Subjects: Roads funding; surplus; infrastructure, nation building; world price of oil; Aussie dollar; US election; voluntary voting; media coverage of elections; media; childhood; being Prime Minister; Sport; Peter Reith
E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
JOHN LAWS:
Good evening, welcome to our program.
After nearly five years in the top job it would seem that Prime Minister John Howard has got very little to be sorry about. The Howard Prime Ministry has seen labour reform, the introduction of gun control, a vote on the Republic, East Timor and GST. Not everybody approved of everything but all those things happened and it’s a pretty impressive list, some of which have been on John Howard’s political agenda for much of his twenty-six years in politics, and the Prime Minister is my special guest in the studio.
Prime Minister, thank you very much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Nice to be with you John.
LAWS:
What are you going to do with all that money?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well pay back debt. We inherited a very big mortgage from Mr Beazley, about $80-90 billion, so got a lot of debt to pay back. But it’s a bit more than we expected at budget time so we are going to put some more into road funding which is not a boondoggle as Kim Beazley calls it. People who use big words should know what they mean. Boondoggle means sort of frittering time away on something unimportant.
LAWS:
It means being a bit shifty too.
PRIME MINISTER:
Not being shifty. You look any country person in the eye and they don’t think it’s either shifty or wasteful to spend money on local roads.
LAWS:
I would think they’re very happy.
PRIME MINISTER:
Because they are in need of more support and more cash and we are going to put more cash into them.
LAWS:
The cynics in our society would say that you’re going to use it all to bankroll your return to government.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t think you can ever bankroll your return to government. I think the public expects certain things to be done and if you look as though you’re only doing things for the sake of buying favours as distinct from addressing need then they’ll see through that and mark you down accordingly.
LAWS:
Don’t you think you can do both at the one time, address the need and pick up a few votes?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if you do good things people will always support you and it is good to repay debt but it’s also good to spend money on infrastructure and building up the country’s roads is necessary infrastructure, it always has been needed. We spend a lot on them now but we’re now able to spend more and we think that’s good.
LAWS:
And it’s not boon…
PRIME MINISTER:
Boondoggling? No, because that’s wasteful and we’re not wasteful. I don’t think people would accuse us of being wasteful. In fact we’ve been accused in the past of not spending enough of the surplus but we think you’ve got to get a balance between paying back the mortgage and also laying out fresh sums on necessary projects.
LAWS:
Why do you think Labor leaders like these funny words?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t know. I think it’s very silly. I’m a great believer in using a simple Anglo-Saxon word if you can find one and providing it’s polite.
LAWS:
The motorists aren’t terribly happy with you at the moment because of fuel costs. Are you spending money on roads to appease them a little bit?
PRIME MINISTER:
There’s a case for spending money on roads. Look I know people don’t like the high price of petrol but that’s due to the high world price of oil. That is the reason. It’s trebled in the last eighteen months. You and I wouldn’t even be talking about the issue right now if it hadn’t trebled.
LAWS:
No. Will it go down?
PRIME MINISTER:
The futures market say it will. The experts reckon it’ll start to fall when we come out of the northern winter.
LAWS:
Why would it fall then?
PRIME MINISTER:
Because there’s less demand.
LAWS:
For fuel.
PRIME MINISTER:
For fuel, yes.
LAWS:
Australia really is in pretty good shape isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. We have the best unemployment figures for ten years. We have high rates of investment. We have low inflation, lower interest rates. We’ve got a high productivity economy and we’ve just come through an experience with the Olympic Games and the Paralympics where the rest of the world thinks we’re fantastic. So it is good. That’s a really great thing about, the impression of this country around the world now is fantastic.
LAWS:
Hard to work out the dollar. I mean that really is hard, given that the place is in terrific shape, and it really is, all the figures are good, but the dollar is down.
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s a reflection of the fashionability of the yankee dollar. Everything American is the top of the hit charts now.
LAWS:
At the moment.
PRIME MINISTER:
At the moment, yes, and it’s a funny old world. What’s happening to our dollar and what’s happening the Euro is a bit of a reflection of how strong from an economic point of view the American dollar is.
LAWS:
What do you see happening with that election?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t know.
LAWS:
Isn’t it extraordinary?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am fascinated by it.
LAWS:
So am I.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t find it bizarre or challenging or a disgrace or anything like that. I can’t understand people who describe it as that. I just find it quite absorbing and there’s no law of democracy that says you can’t have a close election.
We had one in 1961 that took about two weeks to sort out and that happens sometimes. I’m quite fascinated by it.
LAWS:
When you think a hundred million people voted and they’re now talking three/four hundred votes.
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s interesting only a hundred million people voted. It’s only 50.5% of the people eligible.
LAWS:
Yeah. Who did I talk to? I talked to somebody recently, an American, who said he rather wished that they did have compulsory voting because they’re apathetic.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t believe in compulsory voting but…,
LAWS:
Why don’t you move it then?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well because the majority of my party disagree with me.
LAWS:
That hasn’t affected you in the past has it?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I don’t feel that strongly on the issue to have an argument and the Labor party is against changing it too. As a matter of principle, I don’t think people should be compelled to vote.
LAWS:
Well I don’t think they should either especially when we maintain we live in a democracy.
PRIME MINISTER:
I would think if you had voluntary voting in Australia you’d have a higher percentage of people voting than in America but let me make it clear, it’s not on my agenda.
LAWS:
Okay.
PRIME MINISTER:
Definitely not. I don’t want to start anything running on that thank you.
LAWS:
Okay.
The fact that Australia is in good shape, in anybody’s language is in good shape, why do the polls, and a recent one I looked at indicated that you would probably or the coalition would lose an election. I mean why would that be if Australia is in good shape?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well people often take prosperity and success for granted and that’s understandable. You don’t often get an A plus politically for an A plus economy. That doesn’t automatically follow and in any event, I’ve found in political life what really matters is to sort of win the election on the day and if you end up winning on the day…,
LAWS:
The polls don’t matter much.
PRIME MINISTER:
The polls don’t really matter do they?
LAWS:
Do you think people naturally rebel against authority?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh people in Australia don’t like anybody to get too far in front. It’s another way of putting it, yes, and that’s natural and that’s a healthy trait. There’s that factor in Australia that’s quite healthy.
LAWS:
Do you think it’s healthy?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it’s healthy for people to always question what their elected leaders are doing. I don’t think it’s healthy if people are constantly knocking what people are trying to do but I think if you are questioning and always asking them to do more and to do better, that’s a good thing.
LAWS:
How do you think the media stacks up in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, it’s good and bad. I think the broadsheets are too politically correct and so are sections of the ABC.
I think they do better at calling elections than the American media. I think having watched CNN on the American election, I think our media would leave them for dead. I think what you get on election night from the Australian television networks, from Nine and the ABC, is a country mile ahead of what I saw on CNN. Now whether that’s to do with the way they run their electoral system or not but to call a presidential election apparently on the basis of exit polls…,
LAWS:
And that’s what they do.
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s right and not on the basis of the votes actually cast in the polling booths is just, that is bizarre.
LAWS:
Well that’s how it all began. I mean that was the problem.
PRIME MINISTER:
I thought it was a very interesting exercise. I think our people, our television do election night very well indeed.
LAWS:
We certainly do. Do you feel intimidated by the media?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. I disagree with some of them very violently on occasions and I don’t think a lot of people on the media always represent the mainstream of the community on certain issues but I don’t feel intimidated by them.
LAWS:
You never say to yourself well hang on, the media is going to run riot with this.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh look you always pay some regard to media reaction but I think if I’d taken notice of the media on the GST or the Republic or on a formal apology, I’d have reached different conclusions on the three of them.
LAWS:
True.
We’ll have a little break here and I’ll come back and talk some more with the Prime Minister, John Howard.
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LAWS:
Thank you very much for staying with us. My guest is the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard.
What’s the most difficult thing about the job?
PRIME MINISTER:
I suppose the hardest thing about the job is occasionally taking decisions which have a long fuse and you don’t sort of get to the end and you don’t get the result for a long time and you’ve got to put up with a lot of anger and misunderstanding and misinformation. The GST was a bit like that. I mean I knew that once we finally got there, I felt once we finally got there we’d have a chance of getting the public to accept it and I think that’s turned out to be the case but along the journey, it’s very hard.
LAWS:
Has that been the most difficult issue?
PRIME MINISTER:
Probably, although the waterfront was hard. We were trying there to bring about a big cultural change and I thought Peter Reith was very courageous in what he did on the waterfront issue. The whole reconciliation issue is difficult.
LAWS:
And will always be difficult.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah because, I mean what is frustrating about that is that we all believe in reconciliation. I mean I want Aboriginal and other Australians to be at peace with each other and to feel all part of the country and to share the opportunities of this country very strongly. I disagree with some on ways of getting there but I don’t in any way oppose, in fact I want there to be reconciliation. I think we’re probably a lot more reconciled than what we’ve allowed for.
LAWS:
Well I think we might be more reconciled than some sections of the media would,
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that’s right. That was the take out, if I can put it that way, to me of the Olympic Games.
LAWS:
When you get involved with the public, I mean at the sort of level, we’ve got a picture here of you and Sandy Blythe. Is that sort of thing difficult?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. That’s the nicest part of the job.
LAWS:
Really, so the people thing,
PRIME MINISTER:
The people part of it is the best part of the job. I like talking to Australians, they’re wonderful people to talk to and I never get tired of meeting a new and different group of Australians and you can do that every day and they are the most spontaneous, genuine people in the world. That’s the nicest part of the job.
LAWS:
Yeah, the feeling was that sometimes you look uncomfortable when you’re amongst people. You’re not, even though you may look it, you’re not.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no, I love it.
LAWS:
So you’re really quite a gregarious person.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that’s a judgment others will make but I do enjoy mixing with Australians and it is very easy to do and they are very open and authentic. They don’t muck around.
LAWS:
No, they don’t.
PRIME MINISTER:
And that’s good.
LAWS:
What do you think is the most important quality a man should have?
PRIME MINISTER:
Reliability and honesty.
LAWS:
In that order?
PRIME MINISTER:
In a sense they’re different ways of expressing the same character.
LAWS:
Are they things that you were brought up to believe?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah they were. I was brought up to be reliable and loyal and honest and I was brought up to believe that every person was as good as the next. I had a very egalitarian upbringing. My parents were very unpretentious people. They were very much of the view that you treat people decently and they’ll treat you decently in return.
LAWS:
Loyalty is very important to you isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Very important.
LAWS:
I mean you’ve showed extraordinary loyalty to some members of your team.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I have.
LAWS:
When perhaps others would have withered under the barrage.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think loyalty is a two-way process. You can’t ask people to give loyalty to you unless you are prepared to return it. Now you can’t always do that because there can be an issue of principle that is more important than the delivery of the loyalty.
LAWS:
Have you ever regretted loyalty?
PRIME MINISTER:
That I’ve given to somebody? Oh, not that I’d care to recount.
LAWS:
So you have.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I mean you’re asking me about the whole of my life. I think all of us have had that experience.
LAWS:
Talking about the whole of our life, what were you like at school? What sort of kid were you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I suppose I was a pretty serious kid. I had a pretty significant hearing problem by the time I was at school which probably affected me a bit. But I liked sport, I was reasonably conscientious. I did reasonably well without being what you would call a complete swat.
LAWS:
That was the word I was going to use. Did people think you were a swat because that’s the word used when I was at school.
PRIME MINISTER:
Not quite in that category but perhaps some people thought I got close to it but not really. I probably played too much sport.
LAWS:
How old were you when you started to wear glasses?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh about, for reading when I was about eleven.
LAWS:
Did that give you a hard time at school?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh a little bit but that was usual.
LAWS:
Were you good at sport?
PRIME MINISTER:
Reasonable. Not brilliant but I sort of got to a reasonable level in both cricket and rugby.
LAWS:
You love it now don’t you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah I do. I’ve always liked sport. I think it’s good, I mean it’s the exercise. I play golf regularly now which is very good. I enjoy it immensely.
LAWS:
And you do that funny..,
PRIME MINISTER:
And I do all of that walking every morning, yes. Nothing funny, it’s just ordinary walking.
LAWS:
No it’s not, it’s sort of power walking.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, it’s a fast walk, yes.
LAWS:
Very fast.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it’s good. I do a lot of thinking and it’s a good way to see a city.
LAWS:
Sure is.
PRIME MINISTER:
I’ve seen the parks and whatever of just about every city I’ve visited.
LAWS:
Yeah and you’ve certainly seen a lot of cities.
PRIME MINISTER:
I have.
LAWS:
Who’s your favourite sports person, dead or alive.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh well Don Bradman undoubtedly.
LAWS:
By a mile.
PRIME MINISTER:
By a mile but in cricket I have a great respect for Garfield Sobers and I think in rugby John Eales is as great a rugby player as this country has ever produced.
LAWS:
Terrific man.
PRIME MINISTER:
A really fine man and a great player.
LAWS:
And some good ones on the way. Young Matthew Burke’s a terrific young lad.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, he’s good and what’s good about the Australian rugby team is that we’ve had sort of a little bit of a generational change with Matty Horan and David Wilson going and Richard Harry but the ones that have replaced them seem to be just as good and getting Matty Bourke back is terrific.
LAWS:
He’s a quality fellow.
Tell me, do you think our Australian cricket team at the moment is just too good?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t think it’s, they play so much now that there’s always a danger that you’ll lose a game unexpectedly.
LAWS:
Are we getting over-cricketed?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think in a sense there’s a danger that we’re playing too much of all sports and not just cricket but that’s a product of professionalism in a big way. It’s a very good team…
LAWS:
Terrific team.
PRIME MINISTER:
And Steve Waugh is a very professional, tough, dedicated captain. He’s very good.
LAWS:
What about this West Indies team? Are they going to be formidable or are we going to trounce them?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they’re having a bad start.
LAWS:
Sure are.
PRIME MINISTER:
But then they’ve done that before. The famous team that Frank Worrell brought here in 1960-61 had a bad start until the tests. Then they had a tie and it was the most exciting series ever.
LAWS:
Incidentally, for your edification the ABC is running a historical series on..
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, on the Calypso. It’s forty years ago.
LAWS:
So that’d be one thing the ABC is doing that you wouldn’t mind.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I think they do a lot of terrific things but I just have an argument with some of their balance on politics.
LAWS:
Why, do you think that they are severely biased?
PRIME MINISTER:
On some issues, yes I’ve been critical of their balance on some issues, yes.
LAWS:
If you could have five people to a dinner party, anybody you wanted, living or dead, who would you have?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh well I’d certainly have Shakespeare. I’d certainly have Don Bradman. I think I’d have Colin Powell. I’d probably have Jesus of Nazareth and I think it’d be hard not to have my wife.
LAWS:
You’d be in trouble if you’d left that one out wouldn’t you?
PRIME MINISTER:
She’d want to share their company.
LAWS:
I imagine.
LAWS:
We’ll come back and talk more about that ‘cause I think that’s interesting. We had a little wager earlier and we tipped a few that you tipped.
We’ll have a little break here and I’ll come back and talk some more with the Prime Minister. Please don’t go away.
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LAWS:
Thank you very much for staying with us. My guest is Prime Minister John Howard.
You wouldn’t ask Bill Clinton to dinner?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. That list, I think I’d also add Winston Churchill.
LAWS:
Not Margaret Thatcher.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, well if I had a slightly larger dinner party.
LAWS:
If you had a bigger table.
PRIME MINISTER:
Had a bigger table. I think she’s certainly the most significant political figure of a major democracy in the last thirty years.
LAWS:
Yeah, she’s been an extraordinary woman.
PRIME MINISTER:
She changed Britain and she had a great influence on Ronald Reagan and the direction of western politics. I think she was right out of the top drawer.
LAWS:
What did you want to do when you were at school?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I was interested in the law. I was also interested at one stage in journalism but I sort of veered away from that, not because I became disinterested. I’ve always been quite interested in the atmospherics of journalism and I don’t mind writing myself but I ended up doing something else.
LAWS:
You certainly did. Are you writing a book?
PRIME MINISTER:
Certainly not now. Will I in the future?
LAWS:
Yeah.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I wouldn’t rule it out. It’s quite possible.
LAWS:
If it hadn’t have been politics, what do you think it would have been?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think if it hadn’t have been politics and my hearing had have been a big sharper I’d have gone to the bar.
LAWS:
So the hearing thing has been a,
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s had an effect. It’s not something that, I mean I’ve fortunately been fixed up along the way and it’s pretty serviceable but in a courtroom you need it to be slightly more than serviceable.
LAWS:
After politics, what?
PRIME MINISTER:
Don’t think about it much. I’m not going yet.
LAWS:
When are you going?
PRIME MINISTER:
I answered some questions on that a few months ago, there’s really nothing changed. I certainly will lead the party to the next election if that’s their wish and then I’ve said before that at some stage after that I’ll think about the future. I can’t really, I wouldn’t put it any more definite than that. I’m in very good health and I enjoy it.
LAWS:
Don’t get tired?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I don’t, no. I’m in pretty good, touch wood, physical shape.
LAWS:
What are your hopes for your children?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I want them to be happy.
LAWS:
Is that,
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes it is. The most important thing is I want them to be happy. Happiness is more important than material success.
LAWS:
Certainly.
PRIME MINISTER:
I want them to have happy family lives and I want them to sort of live in a world and bring up children in a world that’s peaceful and has opportunities. They’re the things I want most for my children.
LAWS:
I remember when you became Prime Minister and I talked to you that morning I think and I said to you do you think it’s important that you run a happy country, is happiness part of the deal. I think you were a bit taken aback by the question and I wasn’t ever quite sure whether you understood what I meant or whether you agreed with what I meant. Do you want a happy Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I do want a happy Australia. I want an Australia where it’s at peace with its place in the world. It’s very hard to sort of ever judge that. Everybody has their own…,
LAWS:
But you want the people to be happy.
PRIME MINISTER:
I do want the people to be happy. You’ll never get all of them happy all of the time but I’d like most of them happy most of the time. I think to a large extent that exists at the present time but I’m not so presumptuous to believe that’s overwhelmingly due to anything I or any other leader has done. I think it’s due to the nature of the people.
We are an agreeable people. Most Australians try and do the right thing. They have a positive, decent view of the country. They have a positive, decent view of their fellow man and it’s the spirit of the Australian people that makes this country such a wonderful place in which to live.
LAWS:
Does your wife make an impression on your political thought?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes she does. She’s the closest person to me in my life. I mean we don’t discuss every issue but we talk about political issues. She’s a highly intelligent woman.
LAWS:
Does she tell you when she thinks you’re wrong?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
LAWS:
Did she ever tell you you were being too loyal to Peter Reith?
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
LAWS:
Didn’t even suggest it?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, no.
LAWS:
So she understood that loyalty.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
LAWS:
‘Cause a lot of people couldn’t. A lot of people couldn’t.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I take a long view, he made a mistake. He’s paid very dearly for that in both fierce personal criticism and also financially but he was never at any stage in receipt of a dollar to which he was not entitled and he fessed up, told me all about it and nothing has happened since to dent the story he gave me. Now I can be criticised, and I have been criticised, and if I pay a political price for that well that’s a price I pay for the judgment I exercised.
LAWS:
Do you think you will pay a political price?
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s ultimately a matter for the Australian people but I took my decision and I stick by it.
LAWS:
So loyalty is more important than your future as Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I mean I don’t know that you’re ever confronted with that simple choice but,
LAWS:
Well you sort of nearly are.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don’t know. I think there are other things that people will look at come the next election other than the so-called Reith issue. But you can’t ever look at things like loyalty and how you handle a particular issue in those terms. You have to make a decision on the merits and that’s what I did.
LAWS:
What frightens you?
PRIME MINISTER:
The normal things that frighten any father or husband. Illness. Threat to one’s family. I mean the safety and security and happiness of my family are the things that matter most to me. I can sort of handle anything else but that’s the thing that would frighten me the most, yes.
LAWS:
Prime Minister, thank you very much for your time. It’s been good to talk to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
LAWS:
As it always is, and I wish you all the best for the future.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
LAWS:
Thank you very much. Prime Minister, John Howard.