Subjects: Olympic Games; foreign policy; UN committees; regional financial centre
PESCHARDT:
Prime Minister thank you for joining us on Australia Direct. Obviously the Olympics is a great opportunity for Australia. What sort of country do you hope people will see?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I am sure they will see a friendly, capable, tolerant and also sophisticated country. I think people will see Australian sportsmanship and athletic talent on display, but they will also find a very sophisticated, diverse country. Sydney is a culturally diverse, exciting city. It is a cosmopolitan city in the best sense of that expression, it really is a wonderfully international city and people will find, I think they will find a sense of excitement and optimism and zest about our country which you can’t find anywhere else in the world.
PESCHARDT:
This is a more complex country I think than many people realise and appreciate it. Is that sometimes a frustration?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it is a huge asset. I mean, we have it all. We’ve got the British, Irish and other European connection and that is very strong but it’s not the full story by any means. We’ve also got our links with North America and some of the cultural ambience, only some, of North America and we have very strong links now with Asia. We have hundreds of thousands of Australians of Asian background who are making a tremendous contribution to our society and we are really at a wonderful intersection in history and geography and culture and that is a huge asset to the country, it’s not a frustration. It adds value to being an Australian, it adds value to Australia in a way that is quite special.
PESCHARDT:
Lets talk a bit about that if we can about the relationship with Asia which is a fundamental one in Australia. The previous government seemed to be more committed to the relationship in Asia than your government.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, they were preoccupied with it. We are committed to it, they were preoccupied with it. They were sort of one dimensional in their approach to foreign policy. We are multi- dimensional. We adopted an Asia first, not an Asia-only approach. If we had been obsessed with Asia and been preoccupied with Asia, we would have been knocked around by the Asian economic downturn. And what helped us is that we were able to diversify. We were able to go to North America and Europe and find markets we lost in Asia and I think the strength of our approach to the rest of the world is that we see Australia as a citizen of the world, rather than just a citizen of our region.
PESCHARDT:
Is it not sometimes, obviously in terms of the East Timor conflict that saw you in direct opposition with your closet neighbour Indonesia. Now that is surely a very unsettling place to be isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we did the right thing and what we did won us respect in the region. The relationship with Indonesia is rebuilding and I pay tribute to what President Wahid has done in the time he has been the President with the leadership he has displayed and I have no doubt that that relationship will heal and rebuild and be different in the future, but in its own way just as strong.
PESCHARDT:
Now just if we can talk a little bit about the sort of Australia that people are going to see when they come to the Olympic Games. Now there are obviously sensitivities about Aboriginal issues. It is inevitable that many people will come to this country, journalists, observers and they will focus very much on the Aboriginal issue. Is there a certain sense of discomfort about what they are going to see?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, because we don’t try and hide the truth. The living standards of Aboriginal Australians are still too low and we have to continue our efforts to raise those standards. We’ve improved them, but there is still long way to go.
PESCHARDT:
It’s a very very slow process though.
PRIME MINISTER:
But that is the experience of so many societies. I don’t know of a society in the world where the debate between the indigenous community and others where it’s totally resolved. We’re not alone in that sense, we have our own way of dealing with it. And it’s always possible to say it should be better, and that will always be right, but it’s equally true to say that there’s a commitment to lift standards of living, of health, and education, all of the practical things that must be addressed if we are to remove the disadvantage. But there is no sense of discomfort. Australians will welcome visitors to look at our nation warts and all, that’s the nature of our society. We’re not any different, we have blemishes, we have made mistakes, we’ve done things wrong, but the balance sheet is far more on the other side.
PESCHARDT:
In recent times, there has been criticisms of Australia by the United Nations, in particular in terms of human rights and mandatory sentencing, the way that people that have committed crimes three times immediately go to gaol. Now the response to the United Nations has been pretty extreme .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well not extreme, I mean that’s an extreme [inaudible] but no . . . let’s get things right. The United Nations has not criticised us, in fact the Secretary General said we were a model member. A Committee of the United Nations, of which there are many has been critical. The analysis in our view was flawed. We are unhappy with the committee process. We don’t think they take enough account of the views of elected governments. They take too much account of the views of non-government organisations and in particular in relation to mandatory sentencing the whole basis of that criticism is wrong. They were saying that the law was racially based because there were more proportionately more Aborigines in custody than others. That doesn’t make it racially based. That is the equivalent of saying that because there are more men in gaol than women that the law is gender based. I mean that is a ridiculous proposition.
PESCHARDT:
Isn’t it though a part of being a member of a club that sometimes if you don’t like the rules of that club because you are a member of that club you just have to succumb to the views of the greater number of people?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don’t think the club, I think it’s a totally erroneous analogy, and in any event, we have been punctilious in paying our dues and meeting our obligations, if you want to use the club analogy. And that led the Secretary General to say that we are a model member.
PESCHARDT:
What about though, you are inevitably going to get criticised by American, by French, by German, by British reporters, the way that the Aboriginal issue has been treated. Is that going to worry you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I worry about justified criticism. I don’t worry about so much unjustified criticism, I try and deal with it. And no society is perfect, including the societies from which those respected journalists will come. And I just ask people to look at Australia in its proper context, and to see our pluses and to see our minuses. If people do that fairly and objectively, they will go away with a very positive impression. But not the impression of a country that believes it is perfect, we’re not. But we’ve contributed a lot more that is positive, than is negative.
PESCHARDT:
If I can just talk a little bit about the Asian Financial Crises. As you said earlier, Australia did survive that crisis very well indeed. How well is the country do you now believe placed to be a regional headquarters, a major economic and business base for the region?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it already is in many respects, and I think it’s got great potential, particularly the city of Sydney, in relation to financial services. We have a stable political system, we have clear, coherent stable laws, we have an incorruptible judiciary, we have good laws of corporate governance, we have low inflation, very ,very strong well supervised banking system. All of these things are marvellous assets. We also have very livable cities and relatively low costs compared to cities like Singapore and Tokyo. I mean it is hard to imagine anybody passing us by.
PESCHARDT:
We do though, sometimes . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well of course they do, for a whole lot of historical reasons, I mean we are . . .
PESCHARDT:
Prejudice against Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
No we are later onto the scene. For years when people thought of financial centres in our part of the world, they automatically thought of Tokyo and Singapore, they are increasingly thinking of Sydney and Melbourne.
PESCHARDT:
Finally, if I can ask you, the Olympic Opening Ceremony, when it begins, now I know that you are not going opening the Games, neither is the Queen. It’s been a subject of controversy. Taking all that aside, how will you feel when the Games open, when the opening ceremony is on in the Olympic Stadium?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I’ll feel a sense of pride and excitement. I’ll feel here, the greatest sporting event is in my country, in the city in which I grew up, a wonderful city, but most importantly it’s in Australia. And I will be looking forward to a lot of Australian gold medals as well.
PESCHARDT:
Prime Minister, thank you very much for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]