OAKES: Prime Minister, thanks for joining us.
PM: Good to be with you Laurie.
OAKES: Which ideas impressed you most? Which ones are you likely to adopt?
PM: Well, we will spend the next several months formally responding. But the call for a seamless national market, which is knocking out as much interstate regulation as possible, I think is very good.
Secondly, this proposal put forward by the education and productivity group for a community youth core. That is, we need more volunteers in the community, how do you encourage that, and you do that perhaps by having people's HECS debt reduced as they volunteer for community service.
I think those are two which have struck my attention so far.
OAKES: There weren't many new ideas coming out of this though were there?
PM: There were some new ideas, some fresh approaches. I think the goal, for example, of working towards a bionic eye by 2020 is out there. We have done a bionic ear through Cochlear.
We have got great science and technology here. Let's set our sights on that and see whether we can reach that. Blindness is a huge problem here, and abroad. And we have got the science base to do it.
OAKES: But, a recommendation for a review of the taxation system, a review of the roles of each layer of government, new commissions, no solutions, just more inquiries?
PM: I think setting a goal for something like a bionic eye is very clear. A recommendation to do a community youth core, that is a clear recommendation.
OAKES: You keep coming back to the same two, there can't be many?
PM: You want me to go through a larger number, I will.
OAKES: The republic is hardly a big new idea, incorporating the legal rights of Aborigines in the constitution John Howard came up with on his own, without a Summit. Why couldn't the Government have come up with these ideas on its own?
PM: Well the republic has always been a question of when the country and the community would come with us. Remember we lost the last referendum. That was about a decade ago. I view it this way, you need to have consensus behind you. The fact that this summit was saying, thumbs up to a republic, is a big step forward.
The fact they came up with a fresh approach to how to get there, this two stage process, interesting, we will have a look at that. But I think on the constitutional recognition of Aboriginal people, yes I acknowledge the fact that Mr Howard put that forward. But it wasn't done after 11.5 years in office, was it?
OAKES: Prime Minister we will have to leave it there.