Canberra
HOST: Prime Minister, thank you for your time. Will you call a leadership ballot?
PM: Thank you David for this opportunity.
As you've been reporting, and others are reporting, there is apparently a petition circulating within the Labor Party to call for a leadership ballot.
I haven't seen this petition.
Call me old fashioned, but the way in which these things are normally done is a challenger approaches the leader of the Labor Party and asks them to call a ballot for the leadership, you shake hands and then a ballot is held.
That hasn't happened. But in these circumstances I do think it's in the best interests of the nation - and in the best interests of the Labor Party - for this matter to be resolved.
So, whilst I haven't been approached by anyone saying that they wish to be Prime Minister, or Labor leader, it is my intention to call a ballot for the Labor leadership at 7PM tonight.
HOST: And you will stand?
PM: Yes I most certainly will stand. I actually believe that politics, government, is about purpose.
It's not about personalities. It's about values and getting the big things done that the nation needs.
And even today in the midst of what has been a fair bit of hurly burly I've been very focused on our education reforms and improving schools for every child. That's my focus.
HOST: Will you win this ballot?
PM: Well David, I do want to say to you because I believe politics is about purpose - not about personality - that going into this ballot tonight I think that everyone involved should accept a few conditions on the ballot, should come to understand the true significance of the ballot.
First and foremost, anybody who believes that they should be Labor leader should put themselves forward for this ballot.
This is it.
There are no more opportunities.
Tonight is the night and this is it.
Number two, because politics is not about personality, all of these issues need to be resolved tonight.
We cannot have the Government or the Labor Party go to the next election with a person leading the Labor Party and a person floating around as the potential alternate leader.
In those circumstances I believe anybody who enters the ballot tonight should do it on the following conditions: that if you win, you're Labor leader; that if you lose, you retire from politics.
HOST: You are agreeing to do that?
PM: Absolutely.
HOST: If you lose tonight you will leave Parliament at the election?
PM: Correct.
And I think that that is the right thing to do for the nation and for the political party I lead, and I hope to lead following the ballot.
We cannot be in a circumstance where the nightly news has been as the nightly news has been for much of my prime ministership if the truth be told, where I have been in a political contest with the Leader of the Opposition, but I've also been in a political contest with people from my own political party.
No leader should be in that position; certainly no leader should be in that position in the run up to an election.
And so tonight, this is it, finished. I am asking my political party to endorse me as a leader and Prime Minister of purpose.
People will make their decision but having made their decision it's over and the best way of it being over is for the person not successful to retire from politics.
HOST: As you indicate, this issue has not left you throughout this parliamentary term.
This is the third time it's coming to a head.
Who do you blame for that? Has Kevin Rudd really been an honest broker when he says he's not interested in challenging?
PM: Well I'll let my caucus colleagues decide all of that and judge the history.
What I would say for myself, and I know that these things are contested and spoken about in politics, what has always driven me in politics and will continue to drive me if I receive the trust of my colleagues tonight is getting things done in accordance with Labor values for a Labor purpose.
HOST: But Prime Minister, you said this earlier on in the year. Why does it keep coming back to this?
Do you accept any responsibility for the fact that so many of your colleagues want to bring this on again?
PM: I accept responsibility for my own conduct. People need to accept responsibility for their conduct.
And so I think your questions are perhaps best put to others.
What I can certainly tell you as Prime Minister and as Labor leader is I have never been diverted from that task and achieving the big things the country needs by all of this nonsense.
But I am, as a rational politician, aware how debilitating this nonsense is for my political party, for my parliamentary colleagues, which is why I am making it a contest where I think the only decent thing for anybody to do is to say that is it, tonight is the moment for caucus to decide.
I accept that outcome so fundamentally that if I am not successful I will not run at the next election.
I ask others to accept the outcome on the same basis.
And whether it's me or whether it's someone else who emerges from tonight's contest, they can go to the next election leading a united team because there is no one seeking to divert attention from Labor's re-election campaign.
HOST: You said you have not seen this petition. Has anybody approached you to call on you to bring about a spill?
PM: No they have not and I have been wryly joking with some of my colleagues that this petition is the political equivalent of the Loch Ness monster. Everybody says that it exists but nobody has actually got the photograph of the Loch Ness monster.
HOST: And you haven't spoken to anyone who has seen it?
PM: No I haven't spoken to anyone who has seen it.
HOST: Do you doubt its existence?
PM: Look, David, I don't know.
What I do know, and I don't want to be critical of your honourable profession during the course of this interview.
What I do know is that when things get like this there are all sorts of claims and counter claims but I've got an obligation to the nation.
We are talking about who leads the nation.
I'm not going to let that speculation run endlessly.
I'm not going to have this Parliament, when we've still got business to do and big things to get done, end up being subject to media crews cannoning up and down parliamentary corridors in the hope of catching someone that they can then get half a sentence from.
That's not the way I want to do things so let's get it done.
HOST: Just getting back to the earlier question, how confident are you that you will still be Prime Minister this evening?
PM: Well I wouldn't be putting myself forward unless I had a degree of confidence about the support of my parliamentary colleagues.
I certainly have very much received good support from my closest cabinet colleagues, people who are doing very good and important work for the country.
This is a pressurised time. People will make a decision. The important thing is that people keep in their mind as they walk into that room what is in the best interests of the nation, what is in the best interests of the Labor Party.
I answer those questions by saying what's in the best interests of the nation and the Labor Party is to have a sense of values and purpose and discipline and that is why I am shaping up tonight's ballot like that.
HOST: In a nutshell then, if this is your final pitch publicly before that caucus ballot tonight, why are you a better Prime Minister than Kevin Rudd?
PM: I will speak to caucus colleagues about the way in which caucus colleagues vote but I am happy to answer your question generally about why I have done this job and why I seek to continue to do this job.
I came into politics to make a difference.
I came into politics believing government could be about providing opportunity and it wouldn't matter whether you came from a rich background or a poor background, you're a migrant, you're an indigenous Australian, you were entitled to lead a life of opportunity partnered with your own endeavour and hard work.
That's how I've lived my life and that's how I've brought the reforms that we've focussed on as a government, nothing more important than the school funding reform.
These are Labor values, Labor purpose. That's what drives me.
I'm not interested in public accolades, I'm not interested in applause. I'm not interested in any of that personality politics. I'm interested in getting things done.
HOST: But do you think Kevin Rudd does not share those Labor values that you just articulated?
PM: Mr Rudd can speak for himself and I would not be presumptuous enough to speak for him.
HOST: But if he ends up leading Labor again tonight, do you fear for the future of the Government and the party?
PM: I'm not being drawn about hypotheticals beyond tonight's ballot.
HOST: Well Prime Minister, we know you do have a busy few hours ahead, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
PM: Thanks David.