E&OE....................................................
LAWS:
Good morning Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning John.
LAWS:
Breathing a sigh of relief this morning are you?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm very pleased that we have an agreement. The whole country
will be pleased.
LAWS:
It seems that they are... there's a couple of notable exceptions
which were pretty obvious, but it seems the majority are.
PRIME MINISTER:
They're pleased because they see it as a fair and honourable
compromise and nobody, and certainly not John Howard, wanted a double
dissolution election campaign, indeed, any election campaign, where
one of the central issues was an acrimonious debate about Native
Title. Contrary to what my critics have said, I have never wanted
to fight a double dissolution on this issue because I am sensitive
to the heightened emotions that can arise on such matters but I
wasn't prepared to compromise the interests for the rural community
in particular in order to avoid that election.
LAWS:
Have you heard what Daryl Melham, the Labor spokesman on Aboriginal
Affairs has said?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I haven't really. What did he say? I'm sure it is
not very complimentary.
LAWS:
Well, it certainly isn't. I think it is disgraceful. But I'll
play it to you. Listen to this:
What we now have is, is John Howard is fast becoming the Errol
Flynn of Australian politicians. He stuffs everything he touchs.
He stuffed nursing homes, he stuffed childcare and now he's
stuffed Native Title. This is a quick fix, because he was in electoral
trouble.
Is that any way for a man who is a member of Parliament to talk?
PRIME MINISTER:
No it isn't, and perhaps you ought to ask of his leader what
he thinks of it. This is the man who accused members of the front
bench of the Liberal Party of being members of the Ku Klux Klan
and went unrebuked. But I dismissed that sort of response with the
contempt it deserves. It is a problem for Mr Beazley, not for me.
LAWS:
Well, I think it is a problem for Australia if we have people of
that calibre or lack of calibre making statements like about the
Prime Minister. I mean, like you or dislike you, you are the Prime
Minister of what we all believe to be the greatest country in the
world and I think a statement like that is outrageous and I will
ask Kim Beazley if he intends to do anything about it.
PRIME MINISTER:
It is an insulting statement to the Australian public.
LAWS:
Yes, I believe it is. Well, as we said, it seems that almost everybody
is happy. Noel Pearson is, well, he is cautiously happy. He gives
all the credit or most of it to Senator Harradine. Does it matter
who gets the credit?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it doesn't. What matters is whether it is a good outcome.
And it is a good outcome because it treats all Australians equally.
And the real gap between the Government and others last April was
that the Senate wanted to give Aborigines rights that no other Australians
had and that's what I wasn't prepared to accept and the
compromise that I've reached with Brian Harradine means that
that won't be the case, that pastoralists, farmers and Aborigines
will be treated in exactly the same way because I believe that all
Australians should be equal under the laws of Australia.
LAWS:
John, you've spent a lot of time recently claiming that any
further compromise on Wik would betray the bush, so how can you
explain this as not being a betrayal?
PRIME MINISTER:
The only element of our original position that we have conceded
is the sunset clause. The other changes that we have agreed to don't
alter the thrust of what we were on about. And when you balance
that against the totality of what has been achieved and the certainty
it delivers, in net terms there's been no betrayal of the bush,
in fact the bush has been magnificently looked after and once again
the Liberal and National parties have demonstrated that they are
the only two parties in Australia that when the push is on, will
stick up for the bush, because it is for the farmers of Australia,
more than any other section of the Australian community that I refused
to accept the Senate bill in April. And it was for the farmers that
I held ground and it was for the farmers that I insisted on an equality
of treatment and I simply say to them, giving away that sunset clause
which incidentally only related to the timing which you could get
on the register, not bring a court action. Giving that away was
a very small price to pay for the enormous security and protection
that they now have.
LAWS:
I talked to Ross Lightfoot yesterday. He claimed he'd abstain
from voting if the deal wasn't his State's approval. Have
you got him all squared away?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, he was advised, like every other member of the party of the
arrangement and I'm confident this bill will pass through the
Senate. I was very sensitive to the interests of Western Australia
because over 80% of the land mass of Western Australia is subject
to native title claims, and that state is more directly affected
than any other state. Richard Court has expressed his support and
I thank him for the constructive national interest approach that
he adopted.
LAWS:
How much did One Nation's success in Queensland change your
thinking on Wik?
PRIME MINISTER:
It didn't change my thinking on Wik at all. I was always of
the view that the real sticking point was the right to negotiate.
The question of whether you should give to the Aborigines a right
that no other section of the community had. And when it became apparent
to me after his approach that Senator Harradine would consider removing
that special privilege from the Senate position, then I thought
an understanding was possible, but I wasn't certain of it right
until the end.
LAWS:
Did you think that Senator Harradine may have had an ulterior motive?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you'd have to ask him that. I have found him as always
to be honourable. I don't agree with him on everything and
he doesn't agree with me on everything. After all he came out
of the bosom of the Labor Party in his early years, but he is a
man of intense commitment to fairness, and he is a person who is
always honourable and decent to deal with and I like him a lot as
a man, and it is in a sense, a pleasure ot negotiate with somebody
who is motivated by what he thinks is high principle.
LAWS:
Well, could I ask you then do you think perhaps One Nation's
success in Queensland might have changed his thinking on Wik?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that, once again, is for him to say. He said that he was
concerned about aspects of the outcome of the double dissolution,
but I don't want to speak for Brian Harradine. He's able
to do that himself. Our position was always that we didn't
want a double dissolution for its own sake. There was never any
mileage as such for us in a double dissolution, because almost by
definition we would get fewer Senators in a double dissolution.
LAWS:
There would have been less mileage however after the emergence
of One Nation wouldn't there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, many people argued that.
LAWS:
But do you accept that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it would depend on whether One Nation's support at the
time of any hypothetical double dissolution was as high as what
it was in Queensland and there's a lot of volatility in Australia's
politics at the moment and look, I'd be the first to acknowledge
that the polls in the last few weeks for us have been bad. I've
told my partyroom that. I'm a realist. I also know that six
weeks ago the polls had us at virtually the same position as we
were at in 1996 and I know in my bones that there is a lot of volatility
in politics particularly in the non-Labor vote.
LAWS:
I talked back there of One Nation's success in Queensland
and I've just given thought to that statement. Is that a correct
statement. Is it One Nation's success or is it the major parties'
failure?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I guess it is a bit of both. Once again, I'm a realist.
23% of Queenslanders voted for One Nation. What I want to do is
to say to those people that your concerns can best be addressed
by the Coalition and it takes something like immigration, which
is in the news, it was afterall the Coalition Government that brought
in the two year waiting period for new migrants for welfare benefits.
I think you and I talked about that a couple of years ago when it
was announced.
LAWS:
We certainly did and you collected a bit of flak for talking about
it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Indeed I did but I am sure it was right. And interestingly enough,
the leader of One Nation didn't support that measure when it
was put through the Parliament.
LAWS:
We'll get to that immigration thing in a moment.
PRIME MINISTER:
That's another matter but, and of course the Labor Party opposed
it as well.
LAWS:
That's right. Well I'd like to just touch briefly on
that immigration thing in a moment or two. Some would consider you
to be most ungentlemanly by getting the Wik thing through yesterday
and getting One Nation's immigration story on the back of the
papers and not on the front.
PRIME MINISTER:
It wasn't by design.
LAWS:
I know, probably not, but it worked very well didn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what worked well was that the....
LAWS:
The result?
PRIME MINISTER:
The result. And everybody is happy because Australians are collectively
very decent people, they want harmony in their country, although
they want equality of treatment as well. If they can have both they
are very happy and we have delivered that. We have got a situation
where there won't be a divisive debate on native title in the
middle of an election campaign but we haven't sacrificed the
great principle of equality of all Australians under the law.
LAWS:
Okay, so the double dissolution election on the issue of race is
off the agenda but an election is still on the agenda, One Nation
is still on the agenda, tax reform is still on the agenda, the National
Party's under threat from One Nation in the bush. It sounds
to a lot of people like a fairly explosive sort of mixture, how
are you going to handle all that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you deal with one thing at a time.
LAWS:
There's a lot to deal with.
PRIME MINISTER:
There is, but there always is in politics particularly when you
don't control both Houses and we are living in challenging
economic times.
LAWS:
And challenging political times.
PRIME MINISTER:
And challenging political times. The electorate, John, now is less
tribal in its political allegiance. There are fewer people rusted
on to either side of politics and therefore you get more volatility.
Nobody...you don't have that situation where you automatically
vote as your mother and father did or you vote according to your
job or you background or where you live. There's a lot less
of that now therefore you get more volatility.
LAWS:
Yes, so this would have weakened the Coalition surely, the emergence
of One Nation that this volatility that exists, the polls would
suggest so?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well One Nation has taken votes off the Coalition's base there
is no doubt about that. It has taken some votes from Labor and in
the process in Queensland, of course, I am sure against their wishes
those One Nation voters have helped install a Labor Government.
Now it's our job to ensure that that doesn't happen of
course Federally. I don't underestimate the challenge. We understand
the concerns of One Nation voters, we agree with a lot of them.
We certainly don't agree with the overtones of defining people
according to their race which are part of the utterances of One
Nation leaders. But where there are concerns our argument to the
One Nation supporters is that we understand those concerns and we
have acted upon many of them.
LAWS:
Are you surprised at the immigration policy? I doubt you are?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I am not the least bit surprised. Bear in mind that we have
heavily cut the migrant intake. One of the weaknesses of this new
policy is, as I understand it, is that is seems to be tipping the
balance back away from skilled migration in favour of family reunion
within the reduced numbers and that seems very strange. That is
how I heard it explained yesterday.
LAWS:
On....well on the face of it to a lot of people zero net migration
as it's called might seem attractive to people who believe
that high levels of unemployment are being pushed up by immigration.
What effect would the One Nation policy have on this country if
they were allowed to exercise it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well one of the weaknesses of it is that it reduces the emphasis
on skilled migration and whatever views you have about the aggregate
number, there's a general view, I think, quite sensibly, that
skilled....if you are going to have migrants, skilled migration
should make up a larger proportion or a bigger proportion than family
reunion. And, of course, the English language issue....now we have
already introduced a bias in favour of English language skills but
if you go to the extreme that One Nation's gone to you would
be denying to this country people like Arvi Parbo, perhaps the late
Victor Chang - two people I can think of. Four or five members of
the Federal Coalition in Parliament came to this country without
being able to speak a word of English. I mean we have quite a number
in our ranks who came here from Europe as young children without
being able to speak English. Alex Somlyay who was born in Budapest
in Hungary and who is my Minister for Regional Development and who
grew up in Blacktown in Sydney. He came to this country as a small
boy not being able to speak English. Now are we really saying that
we are so frightened and narrow that we won't ever allow somebody
into this country who has to learn English after he or she has come
here? Now that is going, in my opinion, that is going too far.
LAWS:
Can you understand that there will be people who will consider
that to be a good idea?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I do and I would say to those people: I understand your desire
to ensure that there is a universal understanding and use of the
English language within Australia. Of course I understand that and
of course it is one of the great unifying things about being an
Australian that we all speak the common language of English. But
to say that we don't ever want in the future to have somebody
come to Australia, no matter what their potential contribution,
who has to learn English after they have come to this country, I
think is narrow. And on the example I quote, I mean Arvi Parbo ended
up the Chairman of BHP....
LAWS:
Oh yes there are plenty of them.
PRIME MINISTER:
And he came here without being able to speak a word of English,
he was born in Estonia. Now, I mean we can't possibly be saying
to ourselves and to the world we are too frightened and too narrow
to have people like that. I think that is too backward looking.
It's too insular. It speaks of a diminished and frightened
mentality rather than one that wants to share the benefits of this
country with others.
LAWS:
There's very little doubt that a lot of figures in One Nation,
there was 18 pages of this immigration policy, but a lot of the
figures are absolutely wrong and you can blow holes to them everywhere
but there is a risk that a lot of people will excuse that as a minor
detail because people tend to put things aside if the main thrust
is what they want to hear. I mean the basic, simplistic and populist
line they push is an answer to the economic and social problems
that we are facing could draw a lot of people. Do you understand
that?
PRIME MINISTER:
John, I do understand that and my response is to patiently, and
I hope effectively point out the flaws in the simplistic approach
and you do it by dealing with facts. You don't think you can
deal with it by simply making a sweeping statement that's going
to crush all the credibility out of these alternative statements.
You have got to take each fact, analyse it and point out what's
wrong.
LAWS:
Does One Nation lack credibility?
PRIME MINISTER:
Many of its policies lack complete credibility. Look...
LAWS:
Does Pauline Hanson lack credibility?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, I'm not going to get into personal observations
on her or any members of her party. I will talk about their policies
and the attitudes that they have struck and the way they conduct
them.
LAWS:
You personally observed her the other day in Parliament in what
I thought was a rather quaint way, in a kind of fatherly fashion
calling her Pauline and treating her like she was a little girl.
I didn't quite understand that and that was personal.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it wasn't personal in the sense that I was wishing to
be offensive to her. I was perhaps drawing on the fact that a lot
of people don't like too many exchanges of a personal kind
between members of Parliament.
LAWS:
True.
PRIME MINISTER:
She was sort of interrupting me. But look, put that aside. Everybody
reacts in different ways in different circumstances.
LAWS:
Certainly.
PRIME MINISTER:
The general thrust of what I'm saying is that the best response
that I have and the one I know best and I believe best suits the
people of Australia is to look at what is being said, analyse it,
and where it is wrong point out where it is wrong. And, but most
importantly to remind her supporters, One Nation supporters, that
many of the concerns they have I identify with and we have in fact
acted on them. I mentioned a moment ago the two year waiting period
from migrants getting welfare benefits. Now that was a policy of
ours in the last election campaign. It was opposed by the Labor
Party, it was ridiculed by many. When it came for a vote in the
House of Representatives, Mrs Hanson did not turn up and support
it which must seem very strange to many of her supporters. I mean
here was a practical opportunity for her to demonstrate....
LAWS:
And she didn't arrive.
PRIME MINISTER:
....and she didn't arrive. Now in a sense it was supported
by neither the Labor Party nor by One Nation. It's the same
with tax reform. They are both opposed to tax reform together. They
want us to hang to our present unfair tax system. So my intention
is to deal with the merits of the alternative policies of One Nation
and also to say to One Nation supporters, where your concerns are
our concerns we will identify that and we'll point to what
we have done to address them but equally where we think One Nation
is wrong we'll say so.
LAWS:
I was talking at length to Tony Abbott the other day who was very
keen to talk I must say. He was in some sort of committee meeting
but he came out to talk to me about Pauline Hanson and in particular
David Oldfield. Has Tony been given the job of sniping at One Nation?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. I haven't given him any particular mission, no, not at
all. But Tony feels strongly about it,...
LAWS:
He does.
PRIME MINISTER:
...and he's very articulate,....
LAWS:
He is.
PRIME MINISTER:
...and engaging.
LAWS:
Yes, well he referred to them as the ‘Tarzan and Jane'
of politics.
PRIME MINISTER:
He has a capacity for colourful phrases.
LAWS:
T