Subjects: Riverside Nursing Home; Reconciliation; GST; tax cuts
E&OE.............................................................................................
LAWS:
We welcome the Prime Minister John Howard. John, thank you so much for
being the first guest of the new century.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well thanks very much John. Good evening to you and your listeners.
LAWS:
Was it a rough day?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, entirely predictable. Bronwyn was asked every question from the Opposition.
She answered them. It's a difficult issue this because nursing homes
is a sensitive emotional issue and everybody was incredibly distressed
about those stories regarding the use of kerosene. We have about probably,
what, three-four thousand nursing homes in Australia. The great bulk of
them are wonderful institutions - always have been always will be. You'll
get a few that don't come up to scratch and the department has taken
action in relation to the Riverside Home. And the patients there have
been moved to one run by the Sisters of Charity at St Vincents in Melbourne
and I thank them for helping in this very difficult situation.
LAWS:
Prime Minister, it did take a long time however for the action to be
taken. 56 days since that Riverside story was first discussed and discusses
openly. It's a very very long time for people who have to continue
suffering it.
PRIME MINISTER:
The Minister herself acted with incredible speed once she knew about
it. To be fair to her....
LAWS:
Well if we knew about it 56 days ago, assumably she did know about. Is
56 days.....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as soon as she got the information she acted. Now there are certain
legal rights that the licensee of a nursing home has, and all along people
have been calling for her to make preemptive statements. And she's
been very careful not to do that so as not to prejudice the steps that
are being taken.
LAWS:
So you believe that the delay's excusable?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. I believe that the Minister has acted appropriately, and promptly.
Clearly the procedures that have been put in place didn't work as
they should of, and she of course as the Minster is setting about ensuring
that that doesn't occur in the future. But the character of modern
government is such that one particular flaw in a departmental procedure
can't automatically mean that the Minister has got to resign. On
that basis you have in any government anywhere in the world you'd
have ministers on a daily resignation basis.
LAWS:
Yeah. But just going back to the period of time it took and given the
reputation that Riverside had, and I talked to Bronwyn Bishop earlier
today, and there had been complaints coming in about it since 1984 I think.....
PRIME MINISTER:
1988, yes.
LAWS:
Well certainly since 1986, and many of them she was saying the previous
government didn't do anything about it. But when she took the job
or when you took the job, collectively as a group you should have looked
at that surely and said well hang on, here's one we've got to
look at. Why weren't spot checks carried out....?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there were, there were, this was raised in Parliament today. There
were a whole series of contacts between the department and this particular
home stretching over a period of time. And the view had been taken that
over a period of time it would be a good idea to get the home up to higher
standards. And you've got to remember in these situations John that
there are pluses and minuses about revoking a home's licence to operate.
People don't like being moved and of course I think it's been
evident today that some of the concern expressed by people who are being
moved. These things are very difficult, they're very sensitive. I
understand the hurt and the trauma of relatives and of the elderly people
themselves. As I say you are bound, in a large system, you are bound to
have some that don't come up to scratch and it's the responsibility
of the department and the government to ensure that the procedures work
as well as possible.
LAWS:
Yeah, but given that Riverside had many many complaints leveled against
it, and according to the Minister when she talked to me today said that
it was brought back to standard and then it would slip away again. Why
wasn't it constantly checked? And given also that there were 4,000
complaints and very [inaudible]. I'm not against the [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah well those....no, no, no. Well many of those complaints were
relatively minor. Not minor to the people making them but in the overall
scheme of things. And the great bulk of them according to the Minister
in Parliament today have been resolved. I mean in the end the best policy
with something like this is if a complaint is made is to talk to the people
and try to get them to bring their standards up to scratch. And it's
only as a last resort should you do as the delegate of the Minister did
today, and that is suspend funding a revoke a licence.
LAWS:
There has also been talk that if some of these people had moved that
in fact could be life threatening. What do you do about that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is one of the reasons why you don't hastily decide to
close down a home or move people. I mean that is the very point I make
that what you must try and do in these circumstances is to eradicate the
unacceptable practice and to bring things up to a proper standard.
LAWS:
But you obviously think 56 days is not too long.
PRIME MINISTER:
No I didn't say that. Clearly the system has not worked as well
as it should have and Bronwyn has said that. But what I do say in relation
to her own personal knowledge of the matter she acted with great speed
once she heard about it and has applied herself quite single mindedly
ever since.
LAWS:
The people feel very strongly about it and I believe the place is being
picketed now and a number of residences have been moved, and there have
been complaints, very vocal complaints for a number of weeks about it.
Somebody's got to be responsible. Who's accountable?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well John, I'm not going to sort of make judgements on the run about
that. I've been in Parliament for most of the last few hours. We've
been sitting, we've been having Question Time. I haven't been
brought up to date on everything that's happened this afternoon.
But John the correct procedures are being put in place. The Minister has
I believe given a very good account of her own actions. As far as the
residents are concerned it ought to be our major concern as a result of
the decision taken by the delegate this morning. Those people have been,
or are in the process of being moved to another nursing home. Now time
will allow other examinations to be made by the Minister about what went
wrong in relation to the system. Her main concern in recent days has been
to ensure that the best procedure is applied in relation to the residents
in this particular home.
LAWS:
Is it possible that Riverside will reopen and operate again?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't know. It's not possible for me to say at this
stage. All I can tell you is that the licence has been taken away and
the funding has been suspended. I have to be careful what I say because
there are rights and interests involved here and I've got to be careful.
LAWS:
I understand. Families and some residents don't want to move.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's, this highlights the awful dilemma of this. It is very
easy for an Opposition, or a media to say it's terrible and to run
an emotional campaign and I understand that. But we have to make the decisions
and many people don't want to move. There are many people who feel
the disturbance of their elderly relatives being moved, is worse than
any alternative. And I understand that, that's why these judgements
are difficult and that's why they should not be arbitrarily arrived
at.
LAWS:
But that's not the reason for the 56 day delay?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there are a number of circumstances to be investigated in relation
to that and once again I am not going to make a . . .
LAWS:
But they will be investigated?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look John, the Minister is investigating this thing from start to finish.
She was clearly concerned about the system not having worked effectively.
She took steps to act very rapidly herself once she found out about it.
LAWS:
Did you ask her to cancel the television appearance on Sunday?
PRIME MINISTER:
John, the question of whether people appear on a particular program is
something that happens day in and day out in relation to a whole lot of
things. I talk to and my office talks to her a great deal, I am not going
into the details of that.
LAWS:
So you not going to tell me about . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no what I am going to say to you John is that you know as newsman
that there are a lot of contacts between offices about television appearances
and the idea that the most important thing in this is whether Bronwyn
appears on a particular television program, it may be a fascination of
the media, but it's not her major concern. And I don't think
anybody could accuse her of having been a reluctant appearer on television
last week on this issue or indeed generally. She's been very available,
very accountable and I think very up front about the whole thing.
LAWS:
Yes, well she was quite happy to talk on the radio program today. And
I don't really think there would have been anything wrong with it
if you had have advised her not to go on it, would there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well John I'm not going to go into that. I have a lot of contact
with my ministers about a lot of things and I can't go into all the
details. All I do say is that my contact with her on those sorts of matters
are always appropriate.
LAWS:
Should she resign?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. This is ridiculous. This is, it is a very difficult, sensitive issue
but to say on the basis of this she ought to resign is just ridiculous
and I certainly don't for a moment think that. I think she has handled
something that's very awkward, very difficult, very sad for the people
concerned, very disturbing for the patients and the relatives with a great
deal of sincerity and candour. And can I just say the other thing that
is very important that the overwhelming bulk of the nursing homes in Australia
operate, they have always operated very well. The overwhelming bulk of
them operated very well under the previous government and they operate
very well under the current government. And most people in the nursing
home industry are professional and dedicated and caring men and women
and I think we've got to keep something like this in a proper perspective.
LAWS:
I agree with you. We will have a short break here and I will talk further
with our Prime Minister John Howard.
[break]
LAWS:
Thank you very much for staying with us. My special guest is the Prime
Minister of Australia, John Howard. John, you were admired by many Australians
when you admitted that you couldn't keep the deadline for reconciliation.
Geoff Clarke said that it was an honest admission of failure. Did you
see it as failure?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I just saw it as being realistic. I'm still very committed to
reconciliation, but I don't think we should get hung up about the
27th of May which is when the Reconciliation Council presents
its document. Nor should we get hung up by the 31st of December
when we're meant to respond. Nor indeed should we see reconciliation
as being achieved or defined by a document, it is something that is going
to take a long time. We are making more progress than many of the activists
acknowledge. But we just have to understand that it is a very long process
and it is not achieved by symbolic deeds, it is achieved by patient progress
in a whole number of areas.
LAWS:
What do you believe does need in a sentence if you can, does need to
be reconciled?
PRIME MINISTER:
What needs to be changed is the relative disadvantage in health, housing,
education and employment of Aboriginal Australians.
LAWS:
Did you make the date, because I rather suspect you did, I hope I am
right, in the moment of euphoria on election night? Was it something you
. . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I didn't actually, I mean the main December dates are in the
Act that was passed in 1991. And what I did on election night was commit
myself to the process of achieving reconciliation by the Centenary of
Federation. Now, I meant that, I wanted to . . . I didn't think so
much about the minute detail, I wanted to commit my Government to the
goal of reconciliation and it's still committed. But what I am saying
now is that if we don't have every I' dotted and every
T' crossed by May or December and we certainly won't then
we shouldn't see the process as having finished or indeed as having
failed. I think it is something that will go on for some time. And I want
to see a greater harmony between different sections of the Australian
community and I think that is best achieved by honestly and patiently
trying to remove areas of disadvantage, not by symbolic gestures which
can mean different things to different people.
LAWS:
Four years as Prime Minister. Is the GST the biggest risk you've
taken?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I think the, in political terms perhaps, but more importantly in national
and human terms I think the Timor commitment because it involved the risking
of lives of young Australian men and women. And that weighed far more
heavily on me, for that reason than anything else.
LAWS:
Could you believe your luck when Kim Beazley started to work you over
on the GST? He didn't handle it very well did he?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he handled it very badly, but the reason that he handled it badly
John is that he doesn't have an alternative policy. I mean in the
end if you don't have a thought out policy no matter how propitious
you might think the politics of it are, you get caught out and then .
. . we do have a policy and we've done the hard yards. We've
won an election. We've taken our lumps on the difficult bits of the
GST and very soon on the 1st of July people will start getting
the $47 a week tax cut for an average family and the abolished provisional
tax cuts and all the other provisional tax, all the other benefits that
are going to flow.
LAWS:
Has it been a lack of understanding of those tax cuts that have caused
people to be as critical as they have been of the GST?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I think it is inevitable. Everything that has happened in relation
to the scare campaign I expected. And I expect the scare campaign more
or less to go on until the 1st of July. People inherently believe
the negatives and tend to mistrust or remain unconvinced about the positives
until they actually arrive.
LAWS:
One final question. Is that sweet Honeycomb really a duck destroyer?
Surely not.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no I, it's a wicked rumour. I asked him last night. It is a
wicked rumour. He's a very fond resident of Kirribilli House.
LAWS:
Thank you Prime Minister very much for your time and for doing us the
honour of being on our first program.
[ends]