BEDFORD:
Good morning Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Kathy, very good to be with you and your listeners.
BEDFORD:
Now you';ve been to Gippsland twice in two months, does that reflect your concern for the Coalition holding those marginal seats of Gippsland and McEwen?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I had a very brief visit to Gippsland last time, yesterday was a rather lengthier visit, what I did with Gippsland last time was really go through it and had a stop over in a little town and I felt I should come back and pay a more substantial visit. I visit all parts of the country, obviously I am travelling around a lot of regional areas of Australia and that naturally includes a lot of marginal seats but I don';t only spend my time in marginal seats, I spend my time in the CBD and visiting the country a lot. It';s a very big country and I';m very conscious that last year because of international circumstances I had to a lot more overseas travel than I have done at any time in the eight years that I';ve been Prime Minister and as a result some of the visits I might have paid to different parts of Australia on a regular basis last year I';m endeavouring to include and catch up on this year. It';s one of the important challenges of being Prime Minister of a geographically large country to get out of the big population centres on a regular basis and I do that, last week I was in Northern New South Wales and in the Hunter Valley, earlier in the year I spent four days in Western Australia, last month I had four days in South Australia, next week I expect to be going to Queensland, it';s a regular pattern, it is a big country and…
BEDFORD:
And we certainly appreciate you coming to Victoria but this just highlights when you get around such a big country to get around you go twice to Gippsland in two months, Steve Gibbons in Bendigo says you';re snubbing them.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I guess you can always, if you haven';t had a visit from a Prime Minister for a little while you can always make that claim but it';s not fair, I';ll be visiting Bendigo this year, I';ll be visiting Ballarat this year and I have visited both of those cities and I';m very familiar with them, I visited them in all the positions I';ve held in the time that I';ve been in Parliament and with great respect that the sort of throw away remark that I guess a Labor Member in a regional Victorian seat feels he ought to make about the Prime Minister, I';d be surprised if he didn';t say that but that doesn';t mean to say it';s a fair comment.
BEDFORD:
Well as you mentioned you didn';t make it to Ballarat recently, you didn';t make it for the opening of the ex-Prisoner of War memorial that you were invited to. Now those who have seen that memorial have been deeply moved, I';m wondering in this Anzac week, the local community who managed to raise the $2 million for that project, they are desperate for funding for ongoing maintenance and security issues. Could we have a commitment to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kathy, I can';t go to everything I';m invited to, you must understand that.
BEDFORD:
We do understand that and we';d love you to come and see that memorial.
PRIME MINISTER:
Could I please just finish? I can';t go to everything that I';m invited to, I will see that memorial, we get a lot of requests for resources and I go to a lot of ceremonies in connection with war memorials, once again I can';t go to them all, it just didn';t prove possible for me to go to that particular one. The funding request that you speak of, I';ll consider it, I';m not going to make a promise on the run, I don';t do that, I consider things in a measured way and I';ll do that but I';m not going to make any commitment and we do of course have responsibilities at a national level for the war memorial, we';ve just put a lot of resources into the memorial in London which I went to with the then Leader of the Opposition Mr Crean in November of last year, and it is, I guess there';s no end to the number of memorials that can be built…
BEDFORD:
But you do appreciate this is the only one that recognises all the 35,000 men and women…
PRIME MINISTER:
I do, I do appreciate that and as I say I will consider that.
BEDFORD:
Alright. While we';re talking funding issues, we understand that your Cabinet is meeting in Melbourne this Thursday and is likely to approve a $240 million sweetener for the sugar industry. But here in Victoria major fruit processors are saying they';ll lose out on the Free Trade deal. Is there any money for them to dare we say buy their votes too?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don';t accept your description of the sugar industry package. The sugar industry is integral to almost a score of small regional communities along the Queensland coast and I don';t see support for the sugar industry as being buying votes, I see it as a proper recognition that that particular industry through no fault of its own is suffering from corrupted world markets. As to the size of any support package – well, when we are in a position to announce the package we will. It is getting close, but I am not going to speculate at this stage about the amount of it. In relation to the…
BEDFORD:
Is that on the agenda of that Cabinet meeting?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don';t Kathy, look, I never talk about what is on the agenda at a Cabinet meeting. When Cabinet meets, it takes decisions and we announce those decisions if they';re appropriate to be announced. But I never say in advance what is on a Cabinet agenda. We';re meeting in Melbourne. We do from time to time meet in Melbourne. Apart from anything else, the Cabinet room in Canberra awash as a result of a burst pipe but it';s fortuitous that we are in fact meeting in Melbourne. But to come back to the fruit growers, I';m at a bit a loss to understand the concern being expressed about the loss from the Free Trade Agreement, can I also just put into context in relation to sugar, the sugar industry did not lose anything as a result of the Free Trade Agreement, they did not gain any additional access but there seems to be a view around that in some way as a result of the Free Trade Agreement the sugar industry is worse off, it';s not, it naturally disappointed, but we were not able as part of the negotiations to secure additional access for Australian sugar and taking that into account, but more particularly taking into account the accumulation of difficulties the industry has had, we believe some support for it is justified.
BEDFORD:
It is my understanding though that the fruit growers, that they do lose out and I know it';s a very complicated document – this free trade deal, but they';re telling me that they will lose out on this deal. So what about some protection for them in an industry that';s vital for Victoria?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don';t, with great respect, on that say so, accept that that is the case. If they believe that they';ve been affected, I';d be interested to hear the basis of that claim.
BEDFORD:
Okay, it is fruit picking time in Victoria and fruit growers are of course desperate to get that fruit in. There';s been a suggestion that they be allowed to bring in workers from overseas to fill the demand. I know this works in countries, like Mexico to the US and in Germany?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we';ve never had. If what';s been suggested, a guest worker approach…
BEDFORD:
Yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we';ve not and once you do it for one industry, you will do it for a whole lot of other industries because if we allowed for fruit picking, we can';t deny it for construction, we can';t deny it for this that or the other industry. And there will be enormous pressure and it will alter in a very fundamental way the immigration policy that this country has had for many years on a bipartisan basis, not allowing as an element of that the guest worker approach because you can imagine that once one industry is allowed to do it, the people who are brought in will understandably want to stay, other industries will want to do the same thing and before very long we will have lost control of a significant part of our immigration programme. Now, I understand concerns in the industry but for a long period of time we have put our face against a guest worker approach and that remains our policy and as I understand it, also remains the policy of the Opposition.
BEDFORD:
We are speaking to the Prime Minister John Howard on ABC Victoria and recently your Government announced an increase in the number of skilled migrants that you bring into regional communities. Now, that was received as good news. But we';ve got some highly skilled refugees here on TPVs, in one example in particular, there';s a doctor living in Tooleybuc, in the state';s north west. Now that town could use another doctor and he';s happy to stay and use those skills. Should we be taking people';s skills into account when we look at those who are already here?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Kathy, this is difficult. Obviously, you will get people who are TPV holders, that have particular skills. On the other hand, you do have the problem that if the approach in relation to temporary protection visas is changed to accommodate a particular case then there will be pressure to change it in other areas and people will argue – well, how is it fair that this person, just because he happens to be a doctor or have some other skill is allowed to be given permanent residence. Whereas because I';m not fortunate enough to have had that education or that opportunity…
BEDFORD:
But isn';t that the argument you';re using to allow people to come in in the first place?
PRIME MINISTER:
But that is, you';re dealing here with people who are actually in the country and they';ve come here with great respect and they';ve come here legally. There is a difference. There';s an entire difference between a policy which brings people in legally from a situation where all of them are outside the country and a situation where people arrive illegally. And what you';re saying is that if you arrive illegally provided you';ve got certain skills, then you get an advantage in staying here over somebody else. Now that is a difficult proposition for the Government to accept and it';s not a proposition the Government will accept as a general statement of policy. It doesn';t seem to me to be consistent with a good immigration policy and good immigration policy is that we should bring people here in an orthodox way. We should select them according to their skills and their contribution that they can make to the country, but once you say to people, well providing you can get here whether it';s legally or illegally, one way or another, you';ll be allowed to stay – you are inviting people to come here illegally and you are inviting people who will make money out of people coming to Australia illegally, to do so.
BEDFORD: But can a sympathetic Government take a case individually and look at the skills a person has and what they can bring to a regional community?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Kathy, of course you can do that. But you also have to bear in mind the impact that has on the administration over all of the policy. It';s my experience in Government is that everybody has a special case in that you quote the example of somebody with particular skills, there may be somebody else who';s come here illegally who';s formed a liaison with people in the community or an individual – they come to the Government and say, well I';ve got a special case on emotional grounds and there';s no end to it. You have to have a situation where we say to the world, this country will have a substantial migrant intake. This country will have a generous refugee programme, but this country will not allow people to come to Australia illegally and once you start breaking that policy down you will throw our immigration policy into chaos and you will undermine the integrity of a policy that has worked enormously to the benefit of Australia over a very long period of time.
BEDFORD:
Does that reflect a lack of humanity though that you can';t..?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, quite the reverse because the really pathetic cases are people who are waiting years and years in refugees camps and for every person that gets to a refugee friendly country such as Australia illegally and takes a place away that might otherwise be available to a person in a refugee camp. That person in the refugee camp suffers. You have to remember that there';s only a limited capacity on the part of Australia to take refugees and if illegal arrivals bump places away from potentially legal arrivals, it is those potentially legal arrivals in refugee camps who suffer.
BEDFORD:
Let';s move on to other issues, Mr Howard. There are many affecting regional communities and a major one is our hospitals. A lot of country hospitals in crisis and before you say, look that';s a state responsibility, we get a lot of the toing and froing, a major factor is the number of beds being used for aged care in the hospitals, what are you planning to address the aged care problem?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don';t say it';s just a state responsibility. I don';t say that. What I say is that the states administer the public hospitals. We, in fact, provide more money than the states for the running of public hospitals. Can I say that again, we provide more money than the states for the running of the public hospitals directly under the Medicare agreement. But the states have the administration. They run them. We don';t run them and therefore from day to day the administration can only be something that can directed to the states. So I don';t say…
BEDFORD:
But would you like to run them? Do you think we need to cut out that level of Government? Would that solve the problem?
PRIME MINISTER:
What, cut out the states?
BEDFORD:
Yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, hang on. I am not alleging that. Look, we are a federation and we have a system of Government and I think you have the responsibility of both myself at a Commonwealth level and of State Premiers at a state level is to make the existing system work properly.
BEDFORD:
But it gets so frustrating. Well, it does for me to get this - you know, we hand out the money but they run it. Well, why don';t we have one level running hospitals?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you can say that. But if you';re going to do that in one area, you have to do it in another area. I mean, we have to make the present system work. You asked me a question. I am just explaining what the facts are. Now, this argument that the reason there is a so called crisis in public hospitals is that people are filling hospital beds who should be in aged care accommodation. That is not the view of people at the coalface.
BEDFORD:
Well, that';s exactly the view that I';m hearing on this programme from people at the coalface.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, well, I hear a lot of views on this and the doctors who are responsible for emergency services in public hospitals, their representative body, their association is saying that the problem is the shortage of beds being made available by the hospitals and if you look at the actual occupancy rates and I had these examined a few months ago, in fact Mr Bracks raised this at the last Premiers'; conference before he walked out with the other Premiers and I in fact pointed out that the figures in relation to the state of Victoria did not support the argument that he was putting forward.
BEDFORD:
You, look, your information may relate to the big public city hospitals, in the small country hospitals I am hearing time and time again and the majority of beds are taken up with their elderly.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I can only give you the information which is provided to me on a statistically sound basis in relation to the situation…
BEDFORD:
Well do you acknowledge that there is an issue in aged care?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well of course there';s an issue and I have indicated that we will be making a major statement about aged care funding within the very near future.
BEDFORD:
Will you be supporting Warren Hogan';s call for a bond system?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I';m not going to comment on what Warren Hogan has called for. I think the best thing we can do is when we make the announcement, which we will be making very shortly, provide details of Warren Hogan';s recommendations and people can then judge for themselves whether the reports of what he';s recommended have been accurate or not.
BEDFORD:
Let';s talk about roads, this is a big one across regional Victoria, there';s a push to the Calder Freeway duplicated, we';re waiting for a commitment of federal funds for that, the Deer Park bypass, also the Geelong ring road. Which project would be a priority for the Federal Government?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have made a major commitment to roads, not only in Victoria but throughout the country, and can I point out that a couple of months ago John Anderson announced that the Government would renew the $1.2 billion Roads to Recovery programme which provides money directly as it bypasses the states, so you';ll be happy about this, completely eliminates the states and we pay the money directly to local government and they use that money to fund the construction of local roads and I certainly find as I go around rural Victoria that there is a great deal of support for that programme. There will be a white paper released early in June by John Anderson the Transport Minister, detailing the Auslink programme which is a new approach to the funding of transport infrastructure by the Commonwealth Government. And we';ll be indicating both in the Budget and also in that white paper the dimension of funding generally and also be giving some specific indication. So I think if people who are interested in the issues that you have raised, some of those roads you';ve mentioned are potential Commonwealth responsibilities, some of them are not. This is a difficult area I know for the public to appreciate who';s responsible for what, the Commonwealth Government is obviously responsible for national highways, the State Government is meant to be responsible for state highways because that';s what they are, and there are roads of national importance which are a shared funding responsibility between the Commonwealth and the states and then there are local roads where over the years the Commonwealth has taken more and more of the funding responsibility and with great respect to them the states have taken less.
BEDFORD:
So prior to going to the polls for a federal election will we know which of those major roads projects in Victoria you see as a priority?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes, absolutely.
BEDFORD:
Alright. When are we going to that federal election?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don';t know.
BEDFORD:
I';m sure you do.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no I don';t, I know in a general sense that we have to have an election sometime at the end of this year, I mean legally you can have an election as late as April of next year but it';s more normal to have an election at the end of this year when the three years is up. Just exactly when I don';t know, I haven';t made up my mind.
BEDFORD:
The states could be thinking it might be sooner rather than later, here in Victoria the Victorian Labor Government is running some ads pointing out the imbalance in the share of GST…
PRIME MINISTER:
Complete waste of taxpayers'; money.
BEDFORD:
Well we do get a lesser share than Queensland gets and New South Wales are unhappy about this, so how can you keep Victorian voters happy?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well hang on, to start with the Federal Government does not allocate the money, it';s allocated by an independent body out of the GST pool. Second observation I';d make that some services in a state like Queensland because of Queensland';s size are obviously more expensive to provide than they are in a state the size of Victoria or even a state the size of New South Wales. Queensland is a more decentralised state than Victoria and if we are Australians first, which I am, and I hope all of your listeners are, and I know they are, than you have to take these things into account. But whenever the funding allocations go in favour of one of the more popular states as they did in favour of New South Wales in 1999 the Premiers of those states say what a wonderful decision it is and when there';s a change in the allocation they say it';s terrible. But the overall point to be made is Victoria, despite anything Mr Bracks is saying, is better off as a result of the GST funding arrangements. He would like to be even better off. We all would.
BEDFORD:
Well of course Victorians would. We';d like a bigger share of the pie.
PRIME MINISTER:
I mean everybody would like… let me just say we are Australians. I mean I operate… I';m not the Prime Minister of Victoria or New South Wales or Queensland. I';m the Prime Minister of Australia, and it';s my responsibility to see that we have a system that is fair to all parts of the country. And we';ve had since 1933, we';ve had a body called the Commonwealth Grants Commission, and that is an independent body, nominations to it are made by the states, and it decides from time to time how the allocation should be made. That decision is not made by me, it';s not made by Peter Costello. But in overall terms, all of the states are better off - all of them, including New South Wales and Victoria. It';s just that New South Wales and Victoria say they';d like to be even better off. Now if they can persuade Mr Beattie and Dr Gallop to give them some of Queensland and Western Australia';s share, then I';m perfectly happy to accommodate them. It';s a matter for them. We provide the cake. They decide how the cake is cut up. And the cake is bigger, the cake is bigger than ever before. And the body wielding the knife is the Commonwealth Grants Commission, which has wielded the knife since 1933.
BEDFORD:
Mr Howard, I know we have to let you go to get onto the road to Colac shortly. We are a nation, as you say, we are all Australians. There are a couple of issues I wanted to touch on on the broader scale. We';re hearing today that Australians are being specifically targeted in Iraq. A spokesman for the Shiite cleric Sheik Moqtada al-Sadr has said that Australia should pull its troops out now so they can leave the country safely. Apparently they';ve ordered a halt to any attacks on Spanish troops because they';re pulling out of Iraq. Should we consider this?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, we shouldn';t, and I don';t believe many Australians would expect their Government and their armed forces to succumb to that kind of threat. Of course Australians are at risk. Many people are at risk. People whose countries did not participate in the military operation against Iraq have been targeted. Citizens of those countries have been killed in terrorist attacks. Of course the insurgents and the terrorists in Iraq will opportunistically associate anything they might do with the withdrawal or the presence of troops from different countries, but this country, Australia, is not going to give in to that kind of threat, just as the United States and Britain and Japan refuse to give in to those threats. It';s not just the United States and Britain and Australia. Japan did not give in to those threats, and the Japanese Prime Minister has reaffirmed the determination of his Government to maintain a Japanese military presence in Iraq, and our forces will stay there until their job is done.
BEDFORD:
Just on criticisms of our intelligence services. A top military intelligence officer at the centre of a call for a royal commission, Lieutenant Colonel Lance Collins. He says he';s dismayed at the way the Government has handled his complaints of bias and intimidation and he says he';s still waiting for a reply to his letter to you. Do you have a reply to him?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I will be replying to him. I only got the letter very recently and I want to give it a proper reply. I';m not going to give a sort of a daily account of how the preparations of his reply is going. I';ll be giving him a very comprehensive reply and it will be a reply that treats his complaint seriously. But I do not intend to have a royal commission. We';ve already had a parliamentary investigation. That parliamentary investigation, which included members of the Labor Party and the Australian Democrats, recommended that there be a further investigation conducted by an ex-intelligence person. We have done precisely that. That';s the Philip Flood inquiry. We are doing exactly what was recommended by an all party committee. In the face of that, I do not intend to have a royal commission. You always get differences of opinion within intelligence services, and that is what has occurred on this occasion. As to the way in which he was treated by his superior officers, that really is a matter for the military justice system. What should be understood Kathy is that in the Australian Defence Force there is a separate internal system of military justice which the military run, and they jealously guard their independence in running that, and therefore that is really a complaint by him about the operation of the military system and that complaint has to be dealt with inside that military justice system. It';s not really something that is appropriate for the Government to directly interfere in if we';re going to maintain an independent system of military justice. But I';ll consider all of the things that he has raised and I will give him a very comprehensive and courteous response. I think we have to accept that you can have legitimate differences of opinion about the significance of particular pieces of intelligence, without there being anything systemically wrong with the intelligence agencies. There is nothing odd about this. It has happened before, and it will happen in the future.
BEDFORD:
Prime Minister, we heard on AM on ABC Radio this morning that a report from the Rand Corporation in the United States into western intelligence agencies has found that jealousy between ASIO and the Federal Police is getting in the way of their work. Are you at all worried about a turf war between our top counterterrorism agencies? Should we be concerned?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don';t accept the findings the Rand Corporation, with great respect. I don';t think an American think tank would know nearly as much about the operation of our agencies as people here in Australia do.
BEDFORD:
Well apparently they interviewed current and former…
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I realise that but the report, as the Attorney General has pointed out, was based on flawed assumptions. And when a report is based on flawed assumptions, it doesn';t have a lot of veracity in my experience. I will say this, having closely observed the operation of ASIO and the Australian Federal Police over the last two years, which has covered the aftermath of the 11th of September, the Bali tragedy and all the other things that we have been involved in. It';s been the most intense period I can recall for our intelligence agencies and our Federal Police. Those two agencies in particular, ASIO and the AFP, have cooperated very closely. I';ve observed, I see it on a very regular basis, for a period of time I saw it on a daily basis, so therefore…
BEDFORD:
So you have no concerns?
PRIME MINISTER:
I certainly reject completely the conclusion of the Rand Corporation about the AFP and ASIO. I think it';s quite misplaced and it';s based on a number of false assumptions, and whilst I don';t pretend for a moment any of our agencies are perfect, any more than I pretend the Government is perfect, I think the suggestion that these agencies are engaged in a turf war is wrong. And can I just make a general plea on behalf of all of these agencies - there has been no time in Australia';s history where there has been more pressure on our intelligence agencies. It';s very easy to find fault. It';s very easy to finger point. It';s very easy to say there you go, you didn';t pick that, you didn';t predict something else. I think we have to understand that if we';re to win this war against terror, we need good agencies. They need our support. They don';t need our uncritical support. Every agency has got to be accountable, but I think ours are and I think they do a very good job
BEDFORD:
Mr Howard, we';d better let you get on the road. Going to Colac today.
PRIME MINISTER:
I am indeed.
BEDFORD:
They';ll be pleased to welcome you there. It';s been a pleasure to have you on the regional morning programme. I hope that next time we can make the time to let those people living in regional communities in Victoria and southern New South Wales, let them put their calls to you. We';d love a commitment from you that we can do that in the future.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I';m always happy to talk to people on radio.
BEDFORD:
Well it';s been lovely talking to you today. Thank you very much.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]