Subjects: Australia's relationship with India; tax reform; cricket; Olympics.
E&OE ..............................
Ladies and gentlemen.
I would like to start by saying how much I have appreciated the courtesy and hospitality extended to me by the Indian Government and the Indian people during my visit. I will be concluding the formal part of my visit after this news conference by meeting with the Finance Minister and the Minister for Commerce. As you know I've had the opportunity of addressing a business lunch today and last night I was a guest of the Prime Minister at dinner and I had previously met him, along with the Foreign Minister, the President and the Vice President.
And I have said to all of those members of the Government, as I would repeat to you today, that the time has come for both India and Australia to put new vigour and energy into a relationship that all of us have tended on occasions to take a little for granted. Both India and Australia are growing very strongly, the investment opportunities are growing, we need of course to take further steps to remove any unnecessary tariff or other impediments, and I'm sure in time that will occur.
We have a lot in common. Exchanges between us are greatly aided by our common understanding of the English language and there are many other institutional things that we have in common. I do stress the importance, as I do to all Australian audiences, of open and transparent rules of corporate governance. If you're looking for international investment in this globalised world, there's nothing more likely to drive it away than having unnecessarily complicated or rules of governance that lack in consistency and transparency. We have sought to do that and I know that in India you seek to do it also and it's one of those things that matters a great deal.
I will be very happy to answer any of your questions.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, you talk about the political and cultural links [inaudible] Just on a domestic issue, are you concerned at all about the credentials of Australian bowler Brett Lee having a cloud over his head as a possible chucker ?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I find that very hard to believe. He was a member of the Prime Minister's XI against India last year. He's a fantastic bowler - I can't believe it.
JOURNALIST:
Are you aware of the claims ?
PRIME MINISTER:
Sort of, I got some breath of it coming down but I was being briefed on something else, something that just happened in Australia on the way down and I didn't have enough time. Look, I mean that these matters will be dealt with in the normal way, but he looks a beautiful bowler to me.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I don't control it. I'm the Prime Minister.
JOURNALIST:
Do you object to it?
PRIME MINISTER:
People have got a right to complain if they want to. I'm just telling you I think he's a fantastic bowler.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Can we alternate? I'd like my Indian friends to feel part of this as well.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Prime Minister, on the same subject, what is your view on the match fixing controversy?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think it's very sad and I hope that cricket authorities all around the world investigate to the full and if people are found to be responsible they should be dealt with in the harshest manner appropriate.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, John Della Bosca has criticised Kim Beazley's line on the GST. Is that helpful to you or [inaudible] or put more pressure on the government to .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't think it's very helpful to Mr Beazley and it probably means that Barry Jones' odds of remaining National President of the ALP may have improved a little. Look I think what it exposes is the complete phoneyness and humbug of Mr Beazley. Della Bosca, whether he meant to be quoted or not, was speaking the truth when he said the Australian public had accepted this change. He was speaking the truth when he said that nothing was being achieved by Mr Beazley and Mr Crean continuing to go on about it and it is a measure of, how should we put it, the duplicity, the political duplicity of the Australian Labor Party. Here is the hand-picked hard man of Kim Beazley for the presidency of the Labor Party. He was even prepared to push aside nice Barry Jones in order to install Della Bosca and all the while he knows that this man is saying to him what he in his heart knows is right. Beazley's always known that tax reform is good for Australia. If he really cared about the national good instead of the short term political interest he'd have accepted the decision of the Australian people in October of 1998. Instead of that he has waged almost a two year campaign of narking negativity and now he's been exploded for the phoney that he is by his own hand-picked choice as National President of the Labor Party.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, can you tell us what were your conversations on CTBT and on Fiji with the leaders that you met so far?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, on Fiji both of us agreed on essentially most aspects of the crisis. We are both very disturbed at the repudiation of the 1997 Constitution. We both want a non-racially based approach to government in Fiji. We are both concerned that a man such as Mr Chaudry who sat down with us at the Commonwealth meeting in Durban last year, who was democratically elected, can be removed in such a fashion. We are hopeful that the hostages will be released but I have said before, both publicly and privately, that I can't be certain, none of us can be certain until it ultimately happens. The Prime Minister and I have agreed to keep in touch and I intend to contact him again in a few weeks time if the situation has clarified itself to further discuss the matter.
As far as the test ban treaty is concerned, we did discuss that issue and I know it's the policy of the Indian Government to develop a national consensus on it.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, do you have any sympathy with India's position on the CTBT - why should India sign up if the United States has not signed up ?
PRIME MINISTER:
We think that the more that sign the better so naturally we encourage them to sign.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, on Fiji, we in India find it incredible that a failed buisnessman, now a gunman, is able to hold half a million Indians to ransom . What is the world going to about it and if India were to send a shipload of soldiers do something about it what .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't think India will do that. I don't think anybody should do that. We are past the days of gunboat diplomacy and that applies to Australia as it does to India or any country and it's been one of the constants of Indian foreign policy over the years that matters should be settled peacefully rather than through a resort to arms and that is certainly our view as well. It is appalling and the Fijians of Indian heritage who have lived in that country for many generations, as you say, and talking about them leaving Fiji is the equivalent of talking about many Australians who are seventh generation Australians leaving Australia and it's an absurdity, and it only has to be stated to be seen how absurd and wrong it is.
We will continue to exert pressure and apply advocacy and other things in an appropriate way, first to get the release of the hostages. That is the first priority. It is still a very delicate situation. They've now been in captivity for weeks and it gets very tense and tempers become very stretched and one has to be careful of what one says - particularly Prime Ministers.
It's not an occasion for flamboyant, provocative language. The first goal is to get the hostages safe and sound out of the hands of Mr Speight and his cohorts and then we'll turn our minds to other matters.
JOURNALIST:
Are you saying that the Government here might put pressure. Will that include an extension of sanctions ..
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have announced a disposition on certain measures. At this time I don't have anything further to announce and you shouldn't read anything in particular into the use of the words 'at this time'.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, other than exerting pressure, what exactly will you do [inaudible] tactics that you have tried have failed so far?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, nothing has failed so far because it hasn't been applied. We foreshadowed a number of measures. I think the only thing that's been implemented are, well certainly the rugby ban has come into effect and that is something that is particularly disliked in Fiji because of their passion for rugby and there are a couple of other measures, but can I just repeat what I said a moment again and that is that we are dealing with a very delicate situation. We want the democratically elected Prime Minister of Fiji and the other people who are held hostage, we want them safely released and at the moment that is my major concern and it should be the major concern of everybody. Once that has been accomplished, then one's mind can be turned to other matters. But you have to remember that you are dealing with a country, an independent country, unless we are going to overturn decades of political attitudes in this country where you don't intervene in the internal affairs of another country without the authority of a multi state mandate or a United Nations mandate, there are limits to what any country can do including both India and Australia.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, how do you respond to the UN's International Narcotics Control Board Report on your anti drugs strategy? It says that your $500 million strategy basically has failed to curb the use and trafficking and made illicit drug abuse more socially acceptable?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't see that report as being critical of the Federal Government's approach. If anything, I see that report being very critical of the harm minimisation versus zero tolerance approach. If you have a look at that report you will find that it criticises the very things that I've criticised. There's no comfort in that report for heroin injecting rooms. There's no comfort in that report for heroin trials. What it observes is that the drug problem remains very serious in Australia and our Tough on Drugs Campaign has only been underway for a couple of years. I wouldn't expect it to yield results for some years yet. But if you go through that report, you will actually find that it is virtually a point by point endorsement of the Federal Government's approach, and indeed the approach of most state governments on most issues. But it's certainly not critical of our approach, it merely records the fact that the drug menace is still very big in Australia. It is, that is why we're putting money in. But I don't expect a dividend within a year or two years from Tough Drugs, I think it will take several years. It is a bit like something like gun control laws where it takes years before the real benefits of it are revealed.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, you mentioned the Commonwealth. Don't you think there will be troubles in the Commonwealth because of Britain's decision to resume arms supplies to Pakistan? And how will the delicate situation in South Asia will be disturbed?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the question of British arms sales to Pakistan, I guess at certainly this stage is a matter for Britain. I am not going to give gratuitous advice to other countries, but I wouldn't have thought it's something that would become the only issue of debate and discord in the Commonwealth. I think that would be perhaps exaggerating. I understand the sensitivity of the issue here in India because of the difficulties in the relations between the two countries, but bear in mind that Britain is not the only arms vendor in the world and there are plenty of other countries that are in that business. I mean you can be critical of the foreign policy of every country on some aspect. I would have thought the Commonwealth should be careful about perhaps focussing its energies on a number of particular areas where solid progress can be made, rather than perhaps coincidentally being involved in particular bi-lateral issues. I think the Commonwealth has a very big role to play in relation to matters of democratic governance, of judicial independence because they are the foundations of the sort of things that the Commonwealth has always stood for. And they are certainly things for which India is renowned and respected around the world. And I hope they are the things that the top level group of which the Indian Prime Minister and I are both members and will have an opportunity of pursuing when we meet in New York.
JOURNALIST:
John Della Bosca appears to be suggesting that the GST should be applied to everything for the sake of simplicity. Would you ever countenance removing some of those exemptions . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
The die is cast, the cement is set, it is what the Parliament passed.
JOURNALIST:
So . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, no. Look, we're not changing it to extend it to food if that's what you want - no. Look we put that up, that was knocked over. We reached an understanding with the Australian Democrats, we're not going to repudiate that, we're not extending it. It's set in cement. It's been introduced, it's gone well, and Della Bosca has blown the cover on Beazley.
JOURNALIST:
Is Australia more comfortable dealing with India two years after the nuclear tests than it was at the time when we tested.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well certainly the test did impose a strain. Of course. And we felt strongly. And I was asked a question about that today and I said that we had moved on. We hadn't withdrawn the criticism, you don't do that. I mean if you didn't mean the criticism in the first place, you wouldn't have made it. But equally you don't dwell forever on one issue and you don't allow one issue to contaminate the entire relationship. So, we've now moved on. And I hope that what we've been able to do in the last couple of days is something of the inauguration of a new period in relations between the two countries. But that also will take time. You can't breathe vigour into a relationship in a day and a half.
JOURNALIST:
What are the factors [inaudible] to move on ?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the desire to get the benefits of the broader aspects of the bilateral relationship.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister there's an expectation in India as I understand it that Australia will resume military ties [inaudible] and remove the ban on non-humanitarian aid. Is that something you took up in your talks . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well these are things that you know, tend to evolve naturally and there is to be a return of the military attache to New Delhi. I think the relationship will gather momentum from now.
JOURNALIST:
Is that likely to be . . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't want to say anything more about that at the moment, it's something that - if there were to be progress on that front, it's something that I will discuss with the Foreign Minister.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I will take one more from each side and then I must go. I've got to meet your Finance Minister.
JOURNALIST:
Did you talk to the Leader of the Opposition?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I did.
JOURNALIST:
Did you talk to her about the CTBT announcement and if so what was . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we did talk about it, but I think in fairness to her that is a matter that she should speak of rather than I.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
JOURNALIST:
With just two months to go to the Olympics, what's the feeling like in Australia for the Olympics?
PRIME MINISTER:
Very enthusiastic. The Olympic Games will be hugely successful. Sydney will take the whole event very much in its stride, as befits its status as a large international, cosmopolitan city. The facilities are first class. I think those responsible for preparing the facilities deserve a real pat on the back, they are really first class facilities. And I think the Indian team will find it very good. I think they'll find the hockey field, the track and field facility and the aquatic centre, all of them will find them absolutely first class facilities.
JOURNALIST:
Just one last . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I think I really must go. I have kept your Finance Minister waiting already.
JOURNALIST:
One question on cricket Mr Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
You've already had two on cricket.
JOURNALIST:
Can I ask you what you . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon?
JOURNALIST:
Just about what you are saying about the excitement over the Olympics. Are you worried about the protests likely to come from the aborigines? And the UN Human Rights Committee [inaudible] are you sending a delegation to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, as far as protests are concerned, we are a democracy, and people have a right to protest in accordance with the law. Protests are always part of the system in Australia providing those protesting do it within the law. I would think the majority of Australians, overwhelming majority of Australians would take that view. As for the UN, well the UN is a great organisation and it's instrumentalities do a fantastic job, we don't always agree with the findings of some of their committees, we think they're seriously flawed and we're never reluctant to say so and we'll continue to take that attitude.
Thank you.
[Ends]