Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen.
I've called this news conference to announce that as from today Australia has adopted a new counter terrorism alert code, with the introduction of four alert levels to replace the existing three level system.
The introduction of this new system is part of a counter terrorism plan that has been agreed between the Commonwealth and the States. It follows the inter-governmental agreement signed by myself with the Premiers and Chief Ministers at the Bali memorial service here in Canberra in October of last year. And I've written to each of the Premiers and Chief Ministers today, indicating final Commonwealth approval of that plan and that it will be in effect as from now. And I understand it will be available on the relevant website later this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
The four levels of national counter terrorism alert will be as follows:
A low level, and that indicates no information to suggest a terrorist attack in Australia. A medium level, that indicates a medium risk of a terrorist attack in Australia. High, a high risk of a terrorist attack in Australia. And extreme, which is a terrorist attack is imminent or has occurred.
The purpose of having four rather than three levels is to better inform the public to more accurately calibrate the level of preparedness by the various Commonwealth and State agencies. I think it's fair to say that over recent times there has been some questioning of the differences between medium and high and whether heightened equals you being in a state of high alert, or does it just mean that the medium is a more heightened state of awareness? And our view is that the introduction of this additional level, whilst inevitably it won't eliminate debate, it will give a sharper focus and it does represent a more realistic approach. We have a medium level at the present time. We have in fact been, in terms of the language, at a medium level since September of 2001. It's very clear that Australia, as a western country, has been a terrorist target since at least the 11th of September 2001. Information recently coming to the Government indicates that it in fact occurred before then. I hope that this plan, which as I say, has received the strong endorsement of all of the State and Territory Governments and, which will come into effect as from now, will further and better coordinate the response of all of the relevant agencies of the Commonwealth and State Governments to terrorist threats.
There is provision, amongst other things, in the plan for the declaration of a national terrorist situation, that is where a terrorist incident involves a Commonwealth target or more than one State or Territory; something that threatens civil aviation or involves chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear weapons or materials, and that situation would be declared by myself after consultation with the relevant State Premiers or Chief Ministers.
I think the plan represents a good example of how, in the national interest, the Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments can cooperate. And I want to thank the State and Territory Governments for the measure of cooperation that has been afforded.
A news release will be made available at the conclusion of this conference and, as I indicated, the document will be available very soon on the relevant website, which is in fact identified in the press statement. Any questions?
JOURNALIST:
[Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Medium. No, we stay on medium, still medium.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, how will the new level 'extreme', how will the Government's response to an extreme alert be different to the Government's response to a high alert?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, our response to the circumstances constituting an extreme alert will be exactly the same as our response to those same circumstances under the old system if it had continued. But the advantage of distinguishing, in effect, between high and extreme is that we're at medium now, a high is the next sort of level, but extreme is when you face imminent attack or the attack has occurred. And obviously, the response to that is even sharper and necessarily different from any other response.
JOURNALIST:
So how would you [inaudible] a high alert then? It's not an imminent attack...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it's not...
JOURNALIST:
What would it be?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you might, for example - and I use this as an example - and I want to emphasise that we don't have any information additional to what we have previously received that has led to the reclassification, I want to make that very clear. I don't want people to be concerned that we've got some new information and that we're preparing the ground to release that by altering the classifications. But clearly, if you receive some general advice that an attack on Australia or a target in Australia was more likely than it had been before, you could well decide that that indicated the need to lift to a level of high.
JOURNALIST:
Why did you feel the need to do this? Because haven't you said previously that our system worked well, particularly in comparison with the US?
PRIME MINISTER:
Just because you say a system works well doesn't mean that you can't refine it and this is a refinement of a system that has worked quite well. We haven't used the colour codes because we prefer the more direct communication with the plain English words. People understand what low, medium, high and extreme mean as... unless I'm mistaken, I think they are meteorological terms as well, used in relation to the warnings of bushfires - now this is something that Australians are all very familiar with. So, I think it is the language that Australians understand.
JOURNALIST:
And Prime Minister, the national terrorist situation, that sort of a declaration, is that made after an event? And how does it equate with say a state of emergency? What are the provisions in that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, a state of emergency has a particular legal definition and is, of course, available for declaration under the laws of the various States and can be available under certain Commonwealth laws. Clearly, a national terrorist situation, and if you read the document, will be declared if there is a particular targeting of a Commonwealth asset...
JOURNALIST:
After it happened?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no. It may be anticipated if you have the relevant intelligence. You don't have to wait until a Commonwealth target is hit before you declare a national terrorist situation. Indeed, the public would want us to act in anticipatory fashion.
JOURNALIST:
And what powers does that give you? What provisions...?
PRIME MINISTER:
It's really... it gives the Commonwealth a supervisory role to effect take over the direction of the national response. And you have to bear in mind that with a lot of terrorist attacks, we hope they don't occur, but if they do occur, a lot of the on-the-ground operational response will naturally be by the relevant state police. And the idea that the Commonwealth, no matter what the measure of the attack and so forth is exclusively involved, is unrealistic.
JOURNALIST:
... defence force aid to the civil authority provisions?
PRIME MINISTER:
It doesn't alter that, no.
JOURNALIST:
This doesn't in any way change the risk classification system for places outside Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. No, they will still be the subject of DFAT travel advice.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, you've only got two weeks left of this session to get your ASIO legislation through. Do you still believe that's an invaluable piece of legislation or are you prepared let it lapse for want of a Labor compromise?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have put certain, I have approved and the Attorney General has put certain new proposals to the Labor Party regarding that legislation and we'll be very interested in their response.
JOURNALIST:
What sort of proposals Prime Minister? What's changed in your package?
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon?
JOURNALIST:
What proposals have you put to the ALP that...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think if you speak to the Attorney General's Office he can give you some idea of that. But they are consistent with what we want, but they endeavor in a sensible way without undermining the bill to meet some of the concerns the Labor Party has raised and they are a further earnest of our good faith and our desire to get decent ASIO legislation which is so plainly in the national interest.
JOURNALIST:
Given that the Prime Minister has the call about a national terror situation...
PRIME MINISTER:
He or she must of course talk to the State Premiers.
JOURNALIST:
And will make a decision?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
JOURNALIST:
What are the cost sharing arrangements? Is that nutted out?
PRIME MINISTER:
They'll be sensible.
JOURNALIST:
... negotiable, the suggestions to the Labor Party?
PRIME MINISTER:
Are they negotiable?
JOURNALIST:
Yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we're not sort of adopting a stand and deliver attitude, we're trying to be reasonable men and women, we are reasonable men and women and we hope that they will agree.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister could you just clarify, you're saying that over the past 18 months our state of risk or alert has never reached what would under today's announcement be described as high?
PRIME MINISTER:
That's my, that is my recollection without specifically checking.
JOURNALIST:
Is the classification a decision for you alone Prime Minister? Who's responsible for making a decision to shift Australia to a higher alert mode? Is it your decision or a Cabinet...
PRIME MINISTER:
... in a consultative way, the principal advisory body is ASIO, and normally, as you'll see from the document there's one of the security committees then make certain recommendations, obviously there can be ministerial input but on something like this we tend to follow pretty religiously the advice we're given by the experts.
JOURNALIST:
And if the alert level was to change Prime Minister would you automatically announce that change or do you have, is there discretion for you to decide when it's relevant to make that public?
PRIME MINISTER:
Is there's an alteration in the terrorist alerts level that would be announced, oh yes. The public is entitled to know.
JOURNALIST:
... geographically precise, it could be high or even...
PRIME MINISTER:
One of the things you will see in the document is that there are national terror alerts and then there could, in relation to particular areas of threat, be specific advice in relation to certain parts of Australia that are different at a national level and the document will indicate that. For example, and I'm not suggesting there is, but there could be a particular infrastructure asset that might be the subject of a particular threat, then we might want to apply a different level to it and in that sense I recall seeing something in the media about the new, I should not say new now, Tom Ridge, the Director of Homeland Security in the United States indicating that the Americans are moving towards to the sort of system that we have adopted.
JOURNALIST:
... one effect of Australia going to war in Iraq was to demonstrate that we were prepared to use force and violence against terrorists. Is that another reason why we went to war in Iraq distinct from the ones which you've said already?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I haven't seen the entire context in which General Cosgrove made that statement so I won't comment on it. As to the reasons for us going to the war in Iraq they were very clearly spelt out in the statement I made to the Parliament after the Government had taken that final decision and I stand by those reasons, the legal justification was the failure of Iraq to comply with successive United Nations resolutions regarding weapons of mass destruction. I cited in my two formal statements to Parliament as well the importance of the American alliance and there were also of course humanitarian considerations. But you are all aware of the relative balance I placed upon each of those considerations before the war started and quite clearly we stand by those very strongly.
JOURNALIST:
... believe that evidence of weapons of mass destruction will be found?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I do. I have no reason to doubt the intelligence information that we were given and that information was not in any way massaged or induced by the Government. It's information that came from our intelligence agencies, they formed a view, it was my view that Iraq had a WMD capacity at the time the war started.
JOURNALIST:
How much independent information did our intelligence agencies have Prime Minister? You've emphasised on a number of occasions the importance of joint intelligence gathering, how much independent information do we have that may not have been tainted by anything that subsequently found in the US and the UK?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't accept that anything's been tainted.
JOURNALIST:
Well the US and UK are both looking at it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't accept that that is a fair depiction of what the American and British agencies are saying. The CIA's not saying that.
JOURNALIST:
... independent information?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we relied on the normal intelligence sources which are available. I'm not going to start, for most obviously of all reasons I'm not going to start saying what is quote independent or not independent, we relied on the normal intelligence sources, the intelligence agencies remain confident in the judgments they made, they weren't in any way pressured, I don't believe they misled the Government and I think people should just be a little bit patient.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard a few weeks ago you said it'd be a matter of weeks before you appointed another Governor General, how close are you to doing that?
PRIME MINISTER:
That will be quite soon.
JOURNALIST:
This week or next week or?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I'm not going to get into that, let me just say it'll be quite soon and I'll say nothing more on the subject until I make the announcement, otherwise you'll get sub-dividing and parsing and analysing which may be very interested but it doesn't really get us very fair.
JOURNALIST:
If we could ask you a question about gambling, Senator Vanstone today...
PRIME MINISTER:
Sorry?
JOURNALIST:
Just a question on gambling.
PRIME MINISTER:
On gambling, yes?
JOURNALIST:
Senator Vanstone said today that she supports the decision of banks not to put ATM's in hotels that are offering poker machines. Would you support banks withdrawing their services from such environments? Do you think they should consider under the sort of triple bottom line reporting withdrawing ATM's if they're near poker machines?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I certainly don't disagree with the Senator.
JOURNALIST:
... visiting Japan soon, will you be discussing the prospect of a multilateral interdiction of North Korean vessels on that trip?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am sure that issue could come up. We put some work into preparing a possible approach on this after my return from the United States a few weeks ago, it was an issue that came up during my discussion with President Bush and I have no doubt that the subject will be discussed.
JOURNALIST:
What physical resources could Australia contribute to such an effort?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's too early to start talking about that, we're just talking about the concept and how it might work and it's just altogether too early for me to start talking about particular resources.
JOURNALIST:
Have you got a view on who'll win the State of Origin tonight?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm neutral, I'm going, but I'm very neutral.
JOURNALIST:
Wouldn't you be supporting New South Wales?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. No, I'm an Australian, never support New South Wales, or Queensland for that matter. You're allowed to support a club, but never a state.
Okay. Thank you.
[ends]