E&OE....................................................................................................
CORDEAUX:
...The Prime Minister of Australia and we welcome you sir?
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, how are you?
CORDEAUX:
Are you well?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I am indeed.
CORDEAUX:
I'm glad.
PRIME MINISTER:
Very well indeed.
CORDEAUX:
We've just got back from a little trip up east and one of the
things that I saw not much coverage of Australia but
one thing that I did see was the demonstration in Castlereagh Street,
the Serbs bringing that awful war to our shores in a most unpleasant
way. I suppose this is something you worry about as well.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I certainly worry about the use of violence. And anybody has
the right of peaceful protest in this country but anything that involves
violence, violence in relation to disputes that don't involve
Australia in a direct sense I mean, we make foreign policy
decisions not based on assessing the totality of domestic opinion
on this or that argument but we make decisions based on what is in
the best interests of Australia and all Australian citizens irrespective
of their ethnic background must accept that that is the way this country
operates. Now, people who have a Serbian background are understandably
emotionally involved in what's happening in their former homeland.
I understand that and that is perfectly human and perfectly natural.
And our argument is not with the Serbian people but with the Milosevic
Government. But they should not use violence. They should not assault
police. They should not endanger lives or property in their behaviour.
And I think all Australians condemn the violence. And I noticed that
the leaders of some of the groups in Australia involved in the demonstrations
have also condemned the violence and I encourage them to continue
to do so because there is no sympathy in this country for violent
demonstrations of any kind regarding political issues.
CORDEAUX:
Do you have any major concerns yourself as to just where this conflict
in Serbia is going to lead us?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it's very difficult, Jeremy. The NATO countries were left
with no alternative. There hasn't been a quick submission by
the Milosevic regime. The images on our television screens of the
exodus of refugees are quite appalling. You're looking at one
of the largest movements of humanity, certainly the largest movement
of humanity in Europe since World War II and one of the largest in
the world in the last few decades. The stories coming out about the
atrocities being committed against the Albanians are equally appalling.
So the world can at least see why the NATO countries felt they had
to do something. In a sense you're damned if you do and you're
damned if you don't. If great powers stand by and allow things
to go on, which we all find unacceptable, they are criticised for
doing nothing and that happened in Bosnia. Remember all the criticism
of how long it took for countries like the United States and the NATO
countries to do anything. Now in this instance they have acted far
more quickly and people are beginning to say:- oh well, that hasn't
solved the problem straight away. It is a hugely difficult issue because
we can't close our eyes to what is happening to humanity in other
parts of the world. You can't ignore gross human rights abuses
and breaches. But it is never easy through military action - and that
is all you are left with if diplomacy and patience and talk failS
- it's never easy to get a quick result. On all the evidence
available to me and to the Government the NATO action was a regrettable
necessity.
CORDEAUX:
I see that Roxby Downs is in the news, not in really the way we would
like it to be. I was talking yesterday about Mr Kevin Buzzacott who
I believe, if he's been quoted correctly here, says that he could
kill, under Aboriginal law, he could kill Western Mining chief, Hugh
Morgan, because of the effects of the mine on his homeland and his
people he could kill under Aboriginal law. What an extraordinary
thing for a community leader to say.
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course, it's an extraordinary thing for anybody to say. Now,
I don't want to treat such a comment too seriously except to
say that every Australian, including Aboriginal Australians, would
find that kind of remark absolutely unacceptable.
CORDEAUX:
Yeah, but what about the jobs and the wealth that is created not just
for shareholders but for the entire country of which he is a part?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, of course. This is a whole argument about not only Roxby Downs
but it's the argument about Jabiluka. It is the argument about
so much of the measured development of our mineral deposits. That
development, when it leads to exports, earns billions of dollars for
this country. The Aboriginal people share in that. In some parts of
Australia they share more than anybody else does because there are
special royalty arrangements. And the amazing thing is that the course
of action being advocated in relation to Jabiluka, for example, by
the more widely reported Aboriginal leaders is, in fact, against the
long-term interest of the Aboriginal people in that area. Because
many of the mining developments in Australia over the last 20 years
have been accompanied by special royalty arrangements for indigenous
people and that has meant millions of dollars being available to those
people and over and above the benefits of that mine. And Aboriginal
leaders who attack further mining development are attacking the opportunities
of their fellow Aboriginal people to share in the development of Australia's
mineral resources. I cannot understand that people who constantly
campaign against resource development in Australia, in the name of
respecting Aboriginal rights, really have the interests of those people
at heart because they will benefit more in many cases than the rest
of us because of these special royalty arrangements.
CORDEAUX:
Yes, well if somebody finds something of value under my land it would
just be acquired I take it. I mean, I wouldn't...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, precisely, precisely.
CORDEAUX:
Exactly.
PRIME MINISTER:
Exactly. Now, we have special arrangements and I don't begrudge
those special arrangements. I'm in favour of them. It's
part of giving greater economic empowerment and independence to the
Aboriginal people. But it has to be said that their fellow Aboriginal
leaders or fellow Aborigines who attack these developments can go
off to UN committees trying to have them stopped are really doing
their fellow Aborigines in the eye in the process.
CORDEAUX:
Yes, Prime Minister, I mentioned that we had a little holiday up east
and a couple of the things that occurred to me - and travel, no doubt
broadens the mind...
PRIME MINISTER:
So they say.
CORDEAUX:
One of the things I saw up there in this incredible port of Singapore
was the way in which that port operates 24 hours a day three
shifts a day I understand. The busiest or the second busiest port
in the world and such prosperity. They think they're in the middle
of a recession. If that's a recession I think we should have
it here. Where are we with industrial reform at the moment, industrial
relations reform?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we are certainly doing a lot better than we were. And interestingly
enough, the reforms that have occurred over the last three years have
not been accompanied by an increase in industrial disputes. In fact,
industrial disputes now are at an 80-year low. You have to go back,
I think, to the year 1913 to get a lower level of industrial disputes
in Australia. Where are we in relation to the waterfront, after the
enormous dispute last year, what has happened is that in the port
of Melbourne you have significant increases in productivity. Other
ports, the improvements have not been as great because the reforms
there have not been as readily embraced by sections of the Maritime
Union of Australia. But in Melbourne where the unions and the workforce
have responded in a very positive way, not only has the productivity
lifted but also the pay and remuneration of the waterside workers
has also been extremely good. And that has demonstrated the benefit
of reform. The company that drove the reform, Patrick, so far from
going out of business as its union and Labor Party critics predicted,
has in fact done very well. And I think what we've had demonstrated
to us is that if you have the strength of purpose, as the Government
and that company did, to drive a reform and we're now
getting up to the first anniversary of those reform measures
I believe that you do get results. And I don't think the Australian
waterfront will ever be the same again and we have achieved, particularly
in the port of Melbourne, some significant changes and improvements.
CORDEAUX:
Well, I can't see why we can't be just as productive as
the people in Singapore but I guess that's another story.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Jeremy, to be fair to Australia, we have in fact done very well.
I mean, we are doing economically better than most countries in the
world and the productivity improvement from the Australian workforce
over the last few years has been quite significant.
CORDEAUX:
Let's go back to something you said where basically we can, and
I think you were talking more about in the context of this Baywatch
kafuffle a little while ago, you said that largely Australia's
reached a point where we can choose the level of productivity. We
can choose the level of unemployment that we want. But we must understand
that it is in the palm of our hand to make the hard decisions and
to go the way we choose the go.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it has all ways been that way, and even more so now because we
are living in a global economy and the idea that the rest of the world
is going to bail us out. I mean so many investments now will just
shop around for the most attractive location and if we don't
welcome investments, if we chase it out of our backyard, then it's
going to go some where else. Now we've actually been quite good
over the last few years. We have kept our inflation down, our interest
rates down, we've paid off our debts, we've become more
productive, and we've out performed just about every country
in the industrialised world and most countries in our region. But
we have to keep it up and the point I was making about Baywatch, and
I'd make it again and again, if we choose to maintain in our
system barriers against employment growth well we won't have
employment growth. That is why we argue very strongly you've
got to keep junior wage rates. Why we argue very strongly for small
business you've got to get rid of these absurd unfair dismissal
laws. We've been trying for three years to really clean that
up and the Senate keeps blocking us. But we're going to keep
trying that again and again. I mean I think the Australian public
is getting fed up with the policies of opposition for opposition's
sake. The job of an Opposition is to oppose some times, but it's
also to put forward alternatives. And if an Opposition spends all
its time saying no no no to everything the Government does, in the
end the public will run out of patience. And this is particularly
true in relation to our tax reform plan. It's true in relation
to unfair dismissal and junior wage rates. We took all of those things
to the public last October. We won the election and we are entitled
to ask the Senate to pass those measures.
CORDEAUX:
There is a feeling apparently that Labor is softening its stance on
the GST. Do you sense that yourself?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I sense that the public is fed up with the politics of opposition
for opposition's sake. I find in the community, even amongst
those people who didn't vote for us, an acceptance that: well
at least you fellas put the plan up before the election. You told
us about it before the election, you didn't mislead us. And you
won the election and even though we don't like it I suppose you're
entitled to have it because the public voted for you. And that is
our argument. I mean you cannot run a democracy, a parliamentary system
properly if a party that lays everything out in absolute detail is
still frustrated. It's a different matter I suppose if you haven't
said anything about it.
CORDEAUX:
Yeah sure.
PRIME MINISTER:
But we couldn't have been more up front. I mean even to the point
of people saying we were crazy to reveal so much detail. But we did
it, and we are now saying to those in the Senate who are opposing
us: listen to the public. And we're saying to the Labor Party:
you run the risk if incurring the scorn and the wrath of the community
even though some of them may not have supported us and a lot of them
didn't. That's the nature of Australian politics they accept
that we won the election. And this applies not only with tax. It applies
with Telstra; it applies with junior wage rates; it applies with unfair
dismissal laws. All of those policies were put on the table before
the election. I don't know how else you can conduct an election
in a Parliamentary democracy. You go to an election and say: if you
vote for us we'll do the following things. But the public votes
for us and then we're stopped from doing those following things.
CORDEAUX:
Well it must be very frustrating, [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Well of course but I am more concerned about the impact it has on
good policy and the Government of the country. We are doing very well
at the moment but we could be doing even better if we could get these
things through. And we have a heaven sent opportunity at the end of
this century to really surge into the next century in an even stronger
economic position. But we need tax reform, we need to get rid of our
Commonwealth government debt, and we need more industrial relations
reform and we are being frustrated at every turn by the Labor Party
and the Democrats in the Senate.
CORDEAUX:
Prime Minister, one thing that is surging is the number of Australians
who say they have used heroin. The number of Australians has doubled
since 1995. Just going back to Singapore as an example of how they
beat their problem. They had a big problem up until 1970 when they
introduced the death penalty, or 1972 I think it was. And I believe
they have hanged 200 drug pushers in that time up until now and I
was talking to the guy that was explaining the sort of status quo
of Singapore and I said: do you have a drug problem now? And he said
of course not, no we don't have a drug problem. Surely there
is an example to follow. I know that you've met with the FBI
and you've talked about what they do in America. But they haven't
beaten the drug problem the way the Singaporeans have beaten the drug
problem.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is true. On the other hand Singapore is a more authoritarian
country than Australia.
CORDEAUX:
But you want to beat this....
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah I know, but I also treasure the open Australian way of life.
And whilst I admire a lot of what Singapore has done I treasure very
dearly the individual freedoms that Australians have and I don't
think you can automatically transplant the culture of Singapore to
the culture of Australia. Having said that, of course I have a very
strong view about heroin use. You know my attitude towards a heroin
trial. I will be having something more to say about this in the lead
up to the Premiers' Conference. There is more that all governments
can do. We can do more to treat people who want to beat their addiction;
we can do more to educate our young; we can do more to set an example
in the schools. And can I say we've had a recent example in Sydney
of an independent school expelling some girls. Now however difficult
that may be for those girls and their families I applaud the strength
of purpose of the school and I would hope that all schools around
Australia would take the same attitude. It would be a good thing if
government schools took the same attitude as well. One government
school in Sydney tried to do the same thing about 18 months ago and
it was stopped from doing so by the intervention of the education
minister in New South Wales and I think that was highly regrettable.
I think you are entitled to encourage schools to have no tolerance,
to have zero tolerance, whatever expression you want to use, in relation
to drug use in schools. Because if you have a black and white attitude
at that stage I think you are far more likely to yield results. I
mean look at the success we have had in reducing the incidence of
tobacco smoking in our community, remembering that tobacco still causes
more deaths than any other drug as I understand it. Tobacco and alcohol
is still the largest claimants on the lives of Australians as far
as drugs are concerned. We have had a lot of success because we have
made it less and less acceptable in our community to smoke. And I
say as a former smoker myself, I don't have an individualistic...I
didn't have an individually intolerant view of it because it
would be hypocritical of me to do so. But I do think that we've
had a lot of success because we've made it less and less acceptable
and less and less fashionable. Therefore it is possible through a
concentrated government campaign to alter community attitudes. And
those who throw up their arms and say because the incidence of say,
cannabis use is rising we should stop all efforts in future to tackle
the problem and just adopt a more permissive approach. I don't
accept that and I don't believe the majority of the Australian
community does. But we do need to double our efforts and we need a
combined assault. We need the State government and the Federal government
working together across party lines. I've talked about this problem
with both Mr Carr and Mr Kennett, and Mr Olsen, and I'm hopeful
that whatever our differences on one or two peripheral issues might
be we can get a very good result out of the Premiers' Conference.
CORDEAUX:
Prime Minister, one thing that might get up the nose of Australians
when they see the frequent flyer, $22.5 million bill I think it was
this morning for Federal members of Parliament to fly around the world
in luxury. Is that justifiable?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you could stop it all by having no Federal Parliament. And you
could stop it all by having no State Parliament. I mean you'd
save travel expenses if you had no members of Parliament and you just
handed the administration of the country over to some kind of unelected
bureaucracy and abolished Parliament. That would save money but I
don't know that Australians would want that. I mean this is a
big country. You cannot run a Federal Parliament, wherever it may
be based. I mean Canberra is the most, as far as travel is concerned,
is about the most economic location. You can't run a national
Parliament without people flying from Western Australia, and Queensland,
and Sydney and Melbourne to Canberra. It's just not possible.
So therefore a certain amount of expenditure is absolutely unavoidable.
Now as far as overseas travel is concerned you can always argue as
to whether there's too much of it. But in the end, as you rightly
said, travel does broaden the mind and the idea that in the global
economy in which we exist, our senior government people, or for that
matter, our senior Opposition people, shouldn't occasionally
go overseas I think it unrealistic. Business people do it, sports
people do it. I mean we are living in a global village. We are living
in a world where we're increasingly interdependent. So it's
easy for people to take pot shots at the cost of Parliamentary travel.
And as I say you could abolish the lot of it if you abolish democracy.
CORDEAUX:
Prime Minister, I've just got about 45 seconds left, a lot of
people, some people are screaming for you to ban Lolita. Did you see
t