E&OE……………………………
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, you've said that the jury's out on the link between Saddam Hussein and terrorism. Do you think Saddam Hussein is evil, say in the way that Adolf Hitler was evil or Pol Pot?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’m not very impressed with any of them. As to how you sort of gradate them, I mean, look, you are dealing with somebody who used poison gas against his own people. You are dealing with somebody who runs on all of my understanding and enormously repressive regime and you are dealing with somebody who was involved in a war that cost the lives of a million people. I could go on. I mean, I don't think anybody is arguing that it's not an evil regime. How you compare it with other regimes, look, I’m just not going to get into that sort of game, I don’t think it's particularly productive and, you know, you can perhaps write a PhD thesis on it at some stage in a different set of circumstances. But the point that I was making is that the real link, the real significant is that September 11 exposed the vulnerability that none of us previously thought might exist, or very few did. And I think you have to understand the sense of vulnerability, particularly the American people feel but it ought not only to be Americans that if it's possible for the group that perpetrated that attack to achieve with such audacious success such a devastating attack, in that set of circumstances then clearly there's a capacity for others to do likewise and that has implications for the way in which the world deals with people who might have both the capacity and the motive to do it in the future. That really is the link that, I think, truly exists.
JOURNALIST:
You've said in the past that conflict or military intervention in Iraq is probable. Is that still your view, have you upgraded it to inevitable? And while you say you wish to avoid conflict at all costs, what positive steps are you and President Bush taking to avoid military conflict with Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we are taking action in a number of ways. We are taking action to encourage the United Nations to assume its responsibilities to enforce the resolutions already passed in relation to Iraq. And this is a view that I instructed our Ambassador in Washington to put to the administration before I spoke to President Bush last Saturday morning. In fact I had Michael Thawley speak to both the Deputy Secretary of State Rich Armitage, and Hadley the Deputy at the National Security Council, late last week to convey the view that we believed the United Nations should be involved and we have also offered in relation to any United Nations actions sought by the United States to advocate with countries that may perhaps, for whatever combination of reasons be reluctant to do so, to support the role of the United Nations. I think that is a very significant contribution. I mean if, I can only repeat Dennis that if Iraq were to comply in the circumstances that I outlined, I don't think there would be many people around the world who would not see that as being a transformation of the situation overnight. I mean, it strikes me as strange to the point of perversity that the focus should be upon the motives and the conduct of the United States and not upon the motive and the conduct of Iraq and the responsibilities of the United Nations in relation to that.
JOURNALIST:
Some analysts have observed that a war in Iraq might stoke more Arab discontent and therefore terrorism. What do you say in to those in the Arab world who have been saying that Israel has, they've been UN resolutions against Israel that have been ignored for decades, why go after Iraq but not Israel?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you're not dealing with a similar situation. I mean, Israel for all that many people will criticise it, like any other nation it is not beyond approach. Israel is the one full,truly functioning democracy in the Middle East. The rule of law even in the height of the most difficult situations between the Palestinians and the Israeli's, the rule of law still prevails there. I'm not aware that Israel has a stockpile and used chemical agents. I don't think the sort of things of which Saddam Hussein has been guilty can be said in relation to Israel. I think it's also to fair to say that it has been the policy of the Australian Government and I'm very pleased that there's been a more open expression of it from the United States in recent months. That the long-term solution in the Middle East is a home and a state for the Palestinians, as well as the protection of the right of Israel to exist behind secure and internationally recognised boundaries.
JOURNALIST:
Look, despite the importance of the war against terrorism and the need to bring Iraq into compliance with UN resolutions, Australia's primary interest, the strategic area of interest remains the so-called arc of instability South East Asia round to the South West Pacific. Are you concerned that the strong political support we are giving to the United States in this, could complicate relations with in Indonesia in its present situation? And are you confident that Australia has the resources to actually meet any crisis in the region, as well as to make a contribution to a probable war in the Middle East?
PRIME MINISTER:
Geoffrey, I agree with you that the arc of instability, the potential pressures immediately in our region are our first area of responsibility. And let me make it clear that any commitment we might hypothetically - I'll say that again – hypothetically, make in relation to activities a fair way from our shores, would pay regard to our continuing capacity to deal with any situations that might emerge. In other words, we're not going to overstretch ourselves or our military resources. If we were asked to make those contributions, either in the context of Iraq or indeed something similar. We're not going to do that - and I've made that clear before and I'll make it clear again. As for our support for the United States, my experience has been as Prime Minister that if one explains and articulates the reasons for taking a particular stance and if proper regard is played for the national interest on other nations, when their vital interest are involved it doesn't automatically flow that, if I could put it in this abstract way, nation C that is not necessarily as close to nation B as nation A, being Australia, is not automatically offended if you strongly express and articulate that close relationship. I don't think the world is quite as simplistic as that. I think it's a lot more subtle and a lot more sophisticated. We as a Government have worked very hard on our relations with countries to our immediate north and further within the Asian Pacific region. We've had some very impressive demonstrations in the last few months of the capacity of this country to deal, in a very constructive way, with major nations in the region. The relationship we have with Indonesia is very important. We both share a concern about terrorism and the MOU on intelligence sharing that we signed when I was in Jakarta in January, is an illustration of that. And indeed in a number of areas, the campaign against terrorism has contributed to our two countries getting closer together. It's not been the only reason, but it has certainly not been something that has held it back.
JOURNALIST:
You painted for us today a vivid picture of flying back from Washington to, I think, Honolulu. When you first embraced the idea with the Foreign Minister of invoking the ANZUS Treaty, of course this underpins Australia's significant strategic alliances, but it's a far from perfect treaty. One of the partners, New Zealand, their Prime Minister said last year they were no longer in it. So the very least, our strategic devices which have taken us to Afghanistan and possibly further, seem somewhat imperfect. And I wonder if you think in a post-September 11 world, you think there's time for Australia to look at a new strategic alliance?
PRIME MINISTER:
With the United States?
JOURNALIST:
Yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I as you know in other contexts, I'm a Burkean conservative and I don't believe in abandoning something that continues to work unless I'm convinced that it's no longer of value. The modern manifestation of the ANZUS alliance bilaterally is of course, we now call, when we have discussions between our Defence and Foreign Ministers and the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defence, we call them the Ausmin talks. Look, there is a different view taken of the relationship by New Zealand. I might quickly interpolate that has not in any way affected the closeness of the relationship between Australia and New Zealand. May I say that I've worked very hard with three New Zealand Prime Ministers I've dealt with and certainly very much with the current one, with whom I have a very good and very close constructive working relationship to keep our two countries that are so historically linked very much together. I don't see and need to alter the formal architecture of it. I think it works albeit in a different form, but it works very effectively, as between Australia and the United States. New Zealand has a, by her choice, a more passive role but that's a matter for New Zealand and the United States. I've not been in the habit in the last six of and a half years of giving public advice to the New Zealand Government and I don't intend to do so today.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, your Defence Minister Robert Hill yesterday spoke a little bit about the changing nature of the conflict in Afghanistan with the current war on terror. Is the Government, I was just wondering is the Government thinking or has it been looking at planning ahead for any change in our commitment in Afghanistan?
PRIME MINISTER:
Any change in our deployment?
JOURNALIST:
Our deployment – bringing home the SAS for example and replacing them with more conventional troops. And are you optimistic or is there any hope for optimism at this stage of an end to what is happening in Afghanistan?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think broadly the campaign in Afghanistan has gone very well. And a lot has been achieved, an enormous amount has been achieved. The Taliban regime after all has been removed and 1.6 million refugees who were in Pakistan - I think 1.6 is the figure - have gone back to Afghanistan. So that’s a very considerable achievement. Like everybody else, I was disturbed at the bomb attack last week and the attempted assassination of the President. There are some disturbing signs about a possible push back by the Taliban. I wouldn’t want to put it any more strongly than that. In a situation like this, you always keep talking at the appropriate level regarding a military commitment. You owe it to the men and the soldiers involved, you owe it to them to keep the thing under constant review and we’ll always take decisions that protect to the maximum degree their security and their safety. We don’t have any plan to make any change at present. They’re there to do a job. If that changes, then we’ll obviously inform the Australian public in the appropriate way. But we don’t have any plan at present to change. They’ve done an outstanding job and I know their contribution is greatly valued.
JOURNALIST:
The events of September the 11th had an impact on the US economy which in turn had a domino effect on other economies around the world, including Australia. The Treasurer last week highlighted the global slow down as the main risk to the Australian economy, coupled with the severe drought now in parts of Australia, and new figures yesterday show the further downgrade for this year’s winter crop. With these risk factors in mind, what is your assessment now for the outlook for the US economy and for Australia for the second year after September the 11th?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is true that the downturn last year as a result of September 11 did have an effect around the world. It actually didn’t have as big an effect on Australia as it did on most other countries. I think the outlook for the American economy is mixed. My experience when I was in New York at the beginning of the year was that the economists and the financial community were a lot more optimistic than the businessmen. But that’s often the case. Although sometimes it’s the other way around – the businessmen are more optimistic than the economists and the financial community. I suppose it depends what stage of the business cycle you are at. There’s obviously some hesitancy in the American economy and the big question is whether the decline in the stockmarket, which has been far more marked than it has been in Australia, because we didn’t go up as high, and that old adage about what goes up must come down didn’t affect as badly as it did in the United States. And if that decline has a prolonged impact on middle America’s spending capacity, then you will then start to see some effects. So I’d have to say it is a question mark. I’d agree with the Treasurer’s assessment. The drought is a problem. Of course we have some other things going in our favour. We have some – and you’ve heard me talk about them before but that won’t stop me mentioning them again – you’ve got some very strong fundamentals. You don’t have the low dollar but you do have a super competitive exchange rate and all of that reform over a long period of time has made a very significant contribution. And we’re better fitted to deal with the problem than many others but Peter’s right in sort of drawing attention to those two things.
JOURNALIST:
A question about propaganda. Saddam Hussein has shown himself to be an effective user of weapons of mass communication. Over the last few days we have seen an American former United Nations weapons inspector prominently escorting international media to sights to, in his words, prove that they’re not what the United States and other enemies of Iraq assert them to be. How should ordinary Australians interpret this material that we’re seeing each night, and does it not put more pressure on you and your Government to make available any reliable information you haven’t yet made available to the Australian people?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the answer Greg to that is that we live in a very open, robust democracy, and long may it remain so. And the media and everybody else makes their contribution to that and they choose to run certain stories and not run others. We have an obligation, and I’ve acknowledged this before, we have an obligation to explain and defend everything we do. I mean Government’s are accountable. Everybody is accountable in the modern world, even more so than they were in earlier times, and I’m no exception to that and I accept the responsibility of explaining myself and putting my case. I take the opportunity in the context of that of saying or asking rhetorically if indeed there is nothing to hide in Iraq, why can’t the inspectors go in in an unhindered fashion? And why can’t in an unconditional way any instructions of the United Nations be carried out? I think that is a question that Australians listening to this broadcast would probably want to ask. Most of them nod their heads about it because in the end, you know when you’ve got claim and counterclaim, when you’re saying your hands are clean and you’ve got nothing to hide, why don’t you demonstrate it?
JOURNALIST:
A little over 12 months ago you made some comments which caused some questions to be asked about your future tenure as Prime Minister. They must seem like not 12 months but a light year away at least given recent developments.
PRIME MINISTER:
It was actually two years ago.
JOURNALIST:
And revisit it every 12 months.
PRIME MINISTER:
You do.
JOURNALIST:
Are you now more inclined to stick around given the growing international uncertainty?
PRIME MINISTER:
I always think that TV journalists learn a lot when they look at the interviews conducted by other TV journalists, and if I could refer you to an interview I did with Kerry O’Brien on the 7.30 Report a few months ago, in other words I don’t have anything to add to what I’ve previously said on that subject.
JOURNALIST:
Just sort of on your Prime Ministership, between Vietnam and you winning Government in 96 we only had one real major commitment overseas and that was in the Gulf War of our troops. Since you’ve been in power we’ve had two – Timor and Afghanistan. And here you are today sort of talking about the possibility of a third. Do you think your legacy will be a military one as much as anything else?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t believe so. But you can’t start talking about legacies until you reach the point of saying you’ve got one. What else can I say? But look, no – if you ask me what things am I most proud of that my Government has done over the last six and a half years, I would unhesitatingly say one of them was the intervention in East Timor. I think that was enormously to the credit of this country. We stood up for the right thing and it was difficult. It’s now history. It’s now behind us. We are very importantly, we’re building our relationship and we’re well along the road to doing it with Indonesia. I’m very proud of what we did in relation to gun control. And I think the evident strength of the Australian economy in the face of an Asian economic downturn and the downturn last year, and the strength of that economy, all of those things are things if you ask me right now, sort of on work in progress basis, what I thought were the great achievements for the Government so far – I’d say those three things in particular.
JOURNALIST:
Last night Henry Kissinger told the ABC that he thought that what Colin Powell meant by UN involvement in Iraq, he meant the return of weapons inspectors after Saddam Hussein had been removed. I don’t know whether that is your understanding of the role of the UN, but is that your understanding? And secondly, would Australia support an attack on Iraq if Russia and China abstained from the resolution in the Security Council?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look I’m not going to start hypothesising on such a very, very important, sensitive issue. I’m not going to answer the last part of that question other than to say I’m not going to hypothesise. There is no proposition in front of the Australian Government about an attack on Iraq. I hope that doesn’t come because I would like to see this issue resolved in another way. So I’m not even going to hypothesise on that, lest people think I’m predisposed, which I’m not, to a particular set of circumstances. I’m not going to try and define exactly what the future involvement of the United Nations may be, beyond saying that it would be to transform the whole issue completely if everything the United Nations had requested in the past were in fact done. And that would be a very good start. But I think you have to in relation to future United Nations action and involvement maintain a degree of flexibility. When I spoke to President Bush last Saturday morning, I don’t think he had precisely made up his own mind as to exactly what the United States was going to put to the United Nations, and I could understand that. I mean it’s something of a… you’re dealing with the UN and different nuances in different resolutions, it is something of a movable feast. And it’s a bit early to be sort of committing yourself to an exact formulation of words and I’m certainly not in the business of answering the other hypothetical question.
JOURNALIST:
You said just a few minutes ago that one of the consequences of the atrocity 12 months ago was that people have changed, there was a better understanding of different cultures and religion and less of a tendency to scapegoat other groups for apparent offences. Are you convinced that that lesson has permeated all sectors of the Australian community? The Government has consistently said to effect that just because someone's a Muslim doesn't mean they were cheering on the planes on New York 12 months ago but is there more you could do to spread the message that there are Islamic extremists and then there are other followers of Islam.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think you perhaps summarised my remarks in a slightly firmer form than I'd given them. I’m not saying that there's others and, you know, benign accident, I’m not suggesting you did it deliberately. But look, I said I thought there was some greater inquiry about different religions and different cultures. I don't think people are necessarily more…dramatically more informed, I think there's just been a greater effort by some people to get a little bit of an understanding and to see common good in all of the world's great religions, whatever your own individual religious face may be. Look, there's intolerance in Australian society from some people but I think overwhelmingly we have been a very tolerant people and I think we have been remarkably receptive. And there have been some recent surveys that indicate that. And we…we have to understand that when you bring people from all around the world you can only build a united society around a set of common values. And my view has always been that when people come to this country, no matter what their origins, they should seek to become what I call in plain, unmistakable terms, I think they should seek to become Australians no matter where they come from. And that means adhering to a common set of values but it doesn't mean you abandon the special place in your heart for your homeland or that you abandon particular customs and cultures that are important to that connection with your homeland. Now, there is a happy medium in all of this.
I mean, there are some common, accepted Australian attitudes and values. They clearly include free and open expression, they include a respect for the equal roles of men and women in our community, they include a respect for our democratic institutions, they include freedom of religion, they must include a proper embrace and usage of the English language without, of course, in any way [inaudible] the right of people to use other language as well if that is their wish. But all of these things I think are commonly understood and accepted. And can I say I think we have done this very well. I mean, we get so critical of ourselves, some people do. I mean, when you think of how this country is now composed to what it was 50 years ago - I mean, it hasn’t changed perhaps as much as many people think it is, it depends on what part of Australia you live - but we have been incredibly successful and I think we should be a little more confident in expressing that than sometimes we are. And do you think of how, of what we've gone through? Phil Coorey asked me a moment ago of things that have happened over the last few years. We have gone through, in the last 10 years, we've gone through - or 15 years or more - the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and I would think on a rough calculation we would have between, what, 6, 700,000 people owing their origins to the former Yugoslavia, the Serbians, Croatian, Slovenian, Albanian, so it goes on, maybe, 6 or 700,000, maybe it's only 500 but it's a lot.
Now, by and large, that disintegration occurred with all the tension that that involved and all of the tragedy and the ethnic cleansing and everything that occurred in other parts of the world with remarkably little resonance in this country in terms of open conflict. And the same thing with a very difficult situation in the Middle East. I think we're handling that well. I mean, people feel [inaudible] about it but in the end what gets to them is that they're Australians more than anything else and that is how it should be. I don't want them to be indifferent. I mean, if I were an Australian of Croatian descent and I had some relatives living still in Zagreb and I know a bloke in this very situation, I'd worry about what was happening. I'd be interested in it but in the end when it came to me relating to Australians of other ethnicities and descents what would matter most to me was that we were Australians together and I think, by and large, we have done that, we've done that to a remarkable degree. I think we fret about this too much. I think we navel gaze too much about this. I think we've just done it better than most and we ought to be pleased about that and we ought to just get on with being Australians and continuing to accept in a proper basis of integrity for our immigration programme, continue to accept people from all around the world. I mean, I was very happy to say when I was travelling around Europe, as you would have heard me on a number of occasions, and I surprise many of my European hosts by reminding them that the language most widely spoken in Sydney, the biggest city in Australia now for English, is the dialect of Chinese. And there were very few of my European hosts who sort of thought that was possible. But the fact that they didn't is a sign, isn't that we've done it pretty well. I just think we ought to relax and realise we have done it well.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible] arrangement or understanding prior to the election that the appointment might be made?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it was a proper appointment and he’s a very good appointment. And I know it has been criticised by the Courier Mail and by some others and I accept that criticism. There’s always criticism of the appointment of people who have had a political background – not always, but in many cases. I made it very clear before the 1996 election that I would reserve the right for the Government to make some appointments out of political ranks and I think the ones that we have done over the last six and a half years, like Andrew Peacock and David Connolly and John Spender have all been very good appointments, as indeed were appointments of the former Government such as Doug McClelland as the High Commissioner to London. They’ve been very, very good appointments. But as to the exact circumstances of it, I mean I’ve got to tell you Dennis that in the lead up to the last election who was going to be Australia’s Ambassador - no disrespect to the wonderful Irish or to His Holiness - who was going to be the Ambassador in Dublin or the Holy See was not my major preoccupation. I see Lynton Crosby out of my mind’s eye. I don’t think I can remember talking about it to Lynton Crosby. Look we went into that election not knowing what was going to happen and I don’t think anybody going into that election had any firm understanding about diplomatic appointments.
JOURNALIST:
You’ve said a couple of times today that if Iraq were to comply fully with the UN resolutions, then that would transform the situation entirely and completely. George Bush and Tony Blair as recently as the weekend were still talking regime change. In your mind, in your view, what is the priority and the top agenda here? Is it unfettered access for weapons inspectors or is it regime change?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think the… it’s not a situation where I want to get into saying which is the more – different people are going to have different views about what is more important. Speaking theoretically if you had a regime change you would probably get a different approach in relation to the United Nations, but let me phrase it this way – if there were a sudden, dramatic transformation and a new approach, a new dawn in relation to weapons inspections, the dismantling of all the weapons and so forth, I think regime change might not be seen as quite as important. But from our point of view, we want the potential threat posed removed. And one way of removing it is to allow the inspectors in. I hope that happens, but it’s not just allowing inspectors in. They’ve got to come in in circumstances where they have unhindered access. I would even offer the view they have protected access and that any instructions given to remove and destroy and so forth are carried out, and there is supervision of that process by another body perhaps. I mean these are possible ways of handling it. I don’t want to get too prescriptive, somebody to write down and say that’s the precise new articulation, but I’m trying to answer your question as best I can. Look I think everybody would like to see the regime change in Iraq. I think a lot of Iraqis would like to see the regime change. I think a lot of Middle Eastern countries would like to see the regime change – a lot, perhaps even a majority. The threat posed by the agents of war, the chemical and biological and so forth, is the major concern but in a sense it’s a different side to the one problem.
JOURNALIST:
You spoke again today about the close and special relationship that Australians have with the United States, and I just want to draw your attention to some comments today by the Australian Institute of International Affairs which described the September 11 attacks as moral anathema, that said that we do need to understand why the United States is so hated that young men will commit such acts against the symbols of American power. I just wanted to ask you what your response to those comments are, and whether or not you’ve asked yourself the same question?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well clearly if you believe in blind terror and indiscriminate killing as an agent of human behaviour and human activity it is, and I’m no psychologist, it is more probable than not that you will seek to do it against the most powerful and the most high profile nation in the world. I mean one way of looking at America’s dilemma is to say yes, they have the… I mean to be an American is… to be the most powerful country in the world is an enormous advantage, but it also makes you an object. I mean bear in the mind that the backgrounds of many of the people who were involved in these terror attacks, as I have been told and read and we’ve all read, did not necessarily come out of a particular dispute in the Middle East. I mean people have sought to draw a connection between the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel and I mean let me say, I continue to argue very strongly for a settlement of that and I regard it as one of the great tragedies of the last ten years that Arafat did not have the courage in the end to embrace what Barak offered him. But I also believe very strongly that Palestinians are entitled to a homeland and they have as much right to have a homeland as do the Israelis.
But part of the reason why America was attacked is because of who she is, because she is the strongest. That does not necessarily indicate moral turpitude or any kind of moral justification for it. America is not flawless. I mean it’s a deeply flawed society in many ways. All of our societies have deep flaws. There are many aspects of American life, particularly in the area of social security benefits, that I don’t agree with. I think the safety nets we have in this country are better. There are American characteristics that I don’t relate to as readily as others, but I mean we’re all different and I hope we remain different. I’d hate to live in a world where all our national differences were blanded out in some kind of grey blancmange where all of our differences had been removed. So I think you have to bear that in mind. When you are the biggest kid on the block, people are always more prone to have a go at you. That is a simplistic way of putting it but I think there is a lot of truth in that and I don’t think that of itself connotes moral failure or turpitude on the part of the United States.
Can I also just finally remind you this is the great dilemma all free societies have, is the eternal struggle between allowing people the freedom that we believe we should have to move and speak and do things in an open democratic society, but the inevitable risks that that exposes you to. I mean that is a dilemma that this country faces. I mean we always come out, and properly so, in favour of keeping a society – I mean that’s why we say the attack a year ago, was on our values and one of those values is to have these kinds of exchanges for people to then go away and rubbish absolutely everything I’ve said and so forth. But that’s what society is all about. But I do think you should allow for the fact that when you are the most powerful country in the world, therefore you are going to be an object of violence. It’s not necessarily because of your moral failure.
[ends]