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CORDEAUX:
This is a good day. It is a good day ahead of what I hope is going to be a good weekend. A good reason to celebrate with the confirmation of funding for the Alice Springs-Darwin rail link. The Prime Minister, John Howard, granted an extra $65 million, I think it was, $65 million for the project. And the Prime Minister is with me. Sir, good morning and thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, good morning Jeremy. This is a great day for South Australia and the Northern Territory. This has been a dream of Australians living in that part of Australia now for almost a century and at long last it’s going to happen. We really do now have a deal. It will work, It’s a great partnership between the three governments and the private sector. It will employ 7,000 people - 7,000 jobs during the construction phase. Now, this is the stuff of which regional revitalisation is made and it is a great forward-looking project. It touches all of those things we think about Australia that the size of the country, the need for ongoing national development. I called it the steel Snowy quite deliberately because it does evoke some of the imagery and some of the place in the psyche of the country of the Snowy River Scheme.
CORDEAUX:
The Snowy River Scheme was a vision and a long-term vision. It’s hard to think these days, as I was saying to the Premier earlier, that people don’t seem to think in terms of this project is going to take 25 years to complete but we will embark upon it and we will achieve it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, this, of course, will take only three years to complete and it’s not as big as the Snowy. The Snowy in today’s dollars would be four to five times the size of this. But this is the first of those really big projects that the country has had in the less populated areas for many, many years and that’s why it’s so valuable. Now, we need infrastructure in Australia but we need it to be a partnership between business and government. The Government can’t do it all but the Government has an important role. This project would never have come to fruition if it hadn’t been for the commitment of John Olsen and Shane Stone and then Denis Burke from the Northern Territory and myself to it. And together the three of us have believed that the Government does have an important role in providing this kind of help. But we can’t do it alone and fortunately through the great efforts of Rick Allert who has done a tremendous job as a South Australian businessman in driving the, how should I call it, the overview and getting the project up and making sure that it was all workable from a business point of view. It has been a great partnership between government and business and it sends such a strong, encouraging, optimistic signal to the people of Whyalla. I mean, this is going to provide 18 months work at the very least for the BHP steelworks in Whyalla. And the injection of hope and optimism and pride and workmanship that that will bring to that regional part of Australia is very important. And I am very conscious as somebody who grew up in Sydney and who is aware of the fact that the economic activity of our nation is uneven. And it’s very important that the national Government be sensitive to that and where it can to provide extra help to the regions of Australia and we certainly see this as striking a mighty blow for the optimism of regional Australia.
CORDEAUX:
Well, it’s taken 90 years to get it up, not to rush you immediately off into anything else, but are there other projects of national vision that you would like to consider?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there could be. I don’t have any about to be launched, if I could put it that way. And whilst I am not, sort of, saying we have, you know, we are open for business as far as infrastructure is concerned. What we are acknowledging by this project is that the Government has a proper role consistent with sensible economic management to provide financial help for important infrastructure projects.
CORDEAUX:
One thing that worries us a great deal in South Australia, and it really should weigh the entire country, is the state of the River Murray.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we are putting a lot of money into that out of the Natural Heritage Trust. And we have got the report on salinity which is a very serious analysis, a very credible analysis of the problem. We have already committed a lot of resources there and we may have to commit more because that is very important to the whole future of the agricultural sector in our country. And what we are saying by this announcement last night is that the Government has a proper role in providing infrastructure, it is not wasteful Government expenditure, it is very beneficial Government expenditure. And whilst I am against the Government spending money on unnecessary things I am very much in favour of the Government spending money on something that’s positive and valuable and nation building. And something like this is really in that category.
CORDEAUX:
Well, according to public opinion many people would rather the money that is being spent on this republican debate, perhaps prioritised differently and spent elsewhere.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I can understand that. I do understand that. On the other hand, I made a commitment before I became Prime Minister that although I myself did not support a republic that I would allow the Australian people, facilitate the Australian people expressing a view, casting a vote. And I didn’t feel that I had the right because I held a view against a republic and wanted to preserve a stable Constitution I didn’t think I had the right to deny people a vote. And I have kept my word at every point. I said I’d have a convention and I had it and I said we would have a vote. And we are having a vote on Saturday week. Now, I know it has cost money but it does cost money to allow people to express their democratic will and unfortunately that is unavoidable if we are to give people that option. And I think it’s important that as we come to the end of the century it's important for us to say, do we want to hang onto our present Constitution or do we want to make a change? Now, I respect the views of my fellow Australians who will vote ‘yes’ and whatever the result is we must all embrace it and get on with life together as Australians. But I will be voting ‘no’ very strongly because I don’t believe in tampering with a Constitution that has worked so well. Now, other people have a different view and I respect their view.
CORDEAUX:
I will be voting ‘no’ as well and I agree with all the things that you said the other night in your statement on the subject. But the divisions that are there between you, for example, and Peter Costello will these heal do you believe?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, I am certain. Look, we have decided to have a free vote. I announced that at the beginning of last year almost two years ago at the Constitutional Convention. I said that the Liberal Party would allow its members a free vote. And that’s the sign of a mature, intelligent political party. We are not trying to drag everybody into conformity. I mean, there are many people in the Labor Party who are going to vote ‘no’ but they just don’t say so. And look, the polls show that 30 to 40 per cent of Labor voters are disposed to vote ‘no’ and yet they have a rigid party line that says everybody should vote ‘yes’. Now, that’s silly. On something like this which is an unusual referendum, you don’t have them every three years, why shouldn’t every political party be brave enough and have enough self belief in its own capacity to manage a range of views? Why doesn’t every political party allow people to have a free vote?
Look, Peter and I have talked about this and I have talked to my other colleagues about it and I have not the slightest doubt that when the referendum is over we will have put our own views in whatever way we think most appropriate but in a courteous respectful fashion and when it’s over well, we go on whatever the result is. And I have not the slightest doubt that once the referendum is behind us we get on with the business of Government and the people of Australia want us to because they will express their view on the republic. I hope they support the preamble and I hope they vote ‘yes’ for that. I am advocating a ‘yes’ vote on the preamble. But whatever the outcome on the two referendums, once it’s over the public will be saying to all of us: now get on with the job of providing good government for the country. And we’ll certainly do that and Peter and I’ll be working as closely and as harmoniously together on that task as we have over the last three and a half years.
CORDEAUX:
Prime Minister, do you think it’s fair that the republicans are trying to claim Sir Robert Menzies as a republican?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think it is pointless.
CORDEAUX:
Cheeky though isn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it is pointless speculating about what a man who died 21 years ago would have to say about something today. I mean, I haven’t the faintest idea at what his views would be. And I noticed his daughter this morning made that same comment from London that she said that it was rather difficult to ascertain his views on the referendum seeing that he’d died 21 years ago. And really…but in the end, and much and all as I respect Menzies, in the end it doesn’t matter what Menzies view might have been. What matters is what the views of your listeners are. That’s far more important to me and because they’ll be casting a vote and my remarks are really addressed directly to them. I don’t need the proxy of the views of somebody else much in all as I respected Sir Robert Menzies and I thought he was Australia’s greatest Prime Minister. But he was a long time ago. He died 21 years ago. I haven’t the faintest idea of what his view would be if he were alive now and frankly it wouldn’t matter because everybody has one vote and as Australia’s current Prime Minister I am putting a case for preserving our present Constitutional arrangements. I like Australia as it is and it works very well and there are a lot of things about Australia that do need changing and I am prepared to campaign vigorously for them like taxation reform and industrial relations reform. But I don’t believe, on the other hand, on changing something that manifestly works so well.
CORDEAUX:
I see that Sir John Gorton has come out in favour of the ‘no’ vote and so has Reg Withers. On a couple of other things, just quickly Prime Minister, you would be happy or in agreement with this announcement that the Pope has stopped the plan by the Sisters of Charity from running this shooting room trial in Sydney?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am against those sorts of experiments. I don’t want to involve myself in a commentary on the internal workings of the Catholic Church. I respect the internal arrangements of the Catholic Church. I am, let me put it this way, I am…I don’t favour injecting rooms. I don’t. And whoever conducts them whether they were to be conducted under the surveillance of the Sisters of Charity or anybody else I do not favour them. And my view on that has been very consistent and if the consequence of this is that those experiments are less likely to go ahead then I will not be sorry about that.
CORDEAUX:
Quite. And also another story that’s floating around this morning is that there may be a special tax levy of between $100 and $200 to pay for Australia’s troop commitments in East Timor. Any truth to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it apparently came up on talkback radio in Melbourne and I was asked about it and I said that I wouldn’t say yea or nay to it but it was an interesting suggestion. And I was interested to hear from the presenter of that programme in Melbourne that there had been quite a positive reaction to the idea. What we are doing at the moment is having a look at, in the context of the mid-year review of our Budget, we are having a look at the cost of East Timor and the cost of other defence commitments. And when we have done all the sums and everything we’ll know exactly where we stand. So I can’t really offer any more comment than that.
CORDEAUX:
Prime Minister, good to talk to you. Have a great weekend.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.