E&OE...............................................
MARTIN:
Mr Howard, thank you for being with us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good to be here, Ray. Great studio.
MARTIN:
A great studio. Good back-drop. Can we do this all the time?
PRIME MINISTER:
Fantastic, yes. Kerry Packer, eat your heart out.
MARTIN:
Tell me about today. I mean, you're obviously...
PRIME MINISTER:
It was a very moving experience. I was tremendously impressed with
the welcome I received. The best thing about being Prime Minister
really is the opportunity to go to different parts of Australia
and really enjoy meeting different Australians.
MARTIN:
But you said today, afterwards, you said that you'd never
seen anything like this.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I hadn't. I'd never experienced anything like that
before. And I have always respected Aboriginal culture, but until
today I don't think I had understood the depth of feeling that
the indigenous people have in relation to their culture. I'd
understood it in an academic sense, but until you actually experience
something like that, you don't...
MARTIN:
Lots of ugly things, lots of harsh things said about the Wik debate
over the last six months. Today it was all generous and welcome
and you were told, a unique meeting.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I was. And I think there was a generosity and a free communication
on both sides. And one of the things that struck me about today
was that sense that although there are differences, the things that
bind us together and things we have in common are much more important.
MARTIN:
Could this be, in a sense, John Howard's Road to Damascus
on land rights?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. I think that would be quite wrong to see it in that sense.
I mean, I think our Wik legislation is a fair compromise and I don't
want there to be any doubt that we remain of the view that that
is a fair compromise. I think what today has done is to drive home
to me the depth of feeling about culture held by the indigenous
people. And I hope on their part, for them to see me as somebody
who does want to govern for all Australians and that they are a
special unique part of the Australian community.
MARTIN:
But as you said and as you saw today, this is where the land rights
battle began, you couldn't doubt the commitment of these people,
in terms of their culture, as the old men told you this afternoon
as you sat with them on the church floor. They kept saying there
is no culture without the land.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we're not trying to take their land away.
MARTIN:
They think you are.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we're not. What we're trying to do is to establish
a fair balance between different sections of the Australian community
who have a love of the land of this country. And that depth of feeling
is very strong amongst indigenous people. It's also very strong
amongst pastoralists. And what we're trying to do is to have
a system which is fair and balanced. We don't want to take
anybody's land away.
MARTIN:
They also said to you today, those old men at the end there were
pleading with you saying: our survival depends on you - your decision
that you and the Parliament make over the next six months will dictate
our survival.
PRIME MINISTER:
I didn't quite see it in those terms, Ray. I didn't see
them as saying that if you go one way on the Native Title Bill we
won't survive. I mean, that's not right.
MARTIN:
We need your assistance for our culture to survive...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that's true and they will have our assistance. I mean,
a way a culture survives is for it to be given full respect and
for it to be allowed to flourish. Now, that is quite consistent
with the approach that we're taking in relation to native title.
MARTIN:
One Aboriginal leader asked me today: is the PM here to head-off
an election on race or to start one?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that's a silly comment. I came here at the invitation
of Gatjil Djekurra, the Chairman of ATSIC, and I don't want,
nor do I expect, there to be an election on race. If we do have
a double dissolution as a result of the Senate rejecting the Native
Title Bill then that election will be dominated, in my opinion,
by other issues.
MARTIN:
But you've heard bishops say that if we have an election on
race in this country, there'll be blood on the streets.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that particular bishop I don't think represents the
entire Christian church in Australia. And I thought that particular
statement was provocative, uncalled for and very unhelpful to race
relations in Australia.
MARTIN:
Prime Minister, you were asked again today whether you had asked
for respect for the two laws - the cultural law, the traditional
law here and the Australian law. Can you live with those?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think all Australians want all Australians to be equal
before the law, but they want the law to be administered in a sensitive
way. And I think the points of collision are not all that great.
And I think that commonsense can work that out. But you cannot have
a nation that has two distinct legal systems. But everybody's
got to be equal before the one law. But you've really got to
have a law that is administered in a sensitive way and I think there
are some ways in which that can be done which can avoid some unfortunate
collisions.
MARTIN:
Very quickly, you announced today a $4.8 million addition to the
health budget to try and fix Aboriginal eyes. Will we ever solve
the problem? Hundreds of millions of dollars have been put into
Aboriginal health and it is worse than it was 20 years ago.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that is true, in some areas, but this particular thing, which
will allow the fast distribution of this new drug, azithromycin,
which is a revolutionary attack on trachoma, which is the major
cause of blindness amongst indigenous Australians. And, nothing
of itself is going to solve the problem in one hit but this particular
drug is really very effective and is one of those golden bullets,
as a doctor said to me today, in tackling the problems of Aboriginal
health.
MARTIN:
Last question, just briefly, obviously you want to win the next
election which would mean you would be Prime Minister when the 2000
Games come around, how are you going to handle the focus of the
world on us when they say, yes love the look of Sydney, nice harbour,
great games but what about the Aborigines, how about their state
of decay? How are you going to handle that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't think the rest of the world is a pessimistic
as that. I think the rest of the world will see a Government and
a people genuinely trying, not always succeeding, a great deal of
goodwill. They will see the participation of indigenous athletes
in the Australian team. They will see the contribution, increasingly,
of indigenous people of all walks of Australian life. They made
a magnificent contribution to the Constitutional Convention. They
really made a big impact on that and I don't think the rest
of the world will quite see us in those negative terms.
MARTIN:
All right, thank you for your time. Safe trip home.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
MARTIN:
Thank so much.
[Ends]