E & O E - PROOF ONLY
PM: I think there have been some good things that have come out of this meeting.
There's certainly been an endorsement of the G20 agenda and its perspectives and views about ensuring that we maximise global growth.
There's been much talk of resisting protectionism and not turning our back on the way we can enrich each other through trade and investment exchanges.
I also think that beyond the economic agenda this meeting has done some good work with strong statements for example about Syria as well as about Iran and the problems with North Korea.
HOST: But did you tell the leaders when you were talking about the white paper that it doesn't have any funding attached to it?
And again, was there any practical movement in that sense or was it just generic talk about the white paper and the direction Australia wants to go?
PM: Well I say here to leaders what I say to Australians when I speak about our nation's future, which is our economy is strong, we've avoided a recession during the global financial crisis and leader after leader that I met during the course of the Asia-Europe Meeting is struggling with recession.
That is the common story of nations in Europe; that we are a nation that is seeing a big resources boom.
But there are many more opportunities for us during this century of growth and change.
HOST: Well I will have to ask you, given it did receive worldwide attention - your misogyny sexism speech in the Australian Parliament - did any of the leaders that you met while you've been here raise that with you?
PM: Yes, the President of France congratulated me on the speech, as did the Prime Minister of Denmark and some other leaders just casually as I've moved around have also mentioned it to me.
So some approval here from some leaders at the Asia-Europe Meeting.
HOST: Now if I can just briefly turn to some domestic issues.
Why do you think that it's appropriate for Wayne Swan to get public servants in the Treasury to do costings on Opposition policies for the sole purpose of the Government releasing them to the media to then damage the Opposition, the Coalition?
PM: It is very common for departments to cost and look at proposals that are in the public domain.
I actually think the Australian people are entitled to know what the policies of every political party and what they would cost.
I think the Opposition is really here trying to distract people from the very simple point that it's clear that their anti-business policies would cost businesses more than $4 billion in the first year.
I think Australians are entitled that information.
HOST: But it might be routine for Treasury to do costings on things that are in the public domain. The fact is that the Government has released that information to the public. Does that not politicise Treasury?
PM: Really, I come at it from a different point of view.
We have what is called a Charter of Budget Honesty which obligates Treasury officials to cost policies in the context of an election campaign from all sides of politics.
So the costing of policies by Treasury officials of all sides of politics is routine.
The problem we have is that the Opposition knows that it's in such budget difficulty, that it would need to cut services to Australian families by $70 billion, that it wants to hide everything.
It doesn't want Treasury to see it. It doesn't want Australians to have the facts. Well, I think Australians are entitled to have the facts.
And I think the essential issue here is Australian businesses and the people who work for them are entitled to know that in the first year of an Opposition government, if it were elected, those businesses would be hit by more than $4 billion.
That's a material fact to those businesses, to the people who work in them, and of course to the Australian economy. Why shouldn't Australians have access to that fact?
HOST: There's fresh evidence this week of course that the surplus is on very shaky ground, in fact that the Government won't reach it at all. Can you guarantee, as you've been asked in recent weeks, that the surplus will be delivered by your Government?
PM: I've dealt with this question many, many times and the answer is the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.
We've just worked hard to deliver the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.
We needed in that budget update to deal with the fact that revenues had been written down again by more than $20 billion.
And we did in that budget update what we did in the budget and the budget update before that and the budget before that and so it goes on.
We worked hard to identify savings, many of them controversial. So we stand by the figures in the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook.