Subjects: election campaign; Australia's role in fight against Terrorism; budget position
E&OE.................................
CLARKE:
Good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Michael. Good to be with you and have my colleague Peter Lindsay the Member for Herbert with me and naturally urging all of your listeners to vote for Peter on the 10th of November. He's been a terrifically hard working local member, he's always in there punching for his constituents and I hope you give him favourable consideration.
CLARKE:
And Peter Lindsay you join us as well, thank you for your time.
LINDSAY:
Yes Michael, it's good to be with you this morning.
CLARKE:
Now Prime Minister just before we get onto international matters, you mentioned about Peter Lindsay, it's your most marginal seat, how concerned are you about things here?
PRIME MINISTER:
I never take anything for granted. I believe that he has done a very good local job, he's connected with the people, he's fought for things, local projects. As a result of his urgings extra federal money has come into not only Townsville but also the surrounding areas. Now I think that's the kind of local member you want. Increasingly these days people look at the quality of the sitting member, particularly when you get outside the capital seats and people say is this somebody who irrespective of my politics is somebody who punches hard for the people of Townsville.
Now I can say to your listeners that over the last five and a half years Peter has done that and he's not been afraid to stand up in the party room and eyeball ministers and get extra things and that's really what you want because politics is very much about the quality of local representation. It's also about broad national strategies and important philosophical differences as well but it is very much at a local level about the quality of local representation and Peter's somebody's who's reflected the concerns and this city has a very strong affinity with the defence forces and Peter's reflected that and also it's a very significant commercial centre, it also has very important linkage to university life. I mean he was one of the very very strong advocates of the university getting additional places and additional resources so I think he's done a very good job.
CLARKE:
This is one of your critical seats though isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes it is. It's a tough seat, always a tough seat this and I'm not taking it for granted and I know Peter's not and we're asking people to look at the quality of his representation as well as the economic achievements of the Government and the certainty and the sense of direction the Government's given the country over the last five and a half years. So we're really making a dual appeal, we're asking for the Government to be returned but we're also asking that people remember the quality of Peter Lindsay's representation.
CLARKE:
Okay talking about you mentioned certainty, these are uncertain times I guess we would have to say. Yesterday you announced over 1500 troops to take part in the fight against terrorism, sending troops into war, was that an easy decision?
PRIME MINISTER:
No it was very hard, the most difficult and certainly the most responsible decision that any Prime Minister and Government takes. It is a big commitment, it is a potentially very dangerous operation. The total number of personell is 1,550, that's in all three services. There will be special forces, there will be 4 FA-18's, there'll be a command ship, probably the Manoora or the Kanimbla and there'll be some frigates and also some P3 reconnaissance aircraft. Now that's quite a diverse commitment but it is important that, and when people think about to remember that there were Australians who died in the World Trade Centre so in a very direct way that was an attack on the right of Australians, especially young Australians to move around the world with freedom and with ease and without fear. It's not just a struggle for America, it's also something that involves countries that have the same commitment to individual freedom and liberty. I mean the people who died in that trade centre were just going about their ordinary daily lives the way you and I are now and without warning or provocation or justification they died. Now you can't imagine that that sort of threat will go away if we do nothing. People say oh well if we get involved we make ourselves more vulnerable, everybody is vulnerable to that kind of attack and the only way to deal with it is to confront it, to seek out the people responsible, bring them to justice or otherwise deal with them.
CLARKE:
You're in Townsville, a defence town, I guess the question that so many want answered today will Townsville troops play some role at some stage in this conflict do you believe?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there could well be individual specialists. At the moment it's not likely that individual units from here will go but bear in mind Townsville is continuing to carry a very large share of the East Timor burden.
CLARKE:
Is that affected by this conflict at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it won't be affected, we'll be able to manage both of them. It's quite a big commitment but I've been told by the defence chiefs and I'm not a soldier, I have to rely on professional advice, that it is a manageable commitment for Australia. But Townsville of course has been very heavily involved in the East Timor commitment and that goes on, we still have a very large force in East Timor and Townsville is intimately linked with that, has been at every stage. Now there could well be individuals who come from here but right at the moment as far as the sort of basing of the likely units to be sent, it won't affect Townsville as directly as some other military establishments around the country.
CLARKE:
Oh course the SAS are involved and Townsville fifth aviation regiment that operates the blackhawks has been involved very closely with training with the SAS.
PRIME MINISTER:
There's a link in that sense. You will understand that I'm very careful about going into too much detail for obvious reasons, I hope you understand. I mean I want to keep the public fully informed but I don't want to unnecessarily provide, or needlessly provide information which is sometimes not helpful. As further information is available for release it will be released.
CLARKE:
What will be your message to the 2RAR troops that you're meeting today?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it will be a combination of gratitude and reassurance. I also want to talk to the families, I also want to reassure the families of those personnel who will go overseas in the next few weeks that they will be constantly cared for and looked after and will be of ongoing concern. The arrangements that were very effectively put in place for the families of people who went to East Timor are going to be repeated in relation to the people who go this time. They were very successful, I want the service families to understand, the wives and girlfriends, husbands and mothers and fathers and children to understand that they are uppermost in our thoughts. It is a very trying time for them, there's no purpose served in my trying to pretend it won't be a difficult and potentially dangerous operation and I want them and I want their loved ones who are going overseas to know and to have the assurance and the peace of mind that the people left behind are going to be properly cared for and looked after, we certainly tried to do that in a new and better way in relation to East Timor. And I want to repeat that at the very least in relation to the people who are involved in this operation.
CLARKE:
In terms of that feeling safe at home with troops in areas such as East Timor and Bouganville and the commitment now to the campaign against terrorism. How protected will we be here at home with troops serving overseas?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is no evidence of any threat to the Australian mainland. Now we obviously maintain an anti-terrorist capacity here, that won't be compromised. But there is no immediate, there's no evidence of any immediate proximate threat to the Australian mainland. The source of the threat to our freedom at the present time lies away from this country in the form of terrorist organisations and the object of the exercise is not to subjugate Afghanistan, we have no argument with the people of Afghanistan, none at all. We do have an argument with terrorist organisation, we do have an argument with the Taliban who harbour and relieve and look after and protect those terrorists but I just have to repeat again we don't have an argument with the people of Afghanistan, this is not an invasion of Afghanistan.
CLARKE:
Would you have a worry then that some people may not see it that way, that that tolerance that Australia is famous for, the multiculturalism that we have may be in some way jeopardised by this commitment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it shouldn't be and it mustn't be and as far as I'm concerned it won't be. Yesterday afternoon I went to a mosque in Melbourne to say to those Australians of Islamic faith that they're as much a part of our society as anybody else. They're making a wonderful contribution to Australia. I don't want any intolerance displayed towards people simply because they are of an Islamic background or hold to the Islamic faith. That would be absolutely wrong and would be contrary to everything that this country has always stood for. I mean we are a nation that prides itself on tolerance and a nation that accepts people for who they are not what religion they are or what country they come from or what their skin colour is. It's never been something that we should in any way condone and I fervently hope that nobody in Australia will see this as a quarrel between say Christianity and Judaism on the one side and Islam on the other. It's not. There were people of the Islamic faith who died in the World Trade Centre, hundreds, hundreds, I'm told, of people working in that building were of the Islamic faith. The terrorists didn't care about that. Now that's pretty strong evidence to me that this is evil versus the things we believe, not Islam versus the things we believe in.
CLARKE:
Just a quick question before we move on, you are speaking to business leaders in Townsville today as well and I want to get onto that in just a moment. We've seen a few false alarms and Anthrax scares in North Queensland and around the country over the last couple of days. With this commitment are you worried that that threat may increase or become real now?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well those threats arose, so far none of them have turned out to be dangerous, they've certainly turned out to be alarming and a terrible nuisance and an unacceptable nuisance and that's why we've introduced, or announced the introduction of a new federal offence of really pretending that you're sending Anthrax or some biological substance when in reality it's a hoax. There are already offences where you do it, and it does actually occur. We are like any other free country, we are vulnerable, our level of vulnerability is not as great as some others but it is greater than it was before the 11th of September but so is the vulnerability of everybody else. And again the point is that you don't reduce your vulnerability by going over in a corner and hoping it will all pass you by. All of history has taught the world that if it does that the problem doesn't go away and those who would visit destruction and evil on other people are encouraged and embolded because of the apparent timidity of those they seek to intimidate.
CLARKE:
I'm speaking with Prime Minister John Howard campaigning in the seat of Herbert today, of course it is an election campaign under way as well. You're speaking later on today to the Townsville Chamber of Commerce luncheon. Where do you stand on infrastructure projects for the local region? We've seen a lot of discussion over the last three years about things such as port access and ocean terminals, the Douglas arterial road, will you be announcing...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I've got a few things I want to say about those issues. I mean as always in election campaigns there are some things we can do and there are some things we can't. I mean we have done quite a number of things in relation to the bypass, we've done a number of things in relation to local road funding. We've certainly contributed a couple of million dollars a few years ago in the wake of that cyclone. There are a lot of things that have been done.
CLARKE:
What can you do now though?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm going to say something at lunch time about that but you will appreciate in my position as I go around the country that there is always a long list of things that people want done, some of which we can do.
CLARKE:
Do we become more important because of the marginal status of Herbert?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we try to treat all parts of the country fairly, certainly the local member Mr Lindsay, Peter, reminds me constantly of the needs of Townsville and he's certainly played a major role in a lot of the things that have been achieved. I'll have some further comments to make about that at lunch time. However even more important than that is the general state of the Australian economy, it's still in very good shape.
CLARKE:
But you have less money to spend now don't you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well of course, because we have invested in very good things like roads. And I hear the opposition complaining that the surplus, which incidentally they didn't have for five years, I mean it's a bit rich of Mr Beazley who left us with $96 billion of federal government debt complaining that we don't have a bigger surplus. The reason we don't have a bigger surplus is two fold. Firstly economic growth is a little slower and that affects the surplus. But secondly and very importantly, we've spent some of it, quite deliberately and quite unapologetically on things like defence, now that's very important to Townsville. More important to Townsville than just about any other city in Australia. So the man in politics who attacks increased defence spending is attacking the interests of the people of Herbert and the people to Townsville. We have spent extra money on roads, that's important to the whole country. We've got a $1.6 billion expansion in road funding over a period of four years. We've spent extra money on the environment. We have cut petrol excise by 1.5 cents a litre. On top of that we have abolished half yearly automatic indexation of petrol excise. You might have noticed that in August of this year for the first time in 18 years there wasn't an automatic increase in the excise on fuel because we abolished that, it was introduced by the Hawke Government in 1983.
CLARKE:
There had been a lot of criticism about...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well of course there was criticism, and I acknowledge that. And I have never been reluctant to respond to people's criticism. Sometimes I can do something about that and it's legitimate and I will. It's no weakness occasionally to respond to people's concerns. It's part of good government. I'm not perfect. I don't always get it right.
CLARKE:
Okay well looking at that spending issue having less to spend as we discovered yesterday, does that affect your campaigning in any way that the promises that you make have to be very careful...
PRIME MINISTER:
The promises that both sides make have to be very careful and I look forward with interest to see what the Labor Party says about rollback. For three years now they have been saying the GST is evil and the legitimate question has to be asked if it's so evil why don't they get rid of it if they win the election. But instead of that they've talked about rollback. Now we're coming to the moment of truth and if they don't have a serious rollback they will reveal themselves as having been essentially conducting a fraudulent political exercise over the last three years because they've been saying wait until we get in and we'll rollback the GST, well I see, we'll all be interested to see where rollback occurs and they won't be able to escape with the excuse oh the surplus is not big enough. If they're so committed to rollback then maybe they won't embrace some of the spending commitments that we have made.
I suspect the only way they can seriously rollback is to increase other forms of taxation. But that's their problem. We had the courage to introduce tax reform, they wanted to surf into victory on the back of what they hoped would be public anger with tax reform. Now there were some problems but we've responded to many of those. And we're getting the benefits of tax reform. Our exports are cheaper, more competitive. We've had $12 billion of personal income tax cuts. Company tax has fallen from 36 to 30 cents in the dollar. Capital gains tax has been halved for individuals. So there are a lot of benefits from tax reform. But it was a big ask, the country needed it and the Labor Party just ran a very negative campaign hoping the world would come to an end and we would pay the political price. Now that's a matter for the Australian people and whatever verdict they have in a few weeks time I'll accept.
CLARKE:
I just want to talk about spending locally and bring Peter Lindsay here into this, Mr Howard there has been a lot of concern over the years about a bypass, the Douglas Arterial road to connect parts of North Queensland, a lot closer to the new hospital which just opened last week. Peter Lindsay has made a commitment of $34 million from the federal government to get that built, do you reaffirm that commitment with the Prime Minister sitting next to you today?
LINDSAY:
Rock solid Michael, I certainly do and Michael I observe at the same time that the other side has also put up a proposal but theirs is not the same as ours. Ours is $33 million, there it is, on the table, lets get on with it and get it built as quickly as possible and we all know the people of Townsville currently know the need to get that road built and that bridge built. But the Labor Party's proposal is this curious we will borrow money from the state government and then pay it back at some later stage. Well why does that surprise us thats the Labor Party's back into borrowing money again? It's their track record.
CLARKE:
So if you're elected how quickly would work begin on that?
LINDSAY:
I've been speaking to Queensland main roads, they have a small amount of design work still to be done, they have to move some services, it's entirely in their hands, as soon as they do that the green lights gets pushed.
CLARKE:
And Prime Minister if something happens and Peter Lindsay does not win the seat of Herbert...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I devoutly hope that Peter is re-elected and getting Peter re-elected is important to us. Nobody should imagine that we can get re-elected and lose a seat like Herbert.
CLARKE:
But would you still make that commitment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look if I make a commitment it's a commitment made to the people. We had an example of that in the last election campaign, we made a commitment to something in the electorate of Paterson and we didn't win that seat although we won the election, that went ahead and I went up there and I opened it, it was a new basketball arena and we kept our word and the same thing will apply here. But look can I just make the point, can I say to your listeners we can't realistically hope to form government unless we win seats like Herbert. I'm a realist and if you want a Howard Liberal Government the only way to achieve it in a seat like this is to re-elect Peter Lindsay. There's really no other way of doing it and I would hope people understand if they want a Coalition Government and they want good local representation that Peter's your only man.
CLARKE:
On that issue of supporting North Queensland, in the past few years we've seen strong support in the North for One Nation. Pauline Hanson has been saying that your party has taken on her policies, her concerns and so now that you will have those voters. Do you see it that way?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no I don't. And in any event I thought she attacked our commitment along side the Americans. I don't quite know what she's getting at. In relation to that issue she...
CLARKE:
Also asylum seekers, have you been influenced by...
PRIME MINISTER:
No I haven't, I really haven't. Every decision we have made has been made according to our assessment of Australia's interests and we put Australia's interests first. Some of those decisions have been very difficult, they've been very controversial but they have been the right decisions and if people are concerned about the security of our borders and taking a firm but sensible line in relation to illegal immigration it's the Liberal Party Coalition, the Liberal and National Party's that have really stood up for those things. The Labor Party's gone from one side to the other, they opposed the border protection bill then they supported it. Many of their senators as the bill was being debated were saying out of the side of their mouths if they won the election they'd change it again. I mean senator after senator said that. Now I have no confidence that that bill would remain the same if Labor were to win. So if people are wanting a strong stand on that issue but a humane stand then the Coalition is the side of politics, the only side of politics that has the runs on the board.
CLARKE:
We've got the news coming up fairly shortly but to wrap up Mr Howard what about you personally? How are you feeling after the last few weeks, very busy times for the world and campaigning, are you feeling confident?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I always take it a day at a time. I never take the Australian people for granted, I have tried in the five and a half years I've been Prime Minister to do things that put the country's interests first. I hope that the Australian public sees it that way but I will pour myself into the effort needed over the next three weeks to earn the support and the respect of the Australian people. I don't take it for granted, I think it's going to be very tough but I'll be working day and night to earn that respect and that support because I value it very much.
CLARKE:
Prime Minister John Howard and Peter Lindsay, the Federal Member for Herbert, thanks for joining us today.
LINDSAY:
Thanks Mike.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]