THOMPSON:
The Prime Minister joins us in our Parliament House studio. Prime Minister, good morning to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Peter.
THOMPSON:
Well it's certainly been a big year in politics and a triumphant year for you in terms of your long history. Could I just go back to the election campaign for a moment, was there a moment you thought you'd won this? Other than on the night?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think so Peter, I genuinely was surprised at the extent of our victory, I guess if I'd been put against a wall at half past four in the afternoon and told my life depended on getting the prediction right I would have said we'd have won, probably with the loss of two or three or four seats. I didn't imagine that we were going to win control of the Senate, I thought we could get, with a victorious result in the lower House, I thought we could get 37, that is an extra Senate seat in Queensland, an extra Senate seat in New South Wales. I hadn't allowed for the impact of the forestry issue on the Senate outcome in Tasmania and nobody really predicted that we would not only get one extra Senate seat in Queensland, but two extra, that was an extraordinary confluence of events that delivered that. So that was my genuine feeling at about half past four in the afternoon. So I thought we would win, probably with a narrower majority, and that of course would have produced a whole different psychology and dynamic in the aftermath of the election.
THOMPSON:
To some extent do you get too close to it? I mean if you're operating the campaign and you have plenty of people around you telling you both positive and negative things and but on the whole buoying you up, I mean how do you, I mean this is the issue of judging things which aren't in your hands really to decide.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think you get too close to it, I remain very involved in every minutia of the campaign, I am a full on campaigner and not just the leader in an election campaign and we get regular polling data and I felt that we had a strong case going into the election campaign, what encouraged me a lot was that once the campaign proper began the published opinion polls suggested that there was a five or six point lead on the primary vote. Now that was encouraging and that really didn't alter all that much, if anything in some of the polls it widened a little bit. And in fairness to the opinion polls all of them at the end showed the Coalition on what, 45, 46 on average and the Labor Party at our about 39 or 40, the big worry we had was that the Green preferences would go relentlessly, as they pretty well did, to the Labor Party, but as often happens on the actual day itself the influence of individual candidates in different seats mitigated the overall steady flow of preferences and we ended up having quite a comfortable victory.
THOMPSON:
Of course you've been in this job a long time, you're about to pass Bob Hawke's record as second longest serving Prime Minister. With time, does that job get easier?
PRIME MINISTER:
It changes. There are some things that you learn to handle with a little more calm. There are of course new challenges, I would never have dreamt when I became Prime Minister in March of 1996 that international terrorism would become the foreign affairs preoccupation of most of my time in the last three or four years. I wouldn't have contemplated what happened in East Timor. I of course didn't contemplate the terrible tragedy in Port Arthur. I didn't anticipate the Asian economic downturn. To name what four or five things that have come along, I thought the great battles would simply be on the economic, industrial relations front. Now they turned out to be very important and they're still interestingly enough eight and a half years later our biggest single challenges because they are the sorts of things that never really get fully resolved, there are always new challenges on those fronts.
THOMPSON:
Well this year of course soon becomes, six months now, the middle of next year the majority, the Government gets its majority in the Senate. So how are you going to use that, I mean you have said things about that already, but in terms of your agenda what do you, it must be something that's evolving given that it wasn't expected?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it wasn't expected. Clearly we have a right and we have an intention of legislating things that we've said we want to do - industrial relations reform is right at the top of the agenda, clearly things such as the sale of Telstra, changes to the cross media laws, a number of other things that perhaps are not as prominent as that but nonetheless we've been trying to get through. It also means that if we have other measures that are consistent with policy and philosophy that as a result of the evolution of which you speak if those things come up, then obviously we'll have the numbers in the Senate to put them through. It does alter the equation a great deal, but I've said before that we don't intend to engage in wild flights of philosophical fantasy, there's nothing to be gained by that, there's nothing to be gained by some macho demonstration that we have the numbers and boy are you going to cop our radical agenda, we're not interested in doing that, the public doesn't want that, the public wants stable good government, it appreciates a government that is willing to legislate according to its beliefs and values and we certainly intend to do that and I want to say to our own supporters that we don't intend to waste the opportunity that controlling the Senate has fortuitously given us.
THOMPSON:
I wonder whether to some extent it's energised or further energised policy work because of the possibilities this rises...
PRIME MINISTER:
It has. Yeah it has. There's no doubt that the prospect of having the numbers in the Senate has reignited the interest of some in doing things on a policy front that previously did not seem achievable. Not crazy things but simply in the past we would look at something and say well that mightn't be a bad idea but you'd have no hope of getting it through the Senate so it's probably not even worth trying. I'm not thinking of anything in particular, but speaking generally.
THOMPSON:
The GST for example has given a vast amount of money to the states and yet things like basic services in the states, and I think of hospitals...
PRIME MINISTER:
This is one of the big governance challenges that this country has that we do, leaving aside the rhetoric that often flows between Commonwealth and State Governments, we do have this extraordinary paradox that the states have never been better off and the money they're getting is mounting each year because of the growth character of the GST. Yet every day for example in many of the states there are cries about the inadequacy of services and you have this ridiculous position of ports needing greater investment in infrastructure yet the states saying well we don't have the money to do it, well for heavens sake they do and it is one of the things that we have to resolve, I think it's one of the more dysfunctional aspects of government in Australia and something that I've become very conscious of more over the last year than ever before.
THOMPSON:
The new Speaker, David Hawker's had a bumpy start.
PRIME MINISTER:
That inevitably happens; he'll settle down and do it well.
THOMPSON:
So you don't have concerns?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't have concerns. David understands the dynamic of the place very well, it's not an easy job and understandably the Opposition puts him through his hoops,. That's to be expected, I'm not criticising them for that. That's I guess something that they've sought to do to fill in the time.
THOMPSON:
Now you're obviously pleased to see George Bush win his second term in the White House. Tony Blair faces re-election next year, would his re-election in some way be seen by you as important as an endorsement of the stand you all took, the three of you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh certainly it would. I have said before I'm conflicted when it comes to the British election, I really wish Tony Blair well because he's been extremely courageous, leaving personalities and particular policies aside, naturally my longer term affinity is with the other side in Great Britain but in so far as Tony Blair is concerned I think of the three of us he had the most difficult internal task in relation to Iraq because his party was deeply divided and a large section of his party was openly hostile to his decision. He took that on and fought it and overwhelmed it, that wasn't easy but he did it out of conviction, I can certainly testify on the basis of discussions I've had with him that he really believed it, still believes very strongly in the correctness of the decision and I thought waged a very (inaudible).
THOMPSON:
Thanks for taking time to talk to us. Look forward to talking to you again some stage next year.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks Peter and Merry Christmas to you and all your staff.
THOMPSON:
Same to you Prime Minister, thank you very much indeed.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]