TRANSCRIPT
of
HON. PETER COSTELLO MP
Treasurer

Doorstop Interview

Parliament House, Canberra

Thursday, 15 November 2001
9.15 am

SUBJECTS: Ansett; Liberal Party meeting; economy

TREASURER:

Good morning.

JOURNALIST:

How do you feel about Ansett?

TREASURER:

Well, obviously the Government will carefully consider all of the things that are put before it and we won’t be making any comment until we have done that.

JOURNALIST:

News from Qantas says they are going to lose thousands of jobs today?

TREASURER:

Well, that is a matter for Qantas. They haven’t rung me.

JOURNALIST:

You won’t stand for the leadership today Treasurer?

TREASURER:

No, I don’t think so, no.

JOURNALIST:

Happy to be Deputy?

TREASURER:

Yes, I expect I will stand for Deputy and I hope that I am returned.

JOURNALIST:

Do you think this is going to cloud, though, the relationship now between you and the Prime Minister for the next 3 years, or however long he stays around for?

TREASURER:

I don’t think so. I have been the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party for about 7 ½ years, and if my colleagues re-elect me today I would be happy to serve.

JOURNALIST:

The expectation, though, is that the Prime Minister is going to step aside at some time over the next 3 years. Is that going to take the attention away from any policies and put it onto the leadership of the Liberal Party?

TREASURER:

I don’t think anything takes our focus off policy. This is going to be a very difficult situation over the next 3 years. We have got a world economic down-turn. And I will be flying out to attend a meeting of central bank Governors and Treasury officials from around the world, today. We will be discussing the fact that the United States is probably now in recession, Japan is in recession and the world is turning down. Although Australia is the strongest growing economy in the industrialised world, we won’t be unaffected by this. A synchronised world down-turn will be very severe, and will have impact on Australia. So, I will be going overseas to discuss this with the world’s 20 leading central bankers and Finance Ministers to get a grip on where we expect the world economic situation to go, and we will be setting our economic policy here in Australia accordingly.

JOURNALIST:

What can we do to stay out of recession?

TREASURER:

We need good economic management. It is going to be a very, very important time for economic management and you see the world’s major economies now in recession, we can’t be immune from international developments, but, what we have to do is we have to make sure Australia stays strong, and that is what we intend to do.

Thanks.