as well. Shadow Treasurer, Peter Costello, said the announcement of the tax avoidance clampdown was an "appalling indictment" of the government. Meanwhile, Keating continued his attack on the coalition, saying "they'll tear the hell out of Social Security spending, out of education and health." Referring to Howard, Keating said there was only one person hiding in this election. Later, the Liberals announced that they would bring forward the announcement of their own costing and funding arrangements to this week.

Australian Democrats leader, Senator Cheryl Kernot, launched her party's campaign in Port Melbourne today. The Democrats Victorian ticket is led by Lyn Allison, who replaces the retiring Syd Spindler. Kernot promoted the Democrats as the original Green party and presented a policy based on anti-privatisation and the environment. She said the electorate was tired of the "two men in suits", tired of their jargon and their promises and wanted something different. She condemned privatisation and said that in 50 years time people would look back on the firesale conducted by Hawke, Keating and Beazley and judge it as one of the greatest acts of vandalism in the nation's history. She condemned the coalition's proposal to sell 35% of Telstra to fund its environment policy, saying that if Howard was prepared to do that today, what is to stop him coming back tomorrow and wanting to trade aged pensions or health for Australia Post.

The Victorian Labor Party today called for the dismissal of State Liberal Party Director, Peter Poggioli, after it was revealed in "The Sunday Age" that the Liberal Party had charged $60,000 in election postage costs to the Labor Party. The postage was incurred for a mailout on January 29 from Liberal Senators Jim Short (writing to electors in the marginal seat of McMillan), Judith Troeth (McEwen), Rod Kemp (JagaJaga) and Richard Alston (Dunkley). The Liberal Party claims a clerical error was made and since rectified, but the ALP members and candidates in the seats have called for a police investigation into how secret postal account numbers were given to Mail Management Australia Pty. Ltd., the direct mail firm employed by the Liberal Party.

Keating and Howard met in the studios of Channel 9 tonight for their first head-to-head debate of the election. Standing at podiums with Ray Martin moderating, the debate was relatively restrained and orderly.

Keating was first asked whether he regarded himself as a servant of the people or their boss. He said that he supported the Australian democratic system where the parties have to explain themselves every three years. He said he believed in accountability and had held more press conferences and doorstops than anybody else in political life in recent years.

Howard, asked about the cynicism towards all politicians and to his own recycled leadership, said that his answer to the cynicism was that the government was out of touch, and taking people for granted, as evidenced by the secrecy surrounding the treaty announced late last year with Indonesia. He said the government showed signs of arrogance and remoteness, the nation had a current account deficit of $180 billion, there was high youth unemployment, high real interest rates, unreasonable unfair dismissal laws and the letters LAW were ringing in everyone's ears from the last election. Howard also said that he had proved himself by "hanging in" over the years.

Keating, asked whether there was truth in Wayne Goss's assertion that the voters were waiting at the front porch with a baseball bat, said that the most arrogant thing you can do is hide your policies. He said that with 20 days to go to the poll, the Opposition had no health policy and no costings of their promises. He defended the treaty with Indonesia, saying that it was not the kind of treaty that could be negotiated openly with a country where the government had strong ties to a powerful military. He said the first round of the LAW tax cuts had been paid and the second round would be paid into people's superannuation funds.

Howard demanded a briefing by Treaury officials on the state of the budget, denying that Keating's announcement today about the funding proposals for Labor's policies was a killer punch. Keating claimed that Howard was not entitled to be believed on the deficit because his party had used the Senate to block $2.4 billion worth of revenue from the sale of airports. In response to a question from Howard - "what are you hiding?" - Keating said that the government had published a mid-year review of the budget and was the first government to publish three year forward estimates of revenue and expenditure. He developed his theme that Howard could not be believed by arguing that if he suddenly became a supporter of the monarchy after years of opposition, it would be appropriate that he not be believed, yet this was what Howard was asking in relation to his attitudes to Medicare, Industrial Relations and the Environment. Howard said that every time Keating was in trouble he cranked up the republic debate as a diversion. He claimed that he often took stands that were not popular, citing opinion poll opposition to the sale of Telstra as evidence.

Howard said that he had changed his mind on Medicare, but claimed Keating had done the same on the GST. Besides, he claimed, the big problem now was the question of private health insurance. Under questioning from Ray Martin, Howard said that the coalition's health policy, to be released tomorrow, would cost about $500 million and would provide tax rebates of about $450 per year for families, ranging down to $125 for single people. Keating said that the difference between them was that Howard's policy would assist about 20% of families and was paid once a year to taxpayers only, whereas Labor's proposal was a cash payment at Medicare offices to 80% of families. In response to an assurance by Howard that Medicare would stay and that bulk billing would be retained, Keating could be heard saying "..sure."

On the question of employment, Keating claimed that he had promised 500,000 jobs in 1993, a figure that had been ridiculed at the time, and had delivered 713,000. Howard, acknowledging the figure, said that the government had been in office 13 years, during which time Keating had been either Treasurer or Prime Minister for all but six months, and unemployment now stood at 8.6% with higher youth unemployment. He said that unless there was a plan implemented to assist small business the unemployment level would not decrease. Keating said the difference between now and 1983 was that 8 out of 10 young people were now in education and training, compared to 3 out of 10.

The debate moved to the issue of Industrial Relations, Keating claiming that Howard had opposed all but 2 wage rises since 1978. Howard said he stood for an end to compulsory unionism and for choice in the industrial relations arena, including better pay for better work. Keating claimed Howard had said he would stab the Industrial Relations Commission in the stomach and Howard accused Keating of stabbing it in the back. Keating said that Howard "has these tricky words", claiming that no-one will be forced off an award, but that since 60% of people change their jobs on average every 5 years, and since young people and new migrants were especially vulnerable, he could not be believed. Keating claimed Howard said he keep the IRC but he won't let it look at contracts. Howard said the Employment Advocate he will establish would have full statutory power, but Keating ridiculed the idea of an 18-year-old going to such a body. "You're going to see them cut to pieces," he said. Howard said that award conditions would be maintained and must apply as the minimum starting point in employer/employee negotiations.

Referring to Keating's promise in 1993 to support the passage of the GST in the Senate if the coalition won that election, thus highlighting the certainty of a GST under a coalition government, Martin asked if Keating should not consider a similar masterstroke this time by promising to support the sale of Telstra in the Senate should Howard win. Keating denied this, claiming that ALP senators had a national interest to protect, that Telstra was 20 times the size of Telstra and that many ramifications flowed from any sale of the organisation, namely timed local calls and higher costs for rural users. Keating said: "And who'll be protecting Australia's interest - Bronwyn Bishop." Bishop is the shadow minister for privatisation. Howard claimed he was being honest by signalling his intention to sell a third of Telstra in advance, saying he believed he would get it through the Senate because Senators would not sacrifice the best environment policy to protect a third of Telstra. Keating said Howard's proposed sale of Telstra was not a policy but a tactic.

As the debate drew to a close, a number of smaller issues were raised. Howard, asked about Bob Burgess, the National Party candidate for Leichardt in Northern Queensland, who recently described Australia Day citizenship ceremonies as "dewogging ceremonies" and last week criticised gay groups for promoting homosexuality with AIDS funding, said that Burgess was "not in my party" and that the Liberal candidate would win Leichardt anyway. Keating asked Howard: "why won't you kick him out like I did with [Graeme] Campbell (MHR for Kalgoorlie)? My party won't tolerate racism."

Both leaders were asked about the number of women in their parties. Keating was referred to the success of men in winning preselection for seats previously held by women such as Ros Kelly and Wendy Fatin and Howard was asked where he was hiding Bronwyn Bishop. Keating said the key thing was how the party had responded to issues of relevance to women.

Asked about their personal futures if they lost the election, Howard said that he definitely would not be Opposition Leader after the election and Keating said he would not be ALP leader in Opposition.

In his concluding remarks, Keating said the government had transformed Australia into a modern industrial country, more competitive and open than in 1983. He said that the fire in the crucible might go out if there was a change of government. He asked voters to consider the nature of the alternative team.

Howard, in his concluding remarks, reiterated that the government had been in office for 13 years, was arrogant and remote, that unemployment had risen, there was a widening gap between rich and poor, we had the worst current account deficit in the world and that there was growing social division. He said that Keating talked of leadership, but that you can't separate leadership from what happens and that on this basis Keating had failed. Howard said that he had a plan and would lead a government that could be trusted.

In response to a final question from Martin, Howard said that he didn't have anything against Keating personally and Keating could be heard saying "he really loves me."

Following the debate, Jeff McMullen and Paul Lyneham purported to analyse the performance of the respective leaders and reintroduced "the worm", an electronic device that a studio audience operated during the debate to record their reactions. The worm showed a good reaction to Keating when he argued that Howard had no policies and was sneaky. It also showed a good reaction when Howard talked about private health insurance and assisting small business. Overall, 51% of the studio audience rated Keating as having won the debate, compared to 49% for Howard.

It appeared during the debate that both leaders agreed to a similar debate in two weeks time.

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