PRIME MINISTER
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER, THE HON P. J. KEATING, MP
INTERVIEW WITH CHRISTOPHER CORDEAUX, RADIO 5DN, ADELAIDE,
23 MARCH 1995
E& OE PROOF COPY
CC: Paul Keating is sitting opposite me, good morning.
PM: Glad to be here.
CC: Thank you very much for your time. I understand you are here for
some fairly high powered stuff.
PM: Yes I am here to, basically, start off this investment and strategies
conference this morning, looking at the future of South Australia and
what strengths it has and how we might advance them.
CC: From our sample that we have here, the people who we contact
through the telephone, we never see them mind you, but we hear
them. I have the impression that the ordinary person is more
interested in politics at the moment than he or she has possibly ever
been before. It is becoming the next nouvelle thing, I think, is to be
involved and to want to be more involved and to have actually looked
up democracy and public servant in the dictionary and been surprised
at the meaning of those words.
PM: Look, I think, there is an enormously healthy public debate in Australia.
For instance, the fact that you just made this point and you can be
discussing on radio things about the economy or social policy or the
environment or whatever it might be, this doesn't happen in the United
States, it doesn't happen in Britain. You don't get the same general
involvement by the community in public policy issues. So, there is an
enormous conscientiousness about the Australian electorate.
CC: Well, they are very interested in you at the moment.
PM: Well, they are always interested in Prime Ministers.
CC: But they are particularly interested in you, I think, you have one of
those jobs. Did you ever go to Luna Park in the old days?
PM: I did, yes.
CC: Remember those faces that stood there day after day having things
thrown at them, that was their job.
PM: I know.
CC: I think they have kind of put you in a position a bit like that at the
moment. I have suggested to people that they get a picture of you and
a picture of the Leader of the Opposition, who ever that may be at the
time, and put them both on the fridge and put underneath the question
" Is this man headed for the 21 st century?" And, answer it privately for
themselves every day. Now, I think that is the question don't you?
PM: I think it is. The system basically runs itself. The job of Ministers and
Prime Ministers is to nudge it along and change it. That is all it is
about. I mean, to be sitting around, to be sitting in a government job
with the white car and the rest, but not changing anything, well it is to
just waste your life away and kid people that you are actually doing
something for them. I think we have just got such an enormous
opportunity, we are the only nation in the world that has a continent to
itself, we are in a temperate part of the world, we are close now to the
fastest growing markets in the world, we have got an opportunity we
have never had before in our history and to not recognise the
opportunity and not got for it is to really sell yourself short.
CC: Well, I think, people do in fact perceive that at the moment and
everyone who has asked has and who have been overseas recently
particularly says that they are astonished at what a good place
Australia is really compared to the situation in the rest of the world, but
I think that entitles them to give more trouble to the people who are
running it because if something is pretty good, you want it to be
perfect. If it was totally out of control, you would think well, what the
hell it doesn't matter. But the difference between how it felt to be on
one of Magellan's ships and how it feels to be the captain of a cruise
ship is significant isn't it?
PM: Absolutely.
CC: And, I think a lot of people feel that these days when you talk about
things like, those words that have become I think probably the worst
cliches of the present era, which is development, growth, and
employment and interest rates you can throw in as well, but it is like a
cruise ship the answers are no more interesting than the question
and contain no more information, the questions sometimes have more
information in them than the answers that you actually get but can't
we start talking about, when you talk about growth and development,
about growth of human imagination, growth of optimism and
development into developing the new ideas, I mean developers think
they are doing new things. They are not, they are doing old, boring
things.
PM: Old, boring things, exactly.
CC: Well, we could lead the world.
PM: This is why, Christopher, I have been speaking about our identity. I
don't think you can feel confident about yourself as a country or about
ourselves as individuals if our sense of ourselves and the creative
spirit of ourselves isn't both there and being harnessed and being, if
you like, used in a corporate way to identify us as a nation. It is all of
those cultural, in a sense, spiritual things about the country which I
think you are getting at.
CC: Well, why don't we hear more about it?
PM: Because we have got a whole set of media reference points about
' now Prime Minister, can you give us a guarantee that interest rates
won't run up tomorrow morning?' You say ' oh, well ok' and that is your
point. Where the real question is is this a different sort of society? Is
it getting a real sense of its own self importance and capacities? Are
we trying to bring the most creative people forward and free rein to
those who can add something new and in the making of something
new can we make that linkage to these massive markets and societies
and old societies around us and be part of them?
CC: Like Indonesia for instance. Surely it is a bit old fashioned to be
selling rifles isn't it?
PM: Well, maybe it is old fashioned, maybe it's right, I don't know.
CC: But there are some very good things that we could be selling
Indonesia that will help all of us.
PM: One of the things we are selling, obviously, is going to be health
services, we are going to be selling them all sorts of internationally
traded services, education, things like that.
CC: Let's just take solar power for a second. We actually lead the world in
that department and if more solar hot water systems, just as a simple
example, were made 4,000 jobs I've heard, straight away. Something
useful, doing something clean, doing something that people can
actually be proud of. But instead of that, you hear this job
development goes into things like making new cars or something.
PM: As you know, we have had a number of break throughs in solar
technology and solar power lends itself, particularly to these many
islands in the Archipelago of Indonesia, where they don't have a
national power transmission system. Where they have got to have
local power which either runs on diesel or kerosene or something else.
They are the sort of things we can do. But we also do a lot with water
up in those countries, that is, the producing of water and its
cleanliness. I think, we have got a fairly and I hope now, a proud
record with countries like Indonesia, but the main thing is
understanding that these are very old societies and they have their
own mores and traditions and while we have been given the great
opportunity of inheriting this continent, we have to come to terms with
them, they live next door to us.
CC: It would be great to talk about that, just that one subject all day, but
there is a whole list of things, everybody has given me a different
question in here..
PM: I can hear the fax machine, grinding away behind you.
CC: There is a full board of questions out there, the one last thing that I
would like to say is and I suppose everyone is saying this so there is
not much point in saying it again, but that business over there with the
BBC, I think probably people appreciate hearing..
PM: Which was that?
CC: It was a piece of parliament, is sounded more like a soccer game or
something like that. There was a thing, I don't know which tribe it was
or maybe it was all tribes of the north American Indians, had
something call the speaking stick and when something had to be
discussed, the person who held the stick was the only one who could
speak at the time. If you wanted to speak you had to get the stick.
Now, in the end things degenerated a little bit and eventually people
possibly were even killed to get the stick from them, but nobody dared
to speak without the stick. Now, maybe that would be a good idea.
PM: Well, one thing is for sure, that this notion of trying to talk over people,
if you have got something to say generally, if it has got some value, it
will stand up. But, I mean, television in some respects has changed
the way the House of Representatives works because now everybody
thinks that they are on television and they want to get the tuppence
worth in because they know it gets into a 30 second grab and that's
that. But I don't think the BBC should be going on about it. The
Hansard records of the House of Commons would make your hair
stand on end. Our place is just so tame compared to that place.
CC: I think people have been surprised since they have actually had
access to it and I think actually that parliamentary station on the ABC
tv and radio is going to suddenly turn up as a top rating station in the
near future. People weren't aware it was there and they weren't aware
of what it sounded like.
PM: One thing about pay television, of course and those other things, you
will have these, particularly fibre optic cables, you will be able to just
have that channel permanently if you want it. If you wanted to be a
glutton for punishment, but if you wanted it.
CC: I think people think really that Parliament should be more like a court
or a church.
PM: Absolutely.
CC: Or something like that. This business of concerted almost organised
crime in the back benches of just shouting people down.
PM: It means if you are a Minister trying to answer questions
extemporaneously you can hardly hear yourself think.
CC: OK, we can probably hardly hear ourselves think with all the things,
that people are actually saying waiting on the other end of the
telephone lines around the place if we could hear them, so we had
better go to those people.
Q: Good morning, Mr Prime Minister. I have a question about the up front
fees for students. I am the future of South Australia, I am a mature
aged student doing a higher degree in indigenous education and the
up front fees for me is going to mean I can't continue with that study, I
can't influence my children, I can't be an active participant in my
society with what I am getting from those studies and I would like to
know how the Prime Minister can justify this unempowering so many
people like me with these up front fees.
PM: I think that first of all that the government does not support up front
fees for domestic undergraduate students. First time entrance to
university or a particular university course, I don't think, should be
hindered by a student's financial circumstances. During our term of
office we have overseen quite dramatic expansion in the number of
higher education places and they have risen by about 65 per cent
from 350, 000 in 1983 to nearly 600,000 today. So, in response to
university wishes this Government has given institutions greater
flexibility and responsibility in managing their own affairs including
allowing charging of fees for post graduate students not receiving
scholarships. But you are talking about up front fees for domestic
under graduate students and we don't support up front fees for
domestic under graduate students.
Q: Good morning, Prime Minister. I am an ex-allied serviceman, I fought
in the Pacific against the Japanese, became a POW on the Burma
Railway for three and a half years and in 1950 came to Australia and
became a naturalised Australian in 1954. My wife is an Australian, my
children and grand children were born in this country. I would like to
receive the same entitlements of an Australian ex-serviceman, but my
most concern is for my wife who is Australian, who became a war
widow after and received the same entitlement as wife from
Australian ex-serviceman. I put my life on the line to defend this
country against the Japanese, what is part of my life now, why can't I
not receive the same treatment after all I am an Australian now?
PM: Let me tell you this, I sympathise most sincerely with all of the people
who served in the war as prisoners of war. It is one thing, not only the
enormous sacrifice in combat, but being interred, to be locked away
and to be deprived is, I think, a singular burden which people have
carried and, of course, many didn't survive it. They made, as we all
say, the ultimate sacrifice. We do make special provisions in our
treatment of veterans' entitlements, for those who were prisoners of
war, but I think your position probably is that you are supported by The
Netherlands, are you not in some sort of veterans' entitlement and you
have come to Australia subsequently. You would find Australian
service men and women around the world getting service pensions
from here in other countries, by and large most of these things equate.
They are very similar to one another and in some places we top them
up as we do with some of the British pensions. But, I'm just not certain
about The Netherlands.
Q: Good morning Prime Minister and welcome to our State. I know it is
easier for others to criticise and for the person running the country,
I'm not here to criticise. My question is, would you know the reason
behind the dumping of NSW's nuclear waste on South Australia?
PM: The nuclear waste is mostly low level waste which is in the suburbs of
Sydney. It is at the Lucas Heights establishment originally and it went
to St Mary's which is, again, out in the western suburbs in a housing
area. This waste is going to be transported to the Range Head site at
Woomera where until the Commonwealth decides what the long term
site will be for a national repository. That is, the plan of disposal of low
level radio active waste. The Range Head site is owned by the
Commonwealth, it as you know, has a history of being associated with
weapons development and I can assure you that all safety procedures
are going to be observed in the transportation and storage of it and the
fact that it is geographically within the borders of South Australia
means, in terms of any problem it might have, is very greatly
diminished there than it is with other people in the suburbs of Sydney.
CC: Dean Brown doesn't actually want it on his roads he says.
PM: He said that, but he has also written to me asking me can he use the
same repository for his nuclear waste.
CC: What, yours?
PM: Use ours. So, he is telling the public here this is a dreadful thing and
then he is writing to me saying can I use the site too.
CC: If I can just throw a question in here, this is something that has been
on peoples minds because, I think, unfairness is one of the things that
produces the biggest result in anyone from a child to an adult and you
probably know that business a few years ago. Those three men who
risked their lives to save an environmental disaster on the boat, the
bow fell off a boat or something and there was the possibility of all this
oil going into the sea of Western Australia. They were rewarded for
their heroism with varying amounts of money and now the tax office
wants to take half of that. Now, that seems terribly unfair to people in
their minds. What is the thing about taxes, I mean, a lot of people
consider taxes are there basically as sticks to hit people with or carrots
on the other hand to encourage them to do certain things, some
people think that. How do you think about taxes?
PM: I think they are something nations bear for the, I mean, we are all part
of the social contract. The contract is that we expect to have health
services and roads and telephones and the rest and there is a
minimum level of taxation that keeps all that going and we try as
Governments and a society to keep that balance about right. In the
case of these people, I mean, I can well and truly understand their
disquiet and disappointment about this. I didn't know about this
Christopher, until you mentioned it. You can take a lottery win and its
not taxed, it depends on whether it is income or paid as income or
whether it was paid as an ex gratia payment or whether it was an
award. I mean, I don't know enough about it, but if they received it for
heroism..
CC: Well, that's what it was, but the trouble is that it was part of their job it
was seen as, but on a broader level surely while taxes are what you
say they are obviously, isn't it possible to also use them as a device to
encourage certain things in the economy and the society and
discourage others and still get enough money to keep the roads being
built?
PM: I think so, well just take Australia. This is the lowest taxed country in
the world, in the developed world. We are running this country with a
share of revenue, that is all revenue to the size of our economy,
revenue to GDP the economists call it, it is about 26 per cent.
CC: What I'm saying is, couldn't it be used more like a controlling device
rather than just a way of raising revenue?
PM: I think it does have, for a start the income tax system is progressive, it
means that those who earn the greatest incomes pay the most, the
rates rise as your income rises, there is a user charge component say
of petrol taxes, I mean they are not without their social import.
CC: Some people think that a very influential control the taxes are
having is the payroll tax is, in fact, having the effect of reducing the
incentive to employ people and they also think it is unfair.
PM: That may well be true although employment has been rocketing along.
We have had 91,000 job growth last month, we have had 590,000 jobs
now since the election and while there is no doubt a cost there, if you
look at the overall level of wage cost, that is salaries and supplements
and on costs which may include payroll tax, by and large the
Australian wage bill is now we are regarded as basically a very
competitive country and that is why so much investment from abroad is
coming here.
Q: Good morning. What I want to say is I'm on a disability pension and
after I pay my rent I am left about $ 95 a week to live on and I have to I
go to a naturopath or physio and you have to pay full price for that.
Isn't there some way you could just do something for people on
disability pensions, so they can go to naturopaths or something like
that and get it cheaper?
PM: Naturopaths and some people in those fields, of course, are not
covered by Medicare and they are not deductible and you don't get the
per cent rebate or you don't get bulk billing so it becomes a cost.
As you know, this Government has introduced rent assistance for
people renting privately
Q: Yes, I get all that.
PM: I might add my opponents want to take it all away from me, of course.
They think it is all too much Government spending. That is code for
ripping that sort of stuff off people. I always wonder why they always
want to hurt the people at the bottom end of the queue, but they do.
Q: They were saying they want to bring in an inspection on cars over five
years old and things like that, it only hits people with no money.
PM: Anything that is a flat charge doesn't take account of capacity to pay.
That is why most of the things the Commonwealth does with Medicare
for instance, you don't pay a cent of the levy until you are over a
certain level of income in the odd $ 20,000, it is why we try to protect
those who are disabled or who are on age pensions with, for instance,
with the pharmaceutical discounts et cetera. But when State
governments levy charges like car registration fees and things they are
just flat costs. It costs the same to register a car whether you are a
millionaire or whether you are on a very low income.
CC: A fax has just come in and this is the other question that is around, the
republic. Everyone seems to have an opinion about that, it must be a
good topic because everyone thinks something about it. I would like to
ask you the question, which kind of republic do you consider the best
for Australia Austria, Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Argentina,
Philippines or Irish republic or Canadian. I didn't know Canada was a
republic but it says here they changed their flag and cut the size of the
members of government, but kept their constitution in tact.
PM: We are now currently, Christopher, in our Cabinet discussing some of
the modalities of Australia moving to an Australian person as our head
of state. I think we would like to see that accomplished in a way which
doesn't fundamentally alter our current system of government.
CC: So, what difference would it actually make?
PM: Well, it gets back to the point I think you made earlier, that is we are
gathering about ourselves much more confidence about our identity
and who we are, pride in the fact that we can do things both culturally
and economically we have got a relationship now with these old and
large societies around us like Indonesia and China and turning up
saying ' look, we know all these years you thought that we were just a
chip off the European block, but really we are here in our own right, but
excuse me, by the way, we are borrowing the monarchy of another
country, do you mind?'. They say ' come on, you can't be serious'. So I
think, in the end and, of course, the other thing is I notice last week
Prince Charles, while I was in Europe there was a report in the British
press that he is leading a trade delegation to Islam representing, he
said, he is going to spend more of his time promoting British business.
Not Australian business, British business. Not Commonwealth
business, Canadian business, Australian business British business.
This makes the point again. Basically, the Governor-Generalship is
the deputy's office of the Queen, it is out there on a sort of
constitutional limb, it is hurting us in this region and we are saying not
only that it is hurting us, it is actually diminishing our own sense of
ourselves.
CC: Wouldn't you have actually been offended if he had been promoting
Australia, wouldn't you in fact be saying that it is none of his business,
that we should be promoting ourselves, if in fact he had been..
PM: No, I don't mind him promoting Australia, but it just makes the point
that the Queen of Great Britain is essentially, her principal task is as
Monarch of that great country and that is fine because she is Queen of
Great Britain and she is their Queen just as I met the Dutch Queen in
The Netherlands. But the thing is she is not our Queen, she is not an
Australian. It is not an Australian monarchy.
CC: It is some kind of nostalgia or something if a lot of people feel very,
very connected to that and the passport and things, this latest bit I
think people find I don't know how many people have even looked at
their passport and seen the Queen mentioned in it, but the idea of
taking her out of it seems to have upset a lot of people.
PM: The thing is, let's keep on the substance and not the shadow. The
substance is whether an Australian person is our head of state,
whether we are grown up enough, enough about ourselves to have as
our head of state an Australian person. That is the key point. All the
other symbols, I think, are ancilary points.
Q: Good morning. My question is a social policy question and it is related
to principles of democracy and it is related to family law. Since 1975
we have had no thought? divorce in this country, but we have seen a
preponderance of court orders made in the preference for sole custody
and this is in the majority of cases for children with little relationship
with their fathers. We know that this is currently being debated in the
Senate or about to be, but I would ask the Prime Minister what his
position is on the value of families in Australian society and whether he
sees that replacing the Office of the Status of Women with an Office of
the Status of Family is a progressive step to make because I would
suggest that the Government runs the risk at the moment of
formulating social policies that have very much to do with the feminist
movement.
PM: Cut that out, no. Just understand where we are coming from. I mean,
I mentioned on the program earlier we have had 590,000 jobs since
that last election and over two million since the Government came to
office. That is jobs inside Australian families. That is increasing the
income of families, in fact, household this is a very important number
this household disposable income, that is the disposable income in
an Australian household has risen by 40 per cent since the
Government has been in office. That is after you have washed the
inflation out of it, 40 per cent in real terms which is a staggering
statistic. Now, that is about binding Australian families together, a
priest I knew once said to me when poverty flips in, love flips out the
door and I have always thought this has a lot of truth to it. I think,
stability in family incomes and more employment in households are
one of the things which helps hold them together. That is why our
support for families goes to these things, our support for children. If
you look at the Family Allowance Supplement or the additional family
payments as it is now called, it is support for low to middle income
families with children and it goes per child. So, it is about binding it
together. But, you can't cavil at the change in the status of Australian
women. The role and status of Australian women today is nothing to
what it was 10 or 15 years ago and why shouldn't it be as it is now
improved when women were disenfranchised from getting jobs in the
workforce and interesting jobs and interesting lives. I mean, it was the
worst kind of discrimination and I don't think repairing that
discrimination means in some way disinforms the Australian
Government's family policy. Whether it is the Family Allowance or the
Family Allowance Supplement or the additional family payments or it is
the general support for greater participation in education amongst
children or it is employment in the household or it is Medicare, all
these things are supportive of Australian families. I have got my
opponents, John Howard is running around talking about his support
for families, but he doesn't support family support. He is for families,
but not family support. The Government is for family support. I think
that is the key point.
Let me just go to this point about fathers. I think it is terribly important
for a child to keep that linkage to a father if there is a separation or a
divorce. I think it is terribly important that that should happen. That
that balance in the relationship should be maintained. One can never
be judgemental about people and why they divorce and the fact that
they can't keep their lives together, there are a lot of people who think
of themselves and not their children too.
CC: Yes, grandparents..
PM: And I think people should think about it. There is quite a degree of
selfishness in society, well listen, I'll toddle off, I'll walk out and I'll do
this or I'll do that. Fine. But then the children are left behind and I
think that if there is a greater commitment to children and to families
and to actually working at marriages and holding them together, we
would be all better off I think. Some effort and some commitment, but I
don't think governments can make that sort of a difference. I mean,
you can ask of things of the Government by all means, but don't ask
them to keep marriages together, don't ask them to keep peoples love
for one another together or their concern for their children or their
sense of responsibility to their children. That is something which is a
community thing.
a: Good morning. I would like to know and I do believe many others do, if
this golden hand shake and the gold passes given to ex-Prime
Ministers are subject to the same tax as what you, Christopher,
mentioned just recently regarding the three seamen risked their lives.
PM: Let me just say as far as I am concerned, I have long given up caring
about these issues years ago, but everything that I receive, that is
income, salary, allowances are all fully taxable. Now, there is a travel
benefit for parliamentarians and ex-parliamentarians, but it is there so
that people in positions such as my own can come to South Australia,
can learn about particular things, can meet parts of society, that we
are one country and it is a large country and if you rely upon the
private resources of MPs to move themselves around the country, well
obviously, they won't be moving very much. That is why that is there, it
is not as some sort of a freebie because when most parliamentarians
have been to Adelaide 20 times and Perth 20 times and Brisbane
times, they are not particularly travelling around for the sport of it.
They are doing it because there is a point to it. So, rest assured that
all income of parliamentarians and ministers and allowances are fully
taxed as everybody else is.
CC: A lot of people seem to find it distressing that ex-politicians seem to,
so often, even if by coincidence finish up in top overseas postings or
those kind of what people call ' cushy jobs'. Maybe they are very
difficult jobs and hard to fulfil, but people think they are cushy at least.
PM: I don't think they are cushy and if someone has given 25 or 26 years of
their life to public life or 20 years of their life, it is essentially a life
given, it is the major part of ones working life given to the service of
the public and they have lost the opportunity to continue a career in
business or in the law or in some profession or teaching or where ever
they come from. So because their specialisation is public policy,
public affairs, in some cases international relations, they become first
choices for some of these diplomatic appointments. But again, they
are very few, they are mostly career appointments within the foreign
service, mostly.
CC: Well, maybe there is something there or maybe it is just one of those
things that the media points out because none of us know anymore
than the media tells us, really, about anything. Including our health,
our future, anything and it is something that is definitely talked about a
lot and it is pointed out as though it was a problem. Why should you
finish up in Geneva if simply because you have done a job in the
government? If you had done a job for BHP you wouldn't necessarily
on retirement finish up in an overseas posting.
PM: No, but you would also walk away with the golden handshake, you
would need the barrow out the front for.
C C million dollars.
PM: Walk away from the government, you don't do that. People are on
salaries and they remain on salaries, they have severed all their
working arrangements with the rest of society and really they do
develop skills which are very useful in representational posts.
CC: Well, what do you make of the things that the media does in fact pull
out to put on the front page because that is all we ever get to discuss
amongst ourselves is, in fact, what is put up there. Why doesn't the
Government somehow have more of a public access facility attached
the more people
PM: ( inaudible)..
CC: Yes, more people can talk more often to people like you.
PM: I think one of the things about the fibre optic cable and the enormous
opportunities of a digital fibre system is that it will be possible to get
stacks of information from the Government about government services,
about pensions, about benefits, about things the Prime Minister says,
things that are in the Prime Minister's record of things said in the past,
seeing what the Foreign Minister said in some place, you will be able
to punch it up on the screen, all of this is going to be available. And as
you said earlier, Christopher, there will be some dedicated channels
also for television and what have you where you don't have to switch in
and switch out of normal programming. This will make a difference,
but it is a sad fact of life that the quality of broadsheets are down the
bottom of the pecking order in world terms. You go abroad, you pick
up whether it is the UK papers or the International Herald Tribune or
any of the major internationals or the New York Times and you realise
then how poorly we are being served by our broadsheets. Now,
unless people travel they can't see that, but those of us who do travel
can see it and you say one of the problems is we are not getting
enough investment in human resources in the media, there is not
enough investment by proprietors in people, journalists and there is
not enough continuity or depth so it is all flim flam in the daily news,
what passes for comment pieces is just poor second rate opinion or if
you get in these closed markets like say South Australia has frankly
one paper The Advertiser. Western Australia one. Queenlsand
one. There is no choice.
CC: That is something people are concerned about as well and it is another
topic we could spend another hour on. But, the sorts of things that you
are saying about the newspapers are the kinds of things that people
are saying about Parliament and what goes in there too, is in fact that
the issues are sometimes completely obscured by the ping-pong.
PM: By the ping-pong, that is right. That is why there is the difference
between Parliament and the Government. The Government runs 24
hours a day regardless of whether the House of Representatives is in
session or not. That is the serious work of running the business the
nation carries on and that is why those of us who have both the
responsibility and the burden and some of the job of doing that focus
on the issues of depth and substance. You go to Parliament so you
take the flim flam questions, but this is the value of what I was talking
about earlier, about radio. At least we can say these things. This
wouldn't be being said in Britain or the United States
CC: It certainly wouldn't be being said in some Asian countries either, we
would all be in gaol now.
PM: Or getting a reprimand anyway.
CC: Thank you very much for your time.
PM: It is a pleasure, I have enjoyed meeting you. Thank you very much
indeed.
ends