MITCHELL:
Mr Howard, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Neil.
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister does the Government have any confirmation as to whether this man is dead yet?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, not formally. The High Commissioner for Australia in Singapore has sought official confirmation from the Office of the President. That request was made a short while ago, but just before I came on this programme it hadn't been received. I can only assume and it's confirmed by what you've just said of the movements of one of the lawyers and Mr Nguyen's brother that the execution has been carried out.
MITCHELL:
Do you believe the execution of Van Nguyen has achieved anything?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't believe in capital punishment. He was a convicted drug trafficker and that is to be wholly condemned. I hope the strongest message that comes out of this, above everything else, is a message to the young of Australia - don't have anything to do with drugs. Don't use them. Don't touch them. Don't carry them. Don't traffic in them and don't imagine for a moment, for a moment, that you can risk carrying drugs anywhere in Asia without suffering the most severe consequences. I think that is the most important message that should come out of this traumatic and tragic event, over and above anything else, if there's to be a message.
I feel desperately sorry for this man's mother. I met her. She was understandably in a very distraught condition. She obviously felt a responsibility for what had happened. She's a lady who came to Australia as a refugee from Indo-China, didn't have a very happy family life, had twin sons - one of them got into trouble with the police severely, and the other has just been hung. So it's not a very happy experience for her to say the very least. My greatest sympathy is for her. I think the greatest sympathy of most Australians would be for her.
MITCHELL:
What were you doing at 9 o'clock?
PRIME MINISTER:
I was just reflecting on it in my office, very much so.
MITCHELL:
What did you feel, what did you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I was conscious of all of the things that many other people feel. And I'm also very conscious though that we must out of this event, we must interpret the message in the right way. I hope the anti-drugs message is stronger, or as least as strong as the anti-capital punishment measure.
MITCHELL:
Is that the only achievement here or do you see any other...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well achievement is not something I would use in relation to this. We do not as a nation practice capital punishment. We haven't done it, the last person who was executed in this country, as we all know was Ronald Ryan in 1967. We haven't capital punishment since then. It will in my view never return to the statute books of Australia - although there are a lot of Australians who in certain circumstances believe in it, believe in it very strongly. I'm not one of those and the basis overwhelmingly of my opposition to capital punishment is a recognition that the law is not infallible and it can make mistakes.
MITCHELL:
So as Prime Minister you would not under your watch allow capital punishment to return?
PRIME MINISTER:
In Australia?
MITCHELL:
Yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
No and I don't believe it will ever be an issue to be debated in this country. But I think there's a... much in all as we feel strongly about the execution and the inevitably drawn-out, macabre prelude of circumstances and the clinical response of the Singaporean authorities to the final request of the man's mother to embrace her son, I was particularly disappointed with that response, very disappointed.
MITCHELL:
What do you believe she should've been allowed to embrace?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, of course, of course and I asked that be allowed.
MITCHELL:
Does this damage Australia's relations with Singapore?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have told the Prime Minister of Singapore that I believe it will have an effect on the relationship on a people-to-people, population-to-population basis. The Government itself is not going to take punitive measures against the Government of Singapore. I do not support at an official level boycotts and things of that kind and it will not be the Government's policy to do that. There's nothing to be gained by that in my opinion.
MITCHELL:
It may affect future dealings though?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't believe it should. I think we should always look at those things from the point of view of Australia's interests and what individuals do - if individuals decide to boycott goods - well that's a matter for them, but I'm not encouraging them to do that, there's nothing to be achieved in my opinion by doing that. And you have to understand that Singapore is not the only country in Asia, or indeed in the world that has capital punishment. China executes a very large number of people.
MITCHELL:
And the United States.
PRIME MINISTER:
And the United States. I acknowledge that, many of the states of the United States. And can I just say again that there are a lot of people in Australia who do not oppose capital punishment in every situation.
MITCHELL:
That's one of the things that worries me. The debate through this to me seems to have been fairly bitter and divisive. Do you think it has been destructive or potentially destructive?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think so. These are deep matters. These are issues that go to the essence of how we view the behaviour of the state against the individual and they do arouse passions. But we are a strong country. We're capable of having a strong and vigorous debate on something like this and still surviving. I don't think we should ever be frightened of passionate debate about issues. It shows a nation alive to issues of principle and issues of morality and I have observed this debate. My judgement is that the community is quite divided. I don't think everybody is opposed to what has happened. There's a lot of people who feel a deep bitterness towards anybody associated with drug taking. But we can't as individuals, I mean, I feel that. I equally am moved, was moved and remain moved particularly by the impact of this event on Van Nguyen's mother.
MITCHELL:
There are several other Australians around the world facing execution including in Vietnam and the potential of the Bali Nine if convicted could face a firing quad. Will the Australian Government attempt to save the lives of those people?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the time to act in relation in anybody is after there is a conviction. It's inappropriate, absurd in some senses, counter-productive to people's defence to start lobbying for clemency on the assumption that they're found guilty and sentenced to death. Clearly if people in the future are sentenced to death, Australian citizens, we will advocate clemency. We will ask for clemency. We will do all the things that we've sought to do before.
MITCHELL:
Do you agree that in the case of the Bali Nine there's an inconsistency given the involvement of the Australian Federal Police in their arrest?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't share this criticism of the Federal Police. I think it's quite wrong and unfair. The role of the Federal Police is to stop the breaches of the law. And it's part of the brief of the Federal Police to cooperate with police in other countries and I find this criticism of the Federal Police over the Bali Nine to be quite misplaced and I do not support it.
MITCHELL:
But we do not allow extradition to people who face the death penalty, why would we hand them over to face the death penalty?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but Neil, you have to understand the police point of view. Are we arguing now that police knowing that people are about to commit a crime, sit on their hands and do nothing about it? And that's basically what the critics of the Australian Federal Police are suggesting. Well I don't agree with that.
MITCHELL:
Just finally on the issue of the death penalty, your opposition to it I accept is wide ranging, but are you particularly concerned by the mandatory nature of the sentence in Singapore?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think mandatory death penalties are always to be condemned. I mean I am against the death penalty full stop for the reason largely that I have outlined. Obviously as a human being you can't do other than feel more strongly about particular cases than you do about others. I mean obviously if Saddam Hussein is sentenced to death, I don't know that I'm going to think the same about that as I have thought about Van Nguyen obviously. Now people say that's hypocritical, no, it's not hypocritical, it's just human. I think most of your listeners understand precisely what I am getting at. And people say 'oh the only way you can be consistent is to feel equally passionate about each instance of the death penalty that's being carried out'. Well that's impossible because as a human being, you bring your own subjective judgement about the quality of the behaviour involved in the action that's led to the imposition of the death penalty. There are degrees and gradients of crime and gradients of capital offences and that of course is one of the reasons why many people argue against the death penalty. That the death penalty is so absolute and unqualified and unconditional that it doesn't discriminate in any way.
MITCHELL:
But you would never support the death penalty for an Australian, including David Hicks?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, well in fact it's part of the understanding between the United States that the death penalty will not be sought against David Hicks. That was one of the things that was negotiated with the United States. So we consistently argue clemency and argue against the execution of Australians.
MITCHELL:
If I may, just another couple of quick issues, I know you need to get away.
PRIME MINISTER:
Sure.
MITCHELL:
And that is the issue of the Reserve Bank board and Mr Gerard. Does the Government not have the responsibility to check out any person it appoints to the Reserve Bank board?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you have a responsibility to ask them a number of questions. You don't have a responsibility to get a private investigator to look at everything that they've done. And in any event, in relation to taxation affairs, we have no right to know the taxation affairs of individual citizens.
MITCHELL:
But Prime Minister I have to get a police check to get a pass for the Commonwealth Games. Does a Reserve Bank member get a police check?
PRIME MINISTER:
A police check?
MITCHELL:
Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there's a form that you've got to fill out.
MITCHELL:
You trust their answers on the form or do you check it out?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well to a very large extent we do do that and the procedure that we've followed in relation to Mr Gerard was the same that was followed in relation to all other people appointed and followed by the former Government.
MITCHELL:
I need a police check to go to the Commonwealth Games as a reporter, but I don't need one to sit on the Reserve Bank board.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there may be other checks though that you have to provide, questions you have to answer to sit on the Reserve Bank board that you don't have to go through in order to get a pass to the Commonwealth Games.
MITCHELL:
Do you think that it should, the system should be changed so it's not just taken on trust but you appoint somebody to the board and you make some checks on their background?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am very reluctant to introduce yet another layer of regulation and inspection. You'll end up dissuading people from being interested in appointments to public positions. People pay a very heavy price for taking any kind of public office, they are exposed to criticism. I mean Mr Gerard, let it be said in his defence, has been a very successful businessman, I think he's been the largest private sector employer in South Australia. He's been a very successful manufacturer, he's been a very generous philanthropist in many areas. Now I don't know the full extent of his business and taxation dealings, any more than I know the full extent of the business and taxation dealings of hundreds of business men and women with whom I deal.
MITCHELL:
But is it not relevant if a man on the Reserve Bank Board has, through his own company, evaded millions of dollars in tax?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they argue that they didn't, they argue, and this is correct, that nothing unlawful or illegal has been established. They dispute that there was anything unlawful or illegal done and all issues between the Tax Office and his companies have now been settled and concluded, that is my understanding, I can't prove it because I don't have access to his company's tax records, neither I should. The other observation I'd make is that I dare say that the Tax Office is in dispute, as we speak, with many, many public companies and prominent business figures in this country.
MITCHELL:
But they're not on the Reserve Bank Board.
PRIME MINISTER:
There may be a dispute where the Tax Commissioner is wholly wrong, that can happen and I know plenty of people who have argued that the Tax Commissioner has been in certain cases wholly right or wholly wrong. But they rarely argue, incidentally, that the Tax Commissioner is wholly right, but they normally argue he's either wholly wrong or partly wrong, in some cases that's true and in some cases it's very false. I mean I think the Tax Commissioner does a very good job in difficult circumstances. But you are not automatically disbarred from public office in this country because you have a difference of opinion with the Tax Commissioner.
MITCHELL:
Will James Hardie get a tax concession on the asbestos deal?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that, under the current law, is a matter for the Tax Commissioner.
MITCHELL:
Okay. And just finally Prime Minister, word is just through officially from Singapore, I'll read you the wire, the Singapore Government has confirmed convicted Australian drug trafficker, Van Nguyen, has been hanged. He was executed today at Singapore's Changi prison after high level bids to save his life failed. So it's done.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I had no reason to believe otherwise.
MITCHELL:
Thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]