E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
O’BRIEN:
And I’m joined now by the Prime Minister John Howard in our Brisbane studio. John Howard at the start of this campaign you were very very heavily focused on external issues, the terrorist attacks, asylum seekers, the international economy. Kim Beazley predicted that in the end you’d be cobbling together domestic policies like health, education and aged care, like a drowning man grasps at lifebelts. Is that what your policy launch represents?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well how original, the Leader of the Opposition has attacked the Prime Minister’s policy process. Kerry, I always intended to have a blend of national security and economic management issues. I haven’t abandoned, I won’t abandon the national security issues but we still have a very strong programme for the next three years. In reality we’re offering more on aged care than Labor. Our aged care package is much better than Labor’s, it’s more generous and it’s also more comprehensive and my policy speech yesterday, or launch, whatever you choose to call it was a mixture of our plea to the Australian public that on the two issues of national security and economic management we are better able to govern the country over the next three years. Nothing cobbled together about it, I’ve always had a bias for providing towards, providing parents with great choice and if I can pick up that comment of Peter McDonald’s earlier, I think it is a question of choice, its just that I disagree profoundly with him when he says that there could be a bias after the age of three or four. I think child caring arrangements whether they are at home via one parent, be it the mother or the father, or institutional childcare, should be a matter of choice as far as possible, unfortunately for many people with good economic circumstances it hasn’t been to date and our proposal yesterday within the limits of affordability was a further broad measure that provides parents with new babies with that choice.
O’BRIEN:
Well we’ll come back to the babies in a moment but if you take a aged care, I will start with the older Australians.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well lets go through the whole age spectrum.
O’BRIEN:
Unfortunately we don’t have the time. But for more than a year now and as recently as last week you insisted there is no crisis in aged care. Suddenly yesterday you find an extra $50 million a year to subsidise nursing home care. What’s that if it’s not cobbling together some thing to appease an important voting block?
PRIME MINISTER:
Kerry, I repeat there is not a crisis, that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a case to put more funds into the sector. And one of the things that has been put to us is that the operating costs and the subsidy arrangements need further examination, we’re going to do that. In the meantime we’re going to provide an additional $50 million a year over a period of the forward estimates and you know that’s, I don’t regard that as in any way contradicting the previous statements. I mean apparently you either have to admit there’s a total crisis or alternatively you do absolutely nothing. Can’t you sensibly have measures to help the sector?
O’BRIEN:
On this programme Bronwyn Bishop, your Minister, has said in response to claims from the industry that the subsidies were significantly inadequate, she has denied their claims on this programme and in other forums. This would seem to me very clearly to be acknowledging the industry had a case for higher subsidies because that’s exactly what you’ve now given them.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’d have to go back and look at the context of that Kerry. But once again it’s a matter of commonsense. Because you might disagree with some fairly extravagant criticism of your policy and then you subsequently do something in the general area of complaint doesn’t mean that have acknowledged every single criticism. I mean can’t we be sensible and analyses the quality of the policy offering and ask ourselves for the aged care sector which is the better offering and I think any objective observe would have to acknowledge that what we have offered is better than Labor’s, it’s more comprehensive, it’s more generous, it’s grants rather than loans and generally speaking it meets many of the concerns that have been put to us by the sector.
O’BRIEN:
I imagine too that there’d be a lot of people who have had elderly people on waiting lists and nursing homes for a long time now who would say perhaps they’re not going to argue the quality, they just wish it would come sooner.
PRIME MINISTER:
Look Kerry there are always areas were people are going to say that and I’m no exception, perhaps as a recipient of it. But the other thing we’ve done in this area is to put a lot more money into aged care packages. Now these are the arrangements whereby you take services into the home and you keep the maximum number of people in their own home environment for as long as possible. There were 4,000 of those when we came to government, when our election promises are implemented that figure will have risen to 34,000 and that represents a very significant change and I think it shifts away from excessive reliance on institutional care which I think most people would support.
O’BRIEN:
You promised this tax rebate for mothers who stay at home with their first child but you’re also including mothers who add another child to an existing family. So is it for first children over the next five years or all new children for this year and then only the first child for the following four years?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it’s all new children, but you can only have one of them as far as the benefit is concerned, born after the first of July in the year 2001. I mean by definition after a number of years almost all of them will be the very first child full stop, although there will be some families that have space with their children I mean you can have families that have a couple of children and then they have a long gap and you know then they have another one, why not. And it’s to be encouraged.
O’BRIEN:
What about the claim though that it doesn’t recognise the desperate needs of many families where both parents have to work and are struggling to pay childcare, nothing for them?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry we’ve done a lot for them already, the cost of childcare under the new tax system has fallen by almost nine per cent. The NATSEM survey, independent of the government, found that our family tax benefits under the tax policy would have loaded in favour of low income families, and in particular sole parents families. We have brought this in, bear in mind its got that minimum payment of $500 for people who are low incomes in their base year. We’ve bought this in on the back of a tax policy where the family benefits are already heavily skewered in favour of low income earners.
O’BRIEN:
There’s no problem with childcare for…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well nobody can say Kerry there’s no problem.
O’BRIEN:
No significant problem.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what I will assert very strongly is that we’ve added massive additional places and we have reduced the cost of childcare. What we are doing here as we did with the family tax benefit is to introduce a greater element of choice. The reality is that many young families now like an arrangement whereby in the very early years of a child’s life, if it’s possible and affordable, they would like one of either the mother or father to be home as a full time carer and then as the child gets a little older the prime carer re-enters the workforce often on a part time basis and then a little later on perhaps on a full time basis. Not all want to do that and what I have tried to do and the government has tried to do both in relation to this and over the last five and a half years is not to force people into a particular pattern but to offer them choice and they have far more choices now, we’re not conforming to one or other particular view of caring arrangements, we’re saying it ought to be as far as possible a matter of parental choice.
O’BRIEN:
On Telstra Prime Minister you’ve asserted for a very long time now that there is no way that you will sell the rest of Telstra until you are satisfied that services to the bush particularly are of a certain standard. But we’ve now heard from Peter Costello’s own lips that you’ve actually factored into the budget in clear simple terms the sale of Telstra, starting from July 2003. Now that would, why do that if you don’t have a clear plan to sell it starting July 2003?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry the answer’s very simple, we will not sell an additional share in Telstra unless and until we’re satisfied that services in the bush are up to scratch.
O’BRIEN:
Then why is it in the budget?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well can I say if that’s not apparent over the next three years nothing happens over the next three years. And can I say in relation to the budget it doesn’t really make any difference to the budget figuring whether a putative sale might take place over a period you’re referring to or indeed a later period.
O’BRIEN:
Well then if doesn’t matter why put it in there? Why not just stick with what you’ve got now and wait until you know you’re definitely going to sell it and can justify the sale of it then put it into your budget?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry look we are not going to sell Telstra any further until everything in the bush is okay.
O’BRIEN:
Can I just keep coming back to the question… so why put it in there? I don’t understand why.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well in reality Kerry it makes, in terms of the budget figuring, it makes no real difference. And we had a policy, but that policy is conditional on us first being satisfied in relation to services in the bush.
O’BRIEN:
How soon will you know that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I can’t say at this stage. We are implementing Besley and there are a number of ways that we will be satisfied through various inquires, you know using the term in its generic sense, I’ll talk to my country colleagues, I’ll talk to the NFF, I’ll get various assessments from other people. But I just want to make it very clear to Australian country viewers, we’re not going to sell any more shares in Telstra until we’re satisfied with your service standards in the bush.
O’BRIEN:
And yet the Treasurer has already worked out what price he’s going to sell the shares at, $5.49.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes but Kerry those figures if they disappeared from the budget in terms of a reassessment they would not make any difference to the budget figuring over the forward estimates period.
O’BRIEN:
You’ve made the point very strongly that a great virtue of selling an institution like Telstra is to get rid of public debt. But it’s true isn’t it that Australia is now carries one of the lowest public debt ration of any country in the world? And isn’t it also true that selling the rest of Telstra would not improve the Government’s financial position because any interest saving would almost entirely be soaked up by the loss of the Telstra dividend?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’m not going to get particularly into some hypothetical debate about what happens if you do or don’t sell it. Our policy is that we’re not selling further shares until we’re satisfied that conditions in the bush are up to scratch. It is true that our public debt position is very good compared with the rest of the world, thanks to this Government which in the face of total opposition from the Labor Party will by the end of this financial year have repaid $58 billion of $96 billion of government debt that Mr Beazley left me in March of 1996. They tried to stop us doing that and we’ve repaid it. And we have one of the lowest debt to GDP ratios in the world and I think that….
O’BRIEN:
[inaudible] major economies like the United States and Britain clearly doesn’t think it’s important enough to reduce it to the level that Australia has.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think it’s important that a country such as Australia whose long term trading position will benefit from having a low level of debt have a different approach. We don’t slavishly follow everything Britain and America do in economic matters or indeed in other matters.
O’BRIEN:
On the war, you’ve claimed the mantle of strong and experienced leadership with regard to the war against terrorism. Have you begun to develop any misgivings at all about the results so far of America’s strikes on Afghanistan?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry no. I always knew that it was going to take time. These things are horrendously difficult. Nobody for a moment is enjoying what is occurring at the present time but it is imperative that we don’t lose our collective nerve. It’s imperative that we understand, I did at the beginning and I’m sure President Bush did, that we are dealing with a very tough opponent. We’re dealing with an opponent that has terrorist networks in different parts of the world. We’re dealing with an opponent that has absolutely no regard at all for human life. I always thought it would be difficult. I haven’t developed any doubts or concerns about the course of action that was taken because if we wilt, move away, go away from our path then we’ll be sending a signal to these people that their tactics, foul as they have been, are going to be successful.
O’BRIEN:
Given the open ended nature of our commitment, when you hear comments like that from the senior Republican Senator John McCain, former presidential candidate yesterday that America must unleash all the might of US military power including large numbers of ground troops, does that sentiment worry you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Kerry before I come to that who said our commitment was open ended.
O’BRIEN:
The point…
PRIME MINISTER:
No open ended means….
O’BRIEN:
It is not easy to define an end either the conflict or the commitment of Australian troops.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I just want to make it clear. You’re talking about the definition of ultimate goal, I mean the goal is to destroy the terrorist threat, the goal is to catch and bring to justice or otherwise deal with Osama bin Laden, the Al Queada terrorist network. The goal is not to subjugate the people in Afghanistan.
O’BRIEN:
But what about Senator McCain’s comments?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no before I come to Senator McCain you just said that we have an open ended commitment.
O’BRIEN:
[inaudible] commitment [inaudible] not yet defined.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, well that’s not open ended. We have a commitment to in relation to certain ??? any further requests made we’ll examine those on their merits. I don’t think there’ll be any need for committing any additional Australian forces and if there were any request to extend the theatre of operations beyond Afghanistan that is something that we would have to look at. So it’s not open ended in that sense.
O’BRIEN:
Senator McCain’s comments though.
PRIME MINISTER:
Look Senator McCain is entitled to his view. In a nation of several hundred million people different people have different views. I am perfectly satisfied and supportive of the statements that have been made by the President and by the Defence Secretary and the Secretary of State. They are the people who speak on behalf of the coalition, on behalf of the United States and I’m certainly very much in accord with what they have said on the issue.
O’BRIEN:
Okay. Senator Joseph Biden, the chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee says the unrelenting air-strikes are making the US look like – quote – a high tech bully. He says again – quote – the longer the bombing goes on the more susceptible we the US are to criticism justified and unjustified in the Islamic world. Does that prospect concern you, does it worry you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t agree with Senator Biden’s remarks. This is not an argument with Islam. Every time I’m asked about this issue I make that very clear. I have no argument with Islamic Australians or Islamics around the world. I have an argument with terrorists.
O’BRIEN:
But whether we like it or not what he’s seeing is not so much that it’s justified but that that is how it will be perceived in the Islamic world?
PRIME MINISTER:
Kerry, you always in a free society have debates like this when you are involved in some kind of military action and it’s the responsibility of the people in a leadership position to put the other point of view, to put the case to argue the end objective, to remind people of why we’re doing it, and not be diverted inevitably by people who might at various stages have a different point of view. It is after all an open society. I fully expected remarks like this to be made. It hasn’t altered my view and I don’t believe it’s altered the view of the great majority of the Australian people.
O’BRIEN:
The UN has warned that Afghanistan could face mass starvation this winter with 6 million Afghans facing a food crisis. What if the conflict, it’s not an easy option to put but nonetheless, what if the conflict by preventing aid from getting through to drought stricken areas ends up causing more innocent deaths than did the terrorist attacks in America awful though they were?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry I’m not going to deal in a hypothetical situation. I mean you quite rightly said it’s not an easy option to put. Look we had a terrorist attack. It was cold blooded, brutal, it killed Australians. It was an attack not only on America but also on us and we have agreed to a coalition response and we are part of that response. We have always emphasised the importance of humanitarian assistance. The Americans have done that, the British have done that. We have given more assistance to Pakistan which is going to be the country of first asylum of many of the refugees that have come out of Afghanistan. We are very conscious of the humanitarian dimension but we’re also very conscious that if terrorism of this type goes unrebuked it will then apparently be seen to be rewarded and the world will pay a very bitter price for that allowed to happen.
O’BRIEN:
John Howard thank you very much.
[Ends]