JOURNALIST:
Do you have anything to say about the terrible situations in Spain overnight?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I would like first of all on behalf of the Australian Government and the Australian people to express my sense of horror and shock and revulsion at this atrocity which has claimed the lives of almost 200 people and injured more than a thousand. It';s an unforgivable act of villainy, this kind of attack – it really is. My sympathy goes to those who have lost loved ones and are suffering as a result. It';s a terrible reminder to the world that the modern scourge of terrorism is still with us and those who imagine that you can relax or take it easy, that somehow or other it';s in the past and somehow or other it won';t happen again have been given a rude awakening.
JOURNALIST:
Do have more information as to who may have been behind the attacks?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don';t have anymore information essentially than what is in the public domain. The initial suspicion has naturally fallen on ETA, the body that promotes the Basque Separatist cause. One cannot rule out the possible involvement of al Qaeda, the size and sophistication of the attack, the fact that there has been for sometime a considerable al Qaeda presence in Spain, that also has to be taken into account. Equally it could be a splinter group, it could be some other extremist organisation with radical Islamic sympathies – I don';t know, it is too early to say.
JOURNALIST:
Could this be a result of Spain';s support of the war in Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don';t get into hypothesising, particularly on something as serious as this. I can only say at this stage, nobody yet knows who is responsible and until we do I think it';s pointless to hypothesise.
JOURNALIST:
Now, the Treasurer has cleared the air on the leadership, at least up until the budget – do you welcome that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I';ve avoided any comment on the Treasurer';s comments in the past and that remains the case now.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, on the education the Premiers have (inaudible) the package ‘unfair and unreasonable'; – what do you say to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, they always leave out the facts that for every dollar they spend on their own government schools, 47cents comes from the Federal Government. All of those tables about how we pay more to private schools than we do to government schools are wrong. Whenever you do those comparisons you have to allow for the fact that 47 cents in every dollar that a State Government spends on anything comes from the Federal Government. So I greet with contempt the complaints of the states because they are so dishonest about the contribution that we make to their funding. I mean, how can you ignore the fact that 47% of all money that is available for State Governments to spend on government schools comes from the Federal Government courtesy of the GST and other things. So when you take that into account we are, in fact, contributing more to the funding of government schools than are the states that own them and run them.
Thank you.
(ends)