KENNEDY:
Good morning Prime Minister and welcome to the programme.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
KENNEDY:
Within the coalition there's unlikely to be much support for Petro Georgiou's bills but now significant community leaders are calling for changes. As you heard the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, is calling for all MP's to back the bills. You've ruled out a conscience vote, will you let Petro Georgiou's bills be debated in the Parliament?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we'll certainly have a discussion this morning, and the question of how the bills are handled after that is a matter I'll discuss with my colleagues and I've always adopted the policy of telling my colleagues first, and not interviewers, how we intend to run our affairs. But we will allow a debate, and, but that debate will take place against the background of the Government having a well established policy of having, regrettably, to have mandatory detention as an element of our policy to handle illegal immigration and people who overstay-for example tourist visas, that policy has already been softened and I have said repeatedly, and I'll say it again, that we will always take opportunities to further liberalise the policy and make it more flexible, but consistent with maintaining mandatory detention as a necessary, although regrettable, element of the policy. Now that has been our long-standing position and only yesterday the Minister issued invitations to seventeen long-term detainees to apply for this new return-pending visa, which covers people who have been in detention for a long time; whose refugee status has been denied but for practical reasons cannot go back to the country from whence they came and it's only fair in those circumstances, subject to them undertaking to cooperate with a return when that does become practicable, that they be released into the community. Now this is a decision the Government took a couple of months ago.
KENNEDY:
And it took a couple of months for that decision... any action to be taken on that decision...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well hang on. It's very easy to say that but you're dealing here with a difficult issue but an issue where you have to balance the natural desire of everybody to administer the policy in a flexible, humane way, but also I believe the overwhelming view of the Australian community that this country should not again become a target for people smugglers and also a concern that I think is sometimes overlooked in this debate, that the real problem in many cases is people who apply for, and obtain tourist visas to come to this country and then overstay and apply for refugee status and I think if we went too far in relaxing the policy you could have a situation where people would say, 'I'll get a tourist visa, I'll bring my children with me, I'll apply for refugee status and after a short period of time we can be released into the community'. Now that would not be a good reform and it's not one that I would want to support.
KENNEDY:
On the front page of two major metropolitan newspapers today are ID tags and photos of some of those children you were just talking about who are held in detention...
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
KENNEDY:
How does it make you feel when you see those photos?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Stephanie nobody likes children in detention but bear in mind that the decision in, I think all cases, for them to be brought to this country is not made by the Australian Government. I mean if somebody comes to this country on a tourist visa and brings their young children with them and then overstays that visa, applies for refugee status, is it the fault of the Australian Government that they are detained? It's not. I mean I'm sorry for the children but that is not the fault of the Australian Government and I think these are some of the facts that ought to be understood and that's why we've had a policy-it's a difficult policy...
KENNEDY:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
And I respect the views of people who would like to see it changed in certain directions and that is why in the true Liberal tradition, we're going to have a proper debate about this and I'll listen very carefully to what my colleagues say. But the reason why we have maintained a free vote, not had a free vote rather, free rather than conscience vote, is that this is long- settled Government policy. You have free votes on issues where there has never been a settled Government policy. I mean there has never been a settled Government position on abortion - that has always been a free vote. But we have had a Government vote, a Government position on mandatory detention now for years and we can't therefore turn around so we're now suddenly going to make it a free vote because...
KENNEDY:
Alright. The Minister said that there needs to be change of culture in the Department. Some people have said the change needs to come from the top down-from Government leaders like yourself. Do you see any validity in that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm not... well there are plenty of critics of mine who would like to see the whole thing changed and they'd like me changed - I understand that. But that's part of the political debate in the entire community. But look, there have been some difficulties in the Immigration Department and we've got an inquiry by Mick Palmer that's working through those difficulties and when I get the results of that inquiry, I'll respond in a speedy and effective way.
KENNEDY:
Alright we'll move onto drought. You're an economic rationalist. Yesterday you handed out $250 million to help farmers. Won't some of that money go to farmers who aren't viable?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you can never, in dealing with a broad class of people, you can never put your hand on your heart and say that there won't be some people who will get assistance they don't deserve. I don't think the most rational economic rationalist in the world could assert that. Look I am a believer in sensible economic policies, but I also believe that rural Australia is part of the heart and soul of this country and in helping farmers...farmers, bear in mind, that compared with their fellow farmers around the world get virtually no assistance on an ongoing basis from their Government. The OECD has concluded that the level of assistance for Australian farmers is about three to four percent of their annual wealth production, compared with figures of 25 percent or something in the United States, 35 percent in the European Union and an even higher figure in Japan. Now against those sorts of things, to suggest that it's an indulgence, that it's breaking the principles of sensible economic policy, to give some relief to Australia's farmers in arguably one of the worst droughts, if not the worst drought that large parts of Eastern Australia have had for close to 100 years, I think is unreasonable, and might I say irrational.
KENNEDY:
There are marginal areas currently being farmed, do you think it's necessary for some farmers to review where they are farming?
PRIME MINISTER:
There's always the case for that to happen, but Stephanie many have already done it. The reason why people are now expressing concern about the need to maintain a critical mass of farmers is that so many have already been forced off the land and I don't want more to go unless it is absolutely essential because we need farmers. We need those few younger farmers who are prepared to stick it out. We need to help them through this drought, because if we lose our rural community we not only lose the enormous economic contribution it makes, but we also lose that part of our identity as the Australian nation because we owe a lot of our identity to rural Australia and I for one, as somebody who grew up in the suburbs of Sydney, would never want to see that lost.
KENNEDY:
Later in the programme we'll be looking at the issue of reconciliation. Yesterday you said you would make Indigenous leaders more than half way to unite black and white Australia. You put reconciliation on the agenda in 1998, yet little has changed since then, shouldn't you take some responsibility for not driving this issue?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think a lot has changed since then Stephanie. I find on this issue there is a new spirit. Not everybody agrees with me and there are some areas that are well known where I must agree to disagree with the Indigenous leadership. But there is a much greater focus now on the need to have practical improvements, on the need to end passive welfare (and there's a message in that for the entire community), on the need for shared responsibility at a local level and a belief in the end that as well as having rights, we all have responsibilities and that part of the way out of Indigenous disadvantage is for local communities to accept personal responsibility for their own actions. Now I think that is a huge improvement. I'm not saying that symbolic issues are unimportant and I'm not denying for a moment the massive responsibilities that the Government has, including financial responsibilities, but I found at that conference yesterday a new determination amongst most people to work together. We won't always agree. I'll continue to be criticised by some Indigenous leaders - I accept that as 'going with the territory', but I'm optimistic and I came away from that conference feeling that we'd taken a lot of steps forward.
KENNEDY:
Alright, we'll leave it there. Prime Minister thank you for joining AM.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]