Subjects: Road funding; Queensland election; preferences
E&OE................................
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Martin Ferguson's total honesty about road funding has taught Kim Beazley a truth lesson. We said that the Auditor-General's report about road funding was just an accounting argument, a classification argument, there was never an underfunding of $2.9 billion of road funding. Kim Beazley knew that, yet he told the Australian people there was an underfunding. He's now been caught out by his own spokesman who said you've got to be honest with people to win their respect. I agree with Martin Ferguson, he ought to tell his leader to be honest with the Australian people about road funding. There's never been a shortfall of $2.9 billion, and Martin Ferguson's forced candour at a private meeting has now exposed Mr Beazley as deceiving the Australian people on this issue. He did it over the budget deficit when he was Finance Minister, and he's demonstrated again a lack of candour with the Australian people.
JOURNALIST:
Will you be willing to look at the issue of petrol pricing in the wake of the Queensland election result?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have already looked at the question of petrol excise, and I know that it's a difficult issue. The main reason why petrol prices are high is because world crude oil prices are high, and before Christmas we took a decision to put an additional $1.6 billion into road funding. I think we'd all like lower petrol prices, but the main reason why they're high is because of world crude oil prices.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, how will you stop your backbenchers speaking out over petrol prices?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's very understandable that people should talk about petrol pricing, because it's an issue that is of concern to people. But it's important to be born in mind that the main driver of high petrol prices is in fact the price of crude oil.
JOURNALIST:
Is this damaging for your leadership though? The backbenchers speaking out over petrol and about trading preferences with One Nation.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm not aware of too many Liberal Party backbenchers who are talking about trading preferences with One Nation, in fact I'm not, as I speak now, I'm not aware of any. But look, this preference issue has been got out of proportion. The preferences that matter are the preferences of minor parties. The Liberal Party preferences are not going to be distributed at the next election, and the message I would like to convey to people who vote for minor parties, is that the next election is a choice between the economic stability and security delivered by the Coalition or a return to the 17% interest rates, the 11% unemployment, and the $80 billion of national debt, hallmarks of Mr Beazley's last years in Government.
JOURNALIST:
What sort of costs do you think the Coalition will be pay for a staying strong on your position on petrol at the next election.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's a matter for political commentators, I mean I'm an advocate and a participant in politics in Australia, it's not for me to make those sort of judgments, that's for the media and for political commentators, I'm not a political commentator.
JOURNALIST:
Are you expecting some costs?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, once again you're asking me to be a political commentator and I simply refuse to do that.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Beazley keeps saying you don't listen to the people enough, you don't listen to what they're saying, but what can you do to convince them that you are?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that question assumes that Mr Beazley is right.
JOURNALIST:
Well the voters in Queensland.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the voters in Queensland, Jenny, voted overwhelmingly on state issues. Now the Coalition in Queensland was heading for a political train wreck some months ago. The rorts issue came along and Mr Beattie handled that very well, I think you have to give credit where it is due. Now I have never said that everything the Government is doing is supported by the Australian people, of course there are criticisms of the Government, of course there are areas where people are unhappy but I'm simply not going to accept that federal issues were the dominant reasons for the defeat of the Coalition in Queensland. Nobody in Queensland in the Coalition is saying that. Rob Borbidge is not saying it. David Watson's not saying it. I think we, in the wake of an election result like this we have to sort of keep a sense of perspective and I'm simply not going to be pushed into accepting something that I don't believe.
I mean what I believe is that the main reason we lost in Queensland was that people in Queensland voted for the strength and the stability and the security that Beattie offered. And the alternative sadly was pretty disunited and aimless. Now that's why Beattie did so well in Queensland, that doesn't mean that there aren't some federal issues that people are unhappy about. I acknowledge that but they were not the major drivers of what occurred in Queensland and I am simply not going to allow a view to be rammed down my throat or throats of my colleagues that everything that happened in Queensland was due to people's unhappiness on federal issues. That is the Beazley line because it is a self-serving line but it is untrue and he's misleading people in saying that.
JOURNALIST:
Are there signs of disunity though emerging on the Coalition backbench over petrol prices, the excise and also the issue of preferences?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as far as the preferences are concerned Tom we are two separate parties. In the last federal election I think four or five National Party members preferenced One Nation ahead of Labor so there's nothing new about people like Bob Katter and De-Anne Kelly saying they would like to exchange preferences. The Liberal Party's position last time was that One Nation was put last, I would expect that would be the position this time, it will be determined by the state divisions.
JOURNALIST:
Could the National Party preferencing One Nation damage the Liberal vote in the urban cities?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it didn't last time.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think .?
PRIME MINISTER:
I mean it's not new you see, people seem to forget that last time you had the National Party following a different approach in a number of seats than the Liberal Party and that happens in a Coalition. Years ago there was a federal election in which the Country Party, the predecessor of the National Party actually gave preferences to the Labor Party ahead of the Liberal Party, it didn't break the Coalition up, wasn't regarded as disunity. The Prime Minister then was Bob Menzies and the National Party leader Jack McEwen.
JOURNALIST:
Even if you accept, even if we accept that the federal issues were not dominant in the Queensland and Western Australian results, do you think there's anything more that you can do even at the margin to assist .?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Jenny somebody in my position is always assessing what you can do. You never in politics remain utterly static but you equally in politics, you don't abandon commonsense in the face of political pressure. I am not going to do that. I am not going to abandon commonsense and I am not going to do things I don't believe in in the face of political pressure. I cease to be of any value to the Australian people if I do things that I don't believe in because of political pressure and the Australian people will not respect me for that. But I want them to understand that I am not the sort of leader who just adopts a 'head in the sand' attitude about everything, I don't. I've demonstrated in the past I can be sensibly flexible on certain issues and I will in the future.
JOURNALIST:
Given the results of the two state elections do you now change your approach to the remainder of the year?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I expected that we would lose in Queensland. I thought we might hang on in Western Australia. The size of the result, the swing in Western Australia did surprise me. The outcome in Queensland did not surprise me, I mean the dimension you can argue about but I never thought we had a real hope from the beginning of the year in Queensland. I don't think many people if they were honest thought that. The preconditions of these things are set well before the campaign starts and if the preconditions are that you are going to have a very close result, well you have a close result.
JOURNALIST:
Are you worried about the prospects of any fallout from last Saturday in the Ryan by-election?
PRIME MINISTER:
Ryan will be tough. If there's a mood, a protest mood, Ryan will be tough. Any by-election in a climate like this is tough. I will of course be campaigning on federal issues. I'll be asking people not to reward a policy lazy Labor Party. I mean take the issue of petrol, Mr Beazley hasn't promised to cut excise. But he was asked repeatedly a couple of weeks ago would he commit a future Labor government to cutting excise and he dodged and weaved and bobbed, he wouldn't give a straight answer. Yet he's running around raising the issue against us. Now okay, that's cheap politics and he gets some joy out of that, but I don't know in the end the Australian people respect him for that. I mean if he thinks we're wrong, will he change it? If he's not prepared to change it then people should ignore his criticisms of us.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think there is potential for change before the next election?
PRIME MINISTER:
I said that I am a person who is always willing providing it is sensible policy to show a degree of flexibility. But I am not talking about any particular areas, it's just a general observation, I wouldn't get too excited about that.
JOURNALIST:
You've acknowledged there is a protest mood though, how's the federal government going to be immune from that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't know that anybody's immune from that. Look, once again you're asking me to be a political commentator and I am not going to do that. OK.
JOURNALIST:
Can I just ask you - the railway will you be progressing that at all during your trip up here?
PRIME MINISTER:
We'll be discussing it.
[Ends]