SPEERS:
Well Prime Minister thanks for your time. You were there of course when the planes slammed into the Pentagon and into the twin towers in New York, what do you recall most vividly of that day in Washington?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the shock of it and within a very quick period of time, I along with the rest of the world, realised that something dramatic had happened, that it was deliberate, it was no accident and that the world had really changed in a very big way.
SPEERS:
Was there any immediate plan on the day to get you to a safer location?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh we were taken by our security detail from the hotel to the American Embassy, to the Australian Embassy in Washington and then that evening my wife and I and our son who was visiting us from England, spent the evening at the residence of the Ambassador.
SPEERS:
Did you appreciate, you think, at the time exactly how the world had changed and what the war on terror would mean?
PRIME MINISTER:
Not totally, although within in a few hours all of us began to have our suspicions. It wasn't of course until a bit of time went by and it was clearly demonstrated that Al Qaeda had been responsible and the world began to formulate its retaliation, that we became fully aware. But when two planes slam into the World Trade Centre, thousands of people are killed, a plane goes into the Pentagon and another one is prevented from crashing into presumably another high profile target, it's pretty obvious that the world has changed and the judgement was rightly made that this was the beginning of a long fight against terrorism.
SPEERS:
Australians died that day, Australians died in Bali as well, is this threat of Australians dying overseas in terrorist attacks still a bigger threat in your mind than the possibility of terrorists coming here or home-grown terrorists launching attacks on Australian soil?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we're under threat from all of those possibilities, it's harder and in a sense irrelevant as to which is the more important. We're doing our best to stop any loss of Australian lives either overseas or here in Australia, but Australians travel a lot and it is inevitable that we will get caught up when there are terrorist attacks. Everybody is at risk. This idea that the terrorists discriminate between good and bad targets is a myth. More Muslims have died as a result of terrorist attacks since the 11th of September than those of any other religious group in world. So there's nothing benignly selective, if I can put it that way, about the way in which terrorists behave. Their purpose is to strike maximum fear, to destroy life, to destroy property and to continue to carry on this obscene campaign in the name of a great religion.
SPEERS:
Five years on, do you believe we are any safer?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we're safer in the sense that we are now taking precautions against something we didn't think was a threat five years ago and to that extent we are safer. But in the other sense we're not because the threat is still there and it will take a long time for that threat to be eliminated. And we have to fight it on two fronts. We have to protect ourselves, we also have to attack one...a number of the root causes of it. I think one of the issues we have to keep trying to resolve is the Palestinian issue because although that issue is no justification for a moment for terrorism, the existence of that ongoing dispute which has lasted for decades is used as a recruiting weapon by terrorists. And I believe very strongly that if we could reach a settlement whereby there was a total acceptance of Israel's right to exist by the Arab world and the Muslim world beyond, and also the establishment of a Palestinian state, which was fully recognised, that that would remove one of the arguments used by the fanatics. It wouldn't stop terrorism, but it would remove one of the arguments that is constantly used to recruit the young, in particular, to the terrorist cause.
SPEERS:
Well I guess the other arguments are the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, have they made the world a safer place at all?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if we hadn't taken action who knows what might have been the outcome of the behaviour of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. I have no doubt that the future for the Iraqi people is better now that Saddam has gone. And as far as Afghanistan is concerned, well it's been established beyond any real argument that that was the source of the Osama Bin Laden-inspired attack and the Taliban and the role of the Taliban and Bin Laden in Afghanistan was really in a sense the beginning of this campaign of terror against the West.
SPEERS:
But there is a question over Iraq's link to Al Qaeda, did you think, did you ever think that there was a concrete link?
PRIME MINISTER:
I never argued that and I don't think if you look carefully at what others have said in Australia we did. Look the argument is very clear and that is that Iraq is a better place for Saddam Hussein having been gone. I mean it's all very well to criticise what was done there by the coalition but you have to ask yourself where would we be now if we hadn't taken that action and where would we be if we unilaterally pulled out, which is what is being urged on us by the Labor Party and by President Bush's critics in the United States?
SPEERS:
Yes but Prime Minister you did say there was evidence of, quote 'a toleration of an Al Qaeda presence in Baghdad and evidence of links between a branch of Al Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence.'
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, well I don't retreat from that, but that wasn't the main argument that was used at the time and you know that, so, I know you've searched around for some reference to Al Qaeda and Iraq but if you actually look at that, that is a very soft reference.
SPEERS:
It was one of the arguments.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it was a very minor argument, but in any event I don't retreat from that particular remark.
SPEERS:
Were some of your allies, the US President and the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a bit more reckless in drawing this link?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I haven't come here to sort of adjudicate on the actions and speeches of another government, I supported the American action in Iraq, we were part of it, I don't retreat from that, it was the right action, just as our action in Afghanistan is correct, and you don't have your foreign policy dictated by terrorists. And those who want us to pull out of Iraq now, want us to cut and run, are basically saying we should go because the terrorists tell us to go, well we are not going to do that.
SPEERS:
But clearly today in Iraq, now you are talking about Iraq being a safer place in the future.
PRIME MINISTER:
A better place for the people of Iraq, yes I do.
SPEERS:
But what about today?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes but what about the hundreds of thousands of people who never went other than to mass graves? You see those things are conveniently forgotten and the removal of Saddam Hussein has removed a regime that was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
SPEERS:
Now what's the war on terrorism meant for Muslims, particularly in Australia? Do you think their lives have improved at all?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they are part of, or should be part of the Australian community. I look at them as, and I should look at them and they should look at themselves as primarily part of the Australian community, and I think one of the difficulties we have with this whole issue is that we automatically, as your question implies, tend to look at them as a separate group. That's a bad thing, we have to look at them as part of the community and they are entitled to protection and respect, but they also have the obligation to join the rest of the community in condemning terrorism. Terrorism is not part of orthodox Islam, no decent Islamic person can do other than totally condemn terrorism, it is contrary to the Muslim faith. It's an obscenity for terrorists to invoke the sanction and approval of Allah to justify their murder of innocent people, and I am sure that good orthodox Australian Muslims watching this programme would nod their head in agreement.
SPEERS:
Well you said that they should be considered part of the community as they should, but does it help when you single them out by saying that some sections aren't integrating, and that women aren't treated as well as they should be by some Muslims as well, does singling them out like that help?
PRIME MINISTER:
It always helps to call it as it is, and unfortunately there are sections of the Islamic community that are resistant to integration and there are attitudes to women, not only from Muslims but it's more often found there, which are not in line with the general attitude towards the equality of the sexes in this country.
SPEERS:
Not just in the Muslim community...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well sometimes others are the same, I mean, but the point is...
SPEERS:
Wouldn't it be better I suppose, to say all Australians should treat women better?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think that is, well I mean I say that routinely, of course they should, but I think you are avoiding the issue and I think we are kidding ourselves if we don't recognise that the common link in all of these terrorist attacks is the illegitimate, obscene invoking of Islam as a justification for the attacks. And we are kidding ourselves if we don't recognise that and to use camouflaged language and to pretend that that is not the case is to misunderstand the point. Let me put it this way, if a fanatical group of Anglicans or Catholics carried out a terrorist attack and invoked God and the Christian religion to justify it, wouldn't you expect it to be routinely and regularly condemned by religious leaders in this country?
SPEERS:
Is there too much political correctness?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't want to use that expression, I simply want to say I am calling it as it is, the great bulk of Islamic people in this country, overwhelmingly are as concerned about terrorism as I am and you are. There are a small minority who in my view perhaps don't condemn it as much as they should and there is a resistance amongst some of those to integration in the Australian community. But above all of that, it has to be said that the false use and justification of Islam is a common thread in all of these attacks and therefore the leaders of the Islamic community both here and around the world should do what President Yudhoyono frequently does, and he's a great moderate Islamic leader, and that is, condemn terrorism.
SPEERS:
Sydney is hosting the APEC Leaders' Summit next year and quite rightly that is being seen as a potential target. Now I am just thinking back to last year's APEC in South Korea, you were there, it was an absolute lock down, the city, for security reasons. What can Sydneysiders expect?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well obviously there will be some inconvenience and I have had some discussions with the New South Wales Premier and one of the things that we've discussed and he's indicated that he agrees with it and the arrangements obviously have to be made by him because it's a state matter, is that there may well be a public holiday on the critical day of APEC to avoid unnecessary dislocation. But if you don't have these conferences, the terrorists are winning, and if we were to...
SPEERS:
Has that been decided where... is it going to be in the...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we haven't, obviously it would involve Sydney because it's being held in Sydney, but I'm not indicating where at this stage, except that it's going to be in Sydney. I think I've already said that.
SPEERS:
But anyone who works in the city should prepare for...
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, there will be some dislocation, but that is unavoidable, but what signal would it send to the world if we said oh it's just too hard, we're not going to have it, it's too inconvenient. I think most Sydneysiders would get very cranky at that, they would say the Government has given in and you shouldn't give in to this grisly gang.
SPEERS:
And look, just finally on this issue of terrorism, when you think that all it takes really is a home-made bomb and someone willing to sacrifice themself in a public place, are we ever going to see the end of this war on terrorism?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think the threat will be with us for a long time, I'm not going to try and put a measure of years on it, but it will be with us for a long time, and it's tough. They only have to be lucky once, we have to be lucky all the time, to use that terrible expression the IRA used in relation to Margaret Thatcher but it's true. But what's the alternative? Do we, sort of, do nothing? I have no doubt that if the world had not put a lot more effort into intelligence and protection since the 11th of September we'd have had more terrorist attacks. There is no doubt that the security authorities in Britain did a great job a few weeks ago in thwarting that attack on the planes, that was a terrific bit of work by the British intelligence services. Now if we'd done nothing that would have happened and thousands of people might have died.
That is what is at stake and it's not something that we can say well it's going to be over by a certain time, a certain date, and it will be very easy to criticise governments, you can always say to governments you should spend more. It's a question of proportionality; I think we've probably got the balance right. We've spent a lot more, we've changed the law, we may have to change the law sometime in the future I don't know, I'm not signalling anything. But there is no doubt that it will be a long struggle, and that there will be no point at which the terrorists will declare unconditional surrender. It's not like a normal war and that's what makes it so hard. You're not dealing with an army that's rolling across the border. You're dealing with an elusive, insidious infiltration and it's a very tough fight, but we have to win.
SPEERS:
Prime Minister, a couple of other issues, interest rates, the outgoing Reserve Bank Governor Ian Macfarlane has indicated overnight that rates still aren't at what he says are normal levels and they still need to go up. Is that your view?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm not going to offer any speculation, I think there's probably been plenty of commentary on interest rates, except to say that they will always be lower under a Coalition Government than a Labor Government.
SPEERS:
Have they been at abnormally low levels though in the past few years?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the interest rates are very low now by Australian standards, there is no doubt about that. That's what I've been saying, that's what Peter Costello's been saying and they will always be lower under us than under a Labor Government.
SPEERS:
We did see some fairly flat growth figures last week, and yet inflation is running high. Does that concern you at all?
PRIME MINISTER:
Inflation is running a little higher than the very low level it was previously at. Historically, inflation is running at quite a low level. That is something we have to watch. It's a product of a very strong economy. When the economy runs strongly you always get a bit of inflationary pressure, it's one of the reasons why we needed a more flexible wages system, it's one of the reasons why we needed a more flexible industrial relations system, so that if there's demand in one area for higher wages because of higher productivity then it occurs there and is not necessarily transmitted into areas where there is not higher productivity. That's the whole idea of having a freer industrial relations system, and Mr Beazley's plan amongst other things for compulsory collective bargaining where there is majority of people in the workplace for it, will take us back to a rigid system which would be more inflationary, not less inflationary.
SPEERS:
Still, do you concede that the IR issue is hurting you at all out there? I mean, Labor insists that its focus group polling in Queensland, it wasn't the dominant issue, but it was an issue.
PRIME MINISTER:
They would say that wouldn't they?
SPEERS:
You don't buy it at all?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I don't. Look at the evidence. Since the changes were made we've had 175,000 new jobs, industrial disputes are at a record low and you've just been questioning me about pressures in the economy from growth and activity. If all they said about the industrial relations laws were true, jobs would have been shed, industrial disputes would be up and wages would be falling. That's what they said would happen.
SPEERS:
I guess are they winning the PR battle?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think in the end people pay on experience and outcomes and they've run a fear campaign, the unions have put a lot of money into it and they will go on running a fear campaign, but as each month goes by and the fears are not realised, people will say well this was after all a hoax, they've made up most of the stories. You'll get the isolated employer who will behave badly, but they will behave badly under any industrial relations system, that's not unique to this new one.
SPEERS:
And the media laws Prime Minister, are we going to see those soon?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there are some proposals going to the Party Room tomorrow and we will see what comes out of that.
SPEERS:
Are you not going to, I think you've said in the past, die in a ditch over...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I regard change in this area as desirable, but it's nowhere near as important as matters relating to national security, the economy and the social security safety net and family law reform and all those other things that are far more important. But if we can get these changes though I think we'd have a better system.
SPEERS:
Prime Minister, thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]