E&OE...............................................
LAWS:
Allow me to welcome the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard,
good day John, good to see you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, it is very nice to be here.
LAWS:
It is terrific to see you. And I think you have done the right
thing in cancelling the trip, I think people would rather have you
at home at this time?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, that is the decision I came to, I didn't like doing it.
But to be in Malaysia when decisions might be taken either, that
as I hoped that the peace effort has bourn fruit, or alternatively
that it hasn't, I really do need to be on the spot. And I am
quite sure that the Malaysian Prime Minister understands that. I
rang him, spoke to him for a while on Saturday afternoon to explain
the situation and I intend it to be a postponement only because
Malaysia is an important country. But my place is here.
LAWS:
Well you were the one who sent the troops off.
PRIME MINISTER:
Exactly.
LAWS:
You, in fact, were probably the last one to talk to them.
PRIME MINISTER:
I was.
LAWS:
Their spirits were good when they left?
PRIME MINISTER:
Their spirits were fantastic. I have to say that as highly trained
professional soldiers they were eager to go, they were conscious
of what lay ahead of them, they were a very intelligent bunch of
men and one woman. Who asked me a lot of questions about the background
of the Government's decision, not critically but inquiringly,
and that is good. And they were a very inspiring group of Australians
to talk to.
LAWS:
Well that Bulletin poll that we talked about last week show the
majority of Australians approve of our involvement, 64 per cent,
that is a fair approval rating isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
That is an approval rating, in the circumstances, better than I
expected.
LAWS:
If we have any casualties, and touch wood we don't, do you
think that approval rating might be watered down considerably?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't know but I just hope we don't, I hope it
doesn't happen. I hope that no shots are fired in anger. I
am hopeful, out of what the news tells us this morning. My internal
advice is that we really have to look at the fine print of the agreement
to be satisfied. And you also have got to ask the question that
Saddam Hussein is capable of saying one thing and doing another.
LAWS:
Time and time again.
PRIME MINISTER:
Indeed. And it may well be that what happens is that his commitment
and that agreement has to be tested by an inspection before people
can be completely satisfied that he is as good as his word. And
it is one thing for somebody in his position to sign a document
saying, I will allow you unhindered access to sites in my country,
it is another thing for him to actually allow that to occur. And
there having been a large build up in the Gulf it may well be the
view of the United States and others, well let us test this agreement,
if the agreement is what it is apparently suggested it is, before
we accept that there has been a change of heart.
LAWS:
One must assume that obviously he has what he shouldn't have
stored otherwise he would open the doors wide for anybody.
PRIME MINISTER:
You would assume that. And that has been the basis of my thinking,
the American thinking and the British thinking and the thinking
of most Australians. Look what has been on the airwaves this morning
is encouraging.
LAWS:
Very.
PRIME MINISTER:
Because nobody wants a war. I don't want a war, I really hate
the very idea of Australian service personnel being exposed to danger.
I don't want innocent Iraqis killed and that is always a possibility
no matter how finely honed the strike is. And if the Secretary General's
mission has been successful, then good on him, good luck to him.
But it is too early to make that judgement. You have got to see
what is in the agreement and you have also got to be satisfied that
the agreement will hold in substance.
LAWS:
Are we simply supporting the United States or are we supporting
the United Nations first and the United States second?
PRIME MINISTER:
We are supporting the United Nations first. The prime objective
of what we are doing is to deny Saddam Hussein the capacity to maintain
and potentially use weapons of mass destruction. Now he has clearly
got something otherwise, as you rightly say..
LAWS:
The doors would be wide open.
PRIME MINISTER:
If you were being accused by the world of perfidy and you weren't
guilty of perfidy you would say, come and have a look and you wouldn't
muck around, would you?
LAWS:
No, you wouldn't.
PRIME MINISTER:
I mean that defies commonsense and that is why there has been the
allied military build up. We are not simply complying with the United
States request, there is a legitimate case.
LAWS:
Yes, well there are many people who are saying, we are simply doing
that, why are we doing it? Well even if we were simply doing that,
we would be very wise to do it, would we not?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well of course we would be but that is not the main reason we are
doing it. The main reason we are doing it is to deny him the weapons
of mass destruction. To support the authority of the United Nations,
and if in the process it sees us working in concert with the United
States well that is in Australia's national interest.
LAWS:
What is your view of those Middle Eastern migrants protesting against
our troops going to the Gulf, rather loudly and to a degree unpleasantly?
PRIME MINISTER:
What they do of course do quite starkly is demonstrate why Australia
is the best country in the world. See we allow peaceful dissent
and this is what it is all about. In an inverse, unintended way
they are really demonstrating what we stand for. See people can
do that in this country.
LAWS:
Yes they can.
PRIME MINISTER:
You can peacefully dissent, you can say the Prime Minister is wrong
and not get shot in the back. Now that is the difference between
Australia and authoritarian countries like Iraq. Isn't that
something that is worth defending, isn't that something worth
standing up for. I saw those people demonstrating and I know some
people, said oh they shouldn't be doing that, well you have
a right to say that too and people can disagree. But the fact is
we allow lawful dissent in this country and we are the stronger
and the better for it.
LAWS:
Do you approve of the waterside workers doing much the same?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't approve of the waterside workers breaking the law.
I don't agree with them throwing stones at people going about
their lawful business. Anybody has the right of lawful dissent but
equal people have a right to work and you have a right to work on
the waterfront even if you don't belong to a trade union. You
have the right to start a new business.
LAWS:
So where do you draw the line between people who strike, withhold
their labour and then affect other people who don't want their
labour withheld. I mean where do you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have drawn the line, we have drawn the line with a law
called the Secondary Boycott Law, which exposes people who do that
sort of thing to very, very severe damages.
LAWS:
Is this going to happen, do you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
I find what is occurring on the waterfront fascinating. Firstly,
it is terrific that the farmers have shown the guts.
LAWS:
Don't you think the Government should have shown the guts?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we did, we changed the law.
LAWS:
Yeah, but I mean the farmers led it.
PRIME MINISTER:
John we are not stevedores.
LAWS:
No but, I mean the farmers...
PRIME MINISTER:
We are the Government and our job is to change the law. I mean,
until my Government came into office it wouldn't have been
possible for anybody to do what the farmers have done. We made it
possible. We made it possible for the monopoly on the supply of
labour by the wharfies, the MUA, to be broken and for non-union
labour to come on to the waterfront. John Coombs says all along
that non-union labour has always been welcomed, nonsense. Non-union
labour has not always been welcome and every man and his dog knows
that and we changed the law and made it possible. And we showed
the guts to do that. We got the law through and now, to their eternal
credit, the farmers of Australia are taking advantage of that new
law and I applaud what the farmers are doing and I think most Australians
applaud what the farmers are doing.
LAWS:
Do you think that the farmers and big business and Patricks will
take action against the union? Because if they do they can break
the union.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well so far the farmers and Patricks have shown enormous strength.
Our goal and the farmers goal is not to destroy the MUA. What we
are intent on doing is to destroy monopoly power on the wharves,
not the union as such. I have no argument with unionists working
on the wharves. I have got no argument with members of the MUA working
on the wharves. My argument is the situation where they have a stranglehold,
which means that it is more expensive to move goods through our
wharves than it ought to be, and that is destroying jobs. The end
test of all of this is whether it will generate jobs for Australians
and I believe it will.
LAWS:
It seems that they are going to be quite defiant about it all though?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but they don't have as much public sympathy...
LAWS:
I think they have none.
PRIME MINISTER:
...as their rhetoric would claim, I don't think they have
got any public sympathy, because people can see through it. People
know that for years they have supported rorts and unproductive practices
on the wharves. They know that for years Australians have lost jobs
and have lost export markets because of their behaviour and at long
last you have got A) a Government with the courage to change the
law and B) the farmers of Australia to take advantage of the new
law.
LAWS:
What can you do if there is a national strike and there is the
threat of a national strike?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't believe there will be.
LAWS:
Why?
PRIME MINISTER:
Because the wharfies understand that there is little public sympathy
and they don't really have the level of support from the ACTU
to justify, I think, a prolonged national strike, or to produce
a prolonged national strike. I hope I am right in that prediction.
LAWS:
Ok, a couple of things, the Federation Trust, we're hearing
that you're being encouraged to use some of that billion dollar
fund, the Federation Fund, to buy up the Defence Force land around
Sydney Harbour and turn it into national park. I think everybody
would think that it is a terrific idea. Are you heading in that
direction?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there is an interesting coalition emerging on that, one of
the strongest supporters of it is Bob Carr.
LAWS:
Bob Carr.
PRIME MINISTER:
So, if it does come about I don't think people will be able to
accuse us of political favouritism because some of the areas where
the land might be are Liberal held. Look, it is one of the things
that is being looked at. The foreshores are one of Sydney's
prized assets, indeed one of the nation's prized assets, and
we obviously are looking at a number of proposals in that area because
it would be a great gift to the people of Sydney and to the people
of Australia, wouldn't it?
LAWS:
Yeah, that Middle Head area, you wouldn't like to see that
cut up and sold off to private development, would you?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is not the most attractive idea in the world that, no.
LAWS:
Well, if you find it unattractive, is it unlikely it will happen?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I find it very unattractive, you have got to weigh a number
of things up and we're doing that right at the moment but it
is a very, it is a jewel in the Australian crown - the Harbour foreshores
of Sydney - a real jewel in the crown. And it is the sort of thing
that we could be confident of doing without attracting a political
controversy because everybody seems to want it. It is a question
of doing the sums and making sure that it is financially responsible.
LAWS:
Yeah well, if you have got all that money, that billion dollars
of the Federation...
PRIME MINISTER:
We don't have a lot, oh no, no, but that has come out of the
sale of Telstra. The sale that the Labor Party so bitterly opposed.
LAWS:
Are you going to call on Telstra to give you some money, to pay
some dividends?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we are looking at selling some more. The first sale was so
popular, you know that 92 per cent of the employees of Telstra bought
shares in that float, 92 per cent, and you had 630,000 Australians
bought shares for the first time in their lives when they participated
in that float.
LAWS:
Will you now sell the other two thirds of it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is open to us to do so and we said at the last election
that if we were to sell more we would say so at the time of the
next election and get a mandate from the people to do so.
LAWS:
I remember when John Fahey was Premier of NSW, he is now your Finance
Minister, he demanded big dividends from part privatised agencies,
do you think that is reasonable in the case of Telstra?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think it is reasonable, of course it is. I think Telstra
is doing very well but the Australian public has done very well
out of Telstra. Each one of those mum and dad investors has already
enjoyed, at a minimum, a capital gain of $1,000 in the few months
that they have owned those shares. And there was an absolute stampede
for those shares.
LAWS:
Tell me about it!
PRIME MINISTER:
It was fantastic. And you had all these young people, middle aged
people, old...
LAWS:
Who had never bought shares before.
PRIME MINISTER:
It was fantastic and talk about owning a slice of Australia. People
feel a more direct ownership in something when they personally have
shares in it than they do being told, oh well look, the Government
owns it on your behalf. I mean that is a very chilling kind of,
cold and personal kind of share ownership.
LAWS:
When are the next two thirds going to be sold?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we haven't made a decision to sell the whole lot.
LAWS:
Could you give it a bit thought? Sort of now.
PRIME MINISTER:
We have given a lot of thought to it, John. Look I am, you know
my views on privatisation, but you have got to take into account
the capacity of markets to digest, you have got to take into account
the phasing of things but clearly, the part privatisation of Telstra
has been a win for the Australian public. It's been a win for
the shareholders and it has been a win for the company because the
company is now more competitive.
LAWS:
Do you think that the climate, economically, has changed, the investment
climate has changed, because of the collapse in Asia and do you
feel that you need to tread a bit more wearily because of this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well only a little more wearily when we were already treading wearily.
I think there is a feeling in the community that thank god the Government
got the budget in order. We inherited a $10.5 billion deficit and
we are now heading for a surplus after three years. Now, if we had
ignored that deficit, as what the Labor Party told us to do and
pretended it didn't exist, as Kim Beazley does, then I think
we would have been a lot more vulnerable. World financial markets
are both instantaneous and unforgiving.
LAWS:
You don't think the collapse in Asia is going to have a drastic
affect on Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
I wouldn't say drastic, obviously it has some flow through,
but the flow through would have been greater and we would now be
feeling the pain of it if we hadn't got our own economic house
in pretty good order.
LAWS:
I have talked to property investment people who are concerned that
there would have been a lot of Asian investment, a lot of buying
off plans, particularly in Brisbane and in Sydney, with development
that may now not come to fruition, which could affect the property
market. Do you have a feeling on that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is one way of looking at it, another way of looking at
it is that some of those investors might choose to invest even more
so, overseas, than in their own economies. It depends a bit on the
individual. If you are an Australian investor with a lot of money
and the Australian economy were doing badly and a neighbouring economy
were doing very well, you might be inclined to invest in the neighbouring
economy, mightn't you?
LAWS:
Yes, that is true.
PRIME MINISTER:
So, it really does cut both ways. Increasingly, Australia is being
seen as a very strong country, economically, and a country that
has taken some hard fundamental economic decisions, they might not
have been popular - some of them weren't - but they have prepared
us well for what has happened in Asia and for the medium and longer
term, it looks a lot brighter than it would otherwise have been.
LAWS:
Just back to domestic matters again, this Telstra thing, what sort
of dividend would you look from for Telstra?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, a healthy one. I can't really, just off the top of my
head, put a figure on it. Look, Telstra is doing well. As the, still
the principle shareholder, we're entitled to a decent dividend
but what is really good is that we're spreading the joy around.
The shareholders are getting a capital gain and everybody is happy.
LAWS:
And you will get a dividend?
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course we should.
LAWS:
Yeah, well I think you should. Another domestic matter. You can't
be too happy about the Auditor-General looking at the allocation
of grants.
PRIME MINISTER:
What, for the Natural Heritage Trust?
LAWS:
Yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't mind that all.
LAWS:
Don't you find it a bit concerning. I do understand that the
Coalition has the majority of rural seats. But when they account
for something like 90 per cent of the allocation of the Heritage
Trust Fund compared with six per cent for Labor seats, I mean, doesn't
that cause you some concern? Maybe on the surface, it surely must?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, not if you understand a couple of things about this Natural
Heritage Trust. The first thing you've got to understand about
it is that the Labor Party's never liked it. So this attack
on it is really an attack on the Fund.
LAWS:
Well, you've only given t