Alan Jones, Channel 9’s Today Programme, 23rd June 1998
It is valid to argue that much that is said about Pauline Hanson and what she says or might not say is based on the threat that she represents to someone else’s political comfort. For example much has been said in a laughing and dismissive way about Pauline Hanson wanting to “print money” to fund loans for rural Australia.
Well there is absolutely nothing to stop government creating credit to cure issues like massive unemployment or genuine problems in economic development in deed the Bank of Japan does that very thing. Two years ago when unemployment in Japan rose to 3.5% the Bank of Japan sunk billions of Yen into the commercial banking system
at half of one percent that money went into productive sectors like manufacturing and agriculture in order to stimulate employment and the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Japan boasted that as a result of such ‘cheap’ money the Japanese economy was recovering.
We had a Royal Commission into banking in this country in 1937 and it stated that the central bank and I quote “can lend to the government of others in a variety of ways” unquote and can even quote “money available to the government or others free of charge” unquote.
In fact we used to have a so called ‘People’s Bank’ to provide such funds, but under the current banking system we would never have got a Snowy Mountain scheme.
Let’s forget about Pauline Hanson. The cost of money is an enormous obstacle to beneficial and employment generating in this country. There is nothing wrong in theory with governments lending money at low cost or no cost to productive Australia.
The fact that it does not happen is bad enough. The fact that untruths are told about the idea in order to win some political points is absolutely reprehensible.
I am Alan Jones.