MITCHELL:
First today in our Sydney studio the Prime Minister, Mr Howard, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Neil, how are you?
MITCHELL:
I'm well, thank you. Mr Howard are you giving new thought to retirement?
PRIME MINISTER:
Nothing has changed on that subject from when you last asked me about it. Why do you ask? Why do you say that?
MITCHELL:
Laurie Oakes writing in the Bulletin says you have asked advisers to sound out people in private enterprise.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that particular claim is not right.
MITCHELL:
Laurie's pretty good usually.
PRIME MINISTER:
Laurie's a very good journalist. But I haven't had any different discussions with my staff over the last few weeks or months about their future or my future than I've previously had. The question of whether individual members of my staff stay with me is a matter for them. I am very lucky that over the last nine and a half years I've had at the senior level three or four people who've been with me the whole time, at the very senior level. And that has been very good, they're very competent, they're very loyal and I'm very grateful but like any other person or people they have a right to think about their futures. But nothing in relation to their futures is any different from what it was six months ago, 12 months ago.
MITCHELL:
I suppose it would be fair enough for them to say, well look I've got to make a decision, are you going to be around in six months?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I'm not going down that path. I simply take the public opportunity of saying how very well served I've been by my Chief of Staff, my Principal Private Secretary, my Senior Press person and a number of other very senior people on the economic and social front who've been with me for, many of them, for the whole time that I've been Prime Minister. Two of them, Arthur Sinodinos and Tony O'Leary, have been with me the whole time that I've been Prime Minister. I am very grateful. But can I tell you this - they still come in every morning full of ideas, full of energy and thinking about the future. So I don't get the sense that any of them are sort of slipping into cruise control.
MITCHELL:
And you're not looking for a job in private enterprise?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm certainly not looking for any job in private enterprise. I've got too much on my plate at the present time Neil. This is a wonderful job, it's a terrific experience, it's a great challenge and every day is a bit different.
MITCHELL:
Something else, are you concerned by the $4 billion downturn on the Australian share market in the past two days?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't really want to comment on it. I'm following it. Sharemarkets have ups and downs. People should know that the Australian sharemarket has performed more strongly than just about any other sharemarket with which it's fair to make comparisons. So if there were some adjustment that would not be surprising, but I am not an investment analyst or adviser and I don't really want to start giving any more detail than that, or expressing any more detailed opinion of that.
MITCHELL:
The market does seem to react, or several markets around the world reacting to inflationary...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there was a comment made... I'm sorry.
MITCHELL:
So are you concerned by that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there was a comment made by the Chairman of one of the regional Federal Reserve... or one of the regional banks in the Federal Reserve System in America which apparently provoked some reaction. I don't think the inflationary fears that some people have talked about in other parts of the world are present in Australia, I don't.
MITCHELL:
Despite petrol prices?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you've got to look at all of the things that are feeding into it. Clearly if petrol were to go on rising, if it were to stay rising for a period of time, then that might (other things not compensating) that might have an inflationary effect over time. But I am hopeful that it won't go on rising. I said on your programme before that I don't see it going back to 70 or 80 cents a litre but we have to realise that it's not going back to that and if it could come down a little from what it is now that would be a good outcome and about the best we could hope for in the circumstances given the world situation where there's an excess of demand over supply and that's the principle reason why the price of crude oil and therefore the price of petrol has gone up so sharply over the last couple of years.
MITCHELL:
I don't think anybody's expecting 70 or 80 cents a litre, what about a dollar a litre? Will we ever go under a dollar again?
PRIME MINISTER:
I can't see that happening in the short term.
MITCHELL:
This is hurting Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
I understand that.
MITCHELL:
Jobs gone.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the overall employment position is still very strong.
MITCHELL:
Well yesterday's figures are behind. I mean the number of people that I've heard from directly who have had to close down trucking companies or small operations because of this, it's quite horrendous.
PRIME MINISTER:
Neil, I am aware of how much it's hurting and I am not indifferent to this. I talk to people every day. But given the international reality, I can't pretend that there's some local way in which we can avoid that and I don't know that I serve the public interest by pretending that I can because we may have to face here in Australia, and around the world, a permanently higher price for fuel into the indefinite future.
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister, today you're effectively accused of bribing the timber union with $4 million in public money to get their support in the last previous election, or the previous election. Do you deny it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course I do.
MITCHELL:
Is it correct that you agreed to the $4 million bribe?
PRIME MINISTER:
I announced it.
MITCHELL:
When?
PRIME MINISTER:
I announced it as part of the package, before the last election.
MITCHELL:
So did you promise it to them before that package was made public?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'd have to check the precise discussions, but part of the negotiation that went on before that did involve payment for training. But there's nothing wrong with that and Martin Ferguson...
MITCHELL:
... Union controlled company.
PRIME MINISTER:
No it's not a union controlled company, control of the company is shared, so I'm advised by unions and employers. And there's nothing unusual about making training money available to such a company - that's a perfectly normal thing to do and Martin Ferguson, the Labor spokesman for forestry, said this morning on air he said this $4 million was neither here nor there. The reason why the union backed us in the election campaign was that our policy saved timber workers' jobs whereas Labor's policy destroyed them. That's the reason they backed us.
MITCHELL:
But did the union know about the $4 million when we went into that meeting and everybody cheered and clapped?
PRIME MINISTER:
Would the union have known about it?
MITCHELL:
Yep.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know how many unionists...
MITCHELL:
No, union leadership.
PRIME MINISTER:
Certainly there were discussions; there were discussions with the union leadership and with the industries' leadership.
MITCHELL:
But doesn't that corrupt the process?
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course it doesn't corrupt the process - not if you make it public. Governments all the time are negotiating with people and saying look, this is our plan. Our plan is to save your jobs and to train you in safety procedures and other things relating to the industry and we are prepared to put money into that training. And I announced it. The idea that this is corruption is absurd; this is Bob Brown still bellyaching about the outcome of the last election. I mean at least Martin Ferguson 12 months on has got over it and accepted that Labor lost in Tasmania because its forestry policy betrayed the interests of working people. And those unionists cheered me because I had a policy to save their jobs, they didn't cheer me because of a $4 million contribution to a training fund jointly controlled by the unions and the employers. Mark Latham had offered hundreds of millions of dollars for alternative job arrangements, but they didn't believe him and they wanted to keep their own jobs. They didn't cheer me for the $4 million. Now come on...
MITCHELL:
... the union leaders who are urging them to cheer you, did they know about the $4?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look can I tell you the union leaders, I can tell you as we walked down to the Albert Hall some of those union leaders said to me they didn't not know how the blokes were going to react. Now don't tell me they were egged on, you don't egg on 1200, or 2,000 whatever it was on the strength of your knowledge of a perfectly proper arrangement, perfectly proper to have training money made available to a company jointly owned or controlled by the unions and employers. And it happens all the time, both governments have done it; it's quite a legitimate thing to do.
MITCHELL:
So you went into that meeting, in the middle of, in the last stage of an election campaign not knowing if you're going to get booed or cheered. Is that right?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely. I hoped I got cheered but you can go back and look at some of the press reports. I mean I was hopeful that they would support my policy, I thought my policy was better than Labor's.
MITCHELL:
It was crucial though, it was a crucial meeting and you deny this is a sweetener or a form of pork barrelling.
PRIME MINISTER:
Neil, the reason they cheered was that we guaranteed their jobs.
MITCHELL:
And $4 million.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the $4 million as Martin Ferguson says is neither here or nor there.
MITCHELL:
Well it's a bit hard for Martin Ferguson to object to you giving money to unions.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, but Martin Ferguson made the judgement, and he expressed it this morning that our policy helped save their jobs. But Neil, the $4 million was announced on the day, I mean what's everybody... it was in the Budget.
MITCHELL:
When were the union leaders told about it though?
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon?
MITCHELL:
When were the union leaders told it was coming? When was it promised to unions?
PRIME MINISTER:
It was discussed before I addressed the workers, of course it was, I'm not denying that because it was part of the announcement I made. Just as other things were discussed, including payments of other details that went to the benefit of the industry. This idea that there's some kind of secret revelation; it's not a secret, it was publicly disclosed and the money was made available and set aside in the budget.
MITCHELL:
But this is on the same day that we've got the parliamentary committee talking about stricter controls on pork barrelling over regional partnerships. Now do you deny the regional partnerships were rorted to get votes?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't believe they were rorted. I mean you can argue about an individual programme, but if you look at each individual programme, and can I point out that the Labor Party held seats were just as fairly treated as Coalition held seats. It just happens that the majority of seats in regional Australia are held by the Coalition. I think the Labor Party's success rate was 78 per cent and 76 per cent for Coalition seats. All of these individual projects have merit in their own right. You will always argue that something's been done to advantage a sitting member. You have to look at the merit of the proposal. If the proposal has no merit at all, then the charge is justified. But just because it goes to somebody who holds a marginal seat in a regional area does not render it wrong. The Labor Party doesn't complain about grants being made: For example, when I announced support for the reconstruction of the Whitton Oval, the Labor Party didn't attack that. They didn't regard that as a rort. I thought it was a perfectly defensible project. It went to a safe Labor seat. That was perfectly okay. I mean I thought it was okay and it is okay and I'm very pleased that I did it. But what is the qualitative difference between that and a grant of an equivalent amount going to a seat that's held by a small number of votes.
MITCHELL:
It's 11 to 9. The Prime Minister's in our Sydney studio. I'll try to be quick. There's a lot to get through. Prime Minister, is the Government considering imposing an excise on biofuels?
PRIME MINISTER:
A new excise?
MITCHELL:
Yep.
PRIME MINISTER:
No. We did announce 18 months ago a schedule which involved over a period of time the removal of the excise exemption on biofuels. That was about 18 months ago. So that by about the year 2011 the excise would still be nowhere near as high as the excise on petrol but it would be higher than what it is now. But that was announced 18 months ago.
MITCHELL:
Is that continuing despite the new attention we're placing on biofuel?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, we don't have any current plans to change that but even when it is fully operational, the excise and biofuels will be I think about half that on petrol.
MITCHELL:
Eddie, go ahead please Eddie.
CALLER:
Yeah.
MITCHELL:
Yes, go ahead.
CALLER:
Hello.
MITCHELL:
Yes go ahead Eddie.
CALLER:
Is John Howard there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes speaking.
CALLER:
Oh alright. Without beating around the bush like you (inaudible) do. Why is the cost of living excessively going up and the pension is not?
MITCHELL:
Okay, cost of living going up, pension not.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the cost of living does go up a lot more slowly than it used to, but the pension does go up every six months. It's adjusted in accordance with past increases in the cost of living. That's called automatic half yearly indexation. On top of that there's a guaranteed floor so that the value of the old age pension does not fall below 25per cent of male average weekly earnings.
MITCHELL:
Are you aware Prime Minister of... and you may not be, of Centrelink reviewing pensioner assets at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they have a general responsibility to check from time to time as to whether people still qualify for the pension in accordance with the assets test. Now the assets test of course does not include the family home.
MITCHELL:
So there's no particular campaign or something at the moment that you're...
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not aware of it but I heard what you had to say. I know that from time to time they make sure that the assets test and everything is still operating appropriately, but I'm not aware of any particular campaign at this particular time. But seeing that you have raised the issue I will make some inquiries. But there's nothing (of itself) wrong with Centrelink seeing that the assets test is being properly applied.
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister something else, the Vivian Alvarez case, the Australian citizen deported. The report found that is was shameful, catastrophic, when is a Minister responsible for errors in their own department?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think a Minister is responsible where she has direct personal responsibility. There are thousands of people in the Immigration Department.
MITCHELL:
But don't you have to (inaudible) direct personal responsibility for...
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't...
MITCHELL:
The buck stops with the boss.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well ministerial responsibility has never involved the situation where the individual mistake of somebody who's acting in a way completely unconnected to the Minister.
MITCHELL:
But this was an institutional failure from...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the present Minister was, to be fair to her, was not the Minister at the time.
MITCHELL:
She was when the mistakes were made.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well some of them, not all of them. And in any event there are thousands of people in the Immigration Department. I mean if the... if somebody in a remote part of the department makes a mistake, to automatically say because of that mistake, the Minister has to resign, it would mean that, to be quite frank, Ministers would be resigning all the time through no personal failing of their own. If the Minister is personally responsible for a failing, or clearly has directed a course of conduct which brings about the failing, then that's another matter.
MITCHELL:
We have 20 people apart from her who have been wrongly detained. We have what looks like inactivity and to the point of cover-up, it would look like institutionalised incompetence and the Minister carries no responsibility for that?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it's fair to say once again in her defence that a lot of these issues were addressed a couple of months ago when we had the Palmer Inquiry into Cornelia Rau, and there have been some very major changes made to the leadership and the structure of the Immigration Department. But Neil, it stands to reason that if you've got thousands of people, and you have delegated decision making responsibilities in the Immigration Department, many of the decisions affecting whether people can go or stay are in fact made independently of ministerial discretion. It would be a different matter if the Minister personally had to decide on every deportation.
MITCHELL:
But doesn't she take responsibility for the way her department works?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well certainly the department has had a number of very, very bad reports. I can't say too much about the Alvarez case, except to repeat the apology I have given to the lady on behalf of the Government for what happened because there are still discussions going on about matters of compensation. But I have read the detailed summary of former commissioner Comrie's report and clearly it's a bad read. I can't say more than that. Clearly she was badly treated and clearly she is deserving of the apology that I've given.
MITCHELL:
And the Minister doesn't wear it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think the Minister should wear it if she had been directly responsible. I mean if the case had come up to her and she had been presented with the facts that the regional supervisor had been presented with, and she had said well forget about that, go ahead, deport her - yes. She didn't... that didn't happen. She was not personally aware of any of these circumstances and in those circumstances to say, well she's got to go anyway. That has never been the doctrine of ministerial responsibility, ever.
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister something else, have you heard the reports about a terrorist threat to the subways in New York?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I heard them over the radio this morning.
MITCHELL:
The US President has also said they've been four Al Qaeda plots that have been detected and stopped in the United States. How many in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am not aware of any.
MITCHELL:
Have you had any joy, any satisfaction from the Indonesia President on the issue of outlawing Jemaah Islamiah?
PRIME MINISTER:
Not yet. We will continue to press the issue. It won't incidentally make any great difference to whether there's another attack in Indonesia or not.
MITCHELL:
What about the issue of Abu Bakar Bashir.
PRIME MINISTER:
I heard of... you mean the remission?
MITCHELL:
Another remission.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, well as soon as I heard of that I instructed the Australian Ambassador in Jakarta to speak to the Foreign Ministry about that and he's done so, also to the President's office. Mr Downer will be going to Indonesia next week and the matter will be raised then.
MITCHELL:
Now I understand that later today...you're announcing some $50,000 to Amy Gillett foundation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes the foundation to Amy Gillett-Safe; the cyclist who was tragically killed, a Ballarat resident. There's been a small foundation established, the South Australian Government has contributed $50,000 and I've decided the Commonwealth will do likewise and it will provide a scholarship programme for young female cyclists and it will promote road safety awareness amongst cyclists and motorists. It was a particularly tragic accident in Germany, it not only claimed Amy's life but also badly injured some others and this is a foundation that I believe the Government should support.
MITCHELL:
We'll take one very quick call to finish, Geoff please be quick.
CALLER:
Okay. Based on the 10 years of the excise being taken between 1990 and 2000, there's been $92 billion taken in excise and only 15 to 17 and some years up to 20per cent return to the actual drivers in road funding. I'm just wondering - it's getting worse now because I think there's $13 million this year, so if you just make some contribution back to the public...
MITCHELL:
Okay so you're saying you want more back, yes Geoff.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes but the money that's not spent on roads is spent on other things that benefit motorists; such as health and education and defence and pensions and other social security benefits - it goes into the pot and everybody benefits. I mean some people argue that all of it should be earmarked for roads - I don't agree with that. I think some of it should be, but I think it's a revenue raising method and it goes to all the things that people quite naturally want governments to spend money on.
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister, thank you for your time, again.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]