Subjects: Olympics and international business investment; fuel prices; olympic attendence
E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
LIEBMANN:
The Prime Minister joins us this morning. Good to see you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good to see you Steve.
LIEBMANN:
How good has this past week been? Does it get any better?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I guess it doesn’t. It has been a fantastic opportunity for us to show the world what a wonderful people we are. The Games have been a huge success because the whole of the Australian population’s got behind them and it’s the friendliness of volunteers, of Australians meeting overseas visitors, as much if not more than anything else that’s really been the clinch. I mean our athletes have been superb, wonderful; the organisation’s been good; facilities are excellent; the weather’s been fantastic. Turned a bit ordinary this morning but all of those things have come together. But the icing on the cake is the welcome mat that the average Australian has put out to people coming to this country and I’ve been bowled over by the number of visitors who’ve said to me – gee you are a friendly people. Now I’ve got to say that is the nicest thing that can be said to a Prime Minister of a country that the people he’s elected to be Prime Minister of are seen by the rest of the world as friendly and decent.
LIEBMANN:
What do you reckon the Games are worth in investment dollars to Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh hundreds of millions. An enormous amount because people see it as a modern, sophisticated, can-do, open society. And those conditions are very important. I mean lifestyle conditions for international investors now are more important than they’ve ever been and lifestyle wise you can’t do much better than this country.
LIEBMANN:
Because your message last night was that we’re as passionate about business as we are about sport. Is the message getting through?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it’s starting to get through and I want the world to understand that. That just as we have a great capacity to win medals at the Olympics or win cricket or rugby or other things like that, other sports, so we can perform well in the business world and of course increasingly Australians are running companies internationally – Coca Cola, many other examples of people who’ve gone from this country to go right to the very top. The Ford motor company another example. So there are plenty of those examples and I would want the world to see us as not only Olympic champions in sport but also in business.
LIEBMANN:
You’ve become sort of the unofficial cheerleader for the Olympic team.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’m very happy to do that. I mean I like sport as you know and I’ve tried to get around to a lot of the sports, not only the ones we’ve won medals in. I’ve been to a lot of sports where we haven’t won medals and everybody’s entitled to the same encouragement. And I do see it as my job to try in a small way to tell our athletes by my presence and that of my wife that the whole country is behind them.
LIEBMANN:
It’s not been without critics though. I mean Peter Beattie said you’re attending too many events.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he’s wrong. I mean I’ve chosen to do this. I’m sure it’s what the majority of Australians want me to do, it’s what I want to do. I mean I love sport. This is a great international sporting event, the greatest ever, and the least the Prime Minister of the country can do is go there and just like anybody else cheer ‘em on.
LIEBMANN:
Are you worried about the reality check that might settle in after the Games? I mean we’re not without problems – inflation, petrol prices.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh no, look, there’ll be an….there’ll be a bit of an anti climax, a bit of a letdown. That will automatically happen. But Australians can handle that. I mean we’re practical people. We’re people who understand that. We’ll enjoy this, we’ll get a huge surge out of it. But of course the challenges will remain. And while I’ve been going to a lot of Olympic events I’ve also been doing a lot of work. We’ll be meeting as a Cabinet tomorrow, a normal meeting, and life goes on politically as well as sporting wise.
LIEBMANN:
And politically, petrol prices - your biggest headache, biggest challenge?
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s a big problem because we can’t control much of it. I mean as you can see it’s a problem for the United States and all the European countries.
LIEBMANN:
But we’ve now got talk of a truckies blockade in Victoria, motoring associations are saying you’ve got to do something….
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the motoring associations have been saying that for a long time and I mean it’s very easy to attack the government when they know deep down that the current problem is because of the trebling in world crude oil prices over the last 18 months.
LIEBMANN:
Nothing you can do?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we can’t control it…..I mean Bill Clinton can’t stop that. I mean he’s had to access his strategic oil reserve which was last accessed during the Gulf War and is normally reserved for times of national emergency and that’s a matter of domestic political debate in the United States. If the most powerful person in the world, the leader of the most powerful country the world has ever seen can’t control the world price of crude oil it’s a bit rich for the motoring organisations to say yeah but this is different, you can fix it. Now I mean I’m very aware and I want to say to motorists and to truck drivers I’m very aware that this is a difficult issue. But the best thing that we can do is in our own way in concert with other countries put as much pressure on the oil producers to keep the price down.
LIEBMANN:
All right. Good to see you. Enjoy the second week of the Games.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay, I will. Good on you.
LIEBMANN:
Thanks Prime Minister.
[ends]