MCGRATH:
Prime Minister, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning.
MCGRATH:
You heard there General Karpinksi's views, she talked about that prisoners being treated like dogs by Major General Geoffrey Miller. Now how do you respond when you hear that sort of thing?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's a matter for the American authorities, of course if that happened it would be appalling but you're dealing here with Americans talking about Americans, I'm not responsible for the Americans, we didn't have any prisoners and the only relevance to Australia of General Karpinksi's latest comments is that she actually praised, according to The Australian this morning, she praised Major O'Kane for being very active in relation to the Geneva conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. So if that version of events is correct that speaks favourably of the role of Major O'Kane. But look can we just again get back to basics, we did not have charge of prisoners, there is no allegation of any Australian involvement, and really I'm not going to give a running commentary except to express as I repeatedly have my total repudiation and abhorrence towards any torture or abuse of prisoners of war. Now I don't approve of it, I didn't approve of it, I condemn it but I continue to make the point that Australians were not involved and underlying so much of the commentary on this is an apparent attempt to link however insubstantially Australians with these acts of abuse and I emphatically reject that and I have to speak up on behalf of the men and women of our defence forces in doing so.
MCGRATH:
Well it's understood from what you've said that Australians are not involved. But do you accept and Australians accept that the Geneva Convention should always be followed for prisoners of war?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think Australians don't get into the technicalities, they don't approve of prisoners of war being tortured, full stop.
MCGRATH:
But where an Australian military officer or an Australian...
PRIME MINISTER:
I think they're really flogging, look you're really just trying to flog, with great respect, you're just trying to flog a dead horse. I know that people are desperate to try by implication to link some of our people and the Government but the truth is we did not know, I certainly was not conscious of the allegations that we all are appalled by of prisoner abuse until April, now let me finish because it's very important that this be understood, I was not, to my understanding, nor were my ministers, Robert Hill will be making a statement about the knowledge of people involved in the whole show but I make the point again, we did not have custody of any prisoners, none whatsoever, there are no allegations that Australians participated in acts of abuse, there are no allegations that Australians condone them and the latest piece of evidence we have from General Karpinksi is that the Australians she had contact with, namely Major O'Kane, was particularly active in relation to defending the Geneva Convention...
MCGRATH:
Well on that point, on that point she paints a difference between the Australian position and the American position in fact that he was doing more to defend the Geneva Convention than the Americans so isn't there perhaps a cultural difference or a behavioural difference...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I've never suggested that Australians and Americans are exactly the same, when we were participating in the campaign stage of the war we had, our Air Force had different targeting policies than the Americans and we took the view that certain targets should not be bombed and there were often disagreements, occasionally, not often, disagreements between us and the Americans on that. But it just underlines the point that even though we were part of a coalition operation Australians fought under a separate national command and we adhered to our own rules. But look, the Americans to their great credit are doing something about this, they are investigating it and there's nothing more at this stage that I can add, or frankly I intend to add.
MCGRATH:
But on that Karpinksi report that you've quoted yourself, she says that Australia should be able to question Major O'Kane, that his thoughts would be interesting to the Australian public.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the question of what happens in relation to Major O'Kane will be something that is determined by his commanding officer, his commanding officer is not General Karpinksi, his commanding officer is General Cosgrove.
MCGRATH:
Well why can't we hear from him?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is not normal in Senate inquiries for somebody in that position to be interviewed.
MCGRATH:
What about the claim by General Karpinksi there that General Richard Sanchez, as high up as that, was sanctioning...
PRIME MINISTER:
Once again I'm not answerable for General Sanchez, you can question President Bush or Donald Rumsfeld about that but I'm not answerable for General Sanchez. But again can I say in defence of the Americans that they are transparent and open and they are doing something about it and until those processes have been completed I think people should suspend judgement and they shouldn't assume that there has been any authorisation from on high for these very bad practices.
MCGRATH:
Prime Minister, moving onto the energy statement yesterday, a big win for coal, petrol, farmers and miners.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well a big win for future low emission technologies. The choice for Australia's future as far as energy is concerned is not between renewable energy and traditional energy sources such as coal, but the choice is between low and high emissions. You can have both renewable energy and traditional energy sources but so far as our environment is concerned we have to reduce emissions. Now our thesis is, and it's a matter of commonsense, is that we're going to rely on coal and gas and oil, predominately for the foreseeable future. So if you care about the environment you've got to do something to reduce the emissions coming from the use of those energy sources and that is the central element of our energy statement.
MCGRATH:
And geosequestration is going to be a key area in the future...
PRIME MINISTER:
One of the areas, only one of the areas, I mean there, hot-dry rocks drilling is one, the tapping of solar power is another, so it's not only geosequestration, it's other sources and nobody should think that renewables will be denied access to this technology fund.
MCGRATH:
I'll get to renewables in a minute, but looking at the cost of geosequestration, Australia says the cost would approximately be $10 to $50 per tonne. The International Energy Agency says closer to $100 and the UK Department of Industry reported up to $245.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think what this indicates, as with so many of these things, that when you're dealing with a new and emerging technology you get a lot of variation both as to cost estimates and to usability and it just underlines the need to encourage people to research further and to investigate further and that is precisely what this technology fund will do because over time the cost of doing things obviously as new technology is found will fall and fall very dramatically, we only have to see the way in which the cost of IT and so forth have fallen so dramatically over the last 10 or 20 years.
MCGRATH:
However it'll be 10 to 12 years at least before this is economically viable and it won't even...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the question of how long it will be is also a matter of debate, I'm not suggesting it's going to be available in the next three or five years but I am suggesting that if we make a start now in the not too distant future it could become viable and you have to set it against the fact that even the most enthusiastic proponents of renewables acknowledge that there's an enormous cost disadvantage in relation to renewables now and the only way you can more rapidly bring renewables into greater use is to impose a very heavy cost burden on industry which would damage our economy overall and what we have sought to do with this statement is to recognise the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to fast-track technologies in relation to coal and gas and oil and at the same time provide additional financial incentives in relation to renewables so that we are catering for both opportunities and not in effect putting aside the enormous natural advantage we have in coal and gas.
MCGRATH:
The renewable energy sector itself though is not impressed, the Australian Council for Sustainable Energy says what you've given is huge tax breaks, huger taxpayer-funded breaks to the coal industry.
PRIME MINISTER:
We have given huge taxpayer-funded breaks to research into ways of reducing greenhouse emissions. And of course they would be critical of what we've done because it wasn't what they asked for.
MCGRATH:
Well they wanted an increase in the mandatory renewable energy targets.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well in other words they wanted us to compel people to use their product more at cost to industry. Now of course they would be disappointed with what we have because we didn't go that far, but we have maintained the existing MRET scheme and we have also put something in the order of $200 million or more in different ways into incentives and additional research money that will encourage the greater use of solar power and wind power and I would make the point again that this $1.5 billion, or $500 million from the Government, the research fund, the one into technology, is available to the renewable sector, that is not exclusively for the coal industry or the gas industry, it is equally available and it will be made available depending on what proposals come forth to the renewable sector.
MCGRATH:
There's also a $1.5 billion tax break for fuel excise, for heavy trucks and for off-road vehicles, but why give those areas that tax breaks? It's a lot of money.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's over a period of time, it's over a period of years, and it also rationalises an extraordinarily complicated system, and if you're a farmer you have some activities off-road which are excise-free and have others that are not excise-free and what we are doing now is to having a general rule that any activity which is off-road is free where you get the full diesel credit and it rationalises what is already a very irrational system and it also recognises something that many people in the cities don't fully understand and that is that the cost of transport in rural and regional areas because of the enormous distances to be travelled and the use of so many fuels on farms and so forth is very high, much higher than what it is in urban areas. And a simple thing, in some of the remote areas of Australia you have power generators which are fuelled by diesel, now why shouldn't there be some recognition of the cost of that?
MCGRATH:
... heavy trucks...
PRIME MINISTER
Well the existing boundaries between city and non-metropolitan areas are arbitrary, they are confusing and they were an element of the settlement in relation to the GST and these changes that I announced yesterday will come into operation in, I think, July of 2006 and they really deal in a very sensible way with the removal of a barrier, or a boundary line I'm sorry, that was very artificial.
MCGRATH:
It'll encourage more trucks on the road will it not?
PRIME MINISTER
Well not necessarily because it just recognises that that boundary line was very artificial.
MCGRATH:
It's been an energy and environment statement that's failed to impress environmentalists Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER
Well it failed to impress a certain spokesman for the environmental movement, but most of those spokesmen are fairly regular in their criticism of the government. I look broader for responses on the environment than bodies such as the Australian Conservation Foundation, I mean after all their president has just signed up with the Labor Party and I think it's a fair while since the ACF has said anything very complimentary about the Government. I think the broader Australian community will recognise that it's a commonsense balanced statement, they'll know that for the foreseeable future this country will have to rely on gas and coal and the sensible environmental thing to do is to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions coming from the fuels that we will use for a very long time into the future for our major energy needs and I think the commonsense of that will commend itself to the Australian public.
MCGRATH:
Prime Minister, thank you for joining AM this morning.
PRIME MINISTER
Thank you.
[ends]