JONES:
PM, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Alan.
JOURNALIST:
Welcome back.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
JOURNALIST:
Just before we go to the education issue, you';re a bloke who has won a reputation for having his finger on the public pulse. Do you understand the national anger at the culture of violence that has taken the life of David Hookes, and the view being that David Hookes is just a metaphor for this wider and insidious national problem – that violence is in the ascendance and violence is winning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I do. I have been quite struck by the outpouring. It is of course heightened by the fact that he was a popular sporting figure, it occurred at the height of the summer cricket season, and all of those things came together. But I do think underneath it all is that national unease that levels of violence are getting too great in our community. We have to of course keep our heads about it in the sense that when you actually trawl through the figures, it is my understanding that the murder rate in this country has not altered appreciably over the last 20 or 30 years. But it does seem in our language and our reactions that we have become a community that, or some members of it react physically far too readily. I think perhaps it';s a product of the excessive violence on television. I';m not automatically saying from that that you know, you';ve got to try and alter that. Those things are always very difficult because you';ve got to be very careful of governments getting too interventionist in anything. But the trail of violence and the deification of violence in certain forms in the media perhaps have contributed, but equally we have to bear in mind that, as I understand it, the overall murder rate in this country hasn';t changed appreciably.
JOURNALIST:
I suppose I';m talking about something else. I mean women ring and write to me to say that they are now frightened to pull up at traffic lights for fear of being robbed, they are frightened to engage someone else';s glance in the streets for fear there's a group of people that would go after them. Parents are worried about letting their children play in the park.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh there is no doubt that those circumstances have changed enormously. People… well the circumstances in which my wife and I brought up our children as far as playing in parks was different from the circumstances in which I grew up, and I guess in turn the circumstances in which children are now being brought up. I think people do feel public places now are less safe than what they used to be.
JOURNALIST:
Do we need a national summit on this to actually see what the nature of the problem is and what we can do about it? I mean a young bloke wrote to me and said “I';m at a loss Alan. Do we stand up and fight for our country and risk being pummelled into the ground like Tim Priest. He said "has political correctness got us into the situation where we are in now with street violence? It goes unnoticed far too often, as this type of violence", he';s referring to David Hookes, “happens to many people.”
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think part of the problem is that there has been a breakdown in manners and courtesy. There is a view, which I think has a lot of credibility, which says that if you overlook the ordinary courtesies, that leads to an indifference to people';s wellbeing over time. I think if we were a more civil, polite country, then perhaps we would have in some cases a little less violence. I think that is part of it. It';s a bit similar, if you like, to the… it';s the not the same, but similar to the broken window theory that was advanced by that American sociologist that led to Giuliani';s campaign in New York. His theory was that if you ensure that minor infringements were dealt with, then that would change behaviour.
JOURNALIST:
So is that something though that a national government…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think these are things that do need to be debated, but I';m not a summit man. My great worry about summits is that they create an artificial atmosphere that somehow or other a summit is going to solve it. I think over time people can debate in a different… debate these issues, and over time they can…
JOURNALIST:
But I suppose someone is saying they're saying to me Prime Minister. Someone has got to take the lead here. Enough is enough. We';re going too far.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but you';ve also got… I understand that, but you';ve also got to be careful that you don';t invest your faith in a false solution. A summit which merely produces a consensus from violently different points of view, or strongly different points of view, will not necessarily produce a good outcome. And the great problem with summits is that they do tend to beget a middle course and a middle course sometimes in these things is not the right course.
JOURNALIST:
So I suppose I';m not worried about summits, but someone like of your stature taking a stand here and letting the nation know that you believe this is a crisis, that we have gone too far, and collectively as a nation we';re going to have to address it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, I don';t share the view that we have a crisis. I think we have to be careful about the use of that expression for every difficulty. I think there has been a deterioration in certain areas, but we';ve got to keep that in perspective. My job is not just to respond to headlines. My job is to try and take a calmer, longer term view and to analyse the facts. I think the facts are that we have become a slightly less civil society. I think that';s a great shame. I think courtesy and manners are still very important, and I think they do condition the society in which we live. I think the use of discourteous language is becoming too regular – on the media on occasions and in public discourse – and I think that';s a pity. I think one of the things…
JOURNALIST:
From political leaders, are you suggesting?
PRIME MINISTER:
I';m not thinking of anybody in particular. I';m just thinking generally.
JOURNALIST:
Right. Just on political correctness, what were you saying about public education? Because Jenny Macklin, the Shadow Minister for Employment, Education and Training, said that your comments were a slur on the 70 per cent of Australian parents who send their children to public schools.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that';s… I mean that in a sense is part of the problem. Now that was a ridiculous statement. I wasn';t attacking all Government schools, I wasn';t attacking parents, I wasn';t attacking all teachers. I was merely reflecting what people tell me. And I have to say to Jenny Macklin and to others who so roundly attacked me, is that I am expressing the views of a lot of people, and time doesn';t permit us to go through all the examples that I have been given. But time and time again, people will say to me – well we feel that the sort of values and the sort of approaches to education and to discipline and the sort of reinforcement of the approach we take to the upbringing of our children will be better served if we took our child out of a government school and put it into an independent school. Now in many cases, that is not the situation, and I stress of course that there are a large number of government schools and a great number of teachers who I believe are doing the right thing, are fully committed. But when you have such a vast bureaucracy, as the state education system of this country, if you cannot have a debate about such things as the attitude of the teacher unions towards assessments, the attitude of… I mean the teacher unions a year ago were encouraging teachers to discuss the war in Iraq in the classroom. That was code for attacking the Government';s position. Now I';m not saying that they should have been promoting the Government';s position. What I';m saying is that they have a particular responsibility not to use the classroom for that kind of thing. When you have, as was reported, the Queensland Education Department encouraging schools at the end of last year to consider in place of a traditional Christmas observance, some kind of neutral end of year holiday celebration, whatever that might mean, they';re the sorts of things…
JOURNALIST:
Oh yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
… that do concern parents.
JOURNALIST:
It';s alive and well. Tony Abbott, your colleague, says that tolerance is a virtue so long as we don';t end up in modern Australia tolerating the intolerable. And he said that parents were looking to schools to teach kids of the value of hard work, achievement by effort, excellence in learning, respect for other people and strong academic standards. Not far off the mark, you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I think that';s right. There';s a mistaken belief that you demonstrate tolerance to minorities in the community by abandoning majority practices. That couldn';t be further from the truth. You respect minorities in the community by being sensitive to their values and their rights, but you don';t achieve that sensitivity and respect by abandoning your own beliefs and your own practices. And this attempt to sort of bland down any kind of observance of traditional approaches in our country I think is something that people generally reject, and indeed many leaders of minority groups have expressed the same view. They don';t expect us to… the majority of the community to abandon their practices as a means of demonstrating respect for their values. What they want is the right to their own observances and their own values, and providing they are fully respected, I think we have a tolerant and genuinely diverse society.
JOURNALIST:
Good on you. Prime Minister, while I';ve got you here, on another issue. I';ve spoken to you on air and off air about Nancy Wake, the white mouse who turned 91 last year. She was Australia';s most decorated servicewoman of World War II, the Gestapo';s most wanted person, and her nickname, as my listeners know, came from her ability to avoid capture – the ‘white mouse';. She';s received every imaginable international award – the Georges Medal from Britain, Resistance Medal, the Croix de Guerre from France, the Medal of Freedom by the United States. She has been in some difficulty and I know you visited her…
PRIME MINISTER:
When I was in London last November, I saw that she was invited to the opening of the War Memorial and to the reception afterwards, and I had quite a long talk to her. And I';m able to tell you that we';ve decided to provide financial help which will support a carer that will be able to take Nancy on outings from the nursing home in which she now resides. The cost of this will be, you know, quite consistent with support that is available to Australian residents under the Government';s Community Aged Care Packages program. We';re doing it essentially as an act of grace payment because she resides in another country. There has been discussion with her about these arrangements and she is very happy with them, and they will mean that she will be provided with some additional help and some additional support and comfort in her very advanced years and in special recognition of what a remarkable, courageous and special Australian she was and remains.
JOURNALIST:
And if Nancy was here she';d say to me – make sure you tell him that I need enough money to afford my gin and tonic at 11 every morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
That';s essentially what she said to me in London.
JOURNALIST:
Thanks PM.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay.
[ends]