CORDEAUX:
And the Prime Minister John Howard is with us, sir welcome to Adelaide.
PRIME MINISTER:
Very good to be here Jeremy.
CORDEAUX:
Good to have you here. A $4 billion boost to security?
PRIME MINISTER:
A $400 million, yes, so there will be more money in the Budget for security, that decision I should tell your listeners was taken before the attack in Madrid, it shouldn';t be seen as a knee-jerk reaction. But certainly timely, and it will bring to about $3 billion over the period of the budget forward estimates the additional money that has been made available for security related issues since the attacks on the United States in September 2001. I guess you can never spend enough on security, my very strong view is that boosting intelligence gathering capacity is the best weapon to fight terrorists. You can';t have a guard accompanying every passenger on every train and every bus, you can';t x-ray people with bags getting on buses and trains, that would just bring the movement of people in cities to a standstill. But what you can do is have very strong intelligence agencies so that people who are suspected of wanting to do violent things can be the subject of surveillance and whatever other checking on what they';re saying and doing is necessary and also of course the powers that might be needed to question people. I noticed arising out of that Police Commissioners meeting in Sydney earlier this week a complain from the New South Wales Police Commissioner that Commonwealth laws weren';t strong enough, well we had intended to make them stronger but they were watered down by the Labor Party and others in the Senate and maybe in the light of what has occurred they will need to revisited and I';ll talk to the Attorney General about that and perhaps there will now be a slightly different attitude taken by the opposition parties. But I would say to the Commissioner in New South Wales, we did originally intend that they would be tougher and although what we ended up with was an enormous improvement on the past situation, it was Senate obstruction that resulted in the bill being watered down.
CORDEAUX:
You';ll obviously leave how that extra money is spent to your security chiefs.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes, well essentially the money has been sought by the security agencies and the Federal Police, I mean we have in general terms acceded just about all of the requests for additional resources that have been made to us over the past few years, they are doing a very good job, I';ve got a lot of regard for ASIO, for the Federal Police, I think the Federal Police did a fantastic job in Bali in tracking down the people responsible, their co-operation with the people who were responsible for that outrage was excellent. But we do need to commit more resources and it';s the first call on the additional resources that are going to be made available, and nothing is more important than making further resources available for security and intelligence purposes.
CORDEAUX:
This kerfuffle with Mick Keelty, it';s not surprising that you might find various chiefs of police having slightly different opinions on this particular subject. Why has it become such a big talking point when it really doesn';t matter?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, I mean anybody in that position is entitled to express a view, that';s not really the point. The point is that I said when asked about it that I didn';t not share the judgement he made, that doesn';t mean to say I lack confidence in his ability to his job, I think his does his job extremely well and of course that sort of observation of his was not an operational police matter, it';s not as if he';s talking about an investigation. But our view is that Australia was a terrorist target a long time ago, Bali happened before Iraq, people seem to have forgotten that. The worse that Australia has suffered from terrorism in its history was in Bali and that happened in October of 2002 and we didn';t join the coalition of the willing in Iraq until March of 2003. Now my view that is our involvement in Iraq did not make any material difference to the long term terrorist threat to this country. It';s there now and it would have been there irrespective of whether we were involved in Iraq or not, that was the point that the Government has always held to and it is supported by a lot of people. And my view is that we are a target because of who we are rather than what we have done and where we';ve been involved and if you, in any event ever get to a situation where you change your foreign policy because you';re frightened of what a terrorist might do, you really have thrown away control over your own foreign policy and for long as I have the job I have now I would never alter Australia';s foreign policy through fear of what terrorists might do. I';ll certainly always have great regard for the national interest, but the idea that terrorists could intimidate a democratic country into changing its policy, which seems to be implicit in some of the criticisms that have been made of the Government, you ask why was there such a kerfuffle, I think the reality is that a lot of people in the community, including in the political sphere remain bitterly opposed to what my government did in relation to Iraq and every opportunity they get to have a go, they do. Now I understand that but life moves on and I have total confidence in the Federal Police Commissioner, I think he';s doing an excellent job, and particularly can I say again as I mentioned earlier that what he did and his men and women did in relation to the investigation following Bali was quite outstanding.
CORDEAUX:
It just struck me yesterday that there hasn';t really been a backlash against our involvement, a political at home backlash in Australia as there have been elsewhere. It';s almost as though the media is trying to ramp one up.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think there are some in the media who are trying to do that, there';s no doubt about that, no doubt at all. Now the question of whether people in the fullness of time make an adverse judgement or whatever is a matter for them, and I will accept the verdict of the Australian people when it comes along and based on whatever combination of judgements, but I do not regret for a moment what we did in relation to Iraq, it was a difficult call, I';m glad that Saddam Hussein is gone. People who say that the world is a no safer place as a result of his removal forget for example the influence the American and coalition action may have had on Libya';s abandonment of its weapons of mass destruction and if in fact the action was a factor then that';s an enormous dividend for the security of that region and potentially of other parts of the world. The people of Iraq, sad though their circumstances are now, difficult though it is, violent though it is, are still better off, the mass graves that were uncovered after Saddam';s downfall are testament to that. So I don';t regret for a moment the action we took.
CORDEAUX:
Well the message was sent to the other despots and dictators.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well certainly, and the other point that has to be made about the terrorist attack is that over the last year we';ve had terrorist attacks in Morocco, in Indonesia, we';ve had them in Turkey, we';ve had them in Japan, we';ve had them in a whole number of places and all of those countries have taken different stances. If you look at Iraq, Indonesia didn';t support the coalition action in Iraq and very strongly opposed to it, and yet Indonesian citizens have died at the hands of terrorists which is since the operation Iraq.
CORDEAUX:
In the light of what you';ve just said, how do we handle the likes of Sheik Hilali and some of the things that he reportedly said but now denies having said.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I have seen a translation which was obtained by the Australian embassy of this. Unless that translation is wrong, he did say that September 11 was God';s work.
CORDEAUX:
So how do we…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well in a free society, I as Prime Minister, in appropriate language point that out. I condemn that. I hope that spokesman for other political parties will join me in doing that. And very importantly, members of his own Islamic community are expressing concern because the overwhelming bulk of Islamic Australians are as concerned about terrorism as you and I are, because after all, they have been victims. This idea that it';s only Christians and Jews and others who are victims of terrorism is wrong. I mean hundreds of Muslims have died at the hands of terrorists over the last couple of years. They don';t care what religion you are. Their objective is to inflict maximum hurt and injury and death and cause maximum instability and maximum chaos. That is the kind of madmen we are dealing with. And they won';t discriminate between religions. They might invoke extreme expressions of Islam to justify what they do, but they don';t care who they kill. They don';t really care at all whether they';re Islamics or Christians or atheists or whatever.
CORDEAUX:
Prime Minister, will you take some calls?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
CORDEAUX:
Hello Jim.
CALLER:
Good morning. Is that the Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes indeed.
CALLER:
Good morning Prime Minister and happy St Pat';s day.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it sounds as though you are going to have a very pleasant day.
CALLER:
It';s going to be a beautiful day.
PRIME MINISTER:
What part of Ireland are you from?
CALLER:
I';m from Belfast, in the north.
PRIME MINISTER:
In the north, yes.
CALLER:
But I';ve been here 40 years so I don';t lose my accent. You never lose that.
PRIME MINISTER:
You don';t either.
CALLER:
What I was going to ask you Prime Minister, I was wondering if you were aware that there is a lot of families out there, can you help them, with children with intellectual and physical disabilities. I';ll give you an example. I';ve a grandson. He just finished school. He';s 18. He';s 24 hour care. But once he';s out of school, there is no funding to look after that young boy. And he';s one of many. And at the present time, the people that look after him can only look after him two days a week. And (inaudible) and it';s (inaudible) and he';s one of many. And I know of two families in Adelaide that';s going to have to hand their children over to the authorities to look after them, and that';s not nice for the families and it';s not nice for the children. And I was wondering could you do something in the way of increasing funding to look after these (inaudible) children.
CORDEAUX:
Everyone wants money Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes they do, but Jim puts in a very warm way an issue that it';s hard not to be touched by. We did make very significant increases in disability services in the last budget. We haven';t come as yet in the pre-budget process to looking at that area yet. I will certainly keep in mind what Jim has put. We just put a lot more in last year and if we could make a bit more progress in getting people off the disability support pension who shouldn';t be on it…
CORDEAUX:
600,000.
PRIME MINISTER:
That';s right. And there are, Jim, a lot of people in that category, we would have even more resources for the genuinely needy cases of which you speak.
CORDEAUX:
Thanks Jim. Geraldine.
CALLER:
Good morning Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
CALLER:
We have a federal election coming up this year.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I';m aware of that.
CALLER:
Yes. And I only want to vote for one person - the Liberal Party candidate. But because I have to fill in every square with preferences, my vote could go to the Labor Party and it';s not what I want…
PRIME MINISTER:
No it would only go to the Labor Party if the Liberal Party came third, and I don';t think that';s likely. See with preferential voting, the preferences that really count are the preferences of the minor parties, because if somebody doesn';t get an absolute majority on the first count, you then cut out the person who has got the lowest number of number ones and then you distribute that person';s preferences. Now that is normally a Green or an Independent or a Democrat or something else. It is in very, very rare circumstances a Labor candidate or a Liberal candidate. So I actually believe in preferential voting, because the problem with having first past the post voting is that you can end up having somebody elected who doesn';t have 50 per cent of the voters. You can get say one bloke getting, you know, 50 and another person getting 40 and another person getting 30. Well on first past the post voting, that first person wins, yet 70 people didn';t want him. Only 50 people wanted him. So you';ve got to really find out what the second preferences of the person getting the 30 are before you get the true expression of opinion. That';s why I actually support it. But if you are a Liberal or a Labor voter in Australia, and I';m pleased to hear what your preference is, it';s very, very unlikely that your preference would ever be distributed.
CORDEAUX:
On the wires this morning, Mark Latham is again banging the drum about your retirement.
PRIME MINISTER:
My retirement?
CORDEAUX:
Your retirement. My audience and I reckon that you should be superglued to the chair for life. But he is saying that you really should make a statement so people know, with some time to think about it, just exactly who is going to lead the party after the next election.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I';ve said what I';m going to say on that and I';m not going to change it. Mr Latham can talk about it as much as he likes. I said last year, and I';ll say it again this morning, that I';ll remain leader of the party for so long as the party wants me to and it';s in the party';s best interests that I do. Now I don';t have anything to add to that. That is an honest statement of how I feel. The last thing I have in mind at the moment is leaving this job. I';m very committed to it. I';ve got a lot of energy for it. I will continue to give that response, and Mr Latham can continue to ask that question. I don';t mind if he wants to occupy his time doing that. I';m not concerned. I think the Australian public understands that that is an honest statement.
CORDEAUX:
Sure. Do you think it';s an issue though?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don';t think it is an issue. I don';t get people coming up to me… the only people who raise it are the Labor Party and some people in the media. They';re entitled to do that. He';s entitled to do it. It';s a free country. But I do not find it an issue. I don';t find people coming up to me and saying, Howard you have got to declare exactly when you';re going to retire. People understand you can';t say… I mean I don';t know. I don';t know the answer.
CORDEAUX:
But they know that you';re more popular obviously than Peter Costello, so if they can get you to say when, they will have a much sharper focus on what to do.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don';t want to get into comparisons with any of my colleagues. And can I say yesterday Peter Costello, you mentioned his name, demonstrated his real skill, there is nobody in the Parliament who has got a better mastery of the figures and the detail of economics, when he pointed out that $8 billion mistake in the Labor Party';s superannuation policy.
CORDEAUX:
How do you make an $8 billion mistake?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they didn';t understand the difference between average earnings calculated on the basis of full time employment and average earnings calculated on lumping in full time, part time and casual.
CORDEAUX:
They just went to the wrong formula.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they not only went to the wrong formula. They didn';t understand the difference. I mean how you can not appreciate that if you average full time earnings, you have a higher figure than if you average full time and part time and casual. And I mean they';re the sort of mistakes that competent people in economics should not make. I mean Mr Latham, he';s read the speech, and it';s all very well to blame Nick Sherry. I mean it';s like blaming the poor staffer who put the American flag in the party room when he had his news conference. There';s always somebody else to blame. But see Nick Sherry took the fall, but Mr Latham read the speech and he mustn';t have understood the difference between an average of full time earnings and an average of all types of earnings, and self-evidently they had to correct it. But it';s all very well to say it';s only a few words. It goes to more than that. It goes to economic competence and economic literacy.
CORDEAUX:
Hello Roger.
CALLER:
Oh Mr Howard, over the last two to three years in Australia we';ve seen frenzied buying of residential investment property and that has caused house prices to skyrocket all around the country, and skyrocketing house prices has in my view pushed those on low to moderate incomes out of the market. And the Reserve Bank in November said that generous tax breaks, that';s Federal Government tax breaks, for property investors are key drivers of the house price boom. And I guess I';m concerned mainly about your comment last year - no one has come up to me in the street and complained about the increased value of their home.
PRIME MINISTER:
You';re about to demonstrate I';m wrong.
CALLER:
What I';ve just said was printed in a letter that I sent to the Advertiser last Saturday and also to the Productivity Commission, and you will get a copy along with Senator Alan Ferguson to whom I have written a number of times on this subject, and also a copy to Mark Latham. I feel you';ve been terribly irresponsible in this matter and I think you';ve been quite happy for people to invest in private property to take the pressure off the need for more money for public housing.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well could I answer that? The reason I don';t believe in abolishing negative gearing is that it would result in higher rents. I also for a secondary reason believe you should encourage people to invest in property. If you have higher rent, the people who will suffer most will be the poorer people, because they tend to rent rather than own their own home. We had an experience of this in 1986…1985. Mr Keating when he was Treasurer abolished negative gearing and rent, especially in the high priced areas of the market, for rent that is, in the big cities, went through the roof, and within a couple of years the then government changed the decision and brought back negative gearing. Sir, the main reason why house prices have escalated is not the investment in rental properties. It';s because interest rates are so low, people can afford to borrow a lot more. And they are encouraged, therefore, to buy a larger house, buy a more expensive house, because they can afford to repay the loan. And as a result, we have in a way become the victims of our success and our prosperity. I do agree that house prices for people trying to get into the market for the first time are high. I accept that. That';s a very valid observation. But the answer is not to get rid of negative gearing. I think if local councils and state governments released more land, if you increased supply of land on the outer peripheries of cities that would help, if you had lower stamp duties that would help, if development costs were more moderate that would help. And the Productivity Commission will be producing a report on this quite soon and I';ll be interested to see what it has to say on the subject. But you won';t bring down the price of new houses by getting rid of negative gearing. You will drive up the level of rent to the people who will suffer most, the poor.
CORDEAUX:
But the housing boom has driven the economy.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the housing boom has been fantastic for the economy, and people love their houses as they love their cars, and these are great drivers. But obviously it is a problem for people trying to get into the market. And then the point I was making when Roger I think it is, quoted me, was that I hadn';t found anybody complaining about their house increasing in value. And he';s right to be concerned that it';s hard for people to get into their first home, but he';s wrong to say that that is due to negative gearing.
CORDEAUX:
Indeed. You can';t have universal winners. I mean look at this free trade thing. Not everybody is going to…
PRIME MINISTER:
No, but people… nobody has lost.
CORDEAUX:
No.
PRIME MINISTER:
See, not even the sugar growers have lost. When I went to far north Queensland a couple of weekends ago and I said I can understand how upset they were that they weren';t part of it, the truth is that they';re no worse off - it';s just that, along with others, they';re not better off. And the benefits of this Free Trade Agreement are enormous. I mean the tuna export industry, which is very strong here in South Australia, will benefit enormously from the Free Trade Agreement. The motor manufacturing industry, which is very strong here in South Australia, will also benefit because overnight, when it comes into operation, we';re going to get rid of the 25 per cent tariffs which is imposed on utes, and I think the motor car industry will be a very big win. I mean it';s done very well out of the GST and it';s having record sales. I mean it';s unevenly distributed amongst the companies. I acknowledge that. But overall, the benefits of this Free Trade Agreement outweigh… I mean sure there are going to be some areas of the Australian economy that are going to be subject to more competition, but that';s a natural trade off for the enhanced access that we have.
CORDEAUX:
So we have heard today that interest rates in America will stay low - one per cent - historically low. That';s good for our interest rates or pressure on our interest rates.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, I think American interest rates, they are at an historic low. The Americans are obviously following a policy now of keeping their own dollar as low as possible and that is having an impact on the value of ours, not that you should get worried an in era of floating exchange rate, the dollar will always fluctuate a bit. That';s what a floating exchange rate is meant to produce. The American economy is getting stronger, but it has structural flaws that we don';t have. It has a big budget deficit, which I wish it didn';t have. I think that';s a constraint on the sustained growth and stability of the American economy. I';m glad we don';t have a budget deficit, we';re not going to have one while we';re in charge, we';re certainly not because we think it adds to debt and it puts a limit on the sort of growth that we';ve been used to over the past few years.
CORDEAUX:
You';ve said that this coming election is going to be hard…
PRIME MINISTER:
Very hard.
CORDEAUX:
When is that going to be hard? We';ve got historically low interest rates, we';ve got very low inflation, we';ve got record low unemployment, we';ve paid off a huge amount of debt. It hardly seems likely that you';re going to get the sack.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Jeremy, the reason why it';s so hard is that the longer you are in office, the more people are inclined to say - well things are going so well, nobody can really muck it up, there';s a new person on the block on the other side and we';ll give him a go. That';s the tendency that people have and I have the job in front of me to disabuse people of the idea that the economy runs on autopilot, it doesn';t. It';s not accident that we have all of those things you mentioned. They';re a result of our decisions and it is no accident and we have to remind people of that. We can';t assume that economic management will be the same. I mean, we';ve had an example yesterday of incompetence in relation to that superannuation policy. If that kind of mistake is made in opposition, what sort of errors will be made in Government?
CALLER:
Good morning, Mr Howard and Jeremy. Mr Howard, I';m one of these people who believe that a lot of the violence in our world stems from how we mistreat our animals and the Customs Minister, Chris Ellison, is looking at a ban on the importion of dog and cat…
PRIME MINISTER:
I';m aware of that and I';m very sympathetic to it.
CALLER:
And I just want to (inaudible) into Denmark and the United States.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I have seen… recently I had some papers put before me in relation to that and I';ve expressed some strong support for what is being done there and I hope that… and it will certainly have my support if that is progressed.
CORDEAUX:
Quick call from Marie Anne.
CALLER:
Good morning, Jeremy, good morning Mr Howard. I';m pleased to hear that you';re going to support the banning of cat and dog fur. The reason I actually rang was because I was amazed recently that you are actually a patron of the RSPCA and the syllables you';ve just uttered now are the first syllables I';ve ever heard you utter in defence of the poor wretched animals. I';ve only heard you defend the huge conglomerates that profit from their misery and suffering. I';m talking about issues that the RSPCA opposes like live animal exports and animal experiments in general and intensive farming… the RSPCA opposes these on the grounds of the unspeakable cruelty that goes on, institutionalised cruelty, tens of millions of animals every year. I am pleased that you have finally uttered a syllable in the right direction.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don';t think I';ve quite been as silent as you';d suggest. But I would agree with you on some of those things. I would in all honesty have to disagree on others. I do think that live sheep trade is defensible. It';s got to be done in a proper manner and we';ve had that report arriving out of the Cormo challenge, if I can put it that way, and we';re in the process of implementing that report. But there are a lot of Australians whose livelihood depends on that live sheep trade. And bear in mind, that animals that are bred for food are, whether they';re exported overseas or kept here, they are of course ultimately slaughtered for human consumption and our obligation is to see that that occurs in the most humane way possible and that there isn';t a repetition of some of the events that distress people in relation to the Cormo and I acknowledge that. But there is a big industry and people';s livelihood, your fellow Australians livelihoods do depend on it. So we';ve got to try and strike a balance there.
CORDEAUX:
Prime Minister, you';ve given us a lot of your valuable time and I thank you for that. One last question - on the programme going back, I suppose, last week, somebody rang and said when you';re in the studio next put it to you that if you';d like to see people in work past 65, why not give them a complete tax break so if they stay at work they don';t pay any income tax. And many people said - I';d go back to work…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I guess the problem with that Jeremy and you never dismiss anything entirely, but I guess the problem with that is once you say to a category of people for whatever reason you don';t have to pay any tax anymore because you fall into this category, another category will come along and say, well what about us?
CORDEAUX:
Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER:
What about having no tax for people who, for economic reasons, have to go back into the workforce and get a second income - my need is as great? It';s a very very big step to say a group of people in the community, unlike everybody else, we';re not going to tax you. I think what we have to do is change the culture of companies to encourage them and a lot of them don';t need much encouragement. And you also have to encourage older people to accept changed occupation and perhaps instead of being full-time, they might be happy to be part-time. We don';t want to force people to remain in the workforce.
CORDEAUX:
But you';ve given them choice.
PRIME MINISTER:
And a lot of people want to remain in the workforce. I mean, this idea that everybody wants to retire early is nonsense, they don';t, there are an enormous number of people would be very happy to work albeit they have part-time whilever they feel physically and mentally up to it and if that takes them into their 70';s, so what? They really want to do it.
CORDEAUX:
You would have some things up your sleeve, I guess, with regards to superannuation coming up to the election. It is going to be an issue.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it is an issue. We';ve made some announcements already and those announcements…
CORDEAUX:
More to come?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I never rule anything out. It';s never over until it';s over.
CORDEAUX:
Thank you very much for coming in.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]