E&OE...........
MUNRO:
Prime Minister, thanks for your time. Would this be your darkest moment during your parliamentary career?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well without doubt because this has touched our country in a way that nothing else has. The 11th of September was bad, there were Australians killed their, but this has come to our very shores almost and the people whose lives have been taken are in the main young Australians with so much ahead of them. That';s what';s so terribly sad. It';s always sad when anybody dies but young people they';ve got their lives ahead of them.
MUNRO:
You have three children yourself in their twenties, similar ages to a lot of the young people who have been injured and maimed and killed in Bali. How do you go about explaining that to your children?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think everybody in a situation like that just….they don';t have an explanation. I mean you just reflect upon how lucky you are that you';re not there but you also reflect upon the random character of life and that';s what is so terrible. But Australians have every right to be deeply angered by what has happened. Terrorism is almost too clinical a word to use. This is brutal murder of people without any justification and I know that my fellow Australians will feel a very deep sense of anger and will want the government to do everything it humanly can to find the people who murdered their fellow citizens.
MUNRO:
I don';t think those Australians have seen you as personally affected by this any time in your career. How have you coped yourself?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I find it intensely upsetting. I mean I keep control of my emotions. I don';t mind displaying them because it is a terrible thing what';s happened and what has been done to Australians is an outrage and I can only speak as I feel. But we will respond in a logical, sensible fashion, but in responding we carry the justifiable anger of millions of Australians who have a right to visit countries and have a right to go about pleasurable activity and have a right to carry on their lives in an inoffensive fashion. I mean so many of the people caught up with this are young blokes who finished a season of sport and they go off to have a bit of fun in Bali. Now what could be more naturally Australian than that.
MUNRO:
Yeah. Are we any closer to identifying the prime suspects here?
PRIME MINISTER:
Nothing enormously different has moved today. It';s hard Mike as I can';t give a ball to ball account of the intelligence reports I get for obvious reasons. But we';re working very hard. I';ve got Alexander Downer and Chris Ellison going to Indonesia tonight or tomorrow and after visiting Bali they';ll go to Jakarta and talk to the Indonesian authorities. This crime was committed in a foreign country. You';ve got to remember that. And it was therefore committed under the watch of the law of another country, not ours, and we therefore have to work with the authorities of that country. We can';t just take it over. But we';ve got to work with them. We have an understanding on terrorism. That understanding is now going to be put to the test as to whether they will work with us and we certainly hope they will. I';ve spoken to President Megawati and we will work as closely as we possibly can with the Indonesian authorities to try and catch the people who did this terrible thing.
MUNRO:
There have been widespread claims that Indonesia ignored warnings about this particular group - the Jemaah Islamiah extremist group - can we really rely on Indonesia and its taskforce to pursue these murderers right to the end?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have to work with them. I mean it';s fair to say that we have been concerned about the potential for terrorist threats in Indonesia for some time. We have expressed that concern. The Americans have expressed that concern and that';s been publicly known. We';re now confronted with a situation where something terrible has happened and we just have to work as closely as we can and encourage the maximum level of cooperation. I think Indonesia is genuinely shocked by the savagery of this and we just hope that we can get the maximum cooperation because we are determined to do everything we can within the inevitable constraint of dealing with an investigation in a foreign country.
MUNRO:
Alright Prime Minister. We';ll leave it there and we do appreciate your time. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]