LIEBMANN:
The Prime Minister joins us now from our Parliament House studio. Prime Minister, good morning to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Steve.
LIEBMANN:
This morning Mark Latham is standing by his original version of the lengthy - his word, lengthy - top secret intelligence briefings he says he received on Iraq. Is he lying?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's not the information I have. My information suggests that the claim that he had lengthy discussions about Iraq simply can't be supported. That's the claim that I make, that's based on the advice that I have received. Obviously he did have briefings. I wasn't present at those briefings. He was. I've been advised that his description is not consistent with the facts of what occurred. One of the interesting things about this Steve is I've just unearthed a comment he made the day he was elected as Leader of the Opposition, and he was asked on that day - do you support bringing the troops home? And he said "well I've got to get advice on that. That's a very important issue. I can't make a top of the head judgement." Now that was a very sensible answer, and he was right. Yet interestingly, he is now saying that Shadow Cabinet had decided a year ago to bring the troops home immediately. Well if Shadow Cabinet had decided a year ago to bring the troops home immediately, why didn't he acknowledge that decision when he was first asked about Iraq after he became Leader of the Opposition? See I think his credibility in relation to that particular claim is under very, very serious question.
LIEBMANN:
So he was playing, is playing with the truth. Is that what you're saying?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look Steve, I think the claim that Labor decided a year ago on this policy is wrong. All the statements that Kevin Rudd has made over the last year indicate that. I think what happened was that last Tuesday week, he saw a couple of very good opinion polls, both about the general state of the parties and also the impact of our participation in Iraq on the potential terrorist threat to this country, and thought you beaut. Perhaps he relaxed, he got a bit euphoric, and he was asked a question. He went a bit further and said bang, I'll bring them home by Christmas, and the Labor Party had a new policy. And instead of following the cautious path that he had laid out when he became Leader, a correct path, I think what he did was make policy on the run. And since then, he has been trying to change it and bob and weave, and the latest version yesterday, a quite disgraceful claim that somehow or other I'm intending to bring the troops home, have a victory parade, so to speak, coinciding with the election. I mean absolutely ridiculous. I mean apart from anything else, such a thing would be seen quite correctly by the Australian people as cynical and there is no way in the world, either on grounds of ethics or commonsense, that I would do that.
LIEBMANN:
So on that point, there wasn't, there isn't, a plan to get the troops home before Christmas?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. Absolutely not. Our plan has always been that you stay there until you have finished the job.
LIEBMANN:
Who is going to decide, Prime Minister, when the job has been finished? Who makes that judgement?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's made by the government of the day, but you take advice from the departments, you take advice from our people on the ground in Iraq, you talk to our allies, you may talk to the UN because the UN may have a greater involvement when that occurs. Let me illustrate. This furphy about the air traffic controllers, the suggestion from Labor that because they might be coming home in the not too distant future, that in some way that's a reversal of our policy. They will only come home if their job is completed. And their job is completed when you can hand Baghdad Airport over to the locals.
LIEBMANN:
Prime Minister, Labor's Foreign Affairs Spokesman Kevin Rudd says you are the only leader of a country involved in the war in Iraq who hasn't visited the country. Why haven't you visited?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I haven't visited the country yet. That is true. There's a combination of other commitments that I have had, and if I were to visit the country in the future, I wouldn't be, for obvious reasons, signalling that in advance. He says I'm the only one. I'm not sure that the 35 countries that are involved in different ways, that all of them have. I'm not sure about that. But I haven't checked, so I won't at this stage suggest that Mr Rudd is exaggerating that at all. But Steve, as you know, I've had an enormous number of commitments overseas last year. I do have domestic responsibilities. And the Labor Party criticises me for going overseas when it suits them, and now they're criticising me for not going overseas yet again.
LIEBMANN:
On the question of ATSIC, do you agree with Mr Latham's view that ATSIC is now incapable of addressing endemic problems in indigenous communities?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Steve, I indicated a couple of weeks ago that my view was that ATSIC had not worked as a separate body. That's a view that I have developed over quite a period of time and it's quite a strong view I've got. We have a report on ATSIC's future in front of us and out of respect for the people who carried out that report, including a very prominent indigenous woman, Jackie Huggins, as well as a former Labor Minister and a former Liberal Attorney General, we will go through the process of examining that report. But I think the idea of having a separate body, as I indicated several weeks ago, is long past its time. I don't think it has worked effectively. In the past, the Labor Party has always blocked sensible reforms of ATSIC. One of the very first things that we tried to do when we came into office in 1996 when John Herron was the Minister was to make changes to ATSIC, and they were blocked in the Senate by amongst others, the Labor Party.
LIEBMANN:
So just finally, can I assume, can we assume, that the Government has similar plans and that you will abolish ATSIC and its executive body, and you'll remove Geoff Clark?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think Geoff Clark, there's a legal issue there and I can't talk about it. But as far as the body itself is concerned, you know my view and we have that report in front of us. But I'm going to allow the processes of the Government to proceed. I'm not going to preempt the Government's full consideration of that. But I think your viewers would be left in no doubt, as people were several weeks ago, as to what my view is.
LIEBMANN:
Because ATSIC Commissioner Alison Anderson says indigenous Australians need a fresh start. Does that proposition have merit?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't think abolishing ATSIC and replacing ATSIC with another body is a good idea. I think the real alternative is to treat everybody equally and perhaps maintain programmes that look out for disadvantage where that disadvantage exists.
LIEBMANN:
Okay. Prime Minister, thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
You're very welcome.
[ends]