E&OE...........
PRINCIPAL:
Good morning boys and girls. It';s Mr Bobos here from the Alice Springs School of the Air. For our very special assembly we have the Honourable Prime Minister Mr John Howard sitting here. Mr Howard, would you like to say good morning to the boys and girls.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning boys and girls. This is quite an exciting moment for me. I don';t think I';ve spoken out of the Alice Springs School of the Air before but hello and good morning and I';m looking forward very much to hearing your questions.
PRINCIPAL:
Boys and girls do we have any listeners?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh you';ve got millions. Hello there, how are you?
PRINCIPAL:
Boys and girls, we might start our assembly as we always start an assembly – with our national anthem. So could you all please stand to sing our national anthem.
[singing of anthem]
PRINCIPAL:
Well done everybody and the Alice Springs community. Boys and girls we have many, many people here in the studio. I';m not about to try and introduce them all but we have many special guests. Katie, are you listening? Katie is actually on the speakerphone on the phone on your right hand side Prime Minister. She';ll be speaking to you. Katie can you go ahead please.
STUDENT:
Thank you. Good morning Prime Minister Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Katie.
STUDENT:
My name is Katie Hayes and I';m the president of the Alice Springs School of the Air student representative council. I live 130km from Alice Springs at The Gardens Station. The highlight of being at School of the Air are going on excursions, seeing my friends when we';re in town and talking through the radio. Every year we get the opportunity to come into town four times. Most of the students go into town for at least one of these four weeks. In town we get to see each other and do lessons like most children. Some of the disadvantages about being on School of the Air is not being able to play team sport and not being able to be heard when the radio plays up. Some of the good things about being in the Outback are learning how to use a motorbike to hunt up cattle and learning stockwork. I also like helping my dad cut up the meat after we have killed a cow, steer, etc. On behalf of everyone listening on the radio, I would like to welcome you to School of the Air.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well thank you very much Katie. That is a very, very nice welcome and what is good for me being on the School of the Air is a chance to not only hear from you and to answer your questions, but also to say what a wonderful job Mr Bobos and all the other teachers and people who run the School of the Air do. Because this is something that Australia did before any other country in the world and we have taught other countries how to teach children who live in remote areas of their countries, and that is something that we Australians – all of us, whether we live in the city or in the bush or the outback – can be very proud of. And thank you very much Katie for your outline of what you do and the advantages and the disadvantages of having to have a School of the Air for your learning.
PRINCIPAL:
Thank you Katie. Wade, are you able to hear me? Wade Watts – are you there?
STUDENT:
Yes I am Mr Bobos.
PRINCIPAL:
Wade, you';ve just knocked the Prime Minister off his seat. You';re absolutely booming in.
PRIME MINISTER:
That';s alright. I';m a bit deaf so don';t…
PRINCIPAL:
Wade would you like to speak to the Prime Minister please.
STUDENT:
Good morning Mr Prime Minister. My name is Wade Watts and I am 12 years old and I live at Jameson community in Western Australia which is about 930km south-west of Alice Springs. The reason I live here is because my mum is the acting adviser of Jameson but my dad is the roadworks supervisor of the Shire. Radio lessons can be very hard because of the weather and because sometimes you can';t hear your teacher and your classmates. For radio lessons I have to get up at 6.00am to get to a 6.30am lesson, which is 8.00am in Alice Springs.
PRIME MINISTER:
That is terrific. That is a story that I will tell the next time I talk to a class at a school in one of the suburbs of Sydney which is in my electorate and I will tell them that unlike you Wade, they don';t have to get up at 6.00am to be at lessons by 6.30am, and maybe if they had to they mightn';t complain quite so much about what they had to do when they go to school. I think those sorts of simple stories remind all of us of how different conditions can be in different parts of our very vast country.
PRINCIPAL:
Thank you Wade. Wade, you had a question for the Prime Minister that I am particularly interested to hear the answer to. Go ahead Wade.
STUDENT:
Mr Prime Minister, do you support a football club and if you do, which club is it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well my first and most passionate football allegiance because I follow Rugby is for the Australian Wallabies which is our great rugby union team. Now I know probably most of you would have grown up in a more Australian Rules environment and if you';re from Western Australia, you certainly would have. And in Rugby League, because I grew up in Sydney, I am a supporter of the St George Illawarra Rugby League Club. I started supporting it when it was just St George and of course the St George Club achieved a feat that no other football club that I know anywhere in the world achieved – and that is between 1956 and 1967 St George won 11 straight premierships in a row. There is not an Australian Rules club in the old VFL or the Western Australian league or certainly not in the AFL because it hasn';t been going that long and I don';t think there has been an English soccer club which is the other sort of football I follow. They';re my football interests. When I was at school I played both Rugby Union and Rugby League and when I left school I played soccer for about five years. In fact the only one of the four football codes in Australia I didn';t play when I was young was in fact Australian Rules because in those days in Sydney, Australian Rules was not very widely played and if you grew up in Sydney you played Rugby or soccer. If you grew up in Melbourne or Perth you played Australian Rules or occasionally a bit of soccer. But I like Australian Rules and I saw a terrific match between the Fremantle Dockers and the West Coast Eagles at Subiaco Oval in July and it was a great match.
PRINCIPAL:
Thank you Prime Minister and thank you Wade. Well done. Camilla, are you able to hear us. Camilla? Camilla you';re very, very faint. Just have a go Camilla and see if we can hear you. Go ahead Camilla.
STUDENT:
[inaudible]
PRINCIPAL:
She';s talking to you Prime Minister about the benefits of satellite communication. Camilla was part of the trial that occurred last November where she could actually see her teacher and her younger sister actually benefited because she was learning to read and she could see what it was that her teacher was trying to do for her. And she wanted to thank your Government also for providing the funds.
PRIME MINISTER:
Hello Camilla. Well Camilla that was a little bit crackly but it will be much better with the satellite communication. And I know that you had an experience with that and it was good for you and also for your sister. Well I';m very pleased that this satellite communication is coming in so soon and it is going to be quite exciting. And once again this will be something that Australia will do before any other country in the world. It will be the first country in the world to have this method of distance education and I think and I believe that it will make an enormous difference to the way in which people can communicate with each other and you will feel a lot more together – you won';t just feel that it';s you and the teacher over a crackly line. You';ll think that you';re all together and it will be one big outback classroom in a more real sense than what you have had in the past, so I';m really quite excited about this and I';d like perhaps to come back at some stage in the future after the satellite is up and running for a while and go on it because it will certainly bring things together a lot more and I think the communication system won';t be as subject to the variations of the weather. But thanks Camilla.
PRINCIPAL:
Indeed Prime Minister. And you would be more than welcome to come back and be a part of our satellite group Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
I';d love to.
PRINCIPAL:
Okay boys and girls. I';m going to open it up for a few questions now and I know that we';ve got some people in Year Four who have some questions to ask. Joshua Smith – are you able to hear us Joshua?
STUDENT:
What did it feel like to be a couple of kilometres away from the attack on the Pentagon?
PRIME MINISTER:
You mean on the 11th of September? Well it was quite an experience. I had been to the Pentagon the afternoon before to see the American Defence Secretary and then the next day, that morning, I had been out for a walk and I was in fact having a news conference in a hotel next to the White House when the plane hit the Pentagon and I pulled back the curtains and you could see the smoke billowing from the Pentagon building. So I certainly remember it and of course we all know that very sadly for us here in Australia, we have had that terrible attack in Bali and all of those young people who lost their lives and the way in which our country has come together to express our sadness and grief to their mothers and fathers and husbands and wives and mates has been… in a sad situation it has shown how much we work together as a people. But it is scary for people who are nearby but it is tragic for people who have lost loved ones and a lot of people have. But we have to work together and be strong and look after each other and also reach out our hands to everybody in our own country and make people who might be a little bit different from us but are still Australians, make them all feel welcome. Because we are a country of many parts and providing everybody puts Australia first, everybody is entitled to be treated the same.
PRINCIPAL:
Thank you Prime Minister. Someone from Year Five – could someone from Year Five call in please. Go ahead Beth.
STUDENT:
Do you have a boss?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I tell you what – my wife and I talk things over. But I tell you what – as Prime Minister, you know who my boss is? It';s you. It';s all the people of Australia. You';re my boss. And as Prime Minister I';m answerable to all of you and your mums and dads, and they can decide whether I stay here or get thrown out. And every three years they have the opportunity of doing that. So if they don';t like what I do, they sort of vote me out or vote my colleagues out at the next election. That';s how a democracy works.
PRINCIPAL:
Okay, thank you Prime Minister. Someone from Year Seven please. Go ahead Danielle.
STUDENT:
My name is Danielle Braitling and I live at Numery Station which is196km from Alice Springs. I';d like to know why the Government spends more money on helping the Aboriginals instead of fixing up dirt roads outside of Alice Springs because they need quick access to go to town in case of emergency. Also the amount of damage that the rough roads do to vehicles. And also when trucks come out, they only have to travel 196km but it takes them up to six hours due to the condition of the roads and because of the extra amount of time it takes them to come out here cattle are dying because of the shocking state of roads out here. So [inaudible] only take a couple of hours to come here and it takes us four hours. So I hope you take this into consideration and do something about it. Thanks for listening.
PRIME MINISTER:
Danielle I';m not sure that if you add everything up – I don';t know the answer without doing the sums – I don';t know whether if you add everything up all of the money spent by States and Federal Government on roads, whether you end up spending more on Aboriginal affairs than you do on roads. But in a country like ours we have to try and do a certain amount of both. Roads are very important and I know they are particularly important for people who live in outback areas and that is why about 20 months ago we brought in this Roads to Recovery program which provided a lot of extra money for Local Government to go to roads, and those roads of course are available for use by everybody. There is no doubt when you look at Aboriginal affairs, there is no doubt that the life expectancy and the infantile mortality rate, babies dying, that rate is much higher amongst Aboriginal people than it is amongst the rest of the community. And they are things that we have to try as a country to not only understand, but try and remove the causes of it. And it';s important in those areas because they are Australians. We';re all Australians together. It';s important that we try and bridge those gaps and try and create a country where people have an equal go. So we have to try and balance all of those priorities and we try and make as much money available as we can for roads and we also have the responsibility as a Federal Government for the health and employment and education outcomes of all of our people.
PRINCIPAL:
Thank you Prime Minister. Well done Danielle. You researched that question well and asked it well too. Alright, do we have someone from Year One? Go ahead Bodie.
STUDENT:
What are your hobbies?
PRIME MINISTER:
What are my hobbies? I don';t have a lot of time for hobbies. I really have things I do when I have a bit of spare time. I follow cricket very closely. I like sport. Cricket is my favourite but I also, as you could tell, follow football very closely. But I try and play golf. I have been playing more golf in the last few years now that the youngest of my children has left school and I don';t have weekend sport with him, I now try and play golf. I read quite a bit. I read mainly non fiction. I read biographies of people. I find biographies very fascinating because you not only learn about a person but you also learn about the age and the period and the history of the country in which that person lives, and I find biographies absolutely fascinating. I';ve just finished reading a biography. It was called The Three Roosevelts. It was about Franklin Roosevelt who was the President during World War II and his wife Eleanor and then his uncle Teddy Roosevelt who was a President of the United States before World War I. And it was a very interesting book because it covered a huge period of American history and I found it not only… the insights into the people. They were all quite remarkable and very different. But also the insights given into American history – I found that very fascinating.
PRINCIPAL:
Okay, thank you Prime Minister. Boys and girls we';re rapidly running out of time. I would like to give the Prime Minister an opportunity if he wished to actually just address our community if he so wishes, or if you wish we can continue to take some questions.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I';ll take some more questions. I mean I want to hear from them.
PRINCIPAL:
Right. Great stuff. Okay, transition – this is Gavin';s class. Do we have any transition children listening? Go ahead Eliza.
STUDENT:
How long have you been the Prime Minister for Mr Howard?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have been the Prime Minister since the 11th of March 1996. That';s when I was officially sworn in. I actually won the election about nine days earlier but there has to be a bit of a transition when there is a change of Government and that transition took about eight or nine days and so I have now been Prime Minister for a little over six and a half years.
PRINCIPAL:
Excellent. Thank you very much Eliza. Eliza actually sang us a song on the assembly last week Prime Minister called Ellie the Elephant and stole the show. Well done Eliza – good girl. Okay, Year Six. Do we have any Year Six';s listening? Go ahead Kristy-Lee. You';re nice and loud and clear.
STUDENT:
Well mum and dad have put in a lot of ads and stuff for people who want a job – vacant and stuff. But they';re all [inaudible] people like that is unemployed, so kind of what is the Government going to do about that situation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is a good question. I think I understand – you';re saying that your mum and dad have advertised for somebody and can';t get anybody, yet there are still a lot of people out of work. Why is that so? That is a very difficult question for anybody to give a full answer to. Part of it is that a lot of the people who are out of work don';t have the skills to do the jobs that are available. That is one of the reasons. Another reason is that some people who are out of work in one part of the country don';t want to move to other parts of the country where there are jobs. Another reason – and this only applies to a small number, but it still has to be said – some people who are out of work don';t really want to work. There are some people like that and that has to be said. And that is one of the reasons why we have introduced something called Work for the Dole, where we say if you are out of work, and unless it';s harsh and unfair for it to happen, we say that you have to do something in return for getting the unemployment benefit. And that';s only fair to the people who work very hard and pay their taxes and many people, and it probably applies to many of the mums and dads of the children I';m speaking to now, wouldn';t earn a lot of money because many of them are going through drought conditions and even when there is not a drought, many rural incomes have been very low over the last few years. So they are some of the reasons why we have that difficulty and it has been with us for a long time. And we have tried through things like Work for the Dole to tackle the problem. We do have a lower unemployment rate now than we used to have. We think it is still too high. If we could get some laws relating to small business changed so that they could have more freedom to let people go who might not be doing a good enough job, without being punished in the courts, then we might get a lot more jobs created in small business. And that would be very important. That is very important in the Northern Territory.
PRINCIPAL:
Thank you Prime Minister. Okay, I think we';ve got two classes left. We';ve got a Year Two and a Year Three class. Do we have any Year Two';s listening? Go ahead Jade.
STUDENT:
How much money do you get a day?
PRIME MINISTER:
How much money do I get a day? Well I get paid about… I get paid I think it';s $254,000 a year – I think. You have to sort of divide that. But I pay tax. I can assure you I pay all my taxes and I pay 48.5 cents a dollar on a lot more than half of that. Everything over $60,000 you pay 48 – with a Medicare levy – cents in the dollar. And you know it';s not as if it all goes into my pocket, I can assure you. That';s what I get. And how that works out on a daily basis – that can be your next maths project to work that out on a daily basis. But it is a high salary by a lot of community standards. It';s not such a high salary by standards of people who run big companies. But I tell you what – it';s such a wonderful job, the salary I have to say doesn';t really come into it as far as I am concerned. But I';m fortunate and it';s not really an issue I really talk about unless people ask me questions and I just answer it honestly like that.
PRINCIPAL:
And I think the huge responsibility that the Prime Minister carries, I think he probably deserves every cent of that. Go ahead Kehara.
STUDENT:
I live on a cattle station and I was wondering what was happening between Australia and America';s beef industry.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I tell you what is happening – not enough. We are not happy with the restrictive access that our beef industry has not only from America but from around the world. And one of the things we complain about a lot is that the Europeans, the Japanese and the Americans are far too restrictive. They don';t allow our products enough access and the reason they don';t is that if they allowed them free access they would sell better than some of their own products and that';s why they are so tough. And we did have some quota – we still have some – but nowhere near enough. And we keep complaining about this and we are talking to the Americans about trying to agree on what is called a free trade agreement. A free trade agreement is where everybody can sell anything they have in the other person';s country. We';re going to have a lot of difficulty reaching agreement on this because the American farmers want their Government to protect their industry. And can I try and… I hope this is not too complicated but to give you an idea of how different it is – if you think of the total value of everything our rural community produces and say the total value is 100, and everything that the American farm community produces – it';s also 100, and everything the Europeans produce is also 100. Now in order to produce that 100 – we in Australia give our farmers 4; the American Government subsidise their farmers 22; and the Europeans 35. And that is a huge subsidy and it is very hard because our farmers are much more efficient than what the American and European farmers are. The European Government are the worst. They are much tougher than the Americans. The Japanese aren';t too good either I have to say when it comes to some of these quotas, they';re not too good either. So we';ve still got a big problem and because we';re a small country with population wise and we still have to fight very hard to get a better deal and we';re doing that, and we';ll continue to argue very, very strongly. And sometimes when the Americans put things on like that, they take them off when we make a special case. That happened with steel. They put some quotas on our steel. That doesn';t help you very much – not much steel produced in the Northern Territory – but we managed to get a change there and we';re going to keep fighting very hard because our farmers are the most efficient in the world and they don';t get a fair go from these countries that shut off their markets.
PRINCIPAL:
Okay. Thank you Prime Minister. Alright girls and boys, Michelle is going to say goodbye to us all.
STUDENT:
Good morning Mr Howard. My name is Michelle Murphy and I';m 13 years old. I live at Idracowra Station – 370km south-east of Alice Springs. As secretary of the SRC, I would like to thank you on behalf of the students and community of Alice Springs School of the Air for coming here today. Thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well thank you very, very much Michelle and can I just say to all of the boys and girls that have been listening, this has been a really beaut time for me. I';ve heard a lot of questions on a lot of subjects – some of which I thought I might get, many of which I would never have dreamt of getting. And I really have enjoyed it very much and I';m very proud of all the people connected with the School of the Air. We have 19 Schools of the Air in Australia. It is an Australian first and the changeover to satellites will be an Australian first, and it really makes you feel you';re part of the real Australia when you come to something like this. And I want to take the opportunity of congratulating all of the people associated with education in the Northern Territory and Western Australia and Queensland and everywhere, all the State Government departments that work so very hard, and the teachers, and everybody who works so very hard. And also the parents who encourage their children to stay with it and I hope that the satellite makes it easier, better and I do hope that I have the opportunity when the satellite is up and running to come back here or to another School of the Air that has got a satellite and talk to you again. So thanks very, very much. Good luck. And isn';t it a wonderful country.
[ends]