NEIL MITCHELL:
In the studio with me, the Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, Neil.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Can I play you some of what happened on Lateline last night? This man and the reporter, he refused to condemn the beheadings and turned it back on this country and its allies.
EMMA ALBERICI:
Are you outraged by the image of an Australian born child of seven years old holding up severed heads like trophies in Iraq and Syria?
WASSIM DOUREIHI:
Let me tell you what I am outraged by…
EMMA ALBERICI:
So you won’t even answer that question?
WASSIM DOUREIHI:
Are you going to allow me to answer the question?
EMMA ALBERICI:
Does that justify the beheadings, does that justify the slaughtering of innocence?
WASSIM DOUREIHI:
Why don’t you condemn what the Australian Government is doing? Why don’t you condemn what the American Government is doing? Why don’t you condemn the innocent killing of the million lives in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why don’t you do that?
NEIL MITCHELL:
Tony Abbott does this confirm your concerns about this organisation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, yes it does Neil. This is an organisation which is very careful to avoid advocating terrorism but is always making excuses for terrorist organisations. I regard it as un-Australian, frankly, I do regard it as un-Australian to stand up there and make excuses for terrorism; to defend terrorism, to blame everyone but the terrorists for their actions. I think what the terrorists are doing in the Middle East is absolutely abhorrent and as my friend Prime Minister Najib of Malaysia has said on a number of occasions, and he is a pious Muslim, he said what they are doing is against God, it’s against Islam, it is against our common humanity and out of human decency – out of ordinary human decency – this gentleman should have said it is wrong, it’s just wrong.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Why won’t they condemn it? Does it mean they support it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, this is a very fair question. There was a fascinating long essay that the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote a couple of weeks ago and he published on the Blair Faith Foundation’s website, so it would be readily available to people if they want to read it. He made the point that there is the fringe – a small minority of people who engage in terrorism – and then there is the spectrum – a much larger group of people who support an ideology – who have a set of beliefs which justify terrorism. Now, they are not practitioners of terrorism but they have an ideology which justifies and explains terrorism. The point that Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, is making, is that while we must resist fiercely terrorists themselves, do everything we can to defeat the terrorists, we also have to intellectually wrestle and grapple with the spectrum of thinking which supports terrorism…
NEIL MITCHELL:
So you are saying this group?
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely. Hizb ut-Tahrir is an organisation with an ideology which justifies terrorism and that is why I say it is un-Australian. It’s also un-Islamic because no respectable Muslim should have these views.
NEIL MITCHELL:
So, what do you do about them in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look, we stand up and say it is wrong at every opportunity and good on Emma Alberici. She is a feisty interviewer and I am sure I have come off second best on occasions with Emma Alberici and other Lateline presenters. Good on her for having a go and I think she spoke for our country last night.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Is there anything you can do further about this group or is there anything you want to do further about this group?
PRIME MINISTER:
As you know, Neil, we are changing the laws, subject of course to passage through the Parliament. But we want to change the laws and we want to make it an offence not just to engage in terrorist activity, but to engage in terrorist advocacy. Now, it will be a question of law I suppose whether Hizb ut-Tahrir are doing that. Certainly it will be a lot easier to tackle organisations like Hizb ut-Tahrir in the future than it has been in the past.
NEIL MITCHELL:
What was said last night; should that be proscribed under your legislation? Should it be prevented?
PRIME MINISTER:
Certainly if poor old Andrew Bolt is prosecuted for a mild, relatively mild piece, I know it was different law, it was Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, but if we are looking for objectionable speech, the kind of stuff which we're hearing from Hizb ut-Tahrir is infinitely more objectionable than anything you'd ever hear from Andrew Bolt.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Would you like to see it taken further on what was said last night?
PRIME MINISTER:
The point I was making yesterday is that it's one thing for Australians born and bred to be saying things that are objectionable. It's another thing for preachers of hate to be coming in from overseas and Hizb ut-Tahrir, from time to time, sponsor what I describe as preachers of hate coming in from overseas to speak to people in various settings here in Australia. I love people coming to our country; to learn from us, to enjoy our magnificent environment, to visit friends, family, do all that kind of thing. What I don't want is people coming to this country to make trouble and Hizb ut-Tahrir spokespeople and advocates coming to this country are just here to stir up trouble and as far as I'm concerned – it's not going to happen. I say to the preachers of hate if you think you're coming to Australia to spread your pernicious method, your divisive ideology – think again – you won't get in.
NEIL MITCHELL:
But you have heard a message from a local person, presumably an Australian citizen, I don't know, what can you do about that?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm sitting here in your studio, Neil, saying to your listeners; this is objectionable, it's wrong, it's un-Islamic, it’s un-Australian and I hope he wakes up to himself.
NEIL MITCHELL:
What is your response to his suggestion that Australia is complicit in the death of millions of Muslims?
PRIME MINISTER:
What we're doing right now is defending millions of Muslims from the murderous rage of ISIL. That's what we're doing. That's what we were hoping to do and largely succeeded in doing in Afghanistan between 2002 and very recently. That's what we are seeking to do now. That's what we were trying to do in Iraq previously. And the interesting thing about ISIL is that they have killed tens of thousands of people. They've killed Shia, they've killed Sunni, they've killed Turkmen, they’ve killed Yazidi, they've killed Kurds, they’ve killed Assyrians, they’ve killed other Christians – they're indiscriminate killers – they kill without compunction and that's why I call them a death cult. Nothing to do with religion. The only god they worship is death.
NEIL MITCHELL:
This issue is damaging the country. We've got kids who are cadets at school being told not to wear their uniforms in public. Emergency Services not wearing their uniforms in public. Police in Victoria to be armed at all times. Is this all necessary and is it permanent?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm the last person to say that organisations shouldn't give instructions to their members for their own good and for their own protection, but I would personally never advise someone not to wear our country's uniform. It's a personal choice, I suppose, whether you wear it on your way to school, if you're a cadet, or whether you wear it on the way to the station, if you're a CFA member. It's a matter for the Commissioner whether police should be armed or not, but personally I would never encourage anyone who is serving our community not to wear our uniform. It's a personal choice and an organisational matter exactly what advice they get.
NEIL MITCHELL:
I'm unclear on the comments today whether it remains likely that the SAS could go into combat in Iraq. The language seems to have changed a little. Is there an increasing possibility of the SAS going into combat?
PRIME MINISTER:
We've got two very specific missions, Neil. The first is to fly combat air patrols and strike missions over Iraq. We've also got an early warning and control aircraft, a Wedgetail over there; we've got a refueler over there. So the Wedgetail and the refueler are flying support missions for combat aircraft. Our Super Hornet Strike Fighters are there to fly combat air patrol. We've got up to 200 Special Forces there and they are not yet on the ground in Iraq. We're awaiting final legal documentation before that deployment happens. They'll be there on an advise and assist mission. They'll be working with the headquarters of Iraqi units. Some of them may be deployed as kind of combat air controllers to call in air strikes and so on. It's not our intention that they will engage in actual combat and certainly there will be no independent combat operations by Australian forces.
NEIL MITCHELL:
The cost of all this, Joe Hockey says the Labor Party should support it, do you agree if it's bipartisan?
PRIME MINISTER:
To his great credit, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has been very bipartisan on this. I've had numerous conversations with Bill about this and he is an Australian patriot. He fully understands the threat that ISIL poses. He wants to see Australian forces deployed in a sensible way to protect our country and to protect the wider world and I'm confident that we will continue to have strong bipartisanship from the Opposition.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Should he be helping with financial measures i.e. your budget to pay for it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Neil, I want our budget measures to be passed by the Parliament. I accept that the Opposition is absolutely entitled to come to its own position on our budget measures. I think there are strong arguments in favour of all of our budget measures. If the Labor Party doesn't want to support our budget measures I think they should come up with their own alternative savings and my critique of the Labor Party is that having got us into the budgetary mess, they're now obstructing measures to get us out of the budgetary mess.
NEIL MITCHELL:
We're now in a different situation with these added costs with our involvement in Iraq. Has Labor got a responsibility now to pass what you want so you can pay the bills?
PRIME MINISTER:
Let's keep the costs in perspective. We're talking here about perhaps half a billion a year depending on how much ordnance is used. In terms of the debt and deficit disaster that we inherited, this is a relatively small amount. The challenge for Labor is to come up with a proper budget strategy given that they're not, at this stage, prepared to accept our budget strategy.
NEIL MITCHELL:
We’ll take a call. Lena, go ahead please?
CALLER:
Good morning Mr Abbott, good morning Neil. I would just like to know, as a Muslim myself, with all these attacks that have been happening on all the Muslim women in public I have never once seen Mr Abbott stand up and condemn it. Does that mean he supports it because he hasn’t condemned it? Is this Australian? Is this the kind of culture that we want our kids to be brought up on?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Lena, I am happy to condemn it and when…
CALLER:
I’ve never heard you condemn it.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Have a listen.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I am happy to do it now. Let me say this Lena. People are entitled to wear what they wish in a free society and people’s choices should be respected.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Ok, are you happy with that condemnation, Lena?
CALLER:
Well, I think it’s a bit too late but anyway thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Lena, when this whole question of what people should and shouldn’t be wearing came up, it must be about a decade ago when it first came up, I was published, I was quoted. I have always said that people should be entitled to wear what they like. Now, not everyone likes different forms of attire. I have been on the record there as well but in a free society what people wear is entirely up to them: always has been – as far as I am concerned always should be.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Prime Minister, speaking of the money still, some of your own members of Parliament are saying the paid parental leave scheme to which you are so wedded must now be delayed, it is inevitable. Your reaction?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, this is a scheme, Neil, that we have taken to two elections and I accept that, maybe pre-election, some of my distinguished colleagues for all sorts of reasons decided to keep their misgivings to themselves but we have taken it now to two elections. It is very good policy; it’s good family policy, it’s good economic policy, it will be good for productivity. I just made the fundamental point: if we get paid at our wage and we go on sick leave and we go on holidays – why shouldn’t, as a principle, we be paid at our wage when we go on parental leave. I see this as a workplace entitlement not as a welfare one.
NEIL MITCHELL:
So, will the introduction of your parental leave scheme go ahead on the schedule you planned?
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s my firm intention.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Is it your firm promise?
PRIME MINISTER:
We have made the promise two elections running and I don’t like breaking promises and if promises ever get broken I know, Neil, you will be the first to take me to task.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Will you be pulling those in your Party into line, those who are saying it must go?
PRIME MINISTER:
We are not Stalinist about these things.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Broad church?
PRIME MINISTER:
We are a broad church, we are a big tent and there are three names, I think, who have been quoted in the paper today and they have been quoted before. Look, I accept that people in our Party Room can have an opinion that is not necessarily the same as mine but having expressed an opinion people then abide by the decision.
NEIL MITCHELL:
The medical research fund, is that clear to go ahead?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, this is very important for Australia and I had a long chat to Harold Mitchell, one of our more noted philanthropists yesterday and I understand that Harold and many of the chairs of our medical research institutes are going to be talking to the crossbench senators in coming weeks saying this must be done. We have a proud record of medical research – I think we have something like seven Nobel Prize winners, something like six out of the last ten Australians of the year have been medical researchers. We are very good at medical research. We are at least as good at medical research as we are at sport. It needs to be properly funded and this is an economically responsible way.
NEIL MITCHELL:
But are you committed to it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh absolutely, Neil. Absolutely, Neil. It is a very, very important way of building for the future.
NEIL MITCHELL:
But what if the Medicare co-payment is knocked back or knocked down?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we have to fund it and that is why this Medicare co-payment is important. Not only is the Medicare co-payment good policy in and of itself but the money is going to be put to this very important use…
NEIL MITCHELL:
But it can’t happen without the co-payment. Can it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, what is happening is that the chiefs and the chairmen of all of the medical research institutes are basically laying siege to crossbenchers saying if you are fair dinkum about the treatments and the cures of the future this is something that you ought to support.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Can it happen without the Medicare co-payment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it has to be funded and we can’t have an unfunded fund.
NEIL MITCHELL:
So it can’t?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, it must be funded properly. I mean we’re not just going to borrow to put money into a fund.
NEIL MITCHELL:
It is reported today that there are concerns about the unemployment figures being inadequate. In fact the headline in The Financial Review, “Job figures dodgy”; there are more out today. Do you accept they are dodgy and what is the real unemployment level?
PRIME MINISTER:
I’ll leave it to the statisticians to argue this point. I’m not a statistician and I trust the statisticians to give us what they think is the best and most accurate figure. Over the years, there’s been all sorts of argument about the unemployment figures. Previously the argument was normally about – not about seasonal adjustment – it was more about should you count as unemployed people who are underemployed and that’s been the previous argument. I’ll let the statisticians deal with that one, Neil.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Ebola – a man has died in the United States, you’re a former health minister, you would’ve been across it even then in those days. Are we adequately prepared in this country? Is it inevitable that Ebola eventually comes here?
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s not impossible that it will come here, but what we’re doing at the moment, Neil, is we’re carefully monitoring everyone coming to this country who’s been in West Africa. In every state, public hospitals have been prepared to deal with Ebola cases should we get any. We’ve spent $18 million on top of the $40 million a year that we give to the World Health Organisation specifically on Ebola precautions and we’re constantly monitoring and reviewing the situation to see what more might be done. As I understand things, the public health systems in some of the West African countries are all but overwhelmed and there’s really not much point deploying Australian personnel over and above those that are already there with the NGOs like Médecins Sans Frontières into a situation without a clear plan and that’s what we need.
NEIL MITCHELL:
But we now have the United States and Spain. Is this perhaps a sign that it is spreading beyond Africa?
PRIME MINISTER:
This is by far the biggest outbreak that we’ve seen of this horrific disease. The Americans are confident that they can control it. I imagine the Spaniards have a similar view. It’s interesting – there were several cases in Nigeria a couple of months ago. Nigeria has a much less sophisticated public health system than either the United States or Spain, let alone Australia, and the Nigerians to their great credit appear to have got it under control. So, there have been no new cases in Nigeria as I understand it for a couple of months which suggests that it is either under control or close to being under control there.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Prime Minister, as a fitness fanatic, I’d be interested in your reaction to this – have you ever seen the opera Carmen?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have not, I regret to say.
NEIL MITCHELL:
Alright, well it depicts smoking on stage. In Western Australia they’re not going to perform that because it – well they’re sponsored by an anti-smoking group and they think it could be promoting smoking. Isn’t that going a bit far?
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course it is; it’s political correctness gone crazy. Operas are all about tragic situations; someone unfairly losing his or her life. Opera is, if you like, inevitably, an exaggeration, and if we running around looking to take offence or looking to spread some politically correct message, just about every opera would be forbidden.
NEIL MITCHELL:
I know you need to get away, I appreciate your time.
Thank you very much.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks, Neil.
[ends]