PM Transcripts

Subjects: Illegal Immigration; relations with Indonesia; education; election 2001
KENNERLEY:
Prime Minister, thank you for your time today.
PRIME MINISTER:
It';s very nice to talk to you, Kerri-Anne. I';m just driving through the Yarra Valley area, just out of Melbourne, wonderful spot.
KENNERLEY:
Well it sounds fantastic and I know how busy you are and there';s so many issues, it';s hard to know where to start. But I';m just looking now, Prime Minister, at the information coming from the Indonesian Foreign Minister who says Australia has failed in its diplomatic communications with his country by discussing problems in public before raising them with Indonesia. Did you say something untoward publicly before mentioning it to Indonesia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, no, I haven';t. I don';t really understand what the Minister might be referring to. The outstanding issue of concern to us, that of the problem of illegal immigration, is something that has been raised in a number of private discussions. It was raised when I saw President Megawati several weeks ago. It was also raised when Mr Downer, Mr Reith and Mr Ruddock went to Jakarta several weeks later. So in no way, of course, do we improperly raise things in public before they';re raised in private. I don';t really want to react any further to his comments because I had a very friendly discussion with his President when I was in Jakarta…I';m sorry, in Shanghai, at the APEC meeting and I indicated to her then that if I were re-elected I';d be in touch with her with a view to us getting together at some time to discuss certain issues. The illegal immigration issue for Indonesia, of course, is of a different priority than it is for Australia. Indonesia has many other challenges and difficulties and we';re willing to help within the limit of our capacity.
KENNERLEY:
The refugee crisis – and we';ve been discussing it a lot on this programme, particularly today – looking at our overseas image and it would appear from my callers are very proud of our stance and the information they get from overseas is that most countries are saying, good on you Australia, because it seems that Britain is having huge problems with the Muslims in that country, in fact, wanting their own State, which apparently was on Foreign Correspondent last night.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Kerri-Anne, our position, my position is very simply that we and we alone will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. That is a fundamental and absolute right of any Government. I';m not surprised that some of the news out of Britain and America today about steps they are taking in relation to illegal immigration. You mentioned the question of the Muslim community, the quarrel we have and the difficulties we are responding to are not a quarrel and a difficulty with Muslims as such. Islamic Australians are entitled to the same treatment as other Australians. We are all Australians together and the terrorist attack was an attack on the decent principles of Islam as it was an attack on the decent principles of Christianity and indeed humanity generally. So I don';t really want this issue to be turned into Muslims against the rest. But it is certainly terrorists against the rest and we';re certainly very strongly of that view and naturally we will continue to strongly assert our right as a sovereign nation to protect our borders and to decide who comes to this country. That is what is at stake, it';s not our tolerance or our openness, we will decide who comes, we won';t be required by others to accept them irrespective of their entitlement.
KENNERLEY:
Even at the moment apparently some Vietnamese asylum seekers have been detected sailing for Australia. What';s your view there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is right, a small number have apparently sailed from Vietnam. Now they won';t be allowed to land on the Australian mainland and one of the things I understand Mr Ruddock will be doing is taking that up with the Vietnamese Government and it may be that we will endeavour to make arrangements for the return of those people to Vietnam. You see there are literally millions of people waiting in refugee camps and facilities around the world and are waiting to be processed and you';ve always got to remember that their need and their entitlement to refugee status in Australia and other countries could well be a lot higher than that of many of the people who seek to come here illegally. Australia is one of only eight or nine countries that actually does take people. On a per capita basis we take more people, more refugees and we should continue to do that. More refugees than any country except Canada. But it has to be done in circumstances where we decide who comes to the country and in what circumstances and we cannot for a moment surrender that right.
KENNERLEY:
I';m speaking with our Prime Minister John Howard and yesterday of course Kim Beazley released their vision of the nation. A lot of people have taken very warmly to Labor';s suggestion and ideas on education. They want to put a billion dollars into universities.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry-Ann can I say that most of the money that was talked about by Mr Beazley yesterday will not be delivered until the fourth or fifth year of a Labor Government and one of the questions I ask is that if this issue is so important to him, if he believes that we have a crisis in education, which we don';t, then he would be proposing to take money which is being spent at the moment in other areas and put that immediately into education if he were made Prime Minister so that the money could begin to flow in the first, second and third years that he';s Prime Minister. Now everybody would like, I suppose, a world in which we had unlimited amounts of money to spend but we';ve made a very big additional provision ourself for education. I';ll just give you one figure, I don';t want to burden your listeners with too many figures. In the five and a half years we';ve been in office we have increased by 43% the amount of money the Commonwealth Government spends on Government schools, on public schools in NSW and all the other states and yet the enrolment in those schools in that time has only gone up by 1.8%, so nobody can suggest on the basis of those figures that we are short changing Government schools, we';re clearly not.
KENNERLEY:
Prime Minister a lot is being made by the Opposition about your retirement. Will you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I';m not going anywhere than, I hope, back to the Lodge if the Australian people want me to.
KENNERLEY:
What about mid term, you know that';s the sort of scare tactics that are being used.
PRIME MINISTER:
Can I just say this. What I said a year ago was that if I were to be re-elected, a couple of years into the term, I';d think about my future. Now I haven';t said I';m going to retire then. Right at the moment the last thing I want to do is leave public life, I';ve never felt better, I';ve never felt more up to the job, I';ve never felt more committed and that was the context in which it was said and I think it was a perfectly reasonable comment to have made and the Labor Party';s clutching at straws. I';m flattered that they should be so concerned about my future.
KENNERLEY:
Prime Minister we do thank you very much, I know it';s a busy schedule in the Yarra Valley at the moment. What';s next on the agenda? Where do you get to eat lunch today?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I';ll have a sandwich back in the hotel in Melbourne and then after a few media interviews and so forth I';m going to Hobart tonight.
KENNERLEY:
Very good, well we hope you consider us again before…
PRIME MINISTER:
I would very much like to Kerry-Ann.
KENNERLEY:
And I';d look forward to that, and thank you very much and I';d like to see you in here in the studio when you';re in Sydney.
PRIME MINISTER:
We';ll try but I';ll certainly speak to you again if I can before the election.
KENNERLEY:
Thank you for your time today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thankyou bye.
[ends]