JONES:
Prime Minister, can we start first with the two big international issues and North Korea first, if the US asked you for Naval ships for interdiction force, would you be obliged to supply them?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's not a question of being obliged, we in fact have had discussions already with the Americans about the possibility of interdicting North Korean vessels, this is a matter I discussed with President Bush in Texas last month and when I got back I commissioned some work on a possible approach and that's been the subject of conceptual discussion with the Americans as to what assets we may or may not make available, we haven't got to that point yet. But certainly the idea of being involved in such an interdiction is something that we've looked at in a very proactive fashion.
JONES:
To have an interdiction force you have to supply ships wouldn't you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well to make the interdiction work there would need to be ships, I'm just simply saying that we haven't quite reached the stage of talking about particular assets and obviously it's something that you would want to get as many countries involved in as possible.
JONES:
It's a new level though of dealing with North Korea, what happens if the North Koreans decide to defend their ships?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think we're running ahead of ourselves a little bit, we haven't made a final decision, we haven't talked about particular assets, we've talked about the feasibility of some kind of international action, I think the countries not only of the region but more broadly speaking of the world have got to look at different ways of handling the North Korean problem, it's a very direct interest to Australia because it's in our region and that's why we're looking at all the various possibilities.
JONES:
It's a much more dangerous proposition than Iraq though isn't, I mean Mr Downer told us last year that North Korea possibly has up to three nuclear weapons already?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look everything about North Korea is a bit dangerous, to put it mildly, and we hope that with different responses and different strategies we can persuade North Korea to see the wisdom of coming back into the non-proliferation tent, and if that happens then we'll all breathe a lot more easily. But in the meantime we have to look at all possibilities and try and engage countries such as China, I still believe in the end that of all the countries in the world the one that will exert the most influence will be China.
JONES:
But interdicting their ships will be ratcheting up the level of tension and you'd have to ask yourself whether the North Korean Navy would protect those ships and what you would do in response?
PRIME MINISTER:
Tony, there's a negative scenario in a way, no matter what you do, if you don't do anything then you send a signal to the North Koreans that they can pretty well do what they like, and they might. And that will be dangerous, very dangerous. So it's a difficult challenging issue and we are looking at the various possibilities and this has been one of them.
JONES:
There are some risks worth taking though are there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if you do nothing that's risky, the world is like that and in a sense this is the sort of thing we face on Iraq. None of these choices are ideal, I wish the problem weren't there, but North Korea clearly breached her obligations under the non-proliferation treaty and clearly we have to address that and it's a good idea to work with other countries, including the Chinese and the Americans, we're making a bit of progress but we haven't contained the problem yet, and there's no easy solution in sight.
JONES:
Alright. To the Middle East now, do you support Israel's attempt to assassinate the Hamas leader, Mr Abdul Aziz Rantisi?
PRIME MINISTER:
I can understand how they feel about Hamas, but I'm sorry that Israel did that because it might undermine the road map, the peace process, and that is not in Israel's interests, I'm a strong friend of Israel's and it's in Israel's interest for this peace process to work. Can I say to the Israelis the Americans are more committed to a settlement in the Middle East than I have seen them for a long time, the President is personally very committed, he's put a lot of personal prestige into this and he's going to go flat out to get a settlement and there's got to be give and take. Having said all of that if your people are being constantly blown up, and you get Hamas saying that they're going to wreck the peace process, which is basically they've said, I understand the Israeli reaction but it's unwise given what's at stake.
JONES:
Does it fit though with your own support for the idea of pre-emptive action against terrorists?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I think they are different situations, there's just a long history of cross border murder and you've had these suicide bombers coming from the Palestinian areas into Israel, many of them were financed by Saddam Hussein before he was toppled, and I think what the Israelis have to understand and as the Palestinians have got to understand is that we now have, because principally of what was done in Iraq, we now have an unexpected opportunity to have a peace settlement in the Middle East.
JONES:
But on this notion of pre-emption do you support the notion of assassinating terrorists?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't get specific on these things, you asked me about beyond, I've responded to the particular situation you asked me...
JONES:
... I guess what I'm wondering here is would you ever contemplate the Australian SAS being given the powers to do more or less what Israel has done, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, a terrorist?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Australia is in an entirely different position from Israel and what you've just put to me is entirely hypothetical and therefore I'm not going to pursue it.
JONES:
You've never thought about it?
PRIME MINISTER:
No because its never been put to me.
JONES:
Alright. It seems inevitable now that Hamas will resume its suicide bombings. Will you now move to have Hamas proscribed in Australia as a terrorist organisation? It's not on the list of 13.
PRIME MINISTER:
We, in relation to the proscription of organisations, we act on advice. And if we get advice to that affect, if we do, we will do so. But although it is an organisation of that very deadly intent in the Middle East that doesn't necessarily translate to Australia.
JONES:
So you don't believe they're a terrorist organisation?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I didn't say that, it's a question of whether they're operating in Australia or not.
JONES:
But the question is would you proscribe...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if we were advised on security grounds yes.
JONES:
By whom?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well by the people who normally advise us.
JONES:
Who would that be? Our own...
PRIME MINISTER:
ASIO, the intelligence, well they act in concert and if we get advice about an organisation and we think there are good grounds we will act, and that's what we've done to date and that's what we're doing in relation to Hezbollah.
JONES:
Well the reason I ask about Hamas is because the Americans have proscribed Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we don't do everything automatically that the Americans do but what I say is that any organisation that is the subject of a proscription recommendation from our security organisations we'd obviously look at doing.
JONES:
Alright. Prime Minister, Kim Beazley argued that he'd beat you in the popular vote in '98, that he beat you in the campaign in 2001. In his own mind he's already beaten you twice, are you nervous at all about facing him for a third time?
PRIME MINISTER:
What's funny about that is I'm still the Prime Minister, but just a minor technical detail I suppose. But leaving that aside I don't really want to get into talking about who ought to be the leader of the Labor Party, I have a very strong view that whenever somebody in my position comments on something in their position at the moment it sounds, no matter how you put it, as self-serving to the Australian public and I have therefore passed up opportunities to reflect upon what we now observe.
JONES:
Well except that on Sunday you did express your utter contempt for the Labor Party under Simon Crean's leadership over Iraq.
PRIME MINISTER:
In fact I was directing it, the remarks I used on Sunday applied equally to Simon Crean and Kim Beazley.
JONES:
So you wouldn't have expected for example Kim Beazley to have taken a more bipartisan approach on the question of Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
You should ask him.
JONES:
Why were you directing those remarks at Kim Beazley?
PRIME MINISTER:
I was directing them at the Labor Party.
JONES:
Oh I thought you were directing them...
PRIME MINISTER:
No I said the remarks applied equally to Simon Crean as they did to Kim Beazley.
JONES:
This leads us though anyway to the rationale for the war on Iraq, for joining in in the first place. Does it matter if no weapons of mass destruction are found there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, I wouldn't say it doesn't matter, I wouldn't say that at all. And it's too early to make a judgement. I mean, people should be more patient.
JONES:
Well, they should be but people are asking questions now as to where these weapons are. If none are found, what are the implications?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think, Tony, that question should be asked and I'd be very happy to answer it if, after the elapse of a reasonable amount of time, such a conclusion is reached. But it's too early, there are too many sensitive sites, the international team of 1300 or 1400 is only now being assembled. It is altogether too early for people to say, well there definitely haven't been and won't be any evidence found that Iraq had a WMD capacity before the war started. Those are issues that obviously I'll be asked about. If those things happen...
JONES:
When will the appropriate... when will we know?
PRIME MINISTER:
Certainly some time from now.
JONES:
The problem is if none are found, doesn't that retrospectively make the war illegal?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it doesn't. The legal justification for the war, our entry into the war, was the failure of Iraq to comply with the resolutions of the Security Council - that was our legal justification.
JONES:
Resolutions related to weapons of mass destruction, if none existed what's the legal...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't... the argument now is the evidence of the existence of the capacity. The legal justification for going to war was the non-compliance of Iraq with certain resolutions.
JONES:
When you farewelled the troops on the Kanimbla, I mean you told them specifically their mission was to disarm Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, you told the Press Club in March