HOST: Good morning to you and welcome home.
PM: Good morning Lisa. Nice to be here.
HOST: Good to be back?
PM: Yes, lovely to be here.
HOST: You said while you were away that there are many other things that you would rather be doing than travelling the world looking after foreign policy. How would you rate your performance on your first overseas trip as PM?
PM: Well, I obviously enjoyed it, and particularly the opportunity to visit our troops in Afghanistan and our AusAID workers there, our Australian Federal Police. They're all doing amazing work in really tough conditions. And then, at the meeting in Brussels I did have the opportunity to meet leaders from around the world, very important trade relationships for the country, so that was also good, to be out there on the world stage spruiking Australia's national interest.
HOST: Mark out of ten?
PM: Oh, look, I'll allow others to do the marking out of ten. I've recovered from the jet lag remarkably well, too. I got back yesterday morning and straight into it, and I'm feeling good.
HOST: That's good, because there's obviously plenty on the agenda. If we can talk about climate change and the citizens' assembly, something you were very passionate about during the election. You also wanted a deep and lasting consensus before moving ahead with the carbon tax. Do you believe that you have that now?
PM: No, I think we've got more work to do talking to the Australian community. I think people are concerned about climate change and they want to see something done, and many people want to do their own things at home, at work, to make a difference, but we need to keep talking to the Australian community about what it means to price carbon, what's the best mechanism, how it would impact on the way they live, and so we will be doing that in a different way.
We'll have a climate change commission with experts who can be available to talk to community groups about climate change, its impacts, what we can personally do and what we need to do as a nation to have our economy ready to deal with carbon pricing.
HOST: But you've axed the citizens' assembly. Is part of the new paradigm that no pre-election promises count?
PM: Oh, certainly not. The Government's very determined to deliver our agenda and the promises we gave the Australian people, but we are working in a new environment and that gives us some new opportunities, including working in this multi-party committee to see if we can get a new consensus on climate change.
We had one in the last Parliament. That got shattered when Tony Abbott changed his mind. We thought 'well, what's the best way to rebuild consensus?' There's got to be work done in Parliament House but also in the community. There are many ways of doing that, and now we're looking at this climate change commission being in the lead role for community dialogue.
HOST: Did Rob Oakeshott mention the company Birdon Marine when he was in discussions with you about forming the new Government?
PM: Well, certainly not to my recollection, Lisa. I mean, we had discussions over the best part of a 17 day period, so we had lots of talks, but I don't recall him ever raising it. Now, he may have raised it once and I don't just don't specifically recall the conversation, but it wasn't a central part of what we talked about, and certainly it wasn't a central part of what we agreed.
Everything we agreed has been published in the agreement that Mr Oakeshott signed and the accompanying letter, and that's all there on the public record.
HOST: ICAC are looking at exactly what happened. Is that going to be a problem, that you can't remember what was said?
PM: Oh, look, my point in just saying that is it certainly wasn't, you know, a continuing theme of the things that we talked about, so 17 days of discussion, I'm not precluding that Mr Oakeshott said as an aside at some point, 'oh, and I've got this concern about jobs in my electorate'. He may have done that, but it was not the centre of what we were talking about.
HOST: You mentioned of course that you did meet with some of the troops in Afghanistan. Did they ask for more support?
PM: There were a variety of views amongst the soldiers. I had soldiers say to me 'we've got everything we need and we're getting on with the job.' I had soldiers ask me 'how does the Government make decisions about whether or we get more equipment?', and I explained to them that we take the advice of the Chief of the Defence Force and certainly, if they need more equipment then we get it for them - we've got $1.1 billion of more equipment already on the advice of the Chief of the Defence Force. And then there was a lot of laughing, I'd have to say, about the suggestion that they need tanks. Anybody who's been to Afghanistan would know it's not tank terrain and they're not engaged in that sort of tank-style war.
HOST: But isn't that part of the problem, that the war is so disparate? It's being fought on so many different fronts, the areas are so different in the way the war needs to be fought, and you would be aware that there is a growing confusion in Australia about whether or not we even need to be there and what we're actually gaining, particularly with so many young soldiers being killed?
PM: I can understand the community's really concerned, and when we've lost 21 lives of course we're going to be talking as a nation about our commitment in Afghanistan, but we do need to be there. We've got to remember Afghanistan was a training ground for people who came and took Australian lives, particularly in Bali. We've lost over 100 Australians in terrorist incidents, and that has its connection back to Al-Qaeda, back to training in Afghanistan.
We are making progress, but we've got to be really clear what the mission is, and the mission is to train the Afghan National Army so they can lead the security for their own nation, and it's different in different districts. We work in a province called Uruzgan. That's valleys, you know, and one valley can be a lot safer than another, but progress is being made, and of course progress has to be made in training the Afghan National Army, bringing security, but also in civil reconstruction works - getting kids into schools and people having access to health care centres and that's what our wonderful AusAID workers are doing, and our Australian Federal Police are there training the Afghan National Police.
We know from our own society what keeps us peaceful and safe- having the army, of course, our Defence Force, is very important. Having police on our streets is very important, and that's why we're training Police, too.
HOST: Well, Prime Minister, it's good to have you back on Australian soil. You and Tim settling into The Lodge well?
PM: Well, I've only been there, I think it's four or five nights, so still some way before it really feels like home.
HOST: Are you open to visitors? We'd love to bring cameras down one day.
PM: Well you'll have to come and say hello. I'd be very happy to do that.
HOST: Okay, I'll bring the crew with me.
PM: Okay, morning tea. It'll be on me.
HOST: Okay, you've got a deal. Thanks, Prime Minister.
PM: Thank you.