MURRAY:
Good morning Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Paul, great to be back.
MURRAY:
Nice to have you here. Prime Minister, it appears from media reports, certainly in the Sydney Morning Herald today, but around the nation, that Mark Latham is going to deliver you the Senate support you need for the Free Trade deal with America. Will he get a brownie point for that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I hope for the sake of Australia that the Labor Party does support this agreement, they should have supported it five months ago and if the Labor Party comes out in full support I will thank them and I will say they've done the right thing by Australia. I've been arguing that Mr Latham should have been calling it for Australia for the last five months. The conditions of the Free Trade Agreement have not changed, we haven't altered the conditions, they were negotiated five months ago and he should have shown leadership then and said this is good for Australia and I'm going to back it, no matter what Doug Cameron or some people in the entertainment industry might think, I'm going to back it and he should have taken the line that was taken by Beazley and others in the Labor Party a long time ago. Now he hasn't. I hope in the end he does stop dithering and comes out in favour of the Agreement because it's in Australia's interests and he's got to call it for Australia, not for the Labor Party, he doesn't have to worry in my view, he shouldn't be worrying about the unity of the Labor Party, he should be worried about the interests of Australia.
MURRAY:
I mean is it in Australia's best interests, have you done a good enough job selling that because there appears to be considerable unrest about the affect it's going to have on our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and the cost of pharmaceuticals, what it's going to do to local content in drama on Australian television, these appear to be legitimate concerns.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they are issues that are raised, but I have addressed them, but there are some people who will never accept what I say. In relation to local content it's part of the Agreement that the existing local content rules are preserved. It's also part of the Agreement that there is a reservation for local content in relation to new media forms. Now these things were very carefully negotiated in February of this year and I was personally involved in the last minute negotiations which involved discussions with people in the media industry as well as our negotiators in Washington. In relation to Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, we have said all along that this review mechanism adds to transparency but it doesn't shift decision making authority out of the hands of the Government into the reviewer, it merely allows people who are aggrieved with the decision of the Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee and the Government to ask for a review, the review takes place, the result of the review is made public, if the Government doesn't want to change its position it doesn't have to. So it's a peer review, it's not an appeal process and it's something that merely adds to the transparency of the operation of the scheme. Now it is true that the Americans wanted more, it was the only specific issue that George Bush raised with me when he came to Australia in October, they wanted more and right at the end of the discussions because we wouldn't agree to more, at one stage I thought the discussions might break down altogether, but in the end they accepted that we weren't going to shift, we agreed to this transparency measure but this will not undermine the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, now that's been clear from day one and the Labor Party could have fixed all of this five months ago but instead they chose to play a political game on it, we don't really need a Senate inquiry, there's already been a parliamentary committee inquiry by a body called the Treaties Committee which was set up by this Government to give parliamentary scrutiny on international agreements entered into by the executive and that Treaties Committee reported very favourably on this agreement some time ago. So we're really engaged in a double up exercise which was a political fix for the Labor Party over the last five months. But at the end of the day what matters to me is that we get this Agreement because it's in Australia's interests and if the Labor Party ends up supporting it, well I will welcome that, of course I will, but I simply say where were you five months ago Mr Latham?
MURRAY:
Well probably working out his position.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I mean...
MURRAY:
Quite substantial things to jump over like the union movement.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but in the end if you are a leader of a political party you've just got to take, and you see something is in the national interest you just go for it, you don't wait around to shift people, I mean I've taken a lot of decisions that have probably been against the wishes of some people in my party over the last eight and a half years. But you really do on important issues, you've got to be willing to lead from the front and not follow from behind.
MURRAY:
Prime Minister, I can remember a time in politics when record trade deficits were a death knell, certainly for Labor governments. Yesterday's figures that came out meant we ran up our worst annual trade deficit for 18 years. Is this a sign of a government in control of the economy?
PRIME MINISTER:
No it's a sign of the fact that we are still suffering the after effects of a very severe drought and it will take a while before the recovery in our exports is sufficient to go closer to matching our imports, we are still importing a lot because our economy is growing very strongly but because of the drought and because of the severe conditions in some parts of the world our export performance has been weaker and there have been some currency changes which come and go over a period of time, they do ebb and flow, which have had some impact on the pattern of imports and exports.
MURRAY:
But our importing is a bigger problem than our exporting isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, depends how you view imports, if imports slow that gives you temporary help in trade balance terms, but it indicates that you have a slowing economy because a sign of a strong economy is the desire of consumers to buy and when retailers have strong consumer demand they import a lot more and the fact that we have a strong import performance is not of itself a bad thing, what has been the weak thing in recent times has been the export performance because in part due to the drought and some fluctuations in exchange rates have had an impact as well. But those exports are recovering, I think for the fourth month in a row there was a rise in exports.
MURRAY:
Yesterday's figures can only put pressure on interest rates surely?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I wouldn't have thought they'd put pressure on interest rates. The things that have a greater bearing on interest rates are inflation changes and wage movements. And on both of those fronts things are very benign.
MURRAY:
Just before we go to the callers, you would have noticed on the front page of the West Australian today the Australian Nationalist Movement has made a direct threat against you. Now I know in the array of threats, they come a fair way down the line from al-Qaeda. But the ANM is saying that your support for multiculturalism has wrecked the Australian way of life? What's your response to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it's ridiculous, I support a tolerant country. I support this country treating everybody equally and decently, irrespective of their racial background, it's fundamental of the kind of society we have now that if somebody comes to this nation and makes it their home and gives their first loyalty to Australia then they're entitled to be treated the same of your or I even though they may not have been born here and even though their mother tongue may not be English. I think we have to treat people decently. But I'm also somebody, as you know, who's a very strong supporter of what you might call the traditional symbols of Australia. I'm not a person who thinks that we should be ashamed of our past and I don't want to see the Australian identity and the Australian character as we understand it to disappear.
MURRAY:
Well, the ANM are on the (inaudible) again obviously in Western Australia... accuses you of treason, says you're guilty of treason.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I mean, I don't really want to get into an argument with him, I don't think he's a significant public figure.
MURRAY:
Let's move on, we'll agree on that. 92211 223 if you want to talk to the Prime Minister today. Brett in South Lake. Good morning Brett.
CALLER:
Yes, good morning Mr Prime Minister. I just wanted to congratulate you on your announcement on changes to the family law system. I've followed this very closely for a number of years through my work with men's confraternity and now with the Australian branch of the UK protest group called Fathers 4 Justice. I wanted to put this question to you, is that although your changes are encouraging, they're still open to abuse and specifically I'm interested in whether there's going to be wording in the Family Law Act which specifically gives a child the right to substantially equal time with both parents. I'm also concerned about the fact that you say that entrenched conflict can then nullify the other parent's rights specifically when a parent need only continue to disagree and refuse to co-operate to be categorised as entrenched conflict.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Sir, I don't recall saying that entrenched conflict should nullify the other parent's rights. What I've said is that the new system will act as a shock absorber in the immediate aftermath of a break up and by people being forced, as they will be under the new system, to seriously participate in mediation and dispute resolution and not just go through a token form of mediation and attempt of reconciliation that they'll have to seriously confront the need to do it. I think that will significantly reduce the number of cases that end up going to court and end up involving costly legal battles and that will be good for everybody because going to court is expensive and it's acrimonious and it does entrench bitterness. As far as fathers are concerned, what we want to do and we haven't settled on the exact wording of it and this is something that will be part of the consultation process, we want to make sure that the Family Law Act entrenches the right of both parents to be not only involved in decisions about the upbringing of their children but also entrenches the right of access of both parents. Now we also intend to amend the act to entrench the principle of shared parenting responsibilities and that parents, no matter who has physical custody most of the time or majority of the time, that parents are jointly involved in decisions involving their children and their children's future. It's difficult in practice to have a situation where you have substantially equal custodial time because, and to put that precisely in the law because there can be circumstances where one parent lives in Perth and one lives in Sydney and the child is five years of age, well I mean that is just not possible. The child obviously has to spend most of his or her time with one of the parents. The important thing is that the non custodial parent has got to be involved in important decisions, it's got to have a lot of access and has got to feel that the system is not shutting normally, but not in all cases, him out of that child's life.
MURRAY:
This is very much the problem that was put yesterday by many of the men who called into the programme - they like your intentions, they support your intentions but they're worried about how to work in practice...
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I do understand that.
MURRAY:
They say in mediation, they say the very counsellors they reckon are the people who show the bias against men and that will just continue they're worried.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't believe that. That may have been the case in the past. We are proposing a level of counselling and mediation that has never before been offered in Australia. What we're talking about here is the opening and (inaudible) government funded bodies across the country of 65 family relationship centres. And that means you'll be bringing a large number of additional people into it, we'll be building on the resources of existing counselling services, many of which with fairly meagre resources do an extremely good job. Look, I do understand the attitude of some men, I do understand that and I think they have reason to feel that the current system has failed them. But I'm quite hopeful that this change when it's up and running will go a long way towards meeting their concerns. We won't abolish acrimony, we won't stop some people behaving in such a despicable fashion. But I think we will greatly reduce the number of cases where people can do that because the pressure of the new system and the requirement that you can't go to court until you've seriously attempted mediation, that will be a very powerful incentive.
MURRAY:
Prime Minister, we've got Anthony from Roleystone on the line. G'day Anthony.
CALLER:
Yeah, good morning. Good morning Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning.
CALLER:
I was just listening to your comments in regards to the balance of trade problems that the country's facing at the moment. This Free Trade Agreement concerns me in the fact that by allowing a back door entrance for American multinational companies to come in and virtually buy out Australian companies, strip all their assets and eventually, I suppose, put Australian workers on the scrap heap and then we would then be in turn be forced to purchase more goods from overseas. Is there protection in place to stop that from happening or are we just going to allow this as an open slather effect of this Free Trade Agreement?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, my starting point Anthony is that foreign investment has generated jobs in Australia.
CALLER:
Well...
PRIME MINISTER:
We wouldn't have a motor manufacturing industry if it hadn't been for foreign investment way back in the late 1940s.
CALLER:
Yeah, but we're talking about if you've got unscrupulous American companies just want to come in...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, not all American companies are unscrupulous, but not... you know, I'm not suggesting they're all totally ethical either. But you can have unscrupulous behaviour from Australian companies on occasion. I mean, we have to look at the track record of American investment in this country and it's been very beneficial, as indeed has Japanese and British and Chinese. We need foreign investment. We cannot, Anthony, generate enough capital of our own to build the sort of economy we want in the future, we just don't have enough money in this country, we're only 20 million people and we have a very high standard of living. We have a choice - we either take foreign investment and maintain a high standard of living or we shut foreign investment out or severely restrict it but settle for a lower standard of living.
CALLER:
Rosco in Cardup good morning.
CALLER:
Yeah, good morning. I'm just going on from one of the promises that you've made so far in this election campaign, I'm glad (inaudible)
MURRAY:
Rosco your mobile's dropped out on you. Sorry Pal. Bill in Scarborough he's a regular caller. Bill in Scarborough good morning.
CALLER:
Hi, good morning. Good morning gentlemen. This election coming up, all state elections seem to be health, law and order. Some time ago on 6PR it was mooted that the increase for prescription drugs could become by a point percentage increase in the Medicare levy, okay. Now why is that we can't raise the Medicare levy, make the people that are earning the money be able to afford because of the percentage of their income, put that back into the health system so that the health system can survive. Every election state-wide seems to be on law and order and health. And I can't understand why the Federal Government cannot raise the Medicare levy to say two per cent or even 2.5 per cent and put our health system back because our Prime Minister is getting at the age where health is catching up with us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think we do have a challenge to maintain our health services as the population ages. But the reason why we proposed a modest increase in the contribution under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme was to ensure that there was a modest price signal sent to people who use that scheme. And I don't think you can maintain the sustainability of that scheme by taking ever increasing amounts out of say general taxation to fund it. And after all increase in the Medicare levy is really an increase in taxation, it's just taxation under another name and if you're suggesting that we fund the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme into the future by further increases in taxation there's no incentive of any kind for efficient use. I mean, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme is a wonderful scheme but it's also one that involves a very heavy government subsidy and it's very expensive to run and I don't think it's unreasonable to have some modest price signals in the scheme so that people are conscious as they use it of just what greater subsidy there is in and if you forsake that approach and say we'll load it on to general taxation, the price signal will disappear and I think the thing will grow ever more expensive.
MURRAY:
Just on health, one of your excellent backbenchers Kay Hull has come out in support of Naltrexone implants for treating drug users. She was over here two weeks ago with her parliamentary committee looking at Dr George O'Neil's operation here. George O'Neil says before the last election your Government pledged to support him to the tune of $1 million. He said on this programme last week the money didn't eventuate. Will you reconsider given Ms Hull's unqualified support for him?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'll check this thing further. My recollection is that the NHMRC, that's the federal body on health research...
MURRAY:
Put money into a trial...
PRIME MINISTER:
And we got the results of that trial earlier this year and those results are still being evaluated and that's my understanding. I don't recall, unless he's talking about the trial when he mentions the $1 million, but I'll get some further information and I'll come back to your programme on that because I am aware of this and I know that there are a lot of people who support Naltrexone.
MURRAY:
Are you under time pressure, do we have...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, you've got some more.
MURRAY:
Okay, a caller for you. Carlo in Inglewood. G'day Carlo.
CALLER:
Good morning Prime Minister. Good morning Paul. Prime Minister, I wanted to ask you what you're going to be doing about university placements and university fees in the future. Both me and my wife are minimum wage earners, I've got a 13 year old son that I'm hoping to be able to put through university so he doesn't have to work in manual labour like I do myself, but I've noticed over the past few years placements have reduced like there's more students per classroom and not to mention fees have just been continually rising and I want to know what hope is there for my son to be going to university in another five years?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, depending obviously on his results at school, and that's always been the case, it's been the case for a very long period of time, his prospects of getting a HECS funded place at a university are better now than they've been for a few years because we're increasing the number of HECS places. There's a lot of propaganda from the other side about $100,000 degrees but they're talking about the people who don't get HECS funded places and who, like foreign students, pay for going to university. But the number of HECS funded places are actually going to be increased and sure the universities have been given the authority to increase the HECS charge by up to 25 per cent but even were that to happen according to our calculations the average cost to the student of a degree under our most recent changes will only be about 28 per cent of the real cost of providing the training at the university for that degree and you don't have to start paying back your HECS liability until you earn $35,000 a year. And I think the HECS system, which incidentally was originally introduced by the Labor Party in government with our support, with our support, I think it's a very fair system. I think the idea of going back to completely free university education is not sustainable and I don't think it's fair on people who don't go to university and bear in mind that 70 per cent of young men and women who leave school now don't go to university, many of them go to TAFE colleges where seemingly state governments can increase fees by 200 to 300 per cent in some states and apparently that attracts very little comment or criticism. But so sir, I think you son's prospects, providing his marks are good, are if anything brighter now than they were a few years ago.
MURRAY:
Prime Minister, our naval ship, the Adelaide, leaves the West Australian port today for the Gulf to serve there, I'm somewhat surprised you're not going to be there...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I only learnt of its departure, there may have been some changes, I'm not sure, but I only learnt of its projected departure a few days ago and I looked at my schedule to see if I could go but because of other commitments I'd made weeks ago that just not proved possible, Rear Admiral Gates, the maritime commander will go be going and as you know I do endeavour to get as often as I can and I'll be going to Townsville next Monday to welcome back about 400 of our troops from the Solomons, but it just hasn't proved possible on this occasion.
MURRAY:
Chris in Kensington's on the line for you Prime Minister, g'day Chris.
CALLER:
Morning.
MURRAY:
Yes Chris.
CALLER:
Just wanted to ask, in the lead up to invading Iraq you claimed that Iraq possessed chemical and biological WMDs that represented a serious and immediate threat to Australia, and yet at the same time assessments from our intelligence agencies cast considerable doubt on our assertion. So in other words as Hans Blix puts it you put exclamation marks where there had been question marks. Surely Australians deserve the whole truth and nothing put the truth from their PM, particular in matters in that relate to war.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's a selective gloss on the debate that's been going on for a long time. The Flood Report made it very clear that although the evidence was ambiguous and limited in many respects, that the conclusion reached by our intelligence agencies was the most probable, the more probable conclusion on the basis of the material in front of them. We were given advice by ONA that there was a strong circumstantial case that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. Intelligence is never absolute, intelligence never says there is no doubt that the following is the case, it is always a little bit fragmented and ambiguous and limited, it always is. If you wait until you have proof beyond a reasonable doubt it can be too late.
MURRAY:
Well knowing that Prime Minister, don't you have to be more careful with it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we were very careful and indeed Flood says that the assessments made by our intelligence agencies were very cautious, very, very cautious. And he also found that they weren't influenced in any way by me or by any of my colleagues. And all of this suggestion that we took the country to war based on a lie is itself a lie...
MURRAY:
... went to war on the basis of ambiguity is just about as bad isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the way, well that was his finding having himself...
MURRAY:
... always like that...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what I'm saying to you is it is never absolute, there is always some, it is always a bit like that and all of the significant military decisions in the past have been based on limited intelligence.
MURRAY:
But isn't it the reality that we went to war because you wanted to?
PRIME MINISTER:
No the reality is that we went to that conflict for the reasons I outlined at the time which included our belief that Iraq did have WMD, the non-compliance by Iraq with successive Security Council resolutions, and as I acknowledged frequently at the time the significance to us of the American alliance.
MURRAY:
Let's take another call here from Eric in Perth, g'day Eric.
CALLER:
G'day. Yeah Mr Prime Minister, I'm wondering if there's any intention by your government to introduce photographic identification being compulsory when travelling interstate on aircraft. Why I say that I'm aware that organised crime do it on a fairly regular basis and no doubt after 9/11 I presume terrorists will be doing it likewise.
PRIME MINISTER:
We don't have such an intention at present, no. I guess in this ongoing saga you never rule anything out, but we certainly haven't look at that in recent times. I think would be seen by people as a very serious step and a very serious infringement of their civil liberties, whilst on occasions some curtailment of generic civil liberties is justifiable, I don't think we've reached that situation in Australia. But it's one of those things that I can't say you'd rule out for all time, but we certainly haven't considered it and I certainly don't see us doing so in the near future.
MURRAY:
Thanks Eric. In our remaining minute Prime Minister, it appears your strategy is to go back into the parliament, I think next week, and keep the pressure on Mr Latham right up til the end of October. Is that a fair reading?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I'm not going to get into dates, but we'll certainly be sitting the parliament next week. I want that Free Trade Agreement, and there's no reason now why the Labor Party can't make a decision on it next week when their caucus meets. I mean why do we have...
MURRAY:
... Peter Cook...
PRIME MINISTER:
Why do we have to wait for yet another two weeks? I mean this is becoming a farce and it's damaging the national interest. I mean I simply say to Mr Latham again he should call it for Australia, make a decision, show a bit of leadership, tell his caucus that it's in Australia's interests that this Agreement be signed and let's get on with it.
MURRAY:
Alright, Prime Minister, it's great to talk to you again, thanks very much for that. You're not going to see the Wallabies I note tomorrow night.
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I am mortified about this but I have to go back to Sydney because I have an announcement I need to make in Sydney on Sunday morning and unless I go back ...
MURRAY:
Not to do with an election date.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I've got an important announcement to make, but it's announcement I'm making in Sydney and I don't think any Vice Regal representatives are going to be present.
MURRAY:
Very good to talk to you, thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]