Subjects: Illegal immigrants; visit to the US.
E&OE................................
FAINE:
Mr Howard, good morning to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, John.
FAINE:
Off the back of those polls - first of all, though, can I ask you about the three parcels intercepted by security staff at Parliament House addressed to Kim Beazley, Bob Brown and Natasha Stott-Despoja, does this concern you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, yes. And this is not the first time that kind of thing has happened but we would always hope that that sort of thing is not part of life in Australia and I'm naturally pleased they've been intercepted and I unreservedly deplore and condemn that kind of behaviour. It ought to have no place in Australia life. As I say, it is the type of thing that has happened before on occasions and certainly I'm very sorry that it's occurred. I condemn it and I hope it doesn't happen again.
FAINE:
Do you think it's connected to the episode with the Tampa and their outspoken policies against your stance in relation to the Tampa?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know. I mean, you'd have to ask the police that and sometimes in these circumstances - and I notice Senator Brown said the same thing - it's better to leave comment to the police. But as a general reaction I'm appalled by it, I condemn it and hope it doesn't occur again.
FAINE:
It seems that your determination to pursue your policy on the Tampa has polarised the community. The polls that have come out this morning are suggesting more people support you than are against you on it but it is an issue that's divided our community.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it's an important issue and people have strong views on important issues and we shouldn't, as a community, shirk from strong but reasonable debate on important issues. The idea that you can't ever have an issue that people feel strongly about is always, it seemed to me, a fairly immature view. But I'm more interested in the substance of the issue. I'll leave the commentary to people like you and others. I'm not a commentator, I'm a participant and I've had a goal and so far it looks as though that is being achieved. We still have a distance to go. I'm very pleased that the people are now on the way and hopefully they will, without any let or hindrance, be taken to Papua New Guinea and there they'll be shipped to aircraft that will take them either to New Zealand or to Nauru. And the processing by the international migration authorities can then start, indeed, some of those people are on the Manoora. The Manoora is a very well equipped troop ship. They've got three operating theatres, it's got plenty of medical facilities. Now, there'll be no problem medically as far as any of these people are concerned and they'll be well cared for, well fed, any medical problems will be attended to. So I want to make that very clear that from a humanitarian point of view they are at present being very well looked after.
FAINE:
What has been achieved through this entire episode, a week of a lot of political and now litigious argy bargy, the long-term solution to the people smuggling and other rackets that are bringing asylum seekers to our shores doesn't seem any closer than when you started, does it?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't agree with that. What has been achieved is that we have demonstrated a determination not to just meekly accept a situation where people can, without authorisation, say we're coming to your country - and the Australian people and the Australian Government have every right to feel strongly about that - as well as what we have done in relation to the people on the Tampa, we have also increased our surveillance in international waters between the Indonesian archipelago and Australia. Now, I can't guarantee and I'm not that that's going to stop any future boats carrying people.
FAINE:
In fact, it's extremely unlikely that it will stop boats carrying people, is it not?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think either of us can precisely measure the impact. We believe it could well acts a further deterrent but we're not guaranteeing that we can stop the flow. In order to stop the flow we do need the cooperation of other countries. We have been trying for quite a while to get the cooperation of Indonesia. Three of my senior ministers will be in Jakarta later this week to conduct intensive discussions on that matter. It won't be easy.
FAINE:
A suggestion from [inaudible] the last week our relations with Indonesia have, in fact, deteriorated rather than improved. Megawati Sukarnoputri has not responded to your calls for assistance to date.
PRIME MINISTER:
It's very interesting that that sort of analysis always assumes that when there's a difference of opinion between Indonesia and Australia, Australia is wrong and Indonesia is right. Now, in this particular case those people should have been accepted back by Indonesia because that's where they came from and that is where the Captain of the Tampa, let it not be forgotten, originally decided to take them because the vessel that was sinking was an Indonesian vessel. It was carrying an Indonesian crew.
FAINE:
And he was continuing on his journey, if he could have.
PRIME MINISTER:
And lawfully, under international law, those people should have been taken back to Indonesia but Indonesia, I mean, as a result of what happened, the Captain was apparently put under duress or coerced or whatever into coming to Australia and then Indonesia said, well we're not gong to take them back. Now, that has happened and there's nothing to be gained so far as the bilateral relationship is concerned in going over that any more, except I make the point that the analysts to whom you refer almost unerringly, whenever there's a dispute between Australia and Indonesia, say, oh well this is, by implication, Australia's fault. I would say to those people occasionally it might not be Australia's fault, occasionally some of the responsibility might fall elsewhere.
FAINE:
How many, do you think, of the asylum seekers will eventually settle into Australia? If they're processed in Nauru and accepted as asylum seekers it could be as many as 300 of them that end up coming here anyway.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know, John, I don't know how many are going to be assessed. What we have said is that we will take our fair share, we're not taking them all, we'll take our fair share, we always do. We'll expect other countries to take a share - countries like Norway. And just remember that Australia is the second most generous taker of refugees in the world after Canada, the second most generous taker of refugees after Canada. Many of the countries who have been reported as being critical of Australia over this issue - I don't know how accurate those reports are - many of those have poorer welcome records in relation to refugees than does Australia.
FAINE:
All right, and the ultimate criticism from you is from those saying the whole thing's been orchestrated in order to save the scalp of your Minister for Small Business, Ian Macfarlane, and to have the desired effect for you, I'm sure, which is proven in today's newspapers, of a big lift in your personal and political [inaudible] in the polls.
PRIME MINISTER:
So I arranged for this vessel to leave Indonesia.
FAINE:
No, you didn't.
PRIME MINISTER:
.and I arranged for it to start to sink and I arranged.now, I mean, that is just ludicrous.
FAINE:
No, but you did arrange for.
PRIME MINISTER:
I arranged to defend Australia's national interest, that's what I arranged.
FAINE:
.a different approach to this boatload to previous boatloads.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there were different circumstances. Isn't it blindingly obvious that there are completely different circumstances. Here was a large container vessel easily capable of picking these people up. They were perfectly safe on board that vessel. I mean, they're even safer on board HMAS Manoora. But this idea that I somehow or other timed to coincide with the Ian Macfarlane thing, I mean, really that is just ridiculous.
FAINE:
Mr Macfarlane's still in office, you haven't had to sack him, it was all the expectation a week ago that he'd be gone by (inaudible).
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I never intended to sack Mr Macfarlane on the evidence that had emerged because I didn't believe he'd mislead the Parliament. And I kept saying, and I still say on the evidence I have seen, he hasn't misled the Parliament.
FAINE:
All right, moving on, the Red Cross have said that they feel that they under international law and treaties that we're signatories to should have had access to the people while they were on the Tampa. Archbishop Hollingworth, in a speech yesterday with very carefully chosen words says we should not forget the origins of most of the people who are settlers here in Australia. He says: "Australia must be a just and caring country, the task of making it that of welcoming those who come across the seas lies in all our hands. We must remind ourselves that our own ancestors had come across the sea just like the modern day asylum seekers." Do you see any criticism (inaudible)?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I don't. I think people are struggling, including the person who wrote that story to generate a difference of opinion that doesn't exist. I have no quarrel at all with those sentiments. I mean I have just reminded your listeners that we are more generous to refugees than any country in the world except Canada.This country has had, still has and will always have a generous approach to refugees but we have got to have a genuine approach to genuine refugees, we will not accept the situation where people present themselves on no legal basis and say take us, irrespective of what our status may or may not be. What we are arguing for and what we believe we are entitled to have is a situation where people who want to get into this country on the basis of being refugees must establish in accordance with properly accepted international rules that they are indeed refugees.
FAINE:
Finally before I hand you over to our listeners Prime Minister, the cost of this entire operation.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is a cost but there was a cost if we had accepted them. I mean I'm not putting this on the basis of cost, you're raising the issue of cost.
FAINE:
I am raising it, yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if we had accepted these people you were looking at, the processing would be somewhere in the order of $22 to $25 million processing, if we had taken all of those people and had them processed in Australia.
FAINE:
Surely it costs more to mount the sort of military or quasi-military operation and to sent in war ships.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we will accept the cost of Nauru, of course we will, that was only fair and reasonable, I don't know the precise cost of the transhipment, you've got to separate out the surveillance part of it. I mean that's quite separate from taking the people to PNG, but are you saying to me that on something like this if you look at one option that adds up to $25 million, the next one adds up to say $30 million, on that basis irrespective of what is involved you take the $25 million option? You're surely not saying that.
CALLER:
What I am suggesting is that you are constantly in your job on a daily basis, in fact probably hour by hour making decisions about how to spend government money and competing priorities. This is an expensive solution to this problem. [inaudible]point of principle but at what cost?
PRIME MINISTER:
But on those issues you're talking about on a day to day basis the principles are equal. There are no issues of principle involved in many of those. It's just a question of which particular proposition you decide on pragmatic grounds to give priority to. There's a very big issue of principle involved in this and I don't think it ought to be assessed just on their cost considerations. That would be very short sighted and not the sort of thing a government should do.
FAINE:
Terry from Bonbeach. Good morning to you.
CALLER:
Yeah good morning Jon and good morning Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning.
CALLER:
I'm just ringing to say congratulations on your firm stand regarding the asylum seekers and as an ex-Navy member I was proud of the seaman- like manner in which the boat people were transferred from the Tampa to HMAS Manoora without apparent injury to anybody. And finally and from a selfish point as a Korean War veteran I'm wondering if any decision is to be made regarding the Goldcard for Korean veterans over 70.
FAINE:
Well there you go. Tugging at your coat tails Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well on the Goldcard that is one of the things that remains on our list of things that if there were no constraints we'd like to do but as always there are constraints. It will remain on the list. I can't be more specific than that. I agree with you that the services have done a fantastic job and I congratulate the people of the SAS and the Navy and the Chief of the Defence Force. They have done it well, they have done it efficiently, and importantly they're doing it very humanely and I believe they're a real credit to this country the way they conduct themselves.
FAINE:
Good on you Terry. Frank from Mt Evelyn. 'Morning Frank.
CALLER:
Good morning Jon, good morning Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning.
CALLER:
I thank you for what you've done, stood by Australia and stopped people smugglers getting their own way. I think we needed to do that if we wanted to stand by our country. However I would like to point out that about pensioners in Australia. They're finding it hard with your GST on all the important like electricity, gas, and telephone calls to pay that.
FAINE:
Now Frank, in terms of the election that's coming up, I'm sure the Prime Minister would like to know the answer to this question, how do you rank his policy on the asylum seekers compared to the difficulties you're telling us about on living with a pension.
CALLER:
Fifty-fifty I guess.
FAINE:
So they're both important to you, equally important?
CALLER:
They are yes because not only are the people coming here illegally but leave that aside, it's just that we can't demand anything from this country we have to take what they've got.
FAINE:
Are you a swinging voter Frank?
CALLER:
Yes.
FAINE:
All right. Good on you. So you're weighing up this issue with other issues.
CALLER:
Exactly. I was just going to post a letter to the Prime Minister but I won't now that I've spoken out.
FAINE:
Yeah you've got your eight cents a days worth a day instead of spending 45 on a stamp. Good on you Frank. Michael from Carlton, good morning.
CALLER:
Good morning Jon, good morning Prime Minister. Prime Minister, we've heard you over the last week cast aspersions on the integrity of the captain of the Tampa as to whether he misled Australia as to the condition of the refugees aboard his boat. I just want to know if Australia misled him as to how many people were on the boat. They initially told him some 80 odd?
PRIME MINISTER:
No no, that's not right.
CALLER:
It was 60 originally I think. It was an estimate from the observation crew was it not.
PRIME MINISTER:
No the original number that was talked about was 430 and it was lifted to 460.
FAINE:
I think Prime Minister Michael's talking about when the observation aircraft first detected the boat...
PRIME MINISTER:
I'd have to go back and check that but I mean heaven's abovethat's the sort of human error that can be made and that was at a time when there was no controversy.
FAINE:
What depends upon it Michael?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, see I can't quite see the point.
CALLER:
Well my concern is if there was a deliberate...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there's no evidence it was deliberate. I mean the person flying the plane did his humanitarian duty and he reported that the Indonesian vessel was in trouble. Now if he was in error in recording the number of people. Are you suggesting that he did that deliberately knowing that somehow or other that would disadvantage the Norwegian Captain? I'm sorry, I just can't see the logic.
CALLER:
I was asking you Prime Minister if you were aware...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I was certainly not aware in advance of the signal that the pilot. I mean...
FAINE:
Would it have influenced your policy in any way...?
PRIME MINISTER:
No no.
FAINE:
I think that's the answer to your question Michael.
PRIME MINISTER:
No I would not - it would not have.
FAINE:
Thanks for calling. Ron in Philip Island. Good morning Ron.
CALLER:
Good morning. Prime Minister, I largely agree with your Government's stance and announcements concerning recent events off the north-west coast. But my question today involves decision of the Foreign Investment Review Board. It seems to me inconsistent with your policy of small government and rather naive with regard to security of strategic communication.
FAINE:
Which decision Ron, is it Optus you're talking about?
CALLER:
..to allow, yes.
FAINE:
Singtel to buy Optus?
CALLER:
..owned by the Singapore Government to take over Optus Wireless and Cable. How do you ensure that the security of communications are kept intact when, I mean some inaudible) can't help themselves?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we asked the people like ASIS and ASIO and all the other people who know these things far better than I do and are experts and they have given this whole thing a clean bill of health. We checked all of that out. We spent quite a lot of time checking that all out and we're completely satisfied that...
CALLER:
..not very convincing in recent years as well.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I can only...you asked me a question. I can only tell you that we went to elaborate lengths and we are satisfied on the advice we have been given that those services are not vulnerable.
CALLER:
And small government?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't know how the small government comes into it.
CALLER:
Well we're now having a large part of our telecommunications owned by a foreign government.
PRIME MINISTER:
But that doesn't make, I mean, the size of government any higher. I'm sorry mean you might try and advance a privatisation argument but I don't think you can advance a small government argument..
CALLER:
Privatisation by the other side of the coin which..
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the Singapore Government has an interest in SingTel.
FAINE:
Seventy- five or eighty..?
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course it does it has a controlling interest but we have a foreign investment policy which once we were satisfied on security grounds the proposition was ok, if we had rejected it would have sent a very negative signal to international financial markets and I think the down side of that would have been very considerable.
FAINE:
Ok Ron, good on you thanks for calling. John in Diamond Creek, morning John.
CALLER:
Oh good morning Jon, good morning Prime Minister. I just wanted to say that I'm fully behind you in what you've done, I think we should have done this along time ago and I wouldn't be dismayed by the protests that we've been getting from entirely predictable groups. These are the people that would be always protest against anything that the Government did. And the other thing I'd like to say is that this, I suppose you call it a campaign by the press to say that the world is looking at Australia with critical eyes because of this - doesn't seem to be so. We speak to people in the United States and up to a couple of days ago they hadn't even heard of what was going on.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as a matter of interest I have in the past few days spoken both to Australia's High Commissioner in London and our Ambassador in the United States and that's only two countries, I know that but two.
FAINE:
Very important ones.
PRIME MINISTER:
Fairly important ones to most Australians and they've both said that any suggestion that there's been an avalanche of criticism of what Australia has done is quite wrong.
CALLER:
Yeah this is quite right Prime Minister, this is the sort of thing.
PRIME MINISTER:
Indeed there's not, I mean it's certainly had coverage but.
FAINE:
And would you acknowledge critical coverage?
PRIME MINISTER:
In some areas yes, but no more or less critical than has been the case in Australia. I mean what we have done has been editorially criticised in a number of the broadsheets in Australia, very strongly. And criticised in a lot of commentary but I mean that's a democracy, I don't contest the right of people to trenchantly attack the Government if they want to but what I do of course seek to do is to criticise people who misrepresent the reaction of people around the world and in Australia and I think the caller is right to, John is right to say that we haven't been subjected to an avalanche of criticism in other countries and those two conversations I speak of bear that out.
FAINE:
There's a suggestion that the United Nations as a forum could be a bit uncomfortable for us in the future because there's a view within the High Commission for Refugees that we've in some way walked away from our international obligations.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you've got to keep a sense of perspective about this, I mean.
FAINE:
You'll weather that statement?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I mean, we won't be the first democratic country to be attacked by sections of the United Nations. I mean, the Americans have been attacked, they're regularly attacked. It seems in the eyes of some in the United Nations that the really democratic countries in the world are easy game for attack.
FAINE:
Tim from Malvern, good morning.
CALLER:
Good morning, Jon, good morning, John.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning.
CALLER:
Well, Mr Howard, in the eyes of humanity our reputation will be sinking no doubt and I think it's quite opportunistic of you to pounce on these refugees or asylum seekers who have hopped on the Tampa and then you've shown a humane cruelty to them because they're not at as much risk to perish in the sea so you're able to turn your back on them. And, secondly, per capita perhaps Australia is the second most generous to refugees and certainly throwing them in disgustingly and appalling detention centres, in awful conditions, can't be that generous in the eyes.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm talking about legally established refugees when I say the second most generous, that's what I'm talking about.
CALLER:
But per capita.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, that's right. Well, how else can you balance it? I mean, obviously a nation of 20 million people can't be expected to take as many people as a nation of 300 million.
CALLER:
Why is it the population of people, what about the area in the country. You could be building up communities to house these people, it would be much cheaper than these detention centres. And talking about the law, we're making these people.you're portraying them as guilty perhaps criminals in illegally seeking to come to our country. What happened to the law in terms of innocent until proven guilty, why can't we bring in these people?
FAINE:
All right, a response from the Prime Minister, Tim, you've had a good run.
CALLER:
Okay.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think you do have to look at the population of a country because a population dictates its wealth. The size of a country doesn't automatically dictate wealth and capacity to look after people. So it is quite legitimate and proper and normal to look at the population of a country in determining its capacity to take people. I mean, size and conditions are also important. As you know, as an Australian, as well as I do that vast areas of the Australian land mass are uninhabited. But the question of the law is always important because we live under the rule of law and it is perfectly legitimate of a country to say it's not going to allow people to arrive here illegally. And we have a generous refugee policy and all we are arguing for is a situation that if people want to come to this country as refugees they should be assessed in the normal way. I mean, every week I write to people saying we can't let their relative come in because the quota is full and these people get very angry and they say, here we are waiting, abiding by the rules and others try and push their way in without establishing the legal entitlement.
FAINE:
Thank you for your call, Tim. Prime Minister, judging by our callers just then and the hundreds we've taken over the last week it could be there's just a short-term bounce for you in the polls. Many of our callers say, yeah, I support what you've said but... Did you notice that, they say [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Can I just make the point about polls. You raised the polls.
FAINE:
Oh yeah, I have to.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I know but I don't. I didn't do this for poll reasons, I did it because I thought it was right and it remains my view that the election at the end of the year is going to be very tough for us to win, that remains my view.
FAINE:
Will people still remember your policy on asylum seekers[inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know. I mean, that is a matter for them and, once again, you're inviting me to be a commentator. I leave that to you. You're much better qualified to be a commentator than I.
FAINE:
I'm not sure about that, I might say, but on Saturday you head off to the United States, what do you hope to get from that visit to Washington?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think it's an opportunity to reaffirm the importance of the bilateral relationship. I don't expect to get, on the question of a free trade agreement that's being talked about, I don't expect, on this visit, to get an in principle commitment to start negotiations for that. The reason is that right at the moment, in fact, almost while I'm in Washington there's an exchange going on between the administration and congress for the administration to get trade promotion authority and they, for domestic, political reasons, which I fully understand, they don't want issues relating to in- principle commitment to negotiate free trade agreements to other countries to be around at the time they're having that exchange with congress. They, of course, have a different political system from us and getting this congressional mandate.
FAINE:
American farmers were saying we want quarantine rules in Australia to be reduced, to be lowered and weakened in exchange for access for Australian lamb.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the lamb thing's been tidied up and we're not putting anything we've got on lamb on the table for anything. I mean, we take.
FAINE:
We'll put lamb on the table [inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, except to eat. From a negotiating point of view we have got what we were entitled to on lamb. We've got a very good understanding on lamb.
FAINE:
No giving in on quarantine.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, nothing to do with lamb. I mean, if we get to a free trade negotiation then all sorts of things get raised but I've always said we'll strike a very hard bargain but the in- principle commitment won't arise during this visit. I think it's something that we'll go back to after the trade promotion issue's been dealt with.
FAINE:
Prime Minister, good luck on your trip and thanks for joining us and taking calls from our listeners.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.