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JOURNALIST:
Thank you for your time, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good afternoon, Steve.
JOURNALIST:
Congratulations on your preamble. I have seen it for the first time
today, obviously, as the rest of the country has. And most of the
callers we've had today have been very complimentary.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, well that's very good.
JOURNALIST:
Have you heard it read out as opposed to just in your own head when
you were writing it, yet?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I've recited it on a number of occasions to myself but has
somebody read it out?
JOURNALIST:
We've put it to tape, would you like to listen?
PRIME MINISTER:
I would love to hear it.
[TAPE PLAYED]
JOURNALIST:
What do you reckon?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it's great. I haven't heard it. That's a very
delightful and moving presentation of it and it sounds even, well,
it seems even better when it's recited so very well. Whoever
that was, she did a lovely job.
JOURNALIST:
How much of what's there is yourself and how much is Les Murray
or is impossible to actually separate it? I mean, is it...
PRIME MINISTER:
It's very hard to separate it. Some of the phrases are, the second
last paragraph, the one about the equal dignity with one tiny change,
that was all Les Murray's work. One of the earlier paragraphs
was all my work. It varies a bit but, I mean, Les certainly contributed
a lot of the poetry. I, after a lot of discussion with him and after
discussions with my colleagues, contributed a lot of the ideas. There
were some phrases there that are very much mine. I was certainly very
keen on referring to mateship because I see mateship as not a blokey
term but I see it as something that sums up the idea of looking after
each other.
JOURNALIST:
We had a charming woman from Tookaruk rang us earlier in the programme
saying she calls her dog her mate, so mateship, she says, is not at
all anything to do with males.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no it's not. Look, it may originally have had that connotation.
And you've got to remember that there's a whole generation
of Australians to whom the notion of male mateship in adversity in
war and so forth is part of our history. But in a more contemporary
way it expresses the fact that we look after each other in adversity
when you help people in fire and flood and you pull people
out from under, you know, a collapsed ski lodge at Thredbo. All of
that is an expression of the volunteer and community spirit of our
country. And the reason why I was passionate about having the word
there was that there isn't another constitution in the world
that would have a preamble that would have that word in it. And doesn't
that mean that it's something that we really own and is quite
distinctive and something that we know ourselves by almost intuitively.
And that transcends any kind of blokey origin of the word.
JOURNALIST:
I know a lot of people have been putting their oar in. Another caller
said would it be possible at the very beginning to start with we
the people'.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it would be. The reason I didn't want to do that is it
seems so derivative of the Americans. I mean, that's an American
expression, you the people', a very, very American expression
and Les and I both wanted to avoid that. We wanted something that
was free of too many we the peoples' and humbly relying
on the blessings' which is language that may have belonged nicely
to an earlier period and another country but this is Australia at
the close of the 20th Century and I wanted something that
was in the language of that century. It was uplifting without over
the top because we're not an over the top people when it comes
to patriotic declarations. We are not as expressive, overtly expressive,
about these things as are Americans and we should never try and ape
Americans with these things.
JOURNALIST:
Not surprisingly some of the whingers have come out of the woodwork
already. Peter Yu, the Kimberley Land Council executive says it's
wimpish, dismissive of indigenous people, he says it's an aggressive
document from a small-minded man, which is a pretty rude way to react
to it. Alex Buso, who's regarded, apparently, as a prominent
author and playwright, says it's not a gripping read and it dates
back to the 50s. Both reasonably predictable criticisms I would imagine.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well certainly Peter's is. I mean, Peter is a constant critic
of mine from the Aboriginal community. I don't think anything
I could I mean, the only thing that I could write that would
make him happy, I'm afraid, on this sort of issue would be something
the great bulk of the rest of the community would find unacceptable.
If you go too far in that area you will lose the rest of the Australian
community. They don't want something that is politically controversial.
They want something that recognises the truth and that is that the
indigenous people were here first and we honour their continuing culture.
Now, that's what the document does.
JOURNALIST:
If the move to a republic gets voted down, Prime Minister, is there
still a necessity to have a new preamble?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, this is a republic neutral preamble. This will go into the Constitution
if the people vote for it whether or not we are a republic and it's
been deliberately designed. I mean, I'm going to vote against
the republic and for this preamble. And at the moment the existing
preamble...
JOURNALIST:
Which I have here and, I mean, I can't even begin to read it
because it's very difficult to read out because it's very
legal.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it's actually a preamble in the British Act which legally
enacts the Australian Constitution. It's not really a preamble
to our Constitution. It's a preamble in the British Act. And
I think it says, whereas the people of New South Wales, Victoria humbly
relying on the blessing of Almighty God have agreed to be uniting
one indissoluble, Federal Commonwealth under the Crown. Now, that
was fine language for that day and that remains in the British Act
but this will go into our Constitution, be part of our Constitution,
whether or not we become a republic...
JOURNALIST:
If we all vote for it.
PRIME MINISTER:
If a majority of Australians in a majority of States vote for it,
of course. And I have, we've deliberately made it republic neutral
so that somebody who doesn't want a republic but would like a
preamble...
JOURNALIST:
And there will be people who would want that option.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there would be a lot people in that situation.
JOURNALIST:
Just finally, Kim Beazley has also been critical of your work saying
that it is too wordy and that you've tried to cover too many
bases. Have you read his version or their version originally drafted
by Gareth Evans I think?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I have read it and, look, I'm not going to sort of bucket
it as he's bucketed mine because I accept that people of goodwill
in a situation like this will express these things differently.
JOURNALIST:
He read it for us, do you want to listen, it's only our lasts
30 seconds.
[TAPE PLAYED]
JOURNALIST:
What do you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the concepts in it are indistinguishable from the concepts in
mine. I mean, there is nothing in that, in a sense, that's not
in our preamble.
JOURNALIST:
He dwells on the word custodian' in the last...
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah well, that's right, but that's because that's
sort of become a bit of a buzzword of some people who are arguing
this issue. I know, well, he mentions that he uses the word custodianship.
We have used the expression, you know, we've talked about inhabitation,
inhabited the land. There are a few things in our document which are
values which are not in his. We talk about concepts such as fairness
and mateship and excellence and achievement and I think it's
important to go beyond the and I'm not being critical
of his preamble because I don't think this is something where
somebody's totally right and another person's totally wrong
but he has got in his preamble all the things that you would
expect. I mean, his is a very predictable preamble because it's
got all the things and it says we the people and so forth. I have
tried in this to introduce some notions of contemporary Australian
values. I mean, we all would expect a reference to democracy and equality
and those sorts of things, and that's in our preamble, but we've
gone a bit further and we've put in excellence and achievement
and mateship and fairness. And we've also got a sense of something
that's very important to the Australian experience and that sense
of space and the size of Australia and the vastness of the continent
which has had an enormous impact on the psyche of the Australian people.
It's conditions, our attitude, our sense of space and distance
and I don't think you have a thoroughly contemporary Australian
Constitution that doesn't have that concept in it. But I'd
understand, as I said a moment ago, Steve, the people with goodwill
are going to want to express these things differently and in the end
somebody, and that's understandably the Government and the Prime
Minister of the day, has got to say, well look, this is what we think
is appropriate. I'll be interested to hear people's views.
JOURNALIST:
I think it's a fascinating debate and the community will want
to talk about and I congratulate you again on doing it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
JOURNALIST:
Would you like a copy of our read version?
PRIME MINISTER:
I would love it. I would love it.
JOURNALIST:
We'll courier that up to you overnight. Thanks for giving us
your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]