Subjects: Gallipoli memorial; Kosovars; reconciliation;
Telstra; Liberal Party convention
E&OE................................................................................................
LAIDLER:
And my pleasure to welcome to the studio, the Prime Minister
of Australia, John Howard. Welcome Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
How are you Terry? Sorry I'm late, a lethal combination
of road works and rain.
LAIDLER:
Yes, it's a bit grid locked around inner Melbourne
until that tunnel opens.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah it is. Anyway.
LAIDLER:
You're off to Gallipoli?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, next Friday I'm going to open the new memorial
on Anzac Cove, its been shifted for the very best of reasons and that
is that the older memorial, the area around it was getting too small for
the enormous number of young Australians and New Zealanders, in particular
but also people generally from other countries as well.
LAIDLER:
What do you reckon's turned that around because
I mean I think not being partisan, you would have to give some credit
to Con Sciacca and that Australia Remembers Campaign for doing some of
it but that can't explain the massive shift in young Australia's
minds...
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh no. no look I mean let me say that that was a good
campaign and it was supported by both sides of politics. I guess the young
today are not as cynical about parts of their history as perhaps the young
of thirty years ago. There's also a feeling that we're coming
to the centenary of federation. There aren't too many people left
alive, now fewer than one hundred, who served in WWI. We've only
got two Gallipoli veterans left and one of them I saw at a ceremony in
Canberra earlier this week. There's just a greater appreciation of
the history of this country and there's a growing realisation that
the First World War with a male population of what two and a half million,
almost four hundred thousand volunteered. Now think what you may of the
reckless valour and so forth involved in that but it was a fantastic contribution
and of course the role that we played in WWII and subsequently... I
think it's a combination of reasons...
LAIDLER:
You've been to Gallipoli and Anzac Cove before haven't
you?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I haven't been to Gallipoli before but I've
been to the Somme on several occasions.
LAIDLER:
Nor have I. People say that the experience of being there
is overwhelming.
PRIME MINISTER:
I am looking forward to it and the New Zealand Prime
Minister, Helen Clarke will be going as well and it will be a very moving
occasion. I'm then going to France and that will include a visit
to the Somme battlefields and then I'm coming back through Israel.
LAIDLER:
How do you work out the right thing to say on an occasion
like that? I mean when you go to shift that memorial people will be looking.
I mean it's one of the things that the Prime Minister does in our
system for certain moments you stand as the national voice. I mean how
do you work out what the right thing to say is?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think about it and I think I'll do my best
to find the right words. I had the same experience when I opened the museum
at Kanchanaburi in Thailand two years ago, Anzac Day 1998 and there were
a lot of survivors of Hellfire Pass including three former members of
Parliament on both sides who came with me on that occasion and they are
very special occasions and you do seek on those occasions to say things
that people can relate to.
LAIDLER:
Can we get to some of the more mundane...
PRIME MINISTER:
Sure.
LAIDLER:
... domestic things because I mean I said that you're
coming on the program yesterday I've been inundated with letters
asking this, asking that... e-mails, e-mails are the bane of our life.
PRIME MINISTER:
They are.
LAIDLER:
A lot of the questions around, a perception perhaps that
the Government is a bit hard hearted, I'd have to be fair and say
I think that's what they're saying about issues like the stolen
generation and like the movement against the Kosovar refugees.
PRIME MINISTER:
Can I just take the Kosovars for a moment? If you look
at our size and if you look at the distant we are from Europe, what we
did in relation to the Kosovars was very generous, we took four thousand.
When you look at our population, our distance and everything that was
a much better contribution I believe than a number of European countries
that had a far more direct involvement.
It always looks difficult when people are being obliged
to go back but there was never any doubt that people came here on a certain
basis. The Minister, who would have to be one of the most decent, conscientious
members of Parliament you'd ever find on either side, has sat down
and worried about this issue, he's talked to me about it on a number
of occasions, he's looked at individual cases and Philip Ruddock
has really applied his mind in a very conscientious way and...
LAIDLER:
Strategically, why didn't you just say OK everyone
who wanted to go home has gone, those who don't want to go are still
here you can apply to the refugee tribunal and if you convince then you're
a refugee you're staying, if you don't you go home?
PRIME MINISTER:
The problem with that Terry is that if you do that it
would represent a very major change in the way in which we administer
refugee policy. It means that in future others will seek to do the same
thing in circumstances...
LAIDLER:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
Exactly, exactly and they say well if you allowed them
to do it why don't you allow us to do it. I remember that when the
Hawke government took a decision in relation to the Chinese students after
Tianamen Square that generated for years afterwards precedent problems.
I had people in my electorate coming along and saying well I've got
some relatives in Laos or Cambodia, why can't I do the same thing,
I've got people here, etc, etc? And you've got to preserve the
integrity of the program and nobody likes the pictures, nobody likes the
trauma, the emotion of it. On the other hand if you don't do it this
way you create further problems with further traumatic cases and further
difficult individual decisions. And we are one of very few countries in
the world that maintain a humanitarian refugee program. There are very
few countries that do and I don't think Australians realise just
how... many Australians don't realise just how...
LAIDLER:
You can be generally generous but perhaps have been too
hard in this specific case.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no.
LAIDLER:
Exceptions can be made.
PRIME MINISTER:
Not without some cost in terms of subsequent generosity.
I mean you just can't see generosity as surrounding one or two particular
cases. I mean you take four thousand. Nobody - the request was made to
us and I don't think a lot of other countries expected that we would
as I say we did it a darn sight better and we were a lot more generous
and accommodating than many of the European countries that have perhaps
been louder in talking about these issues than us.
LAIDLER:
I argue with talk back callers that I assume good will
on the government part in relation to its dealing with Aboriginal people.
But it gets very hard sometimes to argue that and I have wondered for
a while about the timing of that submission to the Senate Committee that
said lets challenge the numbers and query the description of a generation.
I know I am using short hand. Why does that argument have to run now?
What purpose was served in the reconciliation process by running that
argument now?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Senator Herron has pointed out that he was asked
to put in a submission and he chose to respond which he's meant to.
Governments are meant to respond to these committees and he put in a submission.
Now we didn't set out to offend anybody.
LAIDLER:
There was a strategy in the response. He could have said
the government is massively committed to the process of reconciliation,
understands and sympathises with the plight of those taken from their
families. Do you know what I mean? He...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, well the question is whether what was in the document
was accurate or not and you can argue about phraseology but nobody has
actually pulled it apart for factual accuracy and I've heard people
argue well, it was a mistake to deal with facts in the submission. Now
I don't think. I mean people actually argued in the wake of that
submission going in and you may have seen some of that argument yourself,
you probably have that well this is one of those issues where you don't
really, you should really in a sense not deal with the facts. Now nobody
denies that people were taken, nobody denies that there were practices
engaged in the past that by today's standards would be quite unacceptable
and we feel sorry about people who suffer the injustices and we regret
them. But that doesn't mean that you can't deal with the scale
of it or you can't comment objectively on the fact that the original
enquiry didn't ask anybody who had been involved in the practices
to give their point of view.
LAIDLER:
Where is the reconciliation process now in your view?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's still alive and I believe going better than
some people are saying. I had a very good meeting during the week with
ATSIC. I had the entire board of ATSIC to the Lodge. That was pre-arranged
incidentally. I invited them several weeks ago and they were very happy
to pick up the invitation. I also had a meeting a couple of days ago with
representatives of the reconciliation council. We are talking about the
document. That's not the only element of reconciliation. Reconciliation
is an ongoing, multifaceted process meaning different things with different
emphasis...
LAIDLER:
Will it come to a point at some stage? With words like
document...
PRIME MINISTER:
No I don't think you ever perhaps get to a concluded
point. I think the process will probably go on for years and one of the
things that will come out of I guess the next few months will be a consideration
of whether there is a mechanism to carry the process forward after the
council winds up. Because the council runs out of legislative authority
and legislative remit at the end of this year and I know...
LAIDLER:
Will there be a new council?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the current council, the Chairman and Deputy Chairman had a discussion
with me about some alternative mechanism, not a council some call it a
foundation, I don't really mind what the name is that will carry
things forward. I don't think we would have the same Government and
Parliamentary imprimatur that the Reconciliation Council has but certainly
there is a desire on the part of a lot of people to carry the process
forward.
LAIDLER:
I notice you've got notes on it so you would probably know more
about it than me, but I saw a summary of what Mr Beazley said last night
about Telstra which as I saw the summary said he thought the sale had
enabled the repayment of $2.7 billion in debt but that in fact the sale
of Telstra had enabled the forgoing or led to the forgoing of $3.5 billion
in profits.
PRIME MINIISTER:
No, that's no . . . I'm not quite not sure what he was saying,
but the amount of debt that has been repaid has been a lot more than that.
Because we got 12, 14 billion for the first tranche and we got about the
same, a bit more for the second and we had some bonuses and so forth.
I read parts of his speech but I haven't read it all.
LAIDLER:
Basically he was saying the public didn't get value out of the sale.
PRIME MNISTER:
Well I don't . . . well if you reduced the debt from the . . . I
do have something here. In 1997 our net debt was 82.9 billion, this current
financial year it is heading to about 58.9 billion, but part of that has
been . . . a big chunk of that has, it's been helped by Telstra but
also it's been helped by the fact that we got ourselves back into
surplus as well. There are a number of reasons why I think Telstra should
be fully privatised. The most important thing is you really do have a
sort of a camel of an arrangement at the present time and this deal that
Telstra has done with the Hong Kong Telco, the constraint it operates
under is that to finance that deal, it can't issue any shares, can't
raise any equity. Now for a large organisation like Telstra that is a
tremendous constraint. The reason we can't do it is that would dilute
the Government ownership. We don't intend to use tax payers money
to participate in a Telstra share issue, that would be crazy and I don't
think any tax payers would want us to do that, so there is an odd sort
of situation.
LAIDLER:
I have to ask you, how will you deal with the Queensland Nationals?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think you....
LAIDLER:
Who clearly indicated the other day that they expect their members to
oppose any further privatisation of Telstra.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as John Anderson, the National Party Leader, pointed out in the
end these things will be resolved in the Party room and it is Government
policy. Party organisations we listen to but in the end the Party room
takes the decision and I have little doubt that when we come, after the
inquiry, if this inquiry chaired by Mr Besley gives the tick. I'm
sure in the end we will get strong support in our party room for the sale
of the rest of Telstra. This is an ongoing policy debate, I think it is
in the national interest for it to be fully privatised, I think Telstra
is entitled to operate without these sort of odd constraints and it does
seem to me odd that you would have $50 billion of public money invested
in a Telecommunications company rather than in some other form.
Because that is really what we are talking about, is whether you want
50 billion tied up owning a telephone company or you want 50 billion put
to some other use.
LAIDLER:
But they don't trust other telephone companies in the bush to look
after them, they trust the government to look after them and they know
they can get at their local politician.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Terry when the Government . . .
LAIDLER:
But that is what's going on?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well can I say in respect to that, that when Telecom was fully owned
by the Government, the service was worse. When Mr Beazley was the Minister
and at a time when he was arguing eloquently in favour of the privatisation
of many assets. I came across a speech of his yesterday where he put a
terrifically good argument in favour of what the Government is now doing,
but when it was fully owned, the service was no better, it was worse,
much worse. I mean nobody in the bush will now tell you that 20 years
ago it was better, what they will say is that it is still not good enough
and they are right and our aim is to make it better and we are going to
do that.
LAIDLER:
Did you have a finger in the decision to let Phillip Morris sponsor a
lunch at the Liberal Party Convention and does it matter.
PRIME MINISITER:
Well the answer is no.
LAIDLER:
You didn't have a finger in it?
PRIME MINISTER:
And no, it's an organisational matter. Phillip Morris of course
sponsors things for both sides of politics, I should put that on the record.
LAIDLER:
You could both be wrong.
PRIME MNISTER:
Well of course, or we could both be correct. One of us can't be
wrong and the other correct on this occasion. What I would say is really
what Lynton Crosby said that is if a company is entitled to operate legally
and pay its taxes and it's otherwise a good corporate citizen, you
should be able to allow it to sponsor.
LAIDLER:
You can't advertise its product for example.
PRIME MINISTER:
No it can't, but it can still sell it and . . .
LAIDLER:
But what it does instead of advertising it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well people argue that, I mean these things are never black and white.
I mean if they were black and white you would . . . they would be able
to advertise as well as operating profitably. They would be able to do
all of those things. But the argument that these things are shades of
grey...
LAIDLER:
I mean people say to me we are hypocritical about drugs, we get all upset
about them using ecstasy at parties and yet tobacco and alcohol are the
biggest killer in our communities.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as somebody who gave up smoking 20 years ago but enjoys a drink,
I think if we are being objective abuse of alcohol inflicts enormous misery
on people, enormous misery but nobody really questions, not too hard anyway
the role . . .
LAIDLER:
Perhaps because there is a level of safe use of alcohol.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well some . . . these things are, they are shades of grey on occasions
and therefore the only rule I think you can invoke is the one that Lynton
invoked and that is to say that if a product is legal, the operation is
legal and it pays its taxes, then there is no reason why it shouldn't
make a . . . it shouldn't play a role. Particularly as 60 per cent
of its business is from non-tobacco related activities.
LAIDLER:
Prime Minister it has been good to talk to you once again.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.