O'BRIEN:
The Prime Minister joins me now from Canberra. John Howard, you're about to appoint your next Governor-General. What will you do differently this time to make sure that such an important appointment does not go wrong in the way this one has?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it's difficult at this stage, Kerry, to spell out exactly how different would be the process. It's not going to be constitutionally different. I'm going to adopt the same approach that my Labor and Liberal predecessors have adopted. In terms of the final recommendation to the Queen coming from the Prime Minister ... that's our system and I don't intend to change it. I have already spoken to senior members of my government and sought their views about who the replacement might be. I had that discussion this morning and I'll listen to what their views are. In the end, I will have to make a final judgment and within the bounds of discretion and lacking as our system ought to lack because of its character a formal vetting procedure like the Americans, I will hope to satisfy myself that whoever I decide upon in the end is proofed from any of the difficulties that are raised in relation to Dr Hollingworth. Kerry, regrets and reflections of judgment, they are hindsight reflections and at the time of Peter Hollingworth's appointment, it was, apart from people who had reservations about the church-state issue and there was some - I acknowledge that - most people thought it an interesting appointment as Greg Craven said, and certainly a different one, and of a person who had given a lifetime of service to the underprivileged and therefore would bring a different perspective. I'm sorry it turned out as it did. I accept responsibility, I am getting the blame. That's politics, and I don't run away from my responsibility. But I did, I guess, what other Prime Ministers have done. I doubt very much if a formal vetting procedure was applied by Paul Keating in relation to Sir William Deane. I doubt very much if a formal vetting procedure was applied by Malcolm Fraser in relation to Ninian Steven. They were all well-known public figures but so was Peter Hollingworth.
O'BRIEN:
I guess one could hope that there is a capacity to learn from mistakes and, if there is a better way of doing things, then maybe you might do it. Doesn't it strike you as a gaping flaw in the system that Australia's Head of State is appointed after the secret deliberations of one man, even if that man is Prime Minister and even if the Prime Minister chooses to consult one or two or three or four colleagues?
PRIME MINISTER:
Kerry, although the system has changed a little over the years - and we now have input from the state attorneys-general - it was the case for many years in this country that High Court judges were appointed, often straight from the ranks of the bar, on the decision of the cabinet alone without any formal vetting procedure, and may I say...
O'BRIEN:
But that has changed now.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
O'BRIEN:
So is there the scope to do it here?
PRIME MINISTER:
But Kerry you get ... but what happens is you get input ... you don't have a formal vetting procedure. In fact, the Attorney-General has been criticised by his Labor opponents for presuming to talk to people who he might consider appointing to positions on the bench. So you say do we learn? Look, Kerry, I'm a great believer that you always learn on the job, and I'm still learning. I don't regard myself as having been in this job so long that I still haven't got a lot to learn about it, and if anybody imagines that I won't think hard about what's occurred on this occasion, they're wrong.
O'BRIEN:
You said today you'd consulted I think four senior colleagues on the Hollingworth appointment.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
O'BRIEN:
Who were they and was it a case of going to them and saying,