Subjects: taxation; HIH; refugees; Indonesia.
E&OE................................
JOURNALIST:
There's some suggestion by the kids in there Mr Howard that perhaps the song that that young choir sung about 'my guy' - you might consider it as a campaign song?
PRIME MINISTER:
They were great and gee I'm impressed with this school. It really reminds you of the talent of young Australians and how if you have a slightly different approach which allows people to express themselves more fully you get great results. I think it's a terrific school.
JOURNALIST:
What about protestors here today Prime Minister who were saying you short changed the public schools...
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't detect any protestors.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible] union presence.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well people have put their point of view. It's not right. People who talk about federal government funding for government and private schools completely ignore the money that money that we give to the states which in turn is spent on government schools. The 42% of the, or there about, of the state government's budget comes from the federal government and they spend an enormous amount of that on these schools, as they should because they're government schools, they're state schools. They're not federal schools, they're state schools. And I think to get a fair picture you have to allow for that as well as looking at the direct money that we send to government schools.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, Mr Beazley this morning on radio has said that [inaudible] still to get personal income tax at the right level, that it shouldn't go up ,shouldn't go down. (inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
That sounds like a man who's certainly not in favour of cutting personal income tax. It also sounds like a man who's interested in spending rather than further reductions in taxation. But look the question he's got to answer is where's the money coming from for Rollback. The only game in town tax wise is how you're paying for Rollback. We've brought in our tax system. We've delivered $12 billion of personal income tax cuts, we've brought in a new broad-based indirect tax. He wants to roll it back. How's he going to pay for it, what tax is he going to lift, what spending is he going to cut? That's the question. That's the only game in town on tax - what he's going to do about Rollback.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, new poll today. The majority of Australians aren't happy with the GST. What's your response to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm not surprised. If you ask a straight question - are you in favour of the GST or are you against it, of course you're going to...probably the majority are going to say no because you're not asked whether you're in favour of the personal tax cuts that go with it, the cut in company tax, the cut in capital gains tax, the removal of the wholesale sales tax. I think the only fair question is to ask people are you in favour of all of these reforms and I think you'd probably get a somewhat different answer. But in the end aren't governments elected to do what they think is right? You can't run a proper government by taking an opinion poll every week. I mean we're constantly criticised for being poll driven. When we do something that on the face of it's a bit unpopular in the short term we're also criticised. People have got to make up their minds as to whether they want a government that's prepared to do the right thing by the country in the longer run or simply act like a political weathervane every week according to what opinion polls say.
JOURNALIST:
Still only 10% Prime Minister say that they're better off under the GST. Is it the start of Mr Beazley's so called slow burn or what he calls the slow burn of the GST?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Mr Beazley's got to tell us how he's going to fund his alternative policy.
JOURNALIST:
As the days go on and we find out more about the HIH, have you got any feeling that the government could have done anything proactive?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well everything that the minister could have done on the information I have he did. I don't think we should make judgements at this stage. What we should do is help people who've been hurt and the government's doing that, and we should establish inquiries. The government's doing that. And then when we have all the information from the inquiry we can then decide, or they can decide whether the prosecution was justified or not.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible] new report out today which has criticised the way that Australia's treated refugees. What's your feeling on that and how do you think..?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think we are incredibly warm hearted towards refugees. I reject totally criticism of Australia's record on refugees. We have the second largest intake of refugees per head of any country in the world. We took more Indo-Chinese refugees on a per capita basis than any other country in the world. We treat them humanely compared with other countries. And I think that criticism is totally wrong and I totally reject it.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, The Parliament in Indonesia's just voted to start impeachment proceedings against President Wahid. Does this signify more instability in the region or..?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I of course have a very deep interest in what is happening in Indonesia and I look forward to those matters being resolved within the constitutional processes of that country. It's not for me to say who should be the President of Indonesia. That's a matter for the Indonesian people. We are very anxiously watching what is occurring in Indonesia. We warmly welcome the fact that Indonesia has become a more democratically inclined country. It's a huge transition for such a big disparate nation to go from an authoritarian style of government to a more democratic style of government and we feel for the people of Indonesia in this great experiment with democracy that is now under way. And all I say is to wish the people of Indonesia well and to express the hope that this issue is resolved peacefully and in accordance with the constitutional processes of that country.
[Ends]