JOURNALIST:
Well Prime Minister this is becoming a delightful habit year by year, Merry Christmas to you and your family.
PRIME MINISTER:
Merry Christmas to you David and it is a delightful habit; this is the ninth occasion.
JOURNALIST:
Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER:
We must stop meeting like this.
JOURNALIST:
Well 2005 has been an astonishing year for major upsets, unpredictable things happening, predictable things not happening; so what grabbed your attention in 2005?
PRIME MINISTER:
The Ashes series obviously dominated it, but not to the exclusion of a lot of other things. The victory against Uruguay in soccer was a great event, I'm only sorry that I had to leave the country on the morning the day the match was played, but I watched it on this very, very tiny screen in Busan in South Korea and was able to talk to Frank Lowy and John O'Neill later. But great exhilaration went through the country and given that soccer draws people from all different parts of our society and it was seen as a defining moment in the game's emergence, as one that can capture national support in a spectator sense, it was a great event. But for a cricket tragic like me the gripping contest for The Ashes, and congratulations to England they did play well. I recall Richie Benaud saying to me earlier in the year that if they could sustain the quality of the bowling that they had produced in the series against South Africa, they posed a real threat and that in the end is what they did. They had a very good bowling side and their fielding was above the level that it had been earlier. They will be a tough nut to crack next year, although I suspect it will be a cracker series; and there's no reason to believe that we can't win the Ashes back. But they shouldn't be seen as having just won it as a flash in the pan, they have got some very good players and they have a different mental attitude and all of that will make for a great series next year.
JOURNALIST:
So Prime Minister how does it strike you when the Aussies win the first Test by the proverbial, like nearly 300 runs and then get beaten in the second Test as though they had gone from number one in the world to number six. Did that strike you as being a bit odd?
PRIME MINISTER:
That does happen sometimes in Test series. I am starting to sound old, but I remember that famous series in the West Indies all those years ago in the 1960s, they didn't perform very well in all of the preliminary matches and then they upped and won. I remember some years later, they won the first Test and we seemed to win every Test after that. That sometimes does happen and I recall, was it, '97 or 2001, the last time that England won the first Test and then we struck back; I think it was 1997. So, it does happen but they deserved to win and congratulations, but none of that blotted out the extraordinary year that both Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne have had; both remarkable bowlers. McGrath must join Lindwall and Lillee as one of the three great fast bowlers this country has produced. Warne of course can write his own description, he is a remarkable player.
JOURNALIST:
Forty-seven overs in that test...47 overs in that second innings against South Africa, I mean that is iron-man bowling.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes it is and even for a slow bowler. And the remarkable thing about him is his figures. It was a very good analysis; he bowled very few loose balls and that is the amazing thing about him. I guess there are one or two other events. You have to remark on the fact losing to New Zealand in the world cup in rugby league was a bit of an upset, probably a reminder to us all that we can't take supremacy in any sport on a world stage for granted. The wheel turns...
JOURNALIST:
Like the Wallabies losing eight out of nine...
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, like the Wallabies losing eight out of nine. So it has been an up and down year but one that reminds us of the diversity of Australian sporting interests and the great capacity of the Australian public to switch its interest from one code to another, if it is football, and from one sport to another and that is great.
JOURNALIST:
Ok let's look at the two highs, the Swans winning for the first time in the AFL, 72 years when they were South Melbourne. And the 150-to-one outsider in Wests Tigers winning the rugby league, now that is amazing.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, both of them are quite remarkable, both of them are very popular victories and I say that through gritted teeth slightly as a Dragons' supporter in relation to rugby league, but very popular. The spirit of the Wests Tigers team, players like O'Neill and co., they were very, very good players and extremely club orientated; the enthusiasm, the quality of the coaching and a very, very popular victory. I haven't seen Sydney so euphoric about a rugby league grand final for a very long time.
JOURNALIST:
They got 82,000 there but there was 82,000 watching the Swans win their grand final too.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that was a dream come true for people who want Australian rules to become a truly national game, not the most desperately popular outcome in other parts of Australia, but extremely good. You can use that old clich‚, 'good for the game' because it means that, it is truly national. You think of the teams that have won, the success of the Brisbane Lions, the West Coast Eagles, the Crows, all a reminder of just how national the game has become.
JOURNALIST:
Ok, just to look at a couple of other sports where things aren't going quite as well to plan; tennis and golf.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it is cyclical. You have to look at it like that. I guess in tennis we had such a stranglehold for so long, that is a few years ago now, that we perhaps got spoilt on that.
JOURNALIST:
When we were kids.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is right, it is a long time ago, mate, it is a long time ago.
JOURNALIST:
You just look at the honour board of the slams and it is just Australia, Australia Australia through the 50s and 60s and then it started to get a little bit thin...
PRIME MINISTER:
It started to change in the 70s with people like McEnroe and Connors; that is when, I think, it started to change big time didn't it.
JOURNALIST:
Now the golf, we have got Adam Scott who is number eight in the world, but if ever a guy has got the ability to win something he has and yet he'll throw in a triple bogey, a quadruple bogey and shoot himself in the foot. We just haven't got any golfers who are going to win majors even though they might be knocking on the door.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but you shouldn't, given the age of high quality golfers, there is no reason why people like that can't, as the years goes by, acquire a greater consistency, I wouldn't despair at that...
JOURNALIST:
Wouldn't despair, it probably would be due to 'The Shark' giving you so much value for money for so long, yet when it came to the majors, he is the only golfer that has lost all four majors in play offs. I mean the poor 'Shark' got burnt off at the post so many times.
PRIME MINISTER:
It hasn't, of course, diminished the positive impact he has made on the game and the positive role model he is for Australia around the world. I am a great believer in these things being cyclical. If I can go back to the cricket analogy for a moment, a couple of years ago, if you were an English cricket follower, you would have either wanted to give it away or cut your throat. And unfortunately for us, they didn't.
JOURNALIST:
Well put it this way too, Prime Minister, with the Socceroos too, they hadn't been to the World Cup since 1974 so that is cyclical as well.
PRIME MINISTER:
Exactly, and it was a pretty formidable challenge they had. Having lost in Uruguay they had to win by a certain margin here in order to qualify. It was a very tough ask and in their hearts there would have been a lot of followers who would have thought that they couldn't do it. Now the whole mood is different and everybody is euphoric and the level of support for them when they go to Germany, go to Europe next year will be amazing.
JOURNALIST:
Well if it wasn't for Mark Schwarzer in Montevideo who saved four goals there, Uruguay could have come here leading five-nil and it was a non-event.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well exactly, terrible pressure on a goalkeeper. Those penalty shoot-outs; I am tempted to say that they've got to find another way of resolving it, but I don't know what it is.
JOURNALIST:
Well you have got a lot of mates there Prime Minister, wondering how to solve that. I mean a shoot-out to me; I quite like it because it is sudden death. When you have gone 90 then another 30, you have gone two hours and you haven't got a result, something's got to happen.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's true, but somebody once suggested, I think it was in The Economist magazine, that the way of solving this was to keep playing extra time but you drop a player off each team every five minutes. It actually became easier to score goals.
JOURNALIST:
Yes, oh yes, fair enough. How do you see 2006 Prime Minister, there are a lot of things to look forward to.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there's the soccer World Cup, obviously that will be a highlight; The Ashes at the end of the year will be a highlight and the domestic competitions are always, in Australian rules and rugby league, are always enthralling, and the Commonwealth Games and of course you've got the beginning of the expanded Super 12, Super 14, so there's a smorgasbord.
JOURNALIST:
Well one thing about it, we are never out of stock with sport are we?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, we are never out of stock and I think the Commonwealth Games will be a great opportunity to showcase Australia again. Melbourne produces the most loyal sporting fans anywhere in the world and the remarkable capacity the people of that city have to get out and support things; I reckon it will be a great event.
JOURNALIST:
As always Prime Minister best of luck for 2006 this time and again thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you David and Merry Christmas to you and all of your listeners.
[End]