QUESTION: Regarding the citizenship laws. Some experts say it’s more symbolic than practical and won’t make Australians safer. Is that true?
PRIME MINISTER: Well the Government clearly doesn’t agree with that. The citizenship laws, the ability to revoke the citizenship of dual nationals who have clearly abandoned their allegiance to Australia by engaging in terrorist activities is one of the many weapons that we have, or shields really, that we have in our defending Australia against terrorism and making it safe, it’s one element. There are a lot of laws and a lot measures that we need to keep this country safe from terrorism.
QUESTION: You were worried about the constitutionality of the laws. Are you happy with that now?
PRIME MINISTER: Well the Government’s advice is that the laws, if challenged in the High Court, would be upheld. Of course advice isn’t always borne out. The High Court makes the law, in many respects. As, you know, it is the ultimate court as it interprets the Constitution. Having said that, we’ve had good legal advice. It’s been to the committee. The committee has reviewed it, they’ve made a number of proposals to amend the laws, and that’s what the amendments are. The amendments that are being introduced reflect the recommendations from the committee. So it’s gone through a proper process now and we are confident that it would survive a High Court challenge, but only time will tell.
QUESTION: Prime Minister, on the Dismissal - we all say things we regret when we're 21, but do you still think the Governor-General is, I quote, “an unelected ribbon cutter" and did this event form your views on an Australian republic?
PRIME MINISTER: Well I think I was always a republican. But the - you know, at the age of 61 one tends to express yourself a little bit more perhaps prudently or moderately than you do at 21. But nonetheless it was interesting as a young person writing about it as very much a baby journalist at the time.
Anyway, but you know, I thought as I saw on one of the things I said at the time was that I thought that the sacking of Whitlam by Kerr would actually help the Labor Party in the election and of course that was my opinion then. Clearly wrong.
One of the things I've learnt over the years as I've perhaps reflected in my remarks there is the Australian people are very focused on the core issues. National security which we were just discussing. But economic management, and that's where the Whitlam Government had monumentally failed.
QUESTION: Prime Minister, do you ...
PRIME MINISTER: Oh Laurie!
QUESTION: How are you? Do you still hold that it's difficult to believe that Prince Charles could be accepted as King?
PRIME MINISTER: Where, in Australia or where?
QUESTION: You wrote it in your book.
PRIME MINISTER: Look I think if the Queen's reign comes to an end and the Constitution is in the form it is today, Prince Charles will become our Head of State. He's not our Head of State. I see the Opposition Leader referred to him as a visiting Head of State. He's not the Head of State. The Queen is the Head of State, Prince Charles is her heir and our Constitution, as you know, says that the Queen in effect our Head of State, is whoever happens to be the King or Queen of the United Kingdom.
So if Charles becomes the King of the United Kingdom, as I’ve got no doubt he will be, unless our Constitution has been changed, he will become the King of Australia.
QUESTION: Are you happy about that, given what you said about him and his wife in that book?
PRIME MINISTER: Laurie I am a happy person. And so you are too. You're smiling. You're filled with joy. And this, as I said, there's never been a better time to be an Australian, and the opportunities for the country are enormous. The opportunities for constitutional change are somewhat more challenging than the opportunities for strong economic growth and on that note, I must leave you.
Thank you.
QUESTION: Prime Minister do you also agree with the idea that the dismissal [inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER: I’ll keep going, if I may, but I think it was certainly, it was certainly became an issue for him. I think, yeah. Look, as I said, everyone has got 20/20 vision in hindsight, right? And so when you say to people ‘what would you have done’, it’s fantasy football, right. But I do think with the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better if Fraser had gone to a regular election which he would have won overwhelmingly. He would have won it anyway because there was a carry-over of bitterness and resentment resulting from the dismissal. But the big take out here is that the Constitution handled it. Despite errors of judgement, despite the crisis, despite a lot of acrimony, the ship of state sailed on. The ship of state sailed on, the crew was changed, the crew were changed by the owners, the Australian people, but the ship of state sailed on.
Thanks very much