Subjects: Defence photographs
E&OE...........
CASSIDY:
Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, Barrie.
CASSIDY:
Prime Minister, News Limited papers today are running a story that suggests the photo of the boat people in the water, the one released by Peter Reith was doctored. They say it was trimmed to 15 per cent of its original size apparently to disguise the fact that in the background the boat was sinking, and that's why the people were in the water. Do you know anything at all about this?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. The only trimming that I was aware of in the very beginning was a distortion of the faces. I think that is self evident to protect the identity of , I think also the people in the water and perhaps also the service personnel. But I've never heard before of any suggestion that it was trimmed to obliterate the sinking ship. I mean that would be quite shonky.
CASSIDY:
You've made some inquiries on that?
PRIME MINISTER:
I will now, but, you know, I'm on your program.
CASSIDY:
Will you order the release of the full set of photographs to clear it up once and for all?
PRIME MINISTER:
I will find out the facts. I don't know what constitutes a full set of photographs. This is the first I've heard of that allegation. Of course I will make some inquiries, but self evidently, if any attempt were made to obliterate the ship, well that would be wrong.
CASSIDY:
Is your decision not to appear before the Senate Inquiry a final one.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, it is. I'm accountable to Parliament, I'm accountable to the media. We will adopt the same approach to this senate inquiry as has been adopted for a number of years now. Senior public servants, relevant public servants rather, will be available to appear. The question of whether Peter Reith appears will be a matter for him, but it has not been the custom for ministers to appear. I seem to remember some years ago, quite long years ago, the Whitlam Government refused to allow senior public servants to appear before a senate inquiry. We adopt a more open approach than that.
CASSIDY:
As I understand it, Peter Reith has preliminary advice at least that he can claim immunity from the Crown, but do you think he should, given the national interest.
PRIME MINISTER:
That is a matter for him. Peter Reith is now a private citizen. He is in a different position from me. I'm not going to give gratuitous advice as to what he should do. That is a matter for him to decide.
CASSIDY:
Prime Minister, the asylum seekers who were wrongly accused of throwing their children in the water are now at Manus Island off Papua New Guinea, they have access to satellite TV and some are watching now. What would you like to say to them.
PRIME MINISTER:
I would like to say I acted in good faith on the basis of the information I was given. I regret as I said on Friday, that if information which is now available weren't available or wasn't available earlier, but at every stage I acted on advice and can I just remind you in the last three days of the election campaign, three things happened. I released a video, even though I knew that that video was inconclusive on the issue. I sought advice from Mr Reith as to whether the original advice had been contradicted, and he said it hadn't, in addition to that Mr Ruddock confirmed this morning on Channel 7 that on 8 November two days before the election campaign he asked the head of his department Mr Farmer as to whether there had been a contradiction of the original advice and he was told there hadn't been. In those circumstances, I do not believe that allegations of a cover-up can be sustained. All I can do in a situation like this is act on advice that I've received and at all stages I've done that. At no stage was I told by my department….
CASSIDY:
But that is understood, Prime Minister, the point is...
PRIME MINISTER:
Can I tell you, with respect, Barrie, I don't think it is understood. I would like to think it were understood and accepted but the whole basis of most of the attack on me and Mr Ruddock is that we have deliberately lied. That is manifestly -
CASSIDY:
I accept that.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm glad you accept that, because a lot of your colleagues don't. That is the thing that I will make a point of every time I'm interviewed. I mean the reality is that I've made a lot of disclosure. When the video was there I insisted that it be made public. I was the person who commissioned the reports which are now being used against me. I tabled them. I couldn't have been more transparent.
CASSIDY:
For the sake of the argument, accepting all of that, nevertheless if somebody passes on false information that proves to be wrong, surely the aggrieved party is owed an apology. That is just a basic community standard.
PRIME MINISTER:
I've said on Friday that I regret the information…..
CASSIDY:
But I've given you an opportunity to apologise directly to the boatpeople and you haven't done it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Barry, I know what you are asking me to do, and I've given you a response. Mr Ruddock was asked the same question this morning. If I in good faith use information and I subsequently find that some of that information was not correct, I can express a regret that that has occurred, but I haven't acted in bad faith.
CASSIDY:
But no apology?
PRIME MINISTER:
We are having an argument about a regret versus an apology.
CASSIDY:
But do you accept that is the community standard? That if somebody passes false information provided you are not the originater of the material then you don';t owe anybody an apology, even if the party has been hurt.
PRIME MINISTER:
What I'm saying to you Barrie is that if I had done something deliberately misleading I would owe people an apology, I haven't.
CASSIDY:
So, you don't think you owe the people of Australia an apology either for misleading them?
PRIME MINISTER:
The people of Australia on the asylum seeker issue voted for our policy. They didn't vote according to whether children were thrown overboard or not.
CASSIDY:
But they didn't know they had been misled either.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well could I just…I've looked again as recently as last night about, at the media coverage in the last two or three days of the campaign and a lot of your colleagues were then making allegations about deception and misleading and because that was occurring is one of the reasons why these inquiries were made. I mean this idea that there was no debate about the original claims before the election is just completely untrue. There was. There was a great deal. And what really provoked that was the video and I was the person responsible for the decision to release the video. In other words, I took action then to be as transparent as I possibly could with the public on the issue.
CASSIDY:
You went aboard the Adelaide, the ship involved on October the 7th, two weeks after the event. You didn't raise this incident with anybody?
PRIME MINISTER:
Did I raise it with them?
CASSIDY:
Yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I didn't, because I didn't have any reason at that time to believe that what I had said about it was wrong.
CASSIDY:
But it was a sensational story on page 1 of the newspapers two weeks before, you are talking directly to the crew and not even in small talk at any point did you talk about it.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, I didn't in small talk. I did when I spoke to the crew as a group. I did express my gratitude for the work that they had done in very difficult circumstances, but I don't recollect any reference to it in small talk, and in fact I mention this, I was talking to my wife about this yesterday, and she doesn't recall it having been mentioned either. Bear in mind, Barrie, that after the 10th October I don't believe I was questioned about this matter by anybody for another 16 days. I don't recall it coming up in the debate between myself and Mr Beazley
CASSIDY:
But there were doubts being expressed in the newspapers.
PRIME MINISTER:
Hang on, please, let me finish. In addition I don't recall mentioning the children overboard in my policy speech. I certainly mentioned border protection, but that's my point. People voted for us because they thought we were stronger on border protection. They didn't vote for us because of the children overboard issue. Now that is now being invented as an excuse for the Labor Party having lost the election. They are very bad losers. They always want an excuse. They know, you know, in fact their whole argument has been that if they hadn't have got closer to us on border protection, they would have lost by a bigger margin. That is contrary to the argument they are now running in relation to the children overboard. They can't have it both ways.
CASSIDY:
One point some commentators are raising is that they find it curious that you are not angry with those who misled you. That you seem to accept this, you accepted Jane Halton';s argument that she didn't feel their was any doubt about it because she saw the photographs and thought that was proof. Those photographs were nothing of the kind. She showed appalling judgment on the face of it.
PRIME MINISTER:
I certainly am not angry with Jane Halton, she is an outstanding public servant. She ran the people smuggling task force and everybody associated with that has spoken very highly of her work. Now when you take into account the difficult circumstances, the undeniable fact that the people in question had disabled the vessel, the allegations, not disputed, that they had set fires on the vessel, the allegations not disputed that children had been held up in the view of naval officers with a threat to throw them overboard. Those things are not contradicted. Now against that kind of background I can well understand people believing the initial reports that children had been thrown overboard and accepting that when photographs were released then that put the matter beyond argument. No, I do not condemn Jane Halton.
CASSIDY:
Can you see that you were given information that is now causing people to say through opinion polls, two that I have seen, that half the country either believe you lied to them or you are dishonourable and you are not angry about that and yet you don't want to get to the bottom of it and see to it that heads roll.
PRIME MINISTER:
Hang on, how can you possibly say I don't want to get to the bottom of it? Why would I, if I didn't want to get to the bottom of it, why would I have commissioned a report after the election? Why would I have said before the election that I would make some further inquiries? I mean if I didn't want to get to the bottom of it I would not have commissioned that report. I mean, I'm the person who commissioned the report which is now being used against me by most journalists and by the Labor Party. Now if I were somebody trying to close my eyes to the reality of what had occurred, I wouldn't have done that, but I do understand in a situation like this how it would be that a public servant in Jane Halton's position or Bill Farmer's position, both of whom are excellent advisers and excellent public servants of the highest integrity and ability, why they would have behaved as they did. I do think this is a situation where at the moment this is the only political game in town. Flash back to the election campaign and you see the whole thing in better context and an entirely different perspective and different situation.
CASSIDY:
Prime Minister, contrast that approach, though, with 1997 when your political advisor and friend Graham Morris quit simply because he had failed to pass on information to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
That was never concluded that he didn't, he didn't quit because he failed to pass on information. He believed that it was the best thing to do in the circumstances. He never said to me at that time that he had failed to pass on information. He always disputed the suggestion that he hadn't passed on information but he felt that he ought to go.
CASSIDY:
Prime Minister, just finally, is this the most difficult period that you've had to go through as Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, more difficult periods are periods that affect the welfare of the country.
CASSIDY:
Politically?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, you can't separate that out. I mean the things that are most important to me are decisions that affect the welfare of the people and the welfare of Australia. Of course I don't like the allegations that I lied, because I didn't. I haven't lied about this. I acted on advice. When I knew I should make something available in the interests of fuller disclosure, I did. That was the video. I knew it was my obligation to have an informal inquiry into what happened. I've made that available. I've no doubt that the Labor Party will use the senate inquiry for political purposes. Peter Cook, who is going to chair it, is already publicly salivating about what the estimates committee will do on this issue, he is talking about cinema scope presentation, well that is a good idea of just how impartial, objective and juridicial this senate inquiry is going to be. I live with that political reality but I just say again, at all times I acted on advice, I made proper inquiry, I made full disclosure of the video before the election. I spoke to the Defence Minister and Mr Ruddock confirms he spoke to his permanent head. So in those circumstances the allegation is unreasonable.
CASSIDY:
That will have to be your final point, thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
You are very welcome.
[Ends]