E&OE................................................................................................
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible] during your time in Western Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I hope to talk to some of the people whose homes have been destroyed,
whose lives have been turned upside, and to find out in a sensible
way how the Federal Government can help and we are already helping
under the disaster relief arrangements. They come in automatically
whenever something like this happens and that's the case in Western
Australia or indeed anywhere else. There may be other things that
we can usefully do. The Western Australian Premier and I will talk
about it. We'll tour the area that's been devastated and
I'll have something more to say then. But it's certainly
had an enormous impact on that community. It's the most powerful
cyclone experienced by any part of Australia in recorded history so
it's an absolute miracle that apparently so far there's
been no loss of life and I can only hope that that continues to be
the case.
JOURNALIST:
Can the people of Western Australia expect some added financial help?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'll talk to the Premier about that. I don't think
it's appropriate to speculate on that at the moment.
JOURNALIST:
I suppose it's [inaudible] for both the Opposition Leader and
the Prime Minister to be travelling together...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I always believe on these things that the Opposition Leader should
be included. That has been my practice since I became Prime Minister
and I'll continue that while ever I'm Prime Minister. I
think these things are above and beyond party politics. They should
always have been so in the past, and they should be so in the future.
JOURNALIST:
Are you concerned for the safety of Australians in Yugoslavia with
the NATO strikes coming [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well whenever bombs start being dropped obviously casualties are inevitable.
We gave warning to...a consulate warning was issued a few days
ago for people to try and leave the country. I support the NATO action.
It became unavoidable because of the stubbornness and the intransigence
of Milosevic. There's been plenty of opportunity to accommodate
the ethnic Albanian position in Kosovo. The determination of the Serbians
to pursue continued attacks and reprisals against the ethnic Albanians
is really the cause of this action by NATO. It's very regrettable,
it's very sad. It's always deeply disturbing for this kind
of conflict to occur. But as history has told us if you sit by and
do nothing you pay a much greater price later on.
JOURNALIST:
Do you fear it could take quite an extended campaign to get Milosevic
to back down?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I don't think I can make a judgement on that at the present
time. Any military action is always serious and of this order is particularly
serious. But it is justifiable and it has the support of the Australian
Government. Thank you.
[ends]