E&OE………………………………………………………………………………..
O’BRIEN:
Prime Minister, you’ve sparked some interest, as I said, with your announcement that you are going to be a different Prime Minister this time around. You say you’ll bring a different psychological approach this time. What is the psychology at work?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry, the challenges this time are different. The circumstances are different. I feel different because last time essentially what happened was that the electorate emphatically rejected the former Labor Government and the former Prime Minister. On this occasion they have re-elected us, and they have re-elected us despite the presence in our platform of what many people described as a political death wish and that is a new taxation plan and they have elected us very directly with that plan fully in their knowledge and therefore I do bring to this second term, in many respects, a greater authority than I did the first time around, although the majority is lower. We’ve been very upfront and very forthright and I think it is important that the Labor Party doesn’t misinterpret what happened last Saturday week. I mean essentially what happened last Saturday week was we lost, what, eight or nine per cent of our vote from ’96 to One Nation and close on half of that was delivered to the Labor Party via their second preferences. And just as I shouldn’t have misinterpreted 1996, I don’t think the Labor Party should misinterpret 1998. So I bring as re-elected Prime Minister a different psychological caste, a different set of political circumstances and obviously there are different challenges. There is the millennium momentum that is going to grip this country – it’s a very exciting experience as we move towards the centenary of Federation.
O’BRIEN:
I heard that, I can understand your sense of confidence now at the start of second term, with one term under your belt, with all the good and the bad, but I understand that on election morning you were somewhat nervous, a little bit edgy which I guess is also understandable in those circumstances?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I was. I don’t see any point in dissembling. There were various stages on the last 24 – 48 hours before I knew the result where I thought we might lose. Of course I was, and I mean, I’ve been through a lot of election campaigns and this was like none other before. They are all different, and it is very important that we understand that. There is no continuum of election campaigns in Australian political experience. Remember ’61? Menzies went within a whisker of death and it took 11 years for Labor to prise the Coalition out and we got a swing to us in ’84 and 12 years had passed before we got Labor out. So every election is a separate identity, an island unto itself, if I can turn on its head a famous phrase.
O’BRIEN:
Yes, John Donne.
PRIME MINISTER:
Indeed, that’s right. Turning it very much on its head.
O’BRIEN:
You seem to be at pains to stress not just that you’ll deal with reconciliation and the Republic issue this time, but that you’ll do it properly. Your use of the word ‘proper’ suggests that you feel that you perhaps could have done it better last time on reconciliation?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I think what I mean there Kerry is that there are different roads to reconciliation. One of the problems that existed in my first term was that everything that we did in that area was looked at through the Labor paradigm. It was looked at benchmarked against what the former Government had done. I don’t think that would be so readily the case on this occasion. What people have to understand is that the Labor path to reconciliation is not the only path and I have a view about reconciliation. I think it is important but I think it takes place against an understanding that we are all Australians together first and foremost and that some of the views that my political opponents have brought to that issue, I don’t accept. But I don’t want people to think that these issues are going to dominate the agenda but they…
O’BRIEN:
…but nonetheless they are important.
PRIME MINISTER:
They will bulk larger because they have to be resolved and we are getting closer to that momentous time in our history, a hundred years as a nation and people will think about these things a little more and they will want them dealt with properly and decently and within the embrace of a united Australian community.
O’BRIEN:
Is it an imperative for you also, is it conscious in your mind that there is a need to rebuild bridges between you and your Government and the moderate Aboriginal leadership, because there was a great deal of fracturing in the last term?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, yes and no on that. The relationship between our Government and particularly between somebody like John Herron and what I would call the grass roots Aboriginal communities is very close, it is very good. Certainly some of the more high profile leaders of the Aboriginal community, particularly those associated with the former Labor Government, were critical of us, but that is because we did things differently. I think the fact that we have been re-elected means that everybody will take a breath and not that you look for a new start or a new beginning but I think things will be seen differently. We are still going to disagree on issues and there is still going to be criticism and controversy but the point I make is that we have a genuine commitment to reconciliation but we intend to do it in a way that we think it appropriate and we have good will towards the Aboriginal community but we still have very strong emphasis on remedying the deficiencies in health, housing and education, rather than dwelling too much on past deeds and events.
O’BRIEN:
But even so, you are acknowledging past deeds and events ..
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course.
O’BRIEN:
…and I wonder as a step down that reconciliation road if it still just possible that you might yet revisit the issue of an apology for the hurts of the Stolen Generation, that given the deep emotions expressed, genuine emotions expressed by many Aboriginal people, that you might yet find a way to say a simple ‘Sorry’ without effecting the concerns that you expressed last time, those kind of legal elements?
PRIME MINISTER:
No but it wasn’t… that’s a misunderstanding. I have personally said I am sorry on numerous occasions and I say it again tonight.
O’BRIEN:
But on behalf of the nation I mean.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I have a view about that that hasn’t changed. And it is not a legalistic view, it’s a, I think, a common-sense view. I don’t think it is a legalistic view. It is not so much the fear of compensation claims that constrains me on that, it is a belief I have, a very genuine belief that you express collective regret for things for which you are collectively and in a direct sense responsible.
O’BRIEN:
And you don’t think that is so in this case?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t think it applies to the current generation of Australians, no. Much and all as an individual I feel personal sorrow for the ill-treatment of anybody in the past, now, we’ll just have to agree to disagree on that.
O’BRIEN:
Having experienced the positive emotional mood, the positively emotional mood of the republic convention, do you now feel less negative, less fearful about a sensible republic model if the people express a desire for one in a referendum?
PRIME MINISTER:
Kerry, I think the republic convention was very good because it showed to you something that I’m fond of saying, and that is the things that unite us as Australians are greater than those things that divide us, and there was a great spirit of good will at that convention. I am certain that whatever comes out of that referendum next year will not divide the country and the fabric of the nation will be quite unimpaired. I don’t know what’s going to happen. My own personal view has not changed. I’d be a hypocrite if I now pretended to be a born-again republican. I’m not and I won’t be and I’ll be voting no as a person at that referendum because it would be dishonest of me to do otherwise.
O’BRIEN:
Have you decided yet whether you will play a part in the campaign arguing against a republic?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Kerry, I would see myself as Prime Minister as playing a sort of, a facilitating role. People would be in no doubt as to what my person view is. I don’t think anybody has and I’ve not disguised it in either the 1996 election or the 1998 election. But obviously there will be people in my party campaigning for a republic and there will be a number of my senior colleagues campaigning against it and I would see myself as playing a somewhat withdrawn Prime Ministerial role, dare I say it, in the whole thing. I don’t see myself as being actively partisan in a detailed day-to-day sense. But people would be in no doubt as to what my own individual view is.
O’BRIEN:
That’s going to make it a very interesting process. Perhaps almost even a unique one [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there’s nothing wrong with that….
O’BRIEN:
No.
PRIME MINISTER:
….and I thought it was a great act of political maturity for the Liberal Party to say at the convention that we allowed people a free vote. I mean what is wrong with us openly saying that John Howard and Peter Costello can have different views on whether or not Australia can become a republic. Isn’t this the kind of candour and maturity, the rising above partisan stereotypes that the Australian public really wants. I mean what is it that compels you because you belong to the same political party to believe the same thing on every individual issue? And I’m sure there are closet monarchists in the Labor Party and perhaps they should be encouraged to come out.
O’BRIEN:
That’s an interesting thought.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t think too many.
O’BRIEN:
About that word mandate. You claim that mandate from the October 3 election, a mandate for a new Government and a new Parliament, yet you’re going to try and get your tax package, under that mandate mantle, through the old Senate. How do you justify that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it’s not really the old Senate because…
O’BRIEN:
Well it’s not the new Senate.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well except that it’s the Senate elected in accordance with the present Constitution.
O’BRIEN:
But it’s a Senate that was elected in ’93 and ’96, and in particular in ’96, a Senate that was elected with your promise ringing in the ears of voters that there would never ever be a GST.
PRIME MINISTER:
But that’s our system. I don’t know how else you can operate on that basis.
O’BRIEN:
Well why not wait for the new Senate which is a part of the most recent election where you laid out your package very clearly.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes but I could say that that new Senate is deaf to the views of the voters as expressed to the House of Representatives decision they delivered. I mean if the Democrats were to say to me: we will pass your legislation, we will respect the mandate that you were given on the 3rd of October provided you wait until the new Senate is convened and then we’ll pass it then, well I might talk to them.
O’BRIEN:
I don’t think it’s going to be quite as simple as that somehow.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah but isn’t that the answer to your question that if I’m, I mean, if the post-1 July Senate is enjoining me not to anything until then I’m entitled to reply: well if the post 1 July Senate will respect the verdict of the 3rd of October I will deal with them.
O’BRIEN:
Well what they’re saying is they’re prepared to sit down and talk with you but they’re not necessarily prepared to accept everything as they spelt out in the election campaign.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this. I mean our position is very clear and there was a time when Kim Beazley said that he would respect our mandate. I mean in August 1997 Kim Beazley said that if we laid out a GST proposal clearly in an election campaign and we won it he would respect that mandate and pass it.
O’BRIEN:
And in 1987 of course as everyone’s now quoting against you you also said that the mandate theory of politics has always absolutely phoney.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’ll say this about Kim’s 1997 statement. He did respect the fact that we would have a mandate. Now he’s changed his position on that and there’s nothing I can do about it. But our position remains simply this: we won the election, we were up front, open, true and straight with the people and we will try our darnedest to get that legislation through the Parliament and we’ll start as soon as the Parliament sits which will be on the 10th of November.
O’BRIEN:
You’ve also flagged the prospect of revisiting your attitude to Senator Mal Colston whose vote in the Senate you refused to accept in the last term after he struck trouble over his personal behaviour. He’s still under a cloud. Nothing’s changed in that regard. What’s caused you to change your mind? [inaudible] revisit it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I guess it’s a combination of circumstances. If you look at the raw merits of it we were treating Mal Colston more severely than anybody else. Carmen Lawrence is awaiting a case against her. I won’t go into the details of it but she, everybody knows that there’s a charge against her. Her vote is regularly accepted. I’m quite certain that if we had had close to a hung Parliament on the 3rd of October the Labor Party would have used Carmen Lawrence’s vote.
O’BRIEN:
But you’re talking, it sounds like this is something that’s expendable but I thought this was a strong point of principle and morality for you last time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we couched it in terms that you’re aware of and I said yesterday that I think it’s appropriate to revisit it because when you look at the merits of it we are denying him a presumption of innocence that is not being denied to Carmen Lawrence and it was not denied to Michael Cobb in the former Parliament.
O’BRIEN:
But the fact is nothing has changed between when you took your decision last time and now other than the fact that you could use potentially Senator Colston’s vote to help get your tax and Telstra agenda through the Senate.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well obviously he will have a vote, if we accept his vote, that will have an implication. I don’t know what his attitude is on the tax package. I’ve certainly not had any discussion with him.
O’BRIEN:
I’m sure you’re going to try and find out at some point.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it’s never been the case that you can ever really find out how Senator Colston’s going to vote as I found out in relation to Telstra.
O’BRIEN:
John Howard, we’re out of time but thanks very much for talking with us.
PRIME MINISTER:
A pleasure.