E&OE....................................................................................................
The major story of the morning is clearly the fate of the two CARE
Australia workers in Yugoslavia who now, I understand, have been formally
charged with spying a most serious fate for them. Have you
spoken to Mr Fraser this morning?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, Mr Downer, the Foreign Minister, has been, I understand, in regular
contact with Mr Fraser. I wish him well and he's naturally concerned
as the Chairman of CARE about the fate of these two men. The charges
against them are quite preposterous. The Foreign Minister's made
it very clear there's no substance in them. They are both humanitarian
workers. They come from a non-combatant country. They aren't
combatants themselves. So according to the normal rules of civilised
conduct between nations they ought to be let go. At the very least
they should have proper consular access and advice, proper legal advice.
I can understand how despairing and in a state of anguish their families
must be. And I want the members of their families to know that the
Australian Government is doing all it humanly can to secure their
release at the very least to see that they get proper treatment inside
Yugoslavia. I mean, they are innocent victims. They were there to
help the people of Yugoslavia without discrimination and it's
always particularly tragic and upsetting when people who are doing
the right thing by humanity are caught in the crossfire.
CLARK:
It's a bit difficult for the Australian Government, on a government
to government basis, to do much here, isn't it? I mean, is Mr
Fraser our best hope?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, he certainly carries with him the weight of being the Chairman
of CARE and, as a former Prime Minister, he also carries that weight
and that authority. He's trying and he's getting every assistance
from us. He, of course, is at pains to make it clear that CARE is
taking a completely apolitical stance. And it's important that
he not be pressed to comment upon the rights or wrongs of the political
dispute involved because his overriding objective is to secure the
safety and hopefully the release of these two men.
CLARK:
You'd have to be less than optimistic at the current rate of
progress, wouldn't you? I see Mr Fraser this morning was expressing
severe doubts that he would, in fact, even get a visa to go to Belgrade.
PRIME MINISTER:
It's a very difficult situation but you have to remain optimistic
and you must keep trying and you must use every avenue available.
And some times, surprisingly, a breakthrough in something like this
can occur. But it is very difficult. We can but try every stratagem
available to us. We can but keep appealing to the Belgrade authorities
on behalf of these men and keep repeating the fact that they are not
there to do ill by the people of Yugoslavia, they are there to help
the people of Yugoslavia whether they're Kosovars or Serbians
or whatever. I mean, CARE is colour blind and politically blind when
it comes to helping suffering humanity and they're precisely
the sort of people who should not get caught up in this particular
conflict.
CLARK:
Just looking at the conflict we are far away from it and I
know the Government has formally supported the NATO position on it.
We're not involved in it in that sense other than as a care and
relief basis. But reflecting that, do you personally feel entirely
comfortable with the course of events as they've unfolded and
the likely course of events as they seem to be unfolding?
PRIME MINISTER:
The NATO countries had no alternative. The world was, in effect, saying,
particularly the European world, was saying we cannot sit idly by
and see racial persecution go on in Kosovo. Just think where we would
now be with fairly regular stories of atrocities in Kosovo, where
we would now be if NATO had not done anything. People would be saying:
why don't they do something, how can you sit by and allow this
to go on. That's the dilemma that democratic nations with a strong
military arsenal always face in a situation like this. If they don't
do anything they are accused of 1930s style inaction. If they do do
something then people say, well, what is your full game plan, what's
your exit strategy, where it's going to end? It's a difficult
dilemma. If you are a country that doesn't care about human rights
and you never express any critical comments about the discrimination
practised against people on the grounds of their ethnicity or their
race then you're spared the obligation of deciding whether you're
ever going to intervene. But the NATO countries, particularly the
United States and the United Kingdom and a number of other countries,
have always taken a properly high profile on human rights issues.
And when something like this comes up they face an awful choice. If
they don't do anything they are criticised for moral cowardice
and inaction. If they do do something then they are properly cross-examined
as to what the end result is and it's always a difficult choice.
And I certainly support the decision they've taken.
CLARK:
Air power's a comfortable measure, in a sense, because you don't
have ground troops there getting shot. But there's a substantial
public opinion, body of public opinion in Europe, particularly, which
says that maybe there should be ground troops there. Do you have a
view on that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that ultimately has got to be a military assessment. I don't
think I can, from all this distance, without having available to me
all of the military intelligence briefings - obviously some but certainly
not all of them because we're not a combatant country and we're
not going to be a combatant country but that is ultimately
a military assessment that will have to be made by the NATO leaders
according to the information they have. Certainly it's a difficult
ask but the bombardment must be having some effect on Belgrade's
military capacity, it must be having a very big effect.
CLARK:
Yep, all right, look let's turn to some other issues. The issue
of Australia's coastal surveillance I know you've
set up a committee, a review committee headed by Max Moore-Wilton
in the Prime Minister's Department, to look at the state of Australia's
coastal surveillance. I note that the Northern Territory, perhaps
inevitably, are keen for you to improve the manning of military bases
in the north but putting to one side as perhaps being motivated by
self interest, really what can you do looking at your state of Australia's
coastline anyway?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there's no way that any Prime Minister can guarantee that
a boat carrying illegal immigrants will never ever get through. Now,
you can't do that. What you can do is to examine whether the
current level is adequate enough, whether it can be improved within
the resources that can reasonably be made available. I know it's
very hard to persuade the public of this because we've had a
couple of very well publicised landings. We actually do have quite
a success rate in intercepting illegal immigration. Illegal immigration
like this is not alone an experience of Australia. There was quite
a spectacular example of this in New York harbour. I understand some
time last year that received a great deal of publicity.
CLARK:
It's probably, in essence, a problem to be solved at source isn't
it? If the Chinese Government wants to encourage this we'll get
a whole lot more boats floating in.
PRIME MINISTER:
There is evidence that this is tied up with criminal activity and
that, of course, puts the responsibility on the source country and
the source country's government. Now, there are different ways
that we can try and tighten the situation and what I want this group
to do is to tell me whether there are some obvious gaps in the surveillance.
We'll know what happened in these two particular instances. We'll
have all the facts in relation to those and then we'll feed that
into this other investigation and they can tell me within a couple
of months whether there are things that can reasonably be done to
make it even tighter. But I'd say two things to the public. The
first is that we have had a pretty good success rate. Now, that's
cold comfort when you get a couple through but the other point I make
is that we have a huge coastline, a massive coastline. Few nations
on earth have the coastline Australia's got and, in fact, practically
no country on earth faces quite the challenge we do in relation to
that. And you have to strike a balance between the level of surveillance
and the resources needed to provide incrementally more surveillance
but still impossibly to cover 100 per cent of the coastline all the
time.
CLARK:
You could spend almost any amount of money I am sure.
PRIME MINISTER:
You could.
CLARK:
The New South Wales State election, you were involved in it, campaigned
for Kerry Chikarovski. She rang you up before she challenged Peter
Collins and you reportedly encouraged her to pursue her ambitions,
what went wrong for her?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, as far as the challenge was concerned the decision for her to
challenge and for her to replace Peter Collins was taken by the State
parliamentary party.
CLARK:
But you were encouraging Mrs Chikarovski weren't you?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, look, I mean, there is no point in going over ancient history
but I do want to make the point that the decision to change leaders
was a decision entirely of the leadership of the State parliamentary
party. I don't deny that Kerry and I have known each other for
quite a while and I have quite a regard for her and I was certainly
happy to throw my lot in with her and to support her during the campaign.
And certainly when she spoke to me at the time of the leadership change,
as did Mr Collins, my position was well if the State parliamentary
party wants to change leaders that's it. And they decided it,
I didn't decide it and the party organisation didn't decide
it. Now, that is now behind us. I was disappointed in the result.
I don't think the State parliamentary party did enough policy
work over the four year period that they were in opposition. You can't
win elections unless you present an identifiable alternative.
CLARK:
They had a big alternative though didn't they in terms of the
power privatisation sell-off it was a centrepiece policy, it was going
to do big things. It was going to eliminate the State's debt
and provide a massive fund by way of foregone interest payments and
so on to provide a whole lot of the sort of infrastructure which State
governments can provide hospitals, schools and all of that.
It was a very big policy and it was out there.
PRIME MINISTER:
It came rather late in the piece and they seemed to stop talking about
it which was an error.
CLARK:
I mean, they probably stopped talking about it because of the lack
of public support for it, wasn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there's a chicken and egg, if you stop talking about something
you'll never get public support for it. I have talked about a
lot of things in my political career that didn't have much public
support when I first started talking about...there wasn't
a lot of public support.....
CLARK:
But to use one of your phrases, they didn't have enough ticker'?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I used that in relation to another election and another political
leader and I think it uniquely fits those circumstances. But they
didn't establish a clear alternative policy profile over the
four year period. You do, despite all the talk there is about public
relations and all the talk there is abut campaign techniques and all
of those things are important, in the end however the public will
vote for a change of government if they believe there is a satisfactory
alternative. They took the judgement in New South Wales, and it's
a harsh thing for me to say but we have got to be realistic, that
there wasn't a sufficiently identifiable clear alternative. Now,
the New South Wales parliamentary party recognises that. It's
now got four years of hard work ahead of it. Now, there's no
alternative to that. I have been through opposition federally I know
how hard it is and I also know the price you pay if you don't
develop policy alternatives. People are less rusted on to their...to
political parties these days. There are far more swing voters, there
are far fewer people now who say, I am voting Labor because dad voted
Labor or I have always voted Liberal. I mean, there is still a lot
of those on both sides but there is a lot of people in the middle
now who will have a look and say, well, I don't like the job
Carr's done but I am not satisfied with the Libs or a good alternative
or, you know, hopefully over a period of time they'll say, well,
the Liberal Party in New South Wales is really working hard now and
it's got some identifiable policies, I'll give them a go
even though I might have a different view federally. The other thing
you have got to remember is that people do vote differently in federal
and state elections and that has particularly been the history of
New South Wales. You look over the last 20 years you have had quite
a clear pattern of people often voting strongly federally for the
Liberal Party but not so strongly at a state level.
CLARK:
One of the lessons that might have been learnt from the State campaign,
at least the Nationals appear to have learnt this, they have dropped
privatisation of the State's power industry as a policy formally.
They've said it is not part of their policy any more, they don't
support it. It wasn't...it didn't enjoy if you believe
any poll that was ever published, it didn't enjoy any public
support either. Some may say that one of the lessons is that privatisation
is on the nose that the Federal Government should learn....
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't agree with that.
CLARK:
....the Federal Government should learn that lesson with its plans
to sell Telstra. You don't accept that?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't. I don't agree with that. Well, we have won
two elections with firstly to part privatisation and then the full
privatisation of Telstra as a key policy. Not the most important policy
by any means but as a policy. I don't believe that privatisation
was a reason why the Liberal Party lost the last State election, I
don't believe that for a moment. If that were the case then somebody
like Peter Blackmore who lost the seat of Maitland fairly narrowly
in the end would have lost it a lot more heavily and there perhaps
might have been a different result in some of the seats on the Central
Coast of New South Wales. I don't think you can find any particular
pattern. Look, the result was predominantly due, in my opinion, to
just an overall assessment....
CLARK:
Bad campaigning, should Remo Nogarotto go?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, no I don't believe in chopping organisational heads off.
People can criticise the campaign and that will be done by the party
organisation. I am not going to engage in some kind of public post-mortem
on the campaign. When you lose it's legitimate to have a look
at everything and it's also obligatory on all the participants
when you lose to share the blame and not, sort of, cast around for
scapegoats and say it's his fault more than my fault or anything
like that. You have just got to be realistic. And the public expects
the Coalition in New South Wales to get their heads down and to work
very hard to establish themselves as a strong alternative and I believe
that Kerry Chikarovski and George Souris will do that. And it's
in their interests and the interests of the government of this State
that that happen.
CLARK:
The GST, Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
The States are all signed up.
CLARK:
Time's running out isn't it? In June, the Democrats will
control the Senate after that.
PRIME MINISTER:
We're coming to the moment of decision.
CLARK:
Okay. Yeah, we are. It's crunch time. It's the pointy end
of the pineapple time. Is there going to be any increase to the compensation
package, and are there any second thoughts about including food in
the GST?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there are certainly no second thoughts about including food,
and all of the evidence, including most recently from Neil Warren
and Ann Harding who have been quoted against us on this subject by
the Labor Party is that food should stay in. Could I make the point
that you now have every Premier and every Chief Minister of Australia,
Labor and Liberal alike signed up to the GST.
CLARK:
Yeah but the person you really need to sign up is Senator Harradine.
PRIME MINISTER:
I know, but the fact that the Senate is meant to be in theory, all
though in practice it's not, the States' House, and you've
got all of the Premiers saying the GST is good for us and good for
the people who we represent, ought to weigh on the minds not only
of Senator Harradine but also of the Labor Senators. There's
a tendency to let the Labor Party off the hook, and the Democrats
off the hook merely by focusing in Brian Harradine. But surely the
Labor Party Senators from New South Wales should take notice of what
Bob Carr has said. I mean Bob Carr is the most successful Labor leader
in Australia at present by far. And he's saying the GST is good
for the people of New South Wales and....
CLARK:
I don't think Senator Faulkner's suddenly going to turn.....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Senator Faulkner and others ought to think of the consequences
of knocking this back for the people of New South Wales.
CLARK:
Are you going to offer Senator Harradine any more?
PRIME MINISTER:
Senator Harradine will make his decision, and one thing I know about
Senator Harradine is that engaging in public dialogue about his attitudes
is never helpful. He's a person who likes to be given time to
make up his own mind. He doesn't appreciate gratuitous public
advice and I've never engaged in giving it to him. If he's
got some views to put to me then he will undoubtedly do so. I hope
in the end he will respect the mandate that we received from the Australian
people last October.
CLARK:
Is there any money in the back pocket for him though? I don't
mean a [inaudible] way but by way of assistance to Tasmania.
PRIME MINISTER:
All of that invites me to do the very thing that I said 30 seconds
ago, I'm not going to do. We have a very simple position. The
public voted for this. We exposed it to the public. No government
in Australian history has been more frank and up front and explicit
about a serious economic policy change and we were about that tax.
CLARK:
When's it coming into the Parliament for a vote?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's in the Senate now and the debate in the Senate will
commenc