6PR
HOST: Prime Minister Julia Gillard is visiting Perth for the first time in about four months, I think.
She was absent during the state election campaign, we don't know quite why.
We were told that the Labor Party here said don't come; Tony Abbott came and the Liberals did pretty well with him in support so I wonder why she didn't come.
We'll find out in just a moment, she joins me, hello Prime Minister.
PM: Hi Howard.
HOST: Were you told by the Labor Party don't come during the election campaign?
PM: Howard, I visit here very regularly.
I was last here for our strategic dialogue with the United States which we have once every two years in Australia.
Obviously the state campaign has come and gone, overwhelmingly decided on state issues, and I'm here now doing a set of things including a Community Cabinet meeting.
HOST: But given what happened in the state campaign, given how badly Labor went, perhaps you could have helped them a bit.
PM: I think people know when they're voting in a state election and they're making a decision on who they want to be Premier and who they want to be the government of the State of Western Australia.
HOST: Okay, I want to start off with an issue that's not integral, not a core issue, but it needs to be addressed I think.
You spend a lot of your waking professional life attacking Opposition Leader Tony Abbott for being a misogynist, right, you would agree with that?
PM: I've certainly held Mr Abbott to account for his statements in public life.
I mean, he is contending to be Prime Minister of the country, and so I think that deserves scrutiny.
HOST: How do you explain then having Australia's most notorious misogynist, Kyle Sandilands, as your guest of honour at Kirribilli House on the weekend?
PM: What I did on the weekend was have children around for an Easter egg hunt.
These are children who use the services of a place called Bear Cottage.
Bear Cottage is a support facility for very unwell children, indeed children who are in their last stages of life.
And so I had the opportunity to put a few smiles on people's faces, to see some kids who are doing it pretty rough go on an Easter egg hunt and end up with their mouths smeared with chocolate and laughing for a while, and I took the opportunity.
HOST: No problem about that, but I'm talking about Kyle Sandilands, a bloke who called a female journalist a ‘fat slag,' he threatened to hunt her down.
The same bloke quizzed a 14 year old girl about her experiences of being raped.
You're apparently happy to have him squire around the grounds, is that right?
PM: This Easter egg hunt for these very unwell children was organised through the radio station that Kyle appears on with Jackie O-
HOST: That you appeared on with him too.
PM: Yes, I speak to a lot of people around the country Howard.
I don't necessarily agree with their views but I do go on their shows so that I get the opportunity to communicate with the Australian people.
Doing that meant that I then had the opportunity to welcome some very, very crook kids round to Kirribilli for something that they very much enjoyed and I'm glad I did it.
HOST: Prime Minister, you just don't get it about Kyle Sandilands, do you?
He is a misogynist of the first order. Wouldn't you agree with that?
PM: What I'm saying to you Howard is I made a choice about entertaining some kids who really enjoyed the afternoon. I think-
HOST: Yeah but that's not the point, you're missing the point, you're avoiding the point-
PM: Well I've said, Howard, what I think about it.
You may or may not think I'm missing the point but that's what I'm saying about it.
I had an offer made to me to participate in this event with Bear Cottage and I did it.
HOST: Okay, but feminists in The Australian today, if you read The Australian newspaper, they had a go at you too. You saw that didn't you?
PM: No I didn't. I didn't see that.
HOST: Ask Eva Cox what she thinks. You know Eva Cox don't you?
PM: Well, Howard, whatever. I made a decision about Bear Cottage and some crook children.
HOST: Okay. I reckon you should stay away from him anyway.
Now let's talk about the boat people. I want to play you a very short excerpt from a lady I just spoke to on Christmas Island.
Another boat's turned up, 188 people on board. Listen to what she has to say.
SATTLER GRAB: Let's not forget too Christmas Island is a tourist destination. You encourage tourists to go there. Is there any room for them?
CALLER: No. Very few, and that's the sad thing.
And who would want to holiday on an island that - what we used to have was crabs, it's now boat disasters and refugees and riots and asylum seekers.
So it doesn't paint a glossy picture for what is such a beautiful and unique place to be. It is just spectacular.
But unfortunately that's been pushed to the background as we call it the visa factory out there now.
HOST: Is it fair, Prime Minister, what your Government's policies are doing to the people on Christmas Island?
PM: What we're endeavouring to do is get the message out loud and clear that people should not get on boats.
Tragically people lose their lives as we've seen in the last few days. And people get no advantage having got on a boat.
There's the no advantage principle which means you don't get a visa more quickly than you would have, or entry to Australia.
You don't get anything that you wouldn't have got if you'd stayed put and had your immigration, refugee, asylum seeker claim processed where you were in Indonesia or Malaysia.
HOST: Clearly they're not getting that message because they're still coming.
PM: Well we haven't been able to enact our full suite of policies because we've run into a political deadlock in the parliament.
HOST: You're going to blame Tony Abbott for this one too are you?
PM: Well Howard, there are these things called facts and I think people are entitled to know them and to weigh them.
What I did in this very difficult area of policy was I asked three experts, led by the former Chief of the Defence Force Angus Houston, to provide us with a report and recommendations.
When I got them I said I'll do every one of them.
To do them all I do need legislation to pass the parliament and it is clear the Opposition will not support such legislation. That's the facts.
HOST: Can I recommend a book to you?
PM: Certainly.
HOST: It's called The People Smuggler.
You should read it, it's all about a people smuggler who started out trying to get his own family from the Middle East and he realised that the only way was to become a people smuggler.
So what he identifies in that book is the problem is at the local level in Indonesia.
People on beaches, local customs people, police, port authority people all taking backhanders. That's why the boats are leaving.
If the Indonesian Government doesn't do something about it at a local level it'll keep happening, so why don't you get the Indonesians to address that problem? That's the key.
PM: Howard, we do work with the Government of Indonesia on people smuggling.
We work with them hard on it, and we have successfully, working with the Government of Indonesia, detected and disrupted a number of ventures.
Indonesia has now criminalised people smuggling and prosecuted a number of people smugglers, and of course we pushed hard for that to happen.
If I can recommend a book back to you, can I recommend the Houston report about refugee and asylum seeker issues.
And when you've read it you might want to ask yourself the question why those very sensible recommendations can't get the support of the Federal Parliament because of the attitude being taken by the Opposition.
HOST: The People Smuggler is all about what's happening at the coalface, and I'll get to the coalface now.
A bloke called Sayed Abbas is a people smuggler; I think he's waiting to be deported to Australia.
He's told AAP up there today if the boats are turned around that will be enough to be a deterrent to asylum seeker arrivals.
Now he is a people smuggler, or an alleged people smuggler. Wouldn't you take notice of someone like him?
PM: I deal in the real world and things that can happen-
HOST: This is the real world.
PM: Howard, let me finish my sentence and I'll describe this to you.
Number one, we have the clearest advice from our navy personnel that a so-called tow-backs policy puts navy personnel at risk. That's Australian lives.
Number two, Indonesia has made it abundantly clear it would not take the return of boats towed back.
Indeed, Mr Abbott when he met with President Yudhoyono of Indonesia, despite thumping his chest about this policy in Australia, didn't raise it with President Yudhoyono because he knew that he would be repudiated on it.
HOST: You're the Prime Minister. Why don't you raise it with him?
PM: Because I know, and everybody knows from President Yudhoyono's statement, what the attitude of Indonesia is.
Indonesia, its own country, its own government, makes its own decisions and the decision it has taken on this matter is clear and well-known and no amount of running around Australia trying to claim something different can happen makes that a reality.
Tony Abbott obviously knew this because he-
HOST: So Indonesia's calling the shots are they?
PM: Indonesia is entitled to call the shots in its own nation. Of course it is.
We cannot sit here in Australia and force a sovereign nation like Indonesia to do a particular thing.
What you are talking about is taking a boat into their waters and putting it on their shores.
Of course we cannot do that; in just the same way Indonesian navy can't steam to Australia with a boat and dump it on our shores.
HOST: How come Sri Lanka can do this, how come Sri Lanka can stop the boats leaving their shores?
PM: Can I actually tell you what's happening with Sri Lanka.
We have returned to Sri Lanka around 1000 people who have travelled here by boat.
We've done it in very quick time, returned more people, more quickly, than happened under the Howard Government.
HOST: But we can't do it with Indonesia?
PM: You're talking about two entirely different things.
What has been happening with Sri Lanka is people have arrived, they haven't had a credible claim for asylum seeker status and they have been returned.
What you put to me about Indonesia was turning boats round at sea and towing them back to Indonesia.
Problem number one, fact number one, it puts Australian lives at risk. We've got Defence Force statements about that.
HOST: What happened yesterday? A Customs vessel had two of its crew finish up in the water.
PM: Fact number two Howard, and that interjection doesn't change the facts.
Fact number two, Indonesia won't take the return of these boats.
I know that and the Leader of the Opposition knows that as well, which is why he never raised that issue with the President of Indonesia when he met him.
HOST: They don't mind accepting our aid up there do they, the Indonesians?
PM: What's the relevance of that?
HOST: The relevance of that is they keep accepting our aid, we don't know where half of it goes-
PM: That's completely untrue Howard.
HOST: Really?
PM: Absolutely, completely untrue.
HOST: So you know where all the dollars go do you?
PM: Certainly we have accountability for our aid money. That is completely untrue.
And can I also say, please, let's broaden the view here.
We are talking about our near neighbour Indonesia.
We are talking about the country that, as we move into this century of change will be one of the most important countries to us.
It is in our national interest that Indonesia continues to be democratic, a prosperous and stable nation.
Nothing could be more in Australia's national interest.
HOST: You know in your heart of hearts too it's a country that's riddled with corruption.
That's what's helping the boat people get away with it, the people smugglers.
PM: And of course corruption has to be fought wherever it exists, but it is in our interest to see this highly populated country to our north, a nation of many religions and faiths, a diverse nation of many peoples, obviously a nation in many of its parts strongly Muslim in orientation.
It's in our interest to see Indonesia continue as a democracy, as a strong, stable country increasingly taking its place in the world.
It's already a very big force for good in our region, that's in our interest, that's why we engage at a political level, at an economic level, and yes in the provision of aid because it's in Australia's national interest.
HOST: Okay, another big issue today, Stephen Smith announcing that troops will be withdrawn, about two thirds by Christmas and the rest by the middle of next year.
Stephen Smith by the way kept his perfect record by refusing to appear on this program.
He's never been on it and refused every time, you might speak to him about that.
I don't know why the Member for Perth wouldn't want to talk with us but anyway that's another issue.
What's going to happen after we withdraw the last of our troops? Won't the Taliban just take over again?
PM: We are on the strategy we announced here some time back.
Howard I'm very happy to talk about this major announcement today because I think it is important to the Australian people, and particularly here in Perth as home to the SAS.
There are aspects of this that will have particular resonance.
Last April I spoke to the Australian people through a major address on Afghanistan about what people should anticipate happening in Afghanistan.
I said the province that we work in, Uruzgan province, was going to go into transition.
What that meant was increasingly Afghan local forces would take security leadership.
I said that transition would take between 12 and 18 months, and at the end of it that the bulk of Australian forces would be able to come back home.
HOST: Are you confident the Afghan forces can do this?
PM: I'm just about to answer you Howard.
That strategy I outlined last April is what has been pursued and is now happening.
So working with ISAF, the international coalition there, a decision has been made that the base where we work in Uruzgan province will close at the end of this year, which means about 1000 Australian personnel will be able to come home.
In terms of security conditions in Afghanistan beyond those personnel being there and most critically beyond 2014, because then we move to a new phase in Afghanistan's mission when as Afghan forces are in security leadership right around the country-
HOST: Quickly, we're running out of time. Did you see Four Corners last night?
PM: I think this is a pretty important topic so I will take the time.
What we believe will happen then is there will continue to be difficulties, this is a very poor country, but we will have trained Afghan local forces to provide security in Afghanistan, which was our mission, and it will have been acquitted.
HOST: Thanks for your time Prime Minister. Look forward to your company in the studio next time round.
PM: Thanks Howard.
HOST: Taking talkback, what about that?
PM: I think I did that last time and I'm happy to do that, we just weren't in a position to do it today.
HOST: Okay, take care, thanks for your time.
PM: Thank you, bye.