LYNEHAM:
Prime Minister welcome again to Nightline.
PRIME MINISTER:
Pleasure Paul
LYNEHAM:
How optimistic are you tonight that Australian troops will not
have to see action in Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
More so than last night. We have to wait and see what is in that
document. We also have to put the commitment to that document to
a proper field test. But I am obviously feeling happier tonight
than I was last night. But it is to early to say that we have really
got a deal.
LYNEHAM:
UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan is certainly very enthusiastic
and very publicly so?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes he is.
LYNEHAM:
It is an old hand?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but old hands have tripped up before, but I hope that is not
the case. I hope that his ebullience in public is fully justified.
But I have not seen the fine print, nor at this moment have the
Americans, and until it has been examined and everybody is satisfied
that it will be delivered in practice you can't really start
talking about a military wind down.
LYNEHAM:
So nothing to say tonight to the families of our troops wondering
when are they coming home?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I will. I will say that the prospects of Australian forces
not being involved in military action are obviously higher tonight
than what they were last night. I hope, I fervently hope, as I have
from the very beginning of this dispute, that it won't be necessary
for Australians to go into action. And could I also say, that if
military action is avoided it will have been overwhelmingly due
to the willingness of Australia, Britain, the United States and
others to put a military option on the table and to send forces
to the Middle East. Because without that military build up you would
never have got as far as you have with a possible diplomatic solution.
LYNEHAM:
Why are we starting to hear again now about the Government's
desire to sell more of Telstra?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well people keep asking me questions about it. They keep asking
me questions about it because the sale of one third was such a terrific
success.
LYNEHAM:
Too successful say the Democrats. You have lined the pockets of
investors, you have thrown away a public asset.
PRIME MINISTER:
Isn't it terrible that 600,000 average Australians have invested
in shares for the first time and they are on average a thousand
dollars better off already through a capital gain? Isn't it
dreadful that 92 per cent of the employees of Telstra thought it
was such a good deal that they bought shares? Isn't it terrible
that Telstra now has 1.2 million Australians owning it? Shocking.
If that is terrible policy give me more.
LYNEHAM:
So it is likely that one of the things you will be putting to the
people at the election is: let us sell more?
PRIME MINISTER:
That is very, very possible Paul. But I promise that we won't
sell any more until we get the permission of the people at the next
election. But it is obvious what I have said and what others have
said that we are favourably disposed towards it. And in any event
it makes sense.
LYNEHAM:
Some of that money went into the Natural Heritage Trust, about
90 per cent of that has gone into improving the environment in Coalition
electorates.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes but there is nothing wrong with that, I tell you why.
LYNEHAM:
But the environment doesn't stop at the city limits Mr Howard?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no hang on. The things that the Natural Heritage Trust were
intended for, and I said this before the election, were things like
the Murray Darling Basin. Now you don't clean up the Murray
Darling Basin by investing money in Balmain and Moonee Ponds, because
you don't have salination problems in those suburbs. Any more
than you want to have a better cities programme, you spend the money
in Coonabarabran or Tallarook. You don't you spend the money
in the cities.
LYNEHAM:
So it is all fair dinkum, you haven't borrowed Ros Kelly's
old whiteboard?
PRIME MINISTER:
I tell you what makes it fair dinkum, you know at the present time
the Labor Party only holds, in land mass terms, 2 per cent of Australia.
LYNEHAM:
Are you still determined to put your Native Title Act back to the
Senate?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
LYNEHAM:
And if they trigger all that double dissolution prospects...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't want a double dissolution, but what am I to do?
The Native Title Act has got to be fixed up, you can't leave
it as it is. And under the Constitution if the Senate again rejects
the legislation the only way I can get it through is to put it to
the people as a double dissolution and have a joint sitting. Now,
I say to the Senate again, the Australian public is fed up with
this issue, they want it behind them. The Labor Party is trying
to string it out, to drag it out, to keep it going, to squeeze a
few votes out of it. I don't think the Australian public wants
that, the Australian public wants to get this thing behind them.
LYNEHAM:
Finally Prime Minister, Michael Kroger has been promoting his mate
Peter Costello again as your successor are they trying to give you
the hint or something?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, they are making a big hash of it if they are.
LYNEHAM:
It is not very subtle?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look Michael is a good, enthusiastic bloke and so is Peter, and
a very, very good Treasurer and I am enjoying the job immensely.
And I think at the end of the day the future of all of us as politicians
is in the hands of the voters and our own parties.
LYNEHAM:
Sometime between July and October this year?
PRIME MINISTER:
What, guidance?
LYNEHAM:
The election?
PRIME MINISTER:
What guidance, oh the election. Well that is a possibility but
I don't really have to go to the election until March/April
of next year. I would be happy to go the full term, the only thing
that would stop tl term, the only thing
that would stop that occurring would be if we had to have a double
dissolution.
LYNEHAM:
Thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Pleasure.
[Ends]