DOYLE: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, good morning to you.
PM: Good morning on this bright and sunny Canberra morning.
DOYLE: It's a remarkable refreshing start to the day, isn't it, standing here lakeside.
PM: It focuses the mind, Mel.
DOYLE: It certainly does, and gee, we're focussed. What an historic day, too. I mean, our first female Governor-General. Is she excited?
PM: I spoke to her the other night in my office in Parliament House, Canberra. Yes, she is excited, and she should be. I mean, she's a person who has achieved so much in her life as a lawyer, as an academic, as Sex Discrimination Commissioner. I mean, Quentin Bryce has been out there working hard throughout her career.
And I think she's going to bring great experience, and also great dignity, to the office.
DOYLE: Because you don't want her gender to overshadow what she's accomplished and what she brings to the role as a person. But let's focus on the fact that she is our first woman, for a moment. I mean, that is a pretty historic step isn't it?
PM: I think, as she said on the day of her announcement, she said, I think something like this - if a little girl from a country town in Queensland with a couple of hundred kids can become Governor-General of Australia, then girls can do anything.
And I think that's great. I mean, she's going to be terrific when it comes to her passion for girls and the challenges that they face growing up in Australia. But she's also got a passion for littlies. I mean, she had an earlier job in charge of the accreditation agency for childcare, so the rights of children, boys and girls.
She's also got a great passion for the bush. She comes from a little town called Ilfracombe, of a couple of hundred people, and she'll be, as she said to me, travelling widely in rural Australia, and that will be good. And Indigenous Australia, she has a deep passion as well. So I think she'll bring great passions to the job.
DOYLE: And can you tell me a little more her as a person? Do you think she'll bring, I don't know, something a little bit different to the role than we've seen in the past? She's a mum of five, she's a grandmother of five?
PM: Well, my experience of Quentin, as of today I'll call ‘Her Excellency', is that she is a phenomenally warm person and that what you see is what you get. I mean, she just engages with kids and with anybody, including Aboriginal elders, bushies from the deep bush, everyone is the same, and they are just greeted with the same engaging personal warmth. And I think that's a terrific human quality.
Her predecessor, Major-General Michael Jeffery, it's been a great performance in the role by him. But each Governor-General I think brings something different to the job and we're looking forward to this big day for Quentin Bryce.
DOYLE: Now you mentioned your predecessor. I've got to ask you, comments this morning in one of our papers saying that we're paying around $2 billion a year, $2.5 billion, to look after our former Governors -
PM: Million.
DOYLE: Oh, million, (inaudible) I don't need to ask you about it. Sorry. Millions. That's much better. Former Governors-General -
PM: You had me worried there -
DOYLE: Haven't you got that late bill?
PM: That's about 10 per cent of the defence budget.
DOYLE: Is it, I guess, a storm in a tea cup or is that just the way it is? I mean, obviously first class travel, office in the CBD, but is that what the role brings even when they're no longer -
PM: It's entirely right that the media subject to scrutiny the payments to office holders and former office holders - I have no problem with that at all.
We are a constitutional monarchy. That's how we are at the moment. And we have a Governor-General. And, many of these Governors-General, once they leave office, retain continuing association with all these organisations which they've been formally patron.
Like the departing Governor-General, Major General Michael Jeffery, is patron of 200 organisations in Australia. And a lot of those he would develop a strong personal connection with, so that continues for quite some time and I don't intend to disrupt what's been a by partisan consensus in this country going back a long, long time and that will apply to the future as well, so long as we are a Constitutional Monarchy.
DOYLE: Anything you'd like to tell me this morning.
PM: So long as we are a Constitutional Monarchy
DOYLE: Because that's a lot of talk isn't it that Quentin Bryce may well be our last Governor General.
PM: Well you know what the policy position of the Australian Labor Party is that at an appropriate time we would consult the Australian people, but we have got some other priorities to deal with first for Australia.
DOYLE: Will you give us a heads up though when that may be that we can start pondering it
PM: You mean exclusive on Sunrise
DOYLE: Yeah
PM: Next question
DOYLE: I knew you would, (inaudible) all right I was talking billions before, $6 billion though am I right is the figure now with the Senate overriding your Luxury car tax so that's a big whopping hole in the Budget?
PM: Well I would say this about the Liberals, this is a real challenge, its a real problem. We've got difficult challenging global economic times coming of the global financial crisis. You've got economies around the world now generating negative economic growth.
Here in Australia, when the Government took over we had inflation running at a 16 year high, we had the second highest interest rates in the world having gone up 10 times in a row. That's what we have inherited.
The challenge for us is what you do about it. The cornerstone of responsible economic management is to have a strong Budget surplus and we brought one down in the Budget -$22 billion- because we need that as a buffer for the future. But now the Liberals are conducting a $6 billion raid on it and that's a real problem.
The problem is if they get away with this, what it does is it puts upward pressure on inflation and upward pressure on interest rates. And having just got the first interest rate cut in 7 years this week I think that's just exactly the wrong way for the Liberals to go.
DOYLE: Well after you spent the morning with Her Excellency maybe go and have lunch with Stephen Fielding, have a chat with him and get him on side.
PM: Yeah you could give us some tips on that
DOYLE: Thank you very much for joining us this morning and it is a pretty special day so all the best and give her our best as well.
PM: I'll do that, we'll have a great ceremony in Parliament House later today and the day may warm up, maybe.
DOYLE: I have got my fingers crossed, thanks so much Prime Minister for your time.