E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
NEWTON:
We welcome the Prime Minister, Mr John Howard. Good morning PM.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Bert, very nice to be with you from beautiful balmy Brisbane.
NEWTON:
How are you coping with the travelling, I’ve suddenly realised, yourself and Mr Beazley, if you were getting frequent flyer points you’d be able to retire to a beautiful island somewhere.
PRIME MINISTER:
Perhaps even the same one. Look, we’ve travelled a heck of a lot, and of course I had a visit to Shanghai thrown into the middle of it. It’s a very exhausting schedule, but I’m used to it. I keep myself fit, I walk every morning. I went for a walk at about a quarter to six this morning alongside the Brisbane River, I do that in Melbourne, stay at the Sheraton and walk down past all the boat sheds along the river. It’s great, it’s great experience. See some of the same people each morning, you feel very much part of the early morning walking community.
NEWTON:
And what about security, does it sadden you that in this day and age you have to have so much security with you whereas in times gone by we learnt of the drowning of Harold Holt but back then Prime Ministers could do all almost what the rest of Australia does.
PRIME MINISTER:
I guess it does, you have to accept a certain amount of security, I’ve got a great team of blokes with me and one woman too I should point out, they’re a mixed group of people and they are terrific. They share a lot of my sporting interests, we make sure when we go to the Australian Rules that we have some of the South Australians and Victorians with me and when we go to the rugby league or union we make sure we get the fellows from Brisbane and Sydney. So they’re a great crowd of people and they become really part of the family. It’s just one of those things you have to have a certain amount of. I don’t really think much about physical safety, not for myself, I do occasionally think about it in relation to my wife and children. It’s never really occurred to me that I’m particularly vulnerable, I guess I am and I guess we’re all a bit more conscious of that since the tragic events of the 11th of September but it’s still relatively easy in this country to talk to people and connect with people, to go to places and if you’ve got the right security men and women with you then you can, then they adapt and they accommodate you and it’s still pretty easy, it’s still free flowing compared with say the President of the United States or the leaders of many countries where democracy is not quite as robust as it is in Australia.
NEWTON:
PM you ought to be very happy with the launch on Sunday. As somebody who feels that politics is pretty important to Australia and I’ve followed it and on some occasions covered it over the years, I’ve never seen a more relaxed John Howard and I think most of the scribes, they conceded that the launch was very successful. From the inside looking out, from your point of view, how did you feel?
PRIME MINISTER:
I was very happy with it. I was able to focus on things that were important, I was able to stress the importance of the National Security issues but also to talk about the new tax refund plan for first children, to talk about a very large aged care package, I think we’ve surprised a lot of people with that, we actually have a much bigger and more comprehensive aged care package than that being offered by the Labor Party, although they’ve talked a great deal about that we’ve actually done more. So I was very happy, it gave me an opportunity to just talk from the heart, I didn’t read, except in relation to the specific policy where you have to be absolutely spot on with the detail, I did not read a speech, I spoke in relatively extemporaneous fashion which I’m more relaxed at doing and I just felt I was able to get my message across. I mean I’ll know how effectively on Saturday week, maybe I haven’t. But I felt as though I gave it my best shot and that is all you can ever hope to do on an occasion like that.
NEWTON:
Just seemed to me though Mr Howard and to many people around Australia, it was in contrast to the debate with Mr Beazley. We all have off days, my old partner Don Lane used to talk about biorhythms. Would you agree that during the debate we didn’t seen the John Howard we’d come to expect in recent times? Somebody who was seemingly totally relaxed, able to ad lib with the best of them and totally at ease with himself, that didn’t come through on that night.
PRIME MINISTER:
That Bert is ultimately for other people to make a judgment about. I’m always very cautious about marking myself, that was a view that a lot of people expressed, it’s for individuals to make that decision and an election campaign is a continuity of different events. The debate was one part of it, my launch was another part, Mr Beazley will have his opportunity tomorrow to launch his formal campaign. We each approach these things a little differently, in the end 11 million Australians will make a judgement about whether I was this or that on a particular occasion.
NEWTON:
How did you feel though on that night?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I felt okay, but I must say I’ve forgotten, I’ve sort of moved on. In an election campaign it's very important that you focus on the issue and the challenge of the day and the moment, one day ends, another day opens, you’ve got to make absolutely certain that you move on from individual events. If you feel you’ve done pretty well you don’t want to get preoccupied with that otherwise you drop your guard, if you feel you haven’t done quite as well you might have you’ve got to forget that and get onto something else otherwise it will bother you. So what I sort of do is once something is past I just then move onto the next issue and today I’m going to be releasing some, a policy dealing with law and order and the strengthening of the Australian Federal Police and expand a little bit on a number of the things I said on Sunday about that issue. Because although policing and law and order and crime is the day to day responsibility of the states with a lot of transnational crime and drug syndicates and border protection, there is a growing role for the Federal Government and we want to be satisfied that the Federal Government has got all the authority it needs in this area and one of the things I do if I do get re-elected as Prime Minister is very early in the piece is to have a meeting with all the State Premiers and Territory Leaders to work through that and see if there can’t be some areas where some reference of powers to the Commonwealth might be necessary. We don’t want to interfere in things that are properly the role of the states but there are some things that only a national government can do even in relation to the criminal law.
NEWTON:
If you are re-elected are you concerned about the fact that with the exception of South Australia you’re facing all Labor politicians in leadership roles?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that is actually an extra reason why people should vote for us because I don’t think it would be a good thing to have a Federal Labor Government and Labor Governments in all of the states except South Australia…I think it would be particularly bad in the workplace relations area. It would certainly give the trade union movement too much authority because they have the ear of all Labor governments, they get favours from Labor governments and I think you’d have favours at a Federal level, as well as favours at a State level. So I think it’s, I mean it’s not going to trouble me but I think it would actually be a nice balance. I hear a lot of people I know who see the virtue in having a bit of a balance if they’ve got a State Labor government. They say right, we want to have a Federal Liberal government so we’ve got a bit of balance. Now I certainly think that is a very strong additional compelling reason on this occasion why people should vote for us.
NEWTON:
In an ideal world would you like to see all the States Coalition and the Federal government Coalition too?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t believe in ideal worlds. You aspire to it. Look I like Liberal governments and I think it was a great shame that the Liberal government in Victoria, for example led by Jeff Kennett, was defeated, but the people made a decision and I don’t take this election on the 10th of November in any way for granted. I think it’s going to be very tight and it will be an enormous privilege if I’m given another term as Prime Minister.
NEWTON:
Would you like to rephrase that – I don’t believe in ideal worlds because that’s what we’re all striving for isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I don’t, I don’t, no in the sense that I mean we would all like to have an ideal world, I don’t think you’ll ever get it, so I guess that’s what I’m really saying, we all strive for it.
NEWTON:
PM I’m just reading a new book by David Day on Ben Chifley, it’s an excellent book and in it it’s so obvious that Ben Chifley and Sir Robert Menzies had a good friendship at the end of each parliamentary session they would get together and have a drink in a (inaudible) but the same thing of course was true with the late Arthur Calwell and Sir Robert Menzies and internationally, Eisenhower and Truman in America, but you and Kim Beazley is there a friendship of any kind?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well from my point of view there’s no animosity and when we are thrown together perhaps on an aircraft where we’re going to the same destination and I give him a lift, we are quite able to talk - often about history and about politics. I don’t have any personal animosity towards him at all.
NEWTON:
You like him?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, let me put it this way, I don’t have any personal animosity towards him. I mean to say, like him in the sense, I mean our politics are different and inevitably we’re cast in a confrontational role and… but I have no personal malice of any kind towards him, life is too short for that. Far too short.
NEWTON:
I asked Malcolm Fraser on this program last week whether he believed that you had overplayed the international theme with George W. Bush, he wouldn’t answer that. Have any of your advisers perhaps mentioned that maybe it’s, it really is time to get back to the domestic issues which you’ve done in the last week?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I will answer that question, even if Malcolm didn’t, I don’t think I overplayed it at all. It was absolutely essential that I go to the APEC meeting in Shanghai, I mean you had the President of the United States, the President of Russia, the President of China, the Prime Minister of Japan, the President of Indonesia, the biggest meeting of world leaders since the terrorist attack, the most important international meeting China has had since the revolution in 1949, pretty important for Australia to be there even though we were in the middle of an election campaign. So I don’t think it was overplayed.
But we are focussing on both of these issues, we’re focussing on the international security issue because people are concerned about the quality of the leadership they have at a difficult time and we’re also focussing very heavily on economic management and there are a lot of domestic issues in it and we have a very strong domestic program for the next three years and you’ve heard a lot about it in the past few days and you’ll hear a lot more about it over the next ten days.
NEWTON:
Okay, just finally now. It would seem that you were as relaxed as ever with (inaudible) in leading the party, and indeed your parliamentary career generally, you seem confident, things are looking good for you. The one thing that surprises many of us is there is only one thing you need to say to almost make this a lay down misere and that is to give us the undertaking that you will stay for the full term and you won’t do that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Bert can I just say that I don’t think anything makes it a lay down misere, I think it’s going to be very tight. I don’t have the view that it’s a lay down misere and I wouldn’t want any of your viewers who are barracking for us, some will be barracking for us and some will be barracking for the Labor Party and some minor parties, but I don’t want any of them to think that it’s a lay down misere. I have honestly said in the past that when I get, after ….if I win the next election, two years in I’ll think about my future. Now, that doesn’t mean to say that I’m going to retire, I’m just giving an honest answer and that’s what I said. I think that’s…...
NEWTON:
…a deal been done.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, no if there’s one thing I haven’t done, there’s no deal. There’s no Kirribilli House pact between me and Peter Costello, or indeed anybody else in fact that is the one thing that I really despise that way. The leadership of the Liberal Party is not mine. It is something that is conferred upon me by the Australian people and by my colleagues, and I’m very honoured to have it. If I win again I’ve said a couple of years into my term I will give some thought to my future but that doesn’t mean to say I’m going. Right at the moment the last thing I want to do is leave politics, I’m loving it. I feel very, I feel in a sense more on top of the job now than at any time in the five and a half years that I’ve been Prime Minister. I feel very fit, I am very well, I feel I’ve got a command of the issues now that it is as good if not better than in the past. But I’ve just said that, I suppose as a discipline on myself I’ll have a think about things a couple of years into the next term and I think that’s just being honest with the Australian people and I think they understand that and they appreciate the fact that I’m being quite open with them.
NEWTON:
You must have a bit of cold there you’d better get down here and have some Melbourne sunshine and see what happens. Thank you for your time this morning and good luck with the work you have to do before Saturday week. John Howard the Prime Minister of Australia.
(ends)