E&OE...............................................
ANNOUNCER:
But we begin the final programme of the last week before Christmas
with the Prime Minister, who has joined us in the studio. Clearly
the Government has not yet switched to holidays work and worked
continued yesterday with the announcement that the Queensland QC,
Ian Callinan will fill the High Court vacancy left by the resignation
of Justice John Toohey. The Opposition has called the announcement
a blatant attempt to stack the High Court, but opinion in the legal
profession is mixed. Well the Prime Minister is here to talk about
that and other issues and he is speaking with out chief political
correspondent, Matt Peacock.
PEACOCK:
Mr Howard, when Tim Fischer took this appointment to the Governor-General
yesterday was he getting the capital "C" conservative
that he had been asking for?
PRIME MINISTER:
Ian Callinan is an outstanding appointment to the High Court. He
will do a first-class job, he is widely respected in the Australian
legal community and he is also widely respected as a man of breadth
and a good knowledge of life generally in the Australian community.
I think he will do an excellent job for Australia on the High Court
bench. The attack made on the appointment by the Labor Party is
cheap and opportunistic, does no merit to the Labor Party. It contrasts
with the fact that we had enough respect
for the High Court when we were in Opposition not to make cheap
political attacks on appointments made by the former government.
So I just dismiss that as being a bit of cheap politicking that
demeans the Labor Party and certainly does not damage Ian Callinan,
who will do an outstanding job on the bench.
PEACOCK:
But he has made clear his views on, what he calls, this over mighty
court and it's so-called activism in relation to Parliament
in the past. They are views that you'd no doubt share?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am not going to get into a debate about judicial activism or
this or that label that may be put on people. What matters is whether
the person has got the legal ability, the integrity and the broad
understanding of life to fill the role. Now on every count Ian Callinan
has, and that is all that matters. If anybody is suggesting that
he lacks integrity or lacks the legal ability to do the job, I haven't
heard it and I don't believe I will hear it, because quite
clearly he has got full integrity, he is widely respected in the
community and he is a first-rate lawyer of long experience. I can't
think of a better qualification for somebody to sit on the highest
court in Australia. And I congratulate him on the appointment, I
wish him well and I know that he will serve his country splendidly
in that appointment.
PEACOCK:
Prime Minister, we had more good economic news yesterday. Have
we seen the worst of this greater Asian melt-down as your Treasurer
describes it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yesterdays news was fantastic. I mean what the Government has done
in turning around a $10.5 billion deficit into a prospective surplus
of $2 billion or more next year, is quite extraordinary. It is an
heroic economic achievement, achieved in the face of enormous obstruction
from the Labor Party and others in the Senate and in the face of
tremendous criticism from other sections of the Australian community.
But as Australians go to Christmas they can take comfort from the
fact that the efforts of their Government to tackle the economic
problems we inherited mean that we have a better, a brighter, a
more prosperous and a more forward looking Christmas than would
otherwise have been the case. In the words of one newspaper this
morning, we have fire-proofed the Australian economy against the
ravages of the Asian economic melt-down.
PEACOCK:
But not totally though Prime Minister, you would be a miracle-maker
to do that. Do you think the worst is over there?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know precisely what is going to happen over the months
ahead. I do know, that although there will be some impact on Australia,
of course, and nobody suggests for a moment there wouldn't
be some impact. But it is not going to be severe, and the reason
it is not going to be severe is that we have got our own economic
foundations in very solid shape. The International Monetary Fund's
rescue package has been of enormous benefit to the region. Australia
has played a full and active part, because we have been strong enough
to do so, and isn't it good that Australia is strong enough
to help its regional neighbours. If we hadn't have taken corrective
measures we wouldn't have been and we wouldn't be going
to this Christmas held in such high regard in the Asian-Pacific
region.
PEACOCK:
And are some of those neighbours and the leaders, whom you have
got to know in the past year, strong enough, do you think, to give
the medicine that is required?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am quite certain that the leadership of all of those countries
understands the seriousness of the position, understands the commitments
that have been made by other countries in the region, like Australia
and that they are quite determined to do what is necessary to get
their own foundations in better order. It will take time, and there
are a lot of lessons that come out of what has happened in Asia
recently. And the strongest of all lessons is, that unless you have
the economic foundations sound, unless you tackle the basic problems
like getting the deficit down, lowering inflation, cutting interest
rates, building business investments, reforming the tax system,
freeing labour markets, providing more competitive economic conditions,
unless you do that you are going to run into trouble. And it is
because Australia has done those things that we haven't run
into anywhere near the trouble that countries in our region have.
PEACOCK:
Now it has been pretty wild political year, has it been your best
or your worst, or a bit of both?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is for others to make those judgements. Inevitably governments
have good periods and bad periods, but we end the year very strongly.
We end the year having achieved this tremendous economic turn around
and the absolutely stunning diplomatic success at the Kyoto Conference.
That was an extraordinary achievement, that Kyoto summit, an absolutely
extraordinary achievement. And it was against all the odds, I mean
the Labor Party wanted us to capitulate in a way that would have
threatened Australian jobs. What we were able to do at Kyoto, was
both make a massive contribution to the world environmental effort
to cut greenhouse gas emissions, but also to protect Australian
jobs.
PEACOCK:
But they would have done the same if they had been in power, wouldn't
they?
PRIME MINISTER:
I can only judge people on what they say in the positions they
occupy. And Labor Party spokesmen from about 6 months ago were calling
on me to sue for peace. They were calling on me to grovel to the
Europeans, to capitulate, to give in, to sacrifice the interests
of miners, for example in the Hunter Valley and in the Bowen Basin
in Queensland, and in all the other regional mining areas of Australia,
and I said no, I wasn't prepared to do that. And we held out,
and thanks to the superb negotiating job that Robert Hill did at
Kyoto, we achieved a win for the environment and a win for Australian
jobs. It was an absolutely stunning achievement by Australia. It
was something that we prosecuted with vigour on behalf of the Australian
national interest and we achieved it with no help at all from the
Labor Party and in the face of a lot of cynical criticism from other
quarters.
PEACOCK:
Mr Howard, I see that, just briefly, Nick Sherry is coming back
to the Senate. Do you wish him well?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well of course I wish anybody who has been through the experience
that he has been through well. I don't make any comment, at
this stage and in that context, on the events that led up to it.
Suffice to say that anybody who has gone through that kind of experience,
it is not something that one would wish on anybody, equally, of
course, I have to make the point that the criticisms that were made
of him by my colleagues at the time were utterly justified and completely
defensible and, of course, completely in accord with the facts.
And any suggestion that criticism should attach to any of my colleagues
for those events is, of course, totally misplaced.
PEACOCK:
And next year the ex-Senator Kernot looks like joining you in the
Lower House. Is her star on the wain, as you'd hoped by now?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am not quite sure the context of that. I don't think her
star was ever as in the ascendant as you imagined. You say she is
going to join us? Well she hopes to.
PEACOCK:
Well she can hardly lose against Tony Smith, could she? Someone
defending slapping his wife and visiting a prostitute.
PRIME MINISTER:
I am not going to get into discussion about personal matters.
PEACOCK:
Should he be replaced do you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
The question of his endorsement is a matter for the Queensland
division. But I can make it very plain, that we will be fighting
very hard to retain that seat for the Liberal Party. And anybody
who thinks that Mrs Kernot is going to automatically inherit that
seat is very badly mistaken. We will be fighting very hard on policy
issues. I mean, my interest in Mrs Kernot is the policy stances
that she takes.
PEACOCK:
What about these stories about her affair with the school Captain
25 years ago. Are they of any public importance?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am not the least bit interested in Mrs Kernot's private
life. I don't think people's private lives should be part
of the public debate. I do believe, however, that her public policies
should be very much part of the public debate.
PEACOCK:
And these stories didn't come from anyone close to you as
she says?
PRIME MINISTER:
Certainly not.
PEACOCK:
The lack of a Government apology on the stolen children Prime Minister,
I think has hurt you, you did apologise personally, how much do
you think these stories have shocked white Australians?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it is very hard to judge Matt. There are a lot of Australians,
like myself, who, in a personal sense, of course, regret and are
distressed by any examples of the ill-treatment of Aboriginal people
or indeed any section of the Australian community. You must remember,
of course, that these practices were sanctioned by law at the time,
not all of them were implemented in a harsh, insensitive fashion
and many....
PEACOCK:
And many....
PRIME MINISTER:
Sorry, no I am sorry, could I just finish. I think it is very important
that I be allowed to give the full context of my view on this. And
it is very important to remember that a lot of the people involved
at the time believed that what they were doing was beneficial and
they did it in a compassionate and in a sensitive way. Now time
has moved on, it is now seen as quite unacceptable and whilst I
have said on a number of occasions, and I say here again this morning,
that of course I am sorry for any ill-treatment that occurred and
of course I regret that. And I have said that repeatedly and I will
go on saying it. But it is an entirely different thing for some
kind of formal national apology to be given in relation to something
that was sanctioned at the time. Now that is my view, that is the
view of the Government and what we think should happen is that we
should move on.
What the Royal Commission, what the HREOC Commission actually recommended
as the most important thing that the Government could do was to
help reunite families that had been separated and broken up as a
result of these practices. And that is the main thrust of the policy
that was announced a few days ago by Senator Herron. He said that
the whole focus of the Government's response was on future
unity of family members, future reconciliation, addressing the consequences
of these practices rather than dwelling upon what occurred. And
that, I think, is the way forward that most Australians would be
attracted to.
PEACOCK:
Are we though ignorant, do you think, of this side of our history?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't think we are ignorant. I think over the years
we have become more familiar with our history, the good and the
bad. And I think all Australians should face the truth about the
past, equally we should not be intimidated into believing that everything
about our past is negative and backward looking. The last couple
of hundred years have been a period of heroic achievement by the
Australian people and I do take a rather more optimistic view of
what this country has achieved than many others.
PEACOCK:
Well can I try a quick trick question that I have asked quite a
lot of my friends. You could probably name four American Indian
tribes, could you name four Aboriginal tribes?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I could name, the Pitjantjatjara, the Gurindji, the Arrerente
and the Waanyi.
PEACOCK:
I was going to say Wik, well done. Have a good holiday Prime Minister,
what do you want for Christmas?
PRIME MINISTER:
I want for Christmas to be an occasion for maximum happiness and
contentment for Australians and their families. But I do want it
to be a time at which the bulk of us, who have a reasonably comfortable
life, to reflect for a moment on those who don't. I would like
Australians who can afford to do so to give generously to those
great institutions like the Salvation Army and the St. Vincent de
Paul and the Smith Family who help the less fortunate people at
this time of the year. I think it is an occasion when those of us
who can afford to do so should help our fellow Australians who are
in not such good circumstances. And can I take the opportunity of
wishing you and your listeners a very merry Christmas, and above
all, a very safe New Year.
PEACOCK:
Thank you very much and the same to you. And one quick final question,
one that is on the minds of many Australians no doubt over summer,
is Shane Warne too fat?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am sorry, I just lost my ear-piece I apologise to the listeners.
I wouldn't be game to get into that. I tell you what, he is
still a venomous bowler and any member of the South African or New
Zealand team that thinks he is other than still our greatest bowler
is going to be sadly mistaken over the next couple of months.
PEACOCK:
Thanks Prime Minister, have a happy Christmas.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[Ends]