FROST: Prime Minister I've often said to people who recently attained power and so on, whether attaining power was, whether it was different to what they'd expected and in your case you've been Deputy Prime Minister and so on, but in fact it's different in your case because you've been confronted with such a major situation, first of all with Queensland. I mean how soon did you realise how serious that was?
PM: The realisation, unfortunately, came quite quickly. We've had just a dreadful series of weeks, with the dimensions of the flooding crisis in Queensland and now, of course, with the cyclone also causing damage in Queensland and more water pouring from the sky. So as we moved through the December period into the period just after Christmas is became clearer and clearer that this was going to be a big crisis and it is the most costly natural disaster we've ever faced as a nation.
We have seen some loss of Australian lives. We've seen more Australian lives lost in other tragedies, for example the Victorian bushfires, but just in terms of the sheer scale of it, the amount of the country that has had to battle floodwaters, it's been some very testing days and they continue.
FROST: How long will it take for things to be back to normal. I mean it's a long process, presumably, an expensive process and a long one.
PM: It's going to be both long and expensive. Communities have really pulled together to get things back to a semblance of normal pretty quickly. We've literally had armies of volunteers turn out to clear filth out of people's homes that the flood waters have left behind and clear off the streets all of the garbage and broken trees and all the rest of it that was there, but we need to rebuild a lot of infrastructure, a lot of roads, rail, ports and that is going to take some time. We can't do everything at once, so we're going to sequence the most urgent priorities to make sure communities can get back to normal in the sense of farmers getting their product to market and our great mining businesses getting their coal and other mineral exports out to our ports.
FROST: And the ANZ Bank says some of the damage cost $20 billion, I think they said, and so on. I mean, how much will it have cost by the end of the procedure do you think, more than that, or less?
PM: There are a lot of estimates around about the total scale of the damage. From the Federal Government's point of view out first estimate is $5.6 billion, and of course we're talking about the major infrastructure. All of the damage to people's homes and businesses is on top of that.
So, this is a huge natural disaster for our country, but we will get through it, we will work our way through it. People have really pulled together and we are in a fortunate circumstance where our economy is very strong and so we will be able to absorb this disruption to our economy and very quickly get back to strong economic conditions. We continue to have low unemployment, strong wages growth, inflation where we want it, so the strength of the economy is going to assist us through.
FROST: The tax to bring in money in has caused controversy, of course. I mean people care about it and maybe they've already given money before they heard about this tax and so on. In retrospect are you glad you did the tax, or do you think it would have been better not to have had it that way?
PM: The flood levy is an important part of financing this rebuilding. Australians have been very generous and donated money to the Premier's Relief Fund and various other relief appeals that have been hosted. That money's going to go to help families directly to make a difference in someone's life. This is billions of dollars to make a difference for the hard infrastructure the nation needs, community needs, and the economy needs. So, it's two different purposes and we do need to finance it.
We also need to finance it whilst we're getting on with our other reform priorities as a Government, so the best way of doing it was to ask the people of Australia for a contribution, but we've also substantially cut back in other areas of Government spending, so for every dollar we're asking Australians to put in through a levy, we've cut back two dollars in other areas of the federal budget to make room for the flood rebuilding.
FROST: Since you became Prime Minister you had that election that was very close and had a happy outcome for you, just, at the end and so on. Do you think you could have survived as leader of the party if you hadn't won that election?
PM: I really haven't spent a lot of time thinking about what the alternative would have been. Certainly I would have offered myself to be Leader of the Opposition if we hadn't formed a government and believe I would have served as Leader of the Opposition. But the essence of being in government and managing both the day-to-day pressures and the long-term reform agendas is you don't spend too much time on the ‘what if' questions. Rather, you spend your time on ‘what can I build today that's going to matter for tomorrow'.
FROST: Not the ‘what if'. Someone said, I read somewhere someone said that during an examination or a profile of you that in fact, in a way the fact that you've never married was almost a deliberate sacrifice that you made, choosing public life rather than that. Was it a deliberate sacrifice, or did it just happen?
PM: I wouldn't use those words myself. I've always been someone who's worked hard, who's believed in making a contribution. I believe work has defined my life and it defines purpose for people, so work and hard work is important. So, that's part of who I am, but life's choices have been dictated by a focus on work or a sense that I would give up this in order to succeed at work. It's been defined by all of the things that life brings you: some good luck; some choices along the way; the people you meet and the decisions you make.
FROST: You said once that ‘if I met a man that you know I was tremendously in love with and everything we wanted was to have kids then obviously maybe I might have made a different set of decisions, I mean who know with the what ifs, but that isn't the way my life's played out, obviously. I mean that it happens but you don't plan it all out in advance.'
PM: I don't think you can plan everything in advance. I think everybody's life is a combination of some deliberate decisions and some luck and some circumstances that life brings you. I've been someone who's made my own choices. I don't regret any of my choices. I can imagine that I could have lived a different life, but I'm very settled in the choices I've made and where it's taken me.
FROST: And you planned to do this from quite a time, from when you started you could be Prime Minister in 20 years.
PM: I didn't quite plan to do this, the job of Prime Minister. I've joked in the past that I wasn't the kid in kindergarten dreaming of being Prime Minister. I suspect that there are some people in politics today who were that kid in kindergarten, but I wasn't and it never occurred to me that I could be a Parliamentarian or anything like that when I was a really young person.
I was involved in politics in a more active way at university through student unions and then across my 20s formed the aspiration that I could run for Parliament and make a contribution and then I used to say to people ‘gee, if I could become elected as a Labor Member, if I could serve in a Labor Government, if I could be Minister for Education, or Minister for Workplace Relations, that would be fantastic.' As it is I've got to do both of those roles and be Deputy Prime Minister and now Prime Minister, so it's more than I ever anticipated when this journey started.
FROST: What, apart from the natural disasters that we were talking about earlier, what is your biggest challenge as Prime Minister of Australia now? I mean, is it to do with immigration, or is it to do with something entirely different?
PM: I think it is to do with harnessing our economic strength at the moment. We are experiencing a resources boom, which for wealth into our nation is the equivalent of the gold rushes that we experienced in the 1800s. You know, this is a lot of wealth coming into our country quickly and that is fantastic for the country, but we've got to make sure that it's not just fantastic today, but it's making a long-term difference for the years that this country will have to make its way in the world after the resources boom and I'm very focussed on harnessing this wealth today to make a long-term difference to opportunity and prosperity in this country.
I got into politics, public life, fuelled by an ambition that every child should get a great education. I'm really conscious that education made me. I wouldn't be sitting here with David Frost if I hadn't had a great education and consequently a great life opportunity and I want to make sure that that benefit is extended to others.
So, we can use this wealth to make a difference to opportunity and prosperity and fairness for the long term.
FROST: Who were the people who influenced you, inspired you?
PM: The most profound influences on me have been my parents. I mean, they are people who through their lives have shown the benefits of hard work and decency and an interest in the world, a great set of values about fairness and helping others.
My father was always very interested in public affairs and was a shift worker and so on days off he'd have Parliamentary Question Time on the radio and he would talk to us about the issues of the day. He'd talk to us about the culture that he brought with him from Wales, a culture with a belief in trade unionism, of idolising the likes of Nye Bevan, talking about what he had achieved in the politics of the United Kingdom, so that was all very pivotal for me and the shaping of me.
And then I would also point to a family friend I went to school with - twin girls, Lynne and Kathy Bolovsky and we were great mates throughout all of our schooling and their mother, Marlene Bolovsky, was a big influence on me. She always said to me to aim high. She was the person who first suggested to me that I should go into the law and she I think really forced into me a sense of aspiration and that you can make a difference.
FROST: You've talked about Barry and so on, in terms of the UK, England or Britain and so on, you've said on a number of occasions that you think that possibly the time that Australia should become a republic is when the Queen's reign comes to an end. That, you think, would be the right thing to do?
PM: I'm certainly a republican. I want to see our nation be a republic, but we've had a long-standing debate in this country. We actually had a referendum which didn't succeed.
I think there is a real sense of connection to the Queen. She's been an important figure in the lives of many Australians and we'll be very delighted to welcome her here this year if she is able to come for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. So, there is a real affection for the Queen and I do think that one of the things that might help with the transition in people's minds to a republic is that we make that move at a time beyond the current Queen's reign.
FROST: What's the actual tangible advantage of being a republic, I mean?
PM: I don't think there's a tangible advantage. I think there is that intangible advantage of a sense of self and nationhood which comes from being a maturing country.
We will always have strong ties to the United Kingdom. Our history will always give us that and the way we structure our democracy and our system of government will always give us that strong sense of connection, and we are home to so many British migrants. But I think for many Australians, including myself, it's the next stage in our national journey as a country to say that we are a republic.
FROST: And tell me Prime Minister, how does it work out with Kevin Rudd as Foreign Secretary and so on, in the sense that, obviously, famously, you ousted him as Prime Minister. Do you think he still has a - he'd be very human if he did - the hope of managing to reverse the situation and replace you again? How intimate can you be in that situation?
PM: I think for Kevin there is obviously a sense of sadness. You wouldn't be a human if you weren't hurt by the events of last year and by losing the prime ministership, but it was foreign affairs that motivated him to come into public life. As a child in Queensland he developed this fascination for China. It took him ultimately into our foreign service, into being a diplomat and was a very big motivator in him making the decision to come into politics, and so as our Foreign Affairs Minister he can pursue that lifetime passion and is enjoying it and is a very active Foreign Minister and visiting around the world and very actively shaping our foreign policy engagement. And we very much pride ourselves on, the terminology we always use is punching above our weight, having more influence in world affairs than perhaps our strict size as a country would suggest that we should.
FROST: So we can say, people will say in years to come that you and Kevin lived happily ever after?
PM: I would hope so and I know that might strike people as odd or difficult to comprehend, but we have as a country, with the Howard Government, had an example of Prime Minister Howard working alongside Foreign Minister Downer for all of the years of that government, Alexander Downer having been leader of the Liberal Party at an earlier point in time, so these things are not unknown. Indeed in contemporary UK politics these things are not unknown.
FROST: Exactly, and they come together again later, absolutely. You mentioned earlier on in passing immigration. What would you like to do about immigration? I mean, it's obviously, the feelings of lots of Australians are that they'd like it to stop, but it's not practical for you to stop, but what would you like to do to limit it?
PM: We've been a long-term welcoming country of new migrations. I mean I migrated to this country.
Migration really built this nation post World War II and Australians are very conscious of that and very conscious and proud of having developed a multicultural, peaceful, successful society through migration.
In the modern age I think people recognise that we do need to continue to have some skilled migration come into the country to keep fuelling this wealth and this resources boom, but I also think Australians rightly ask themselves the question ‘how can it be that big mining companies in the North-West of this country are crying out for workers, where at the same time in the city of Perth in Western Australia we still have high youth unemployment?”
And they're asking us to do better at making sure we're skilling Australians and getting them into work and I've certainly indicated as Prime Minister that is a very big part of my vision for the future of this country, that we leverage this wealth to get more people into work with greater skills. Now we will still need skilled migration and we will still draw on it and it will be part of the mix, but we can't use skilled migration as an excuse for leaving that teenager unemployed in Perth when he or she could have got a job.
FROST: You mentioned links with Britain and so on and to do with war and so on, but at the moment of course you have pledged very much to continue your predecessor's devotion to the policy of helping, participating, in Afghanistan. You see no end to that at the moment?
PM: I had to make a Parliamentary Statement on Afghanistan last year. It was a good process. It caused us as a nation to have a debate at depth that we needed to have, and there are a variety of views in our country about our engagement in Afghanistan and they came to the fore in that debate, but as Prime Minister I'm very determined that we see the mission through there and the mission is strategic denial of the ability of terrorists organisations, particularly Al Qaeda, to use Afghanistan as a training place, and when it's used Afghanistan for that purpose in the past, some of those people have come and taken Australian lives in various terrorist incidents.
FROST: And of course at the moment there's one Australian who's in the news and you said you don't approve of his activities very much - Julian Assange and Wikileaks and so on. He underlines the fact that as far as he can tell no-one has been killed or even harmed as a result of the revelations that they cascaded on the world and so on, but do you still feel very, very much opposed to that?
PM: I do, I mean Julian Assange is an Australian citizen and he is entitled to all of the rights and assistance that we afford our citizens, including consular support and assistance as he works his way through legal questions involving potential charges and legal questions from Sweden, but for me I basically don't agree that Wikileaks has got some sort of, it hasn't got in my view any moral purpose.
I can understand the moral purpose of whistle blowing. If you were the person with a piece of information about Watergate then of course there was a moral purpose in making that piece of information available to the media and we all know how spectacular that scandal was.
But that's not what Wikileaks is about and it's not even claimed to be about that, some moral purpose about making an individual piece of information available. It's just this scattergun approach of saying ‘well look we've got it, so let's just shove it out there', irrespective of the damage done or the irresponsibility and I, personally, don't see the value of that.
Now, Mr Assange and I are never going to see eye to eye on it and we're never going to persuade each other, but that's neither here nor there. My job as Prime Minister is when I'm asked to answer questions honestly, and that is my view. My job as Prime Minister is to extend protections to Australian citizens, and that is being extended to Mr Assange.
FROST: There's another extraordinary crisis going on in Egypt, of course. I mean, triggered off by what happened weeks ago, as well. How do you feel about, I mean, this country, Egypt, it seemed so stable. Maybe it obviously wasn't as stable as it looked, but I mean, is it a trend that worries you, or is it just que sera sera?
PM: I think it's something we can understand, in the sense of understanding people's legitimate for greater freedom, for democracy, for their nation having structures that we, in our country, take for granted - people being able to determine their own future.
Certainly, we believe change is necessary, but we want the transition to be an orderly and peaceful process. It's for the Egyptian people to shape their own future, but change is needed, and we want to not see violence or chaos as change happens.
In the circumstances that have been in Egypt in the last few days, we've certainly said to Australians ‘don't travel there', and we're making available evacuation flights for Australians out of Egypt.
FROST: Yes, and I mean, it's extraordinary. People predicted two or three weeks ago that what had just happened might spread throughout North Africa or wider in the Middle East and so on. It does seem to be that, maybe, freedom is contagious.
PM: It may be, but I think it's something that in an individual country and in an individual system, people's aspiration, I think, for freedom, is widespread, and people do look to see what is happening in other nations, but to see so many people come out on the streets and actually voice their yearning for change is really quite extraordinary.
FROST: Well, the time has rocketed by, we're out of time. Thank you so much indeed for this Prime Minister, and I may a particular thank you for the warm welcome that Australia gave to the English cricketers at the time of The Ashes.
PM: Now you're just being naughty. We'll get you back.
FROST: Fair enough. We'll look forward. Thank you so much.
PM: Thank you.