JONES:
The Prime Minister is on the line. PM, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning.
JONES:
Thank you for your time PM. In relation to the counter-terrorism laws it is impossible for rank and file Australians to know the level of risk, but many callers to the open line this morning expressed the surprise that some people were walking into that meeting saying well I'm not sure we're going to support all this, then they're briefed by ASIO and there is unanimous agreement almost straight away. You have been briefed, obviously the risk is something that we would not know about.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't want to sound alarmist and I never want to overstate something to the Australian public, but there is a risk. We are not as exposed as other countries but it can happen here.
JONES:
You talked about this, and you use your language in a very considered way, you yesterday talked about a shadowy, elusive and lethal enemy.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes it is, it's a different enemy. The enemy of old was the enemy that rolled its army across a border or tried to attack our country. Terrorists are different enemies, they fight a borderless war and therefore we need different methods. I don't like having to introduce these laws, I wish we didn't live in that age. But I have believed for a long time that this is a threat that's going to be with us for some years, I can't put an end date on it, and the London bombing was a wake up call that there could be people who are living in our midst who might be capable of a terrorist act.
JONES:
Well just on that, I mean you had all those leaders yesterday briefed by ASIO, there is a story today, a headline story, which says that ASIO estimates that up to 800, this is the language of the story, 800 Muslim extremists living here who could be motivated to carry out a terrorist attack.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm not going to engage in speculation about numbers, I'm simply not going to do that and I'm not going to confirm or deny reports about what intelligence...
JONES:
Right, so what you're trying to do through this legislation is to minimise the likelihood of say a terrorist attack at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne or a bomb attack in peak hour traffic in Sydney?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it could take any form. I can't tell the Australian public that as a result of these laws we can guarantee that there'll be no attack. I'm not trying to do that. I believe that these laws, unpalatable though they are, will give us a capacity to prevent an attack occurring if there is intelligence available that it's likely to occur we can then place a control order on somebody, there can be preventative detention applied in particular circumstances...
JONES:
The control order we should say will only be granted following the consent of the Attorney General and a judge won't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
And a judge, that's right. There's no way a control order can be slapped on somebody at the insistence of the police commissioner. All these things do Alan is to increase our capacity to stop a terrorist attack occurring and also to increase our capacity to apprehend somebody or to prevent a further terrorist attack if an attack is taking place. I can not guarantee it won't occur, no Prime Minister or Premier can do that, but I do believe given the experience of other countries and our own Australian assessment that they are unfortunately necessary.
JONES:
There were people ringing the open line, I should tell you, this morning for the first time ever, first call they've ever made to say that they supported the initiatives that were taken yesterday. Could I just take the flip side of this and this question which came up yesterday to me, the catastrophic recovery arrangement, if there were a major catastrophe that was likely to affect a large area for months, perhaps even years, such as the evacuation of a city or a precinct following a detonation of a dirty bomb, are there planning structures in place...
PRIME MINISTER:
There are, but they are constantly being renewed and updated and we do have a national counter-terrorism committee which is chaired by the Deputy Secretary of my Department, we do have quite elaborate understandings between the Commonwealth and the States, we are adding to that by the announcements I've made about the establishment of a chemical, biological and nuclear research centre to go beside the bomb data centre in the Federal Police. We are adding to these things all the time. It's a bit like how long is a piece of string; you can never say we have done everything. We learn from what the British did; the British response was very good, it was very coordinated and cooperation between health authorities and police, and this obviously involved the state police as much the federal police is absolutely critical.
JONES:
Just on that PM, and finally, given that local government would have a big role in any initial response and recovery from attack, what's been done about mayors and local councillors?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they of course had their representative at the meeting yesterday - the President of the Australian Local Government Association attends these meetings - and in addition in discussing some of the follow-up from yesterday's meeting, particularly in the area of what you're talking about, we are going to involve capital city mayors, in particular. The role of local government is very important, perhaps not so important in Australia as for example in the United States where a lot of state government-type function such as police and medical services are in the hands of local government. Now local government is important, I'm not playing down its role, but when you see your television pictures at night and you see the Mayor of New Orleans and so forth talking, he of course has got a role in relation to police and a role in relation to medical services that the Lord Mayor of Sydney or Melbourne would not have.
JONES:
Right. You're meeting with the oil companies today. Prime Ministers I should say don't get too much credit for things, I must say I think you're on the right track in warning people that we're not going to get cheaper petrol and there is going to be a continuing shortage of crude oil and I notice President Bush has issued that warning in the last 24 hours given India, China and the American demand. But given that that is the case, that you have warned people we're not going to get cheaper petrol and there is going to be a shortage of crude oil, why then do the anti-ethanol block in your Cabinet seem to hold such sway?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't think, it's not a question of one or other opinion on ethanol holdings sway, it's a question of making common sense decisions about ethanol.
JONES:
Quite a few of them have had a bit to say.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well a lot of people have had a bit to say on both sides of this debate, Alan. What I decided to do a few months ago about ethanol was that I was satisfied that some of the initial prejudice about ethanol was wrong and I asked that the issue be looked at again and as a result of that I got that report last week, or I got it a few weeks ago but I released it last week, and I think we've started to look at this issue in a sensible way. We're not in the business of forcing people to make decisions against their will, but we are a government that wants people to be properly informed and if there are advantages, environmental or health wise, in a greater use of ethanol then we should encourage...
JONES:
But can I just say this to you, there's talk today, and I guess the talk is informed speculation, that you're going to seek a renewed commitment from oil companies today to use 350 million litres of biofuels by...
PRIME MINISTER:
2010.
JONES:
That's right. But PM, the fuel market is a 20 billion litre fuel market. 350 million litres in a 20 billion fuel market. I mean we sell 30 million litres of ethanol a year, Brazil sells 41 million litres a day.
PRIME MINISTER:
Alan I understand that, I'm not, we're not, I'm not disputing those figures. But we had a policy which we took to the 2001 election of that as a target. Now you can say it's inadequate, which you've just said, and that's an argument. But we are committed to that and as a first step I would like to enlist the aid of the oil companies in achieving that, and I'm hopeful that they will. But I think what we've achieved in the last few weeks is to get this debate on ethanol back onto the right track. A few years ago it got derailed for political reason because the Labor Party was trying quite outrageously to set up some sinister association between myself and Mr Honan, who is a major ethanol producer. I mean it was absolutely outrageous, he's an entirely respectable, very worthy Australian businessman, I've got a lot of regard for him. It was outrageous and the net result was that consumers were frightened wrongly about ethanol and when people develop a prejudice against something, as you know, it takes years sometimes of patient argument to turn that around. I think we've come a long way in the last few weeks...
JONES:
But you do understand that in Brazil motorists can fill up with petrol, ethanol or any combination of the two?
PRIME MINISTER:
I do understand...
JONES:
They've got flex-fuel cars.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but I also understand that Brazil can't be taken as the loadstar of behaviour in relation...
JONES:
Well America has 4.5 million vehicles.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it varies amongst the American states. The practice and the experience within the American states and in Europe is mixed. We are moving I think in a very sensible way to get rid of the prejudice against ethanol. We are having further investigations, scientific testing made in relation to the impact of E5 versus E10 and also the health benefits, which according to this recent report might be greater, the environmental and health benefits, might be greater than originally thought. It all indicates that we are moving towards a greater acceptance, but it's got to be science and fact based. When you're dealing with something like this you cannot...
JONES:
No, but that's been...
PRIME MINISTER:
... and fact.
JONES:
See you're rightly saying that petrol price is not going to go back to $1 a litre, but we should be warning the public as well that our fuel deficit this year is almost $7 billion which is a quarter, more than a quarter, of our total trade deficit.
PRIME MINISTER:
But we should also not over-estimate the price benefits of ethanol. Greater ethanol use can help somewhat in relation to price, but we should not over-estimate it. The reality is that we're not going back to the prices we had a year ago, I think as the impact of Katrina and Rita recedes and it's already happening, the price is coming back a little. But you're not going to back to 90 cents a litre in a hurry and perhaps not at all.
JONES:
Can I just ask you this question, a very quick one about mental health because there's a surplus been announced of $13.6 billion. I don't know of whether you're aware of the crisis in mental health across the country...
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I am.
JONES:
Thousands and thousands of beds short and people are dying as a result of behaviour of people who are mentally ill who really aren't responsible for their behaviour. Why wouldn't the Commonwealth take over the whole mental health system in this country looking after vulnerable people who can't write letters to John Howard or ring up Alan Jones?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's traditionally been a state responsibility and the states, because of their ownership of hospitals and because they run the public hospital system, are better placed, one would think, if they discharged their responsibilities and spend the extra money they've received from the Commonwealth, they're better placed to do the job...
JONES:
Not withstanding the crisis that exists?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I do think there are major shortfalls and we will be releasing quite soon the human rights commission report in relation to this and also, and that will be coming out I believe in the next couple of week...
JONES:
Perhaps we can talk about that...
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, we can, and the Senate is also conducting an inquiry and I think you'll hear quite a bit more in the next few weeks.
JONES:
Let's talk about that then. Just one final thing before you go, did you see the television pictures of those orange growers in Northern Victoria? By the time they're finishing a crop they're going to have to throw out 36,000 tonnes. Now they were told by bureaucrats in Canberra to restructure, they'd planted Valencia trees, nup you must be planting navels so they ripped out by the valencias, they planted the navels, they were told they were better for eating than for juicing, there is going to a niche market overseas now we're importing orange products, juices and concentrates, and 36,000 tonnes of oranges are going to be dumped. What is going on?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the market has not been able to absorb those oranges and that's sadly why they're being dumped. At the present time the market has got an oversupply of oranges, I mean that's going on. I mean I don't know precisely what the bureaucrats said to these particular...
JONES:
I'll tell you what they said - rip out the valencias, plant the navels and we'll get you a niche market, these are the exact words, overseas. Now overseas...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I mean if a bureaucrat actually said we will guarantee you...
JONES:
They didn't guarantee them, they didn't guarantee them, no, they said there was a niche market.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there are niche markets overseas and one of the things that we are...
JONES:
But it's an obscenity to be dumping 36,000 tonnes, there are people starving.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Alan we do live in a global environment and we can't expect other countries to take the things that we want to sell them unless from time to time we have to take what they sell.
JONES:
Is this the by-product of free trade?
PRIME MINISTER:
No trade is completely free but it is a by-product, I mean you've got a country like China, China is a great market for Australia, we're one of the few countries with a huge trade surplus.
JONES:
Will they take our oranges?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well one of the things we're going to try and do under the Free Trade Agreement is persuade them to do so. And Mr Vaile and Mr McGauran are in fact focusing on that right at the present.
JONES:
Good on you. Good to talk to you PM again.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
JONES:
Thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]