PRIME MINISTER:
Just before I take any questions I would like on behalf of the people of Australia to wish Her Majesty the Queen happy 80th birthday. This remarkable lady has now been on the throne since 1952. There's been an astonishing change in the world since then. She's dealt with 10 British Prime Ministers and 10 Australian Prime Ministers and it's worth remembering that when she became Queen, Winston Churchill was Prime Minister of Great Britain, Harry Truman was President of the United States, Joseph Stalin was still the dictator of the Soviet Union and Robert Menzies was the Prime Minister of Australia-and it gives you a measure with that recall of her durability and I know that all Australians will wish her well. She's shown great dedication to her duties and I hope she draws justifiable pleasure from reflecting on that time. Now any questions?
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, you met with the AFP officer this morning?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I did.
JOURNALIST:
How is he?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he's in very good spirits. He's got a sore mouth and he's got to have a bit of dental work. He's keen to go back, but he won't be able to go back for at least six months. He likes the people of the Solomon Islands and he felt that he was part of doing good things for the people and that is true. I want to complement the Federal Police, I want to complement the men and women of the ADF for the tremendous work they have done in the past and I'm sure they'll go on doing in to the future.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon.
JOURNALIST:
The Medical Facility. Are you impressed?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am very impressed. There's a place in the university firmament in this country for both the established universities and also universities like Bond. We can't turn back the clock. This silly Labor Party idea of abolishing full fee-paying places in Australian universities is crazy. Not only would they have to find potentially hundreds of million of dollars to fill the funding gap, but they would discriminate against Australians because they're not proposing to abolish full fee-paying places for foreign students, but they are for Australians. Why discriminate against Australians?
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister do you believe what Senator Joyce is saying, that key people in the Government are greased up by the oil companies?
PRIME MINISTER:
Are what?
JOURNALIST:
Greased up.
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
JOURNALIST:
The preselection battle for Petro Georgiou, being backed by three Liberals in Queensland, what are your thoughts on that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well this is a free country and I lead a free party. I think what we should do is let the good folk on the preselection committee make a decision, and I'm sure they'll make the right decision.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
We haven't got any such proposal in front of us and we don't have any current plans to do it, but if the Vice Chancellors have a specific proposition we'd obviously look at it.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, Michael L'Estrange is in Jakarta?
PRIME MINISTER:
He is talking there at the moment and...
JOURNALIST:
What do you expect?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't expect and I've never said and nobody has ever said that his visit was going to smooth out all of the difficulties. We're engaged in a diplomatic process and the first sensible thing to do is to ask the Secretary of the Department to go and talk to his counterparts in Jakarta, explain the background of what happened in relation to the refugee determination, explain the background of other decisions taken, then I imagine there will be further contact between Mr Downer and Dr Wirajuda-his counterpart in Indonesia-and then I'm sure at some point I'll have a discussion with President Yudhoyono. But these things proceed in an orderly way and it's always a good idea to have these very suave diplomatic foreign ministers handle these things so everything is nicely smoothed out.
JOURNALIST:
Reports (inaudible) Papua fleeing. Do you think there will be some more?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't want to speculate about that. We have a policy of respecting and fully supporting Indonesia's sovereignty over Papua. We also as was demonstrated with the refugees a few weeks ago, we have obligations and we'll continue to apply our law. But I understand the issues that are in the minds of the Indonesians. We don't want Indonesia fragmenting and I don't think it's in our interests any more than it's in Indonesia's interests.
Thank you.
[ends]