HOST: Ms Gillard, good afternoon.
PM: Good afternoon Tom.
HOST: I assume you've been kept up to date with what's happening down here in Victoria. Any plans to visit in the next couple of days?
PM: Tom, what we do is I certainly get briefed on what's happening at the fire front and we let everybody get in there and do what they need to to fight the fire and then make an assessment as things start quietening down about when's the right time to come and say hello to people.
So I can't answer that question for you now. The last thing I ever want to do is distract effort when the emergency is really in the midst and everybody is all hands to the pump and getting the job done.
HOST: Indeed. Now obviously the fires today have been obviously nothing like the black Saturday bush fires almost four years ago but a reasonably substantial number of homes and other forms of property have been lost.
What would you say to the people who have suffered damage?
PM: There are people who are caught up in this, this is a horrible day for them, and whilst you're right the scale is not what we have tragically suffered through in the past. If it's your home, it's your home and it means the world to you.
So I want to say to anybody who's in that position, in this summer the Australian people are thinking of you and people will be there to support and one of the amazing this that happens at real times of stress like this is people do come to the aid.
We see the worst on display at the same time we see the best of human nature on display as people pull together.
HOST: Well in terms of assisting people who have been badly affected. What can the State and Federal Governments do?
PM: Well we work together in these emergencies. We work at the time of them together and then in the aftermath as people recover. So we'll work with the Victorian Government.
We have very clear natural disaster assistance programs and we'll work with the Victorian Government on helping people out.
But the focus right now has to be on the warnings, responding to them, people doing what they need to do to keep themselves safe.
HOST: Has that contact with people in the Victorian State Government, has that already started?
PM: We start that in preparation for the fire season and that is ongoing and there are very good communication systems. So we don't wait until the smoke is in the air and the fire is out there and running to click the coordination systems into place. That's done in advance and unfortunately this isn't the first time we've had to test these systems.
Our Australian climate, whether it's bush fires or cyclones or floods, particularly at this time of year, always throws us up challenges and so the federal agencies are very well used to working with state government agencies at a time like this.
HOST: Yes, unfortunately that's true. Just if I could just change tact briefly if I may, I saw today in the news that you said that if we were redesigning Australia over again we probably wouldn't have the states. Is there a chance you might be planning to get rid of them?
PM: No, no I was making the point that we're not working from a blank page and we do have our system of government - Federal, state and local as a result of history. If you were coming again to the proposition of how best to govern a nation our size I think you'd probably answer the question differently than three levels of government.
But our institutions of government are going to be there.
So no plans to be abolishing state governments; don't worry about that.
HOST: Is there a particularly state government that you'd like to get rid of if you could?
PM: No, I couldn't possibly single anybody, or any state government out.
HOST: Alright, we'll leave it there. Prime Minister Julia Gillard, thank you so much for joining us.
PM: Thanks Tom.