Subjects: illegal immigrants.
E&OE................................
WOOLLEY:
Prime Minister, would it be fair to say that it's all gone to plan?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I hope it's going to be resolved. I didn't plan this. A week ago today this was as far away from me, you know, as one could imagine. I would never have imagined these events could have quite unfolded as they have.
WOOLLEY:
Not the kind of thing you can plan for.
PRIME MINISTER:
Not the kind of thing I wanted to either. I mean, the last thing I want is a situation where you have to make these difficult choices. But I think we have done the right thing. We have sent a signal. We have said that Australia is no longer an easy touch for illegal immigrants.
WOOLLEY:
If you had the week over again, though, would you have communicated more with the Indonesians right at the beginning, assuming that they'll listen to you?
PRIME MINISTER:
It wouldn't have made any difference, Charles. It was very clear from the very beginning that the Indonesians were not going to take these people back. That was very clear. And we have been, in fact, talking to the Indonesians quite a bit about trying to get a longer-term arrangement to prevent people leaving that country. I hope one day we can get that but it hasn't surprised me in the least that they declined to take them back.
WOOLLEY:
It's been seen as an act of stubbornness on your part, that you dug yourself in over Christmas Island. I mean, Christmas Island hardly looks or feels like Australia, I know it technically is, but wouldn't it have been easier just to have taken the people to Christmas Island to process?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, Christmas Island is part of Australia and processing them on Christmas Island is the same as processing them in Sydney.
WOOLLEY:
So you weren't being pedantic.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I was being.I mean, that was real life legal reason and people should understand that. If we had allowed them to come on to Christmas Island then they could claim full refugee status as if they were in Sydney or Melbourne. That is the problem and that is why I have been adamant they should not be allowed to come on to Australian land territory and Christmas Island is Australian land territory.
WOOLLEY:
But there have been refugee boats, there will be more, why this one, why the Tampa, why did you draw the line in the sand?
PRIME MINISTER:
Particular circumstances. I mean, here was a large vessel, they'd taken the people on board. We had communication with the ship's Captain. It was clearly open to him to accept our instruction and stay outside the Australian territorial sea limit. And, of course, the combination of this, plus the enhanced surveillance that I announced yesterday means that we are making it steadily more difficult within the laws of international law and within the bounds of decent behaviour.
WOOLLEY:
But because we really haven't treated them that badly, in a sense, I mean, they get to go to a Pacific island perhaps, what sort of deterrent is that to the clients or the people.
PRIME MINISTER:
Their aim was to come to Australia. Now, we don't want to treat anybody badly. We are providing them with proper food, proper medical aid. The ship that they're likely to be on is an amphibious carrier, troop carrier, and Australian troops often spend weeks on that vessel, so nobody can suggest that if these people are on it for a number of days that they're being treated in an inhumane, uncivilised fashion.
Charles Woolley: It's the image that's become indelibly printed for the rest of the world - elite Australian troops hurrying to the Tampa to stop it offloading its human cargo. For the Prime Minister this action was legal and necessary to protect our territorial sovereignty. But the world's media the picture was of an Australia not just unwelcoming but brutal and inhumane.
American Reporter: In the waters between Indonesia and Australia shades of the voyage of the damned - that was the name given to the ship which carried Jews fleeing the Nazis in 1939.
PRIME MINISTER:
I was very offended. I mean, Australia is the second most generous country in the world, after Canada, on a per capita basis in taking refugees. I've even heard people describe detention centres in this illegal immigrant debate as concentration camps. I think that is an insult to the people who suffered and died in concentration camps and it's a massive insult to Australia and Her humanity and Her decency.
WOOLLEY:
Don't be defensive about this but what has it done then to our standing in the world?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't think in the long run or even in the medium run it's damaged it. I've looked carefully at the internationally media, some of it's critical, some of it's very supportive.
WOOLLEY:
It's obviously been a stressful week for people in Government. Have you had any doubts, do you ever think, am I doing the right thing?
PRIME MINISTER:
On this issue, no. I mean, I've.
WOOLLEY:
Never?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, on this issue I think it has been clearly the right thing to do.
WOOLLEY:
Strangely enough the very popularity of your actions cause you to be caned - you're accused of wedge politics and playing to the mob.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that is nonsense. I mean, I didn't want this to happen. I didn't plan it, I didn't design it, I didn't time it, it came and I've have to deal with it and it's got nothing to do with wedge politics or racism or hansonism.
WOOLLEY:
But you can't tell me in the lead-up to an election that you are not quite happy with the way public opinion has gone.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Charles, look, public opinion can be very fickle, it can ebb and flow, it can change, it can polarise in different ways and, look, I have been focussed on doing the right thing with this, not testing the political breeze.
WOOLLEY:
So you can look Australia in the eye and say that politics have never been a consideration.
PRIME MINISTER:
I can look Australia in the eye and say I've done what I have thought was right from the country's national interest point of view.
Charles Woolley: Bedevilling the whole issue is our difficult relationship with Indonesia. It's out of there that the people smugglers operate. It was back to there that Australia wanted to send the Tampa and its unwanted passengers but the problem is that in the wake of Timor our relations with Indonesia have soured. As late as today President Megawati still hadn't taken John Howard's phone call.
WOOLLEY:
Are you still on hold to Megawati?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think, in a sense, that has become a little academic because Indonesia is not going take the people back. But look, we're talking to Indonesia a lot. I've got a ministerial mission going there next week. We had a military mission there a couple of days ago to tell them in advance of the increased surveillance. I'm quite certain we'll speak at some time in the future but we've sort of moved on from that.
WOOLLEY:
Well, I think to a lot of us it's astounding that the Head of our Government can't talk to the Head of their Government. I mean, she literally won't take the call.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, she's not available.
WOOLLEY:
Have you ever experienced that before?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
WOOLLEY:
Really?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
WOOLLEY:
When?
PRIME MINISTER:
On a number of occasions. It happens, Charles. This is an unusual situation and bear in mind that Indonesia and Australia have passed through difficult times. Those people who imagine that we could do what we did over Timor and then think the Indonesian relationship would be hunky-dory, lovey-dovey, without let or hindrance is being a bit unrealistic.
WOOLLEY:
You've described this as backwash.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, yes, but I think the backwash is receding and I'm helping it recede but I don't have unrealistic expectations. And you have to understand Indonesia's a country with a lot of difficulties, a very big population and she has her own internal problems. We understand that.
WOOLLEY:
I think I get it, if she doesn't take your phone call then she can't refuse to cooperate.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I think we just find another way of doing it.
Charles Woolley: Tonight the Tampa still stands off Christmas Island. If all goes to plan the would-be immigrants face another lengthy sea voyage before they're processed in New Guinea, New Zealand and, of all places, Nauru, a tiny speck in the Pacific Ocean. Its President, Rene Harris, has given John Howard and the Australian Government a political lifeline.
Rene Harris: They came to me on Thursday night and after that we considered it and we agreed - they chose us, we didn't choose to be chosen. All we're supplying is the land and Australia is doing the rest.
Charles Woolley: There is a paradox worth noting and that is almost certainly some of the asylum seekers will eventually whined up in their preferred destination, Australia.
WOOLLEY:
What happens next time, what happens with the next vessel that approaches Australia with illegal refugees?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Charles, I can't guarantee that there won't be boats in the future that will come and come through. I can't guarantee that and I'm not promising that. But what I can promise is that as a result of what has happened regarding the Tampa and as a result of the increased surveillance and the greater world focus it's going to be less attractive. There will, I hope, be fewer. I can't guarantee that but within the limits of the law and our national decency I hope we've made a difference and will make a difference in the future.
WOOLLEY:
Natural decency, as you say, does dictate that our naval skippers will still stop and pick people up out of the water.
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course, we are Australian. We don't behave barbarically. We don't shoot people, we don't sink ships but our generosity should not be abused.
WOOLLEY:
Well, with increased naval patrols what are we going to do? I mean, create the scenario for me - there's the ship, there are the.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I'm not going to, for very good operational and other reasons, I'm not going to try and hypothesise about what our ships will do except to say that they will behave within the rules of international law and proper cannons of decency.
WOOLLEY:
But you can tell me, they would try and turn them back I take it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, they would certainly encourage them within those constraints to go back, yes.
WOOLLEY:
And if they refuse?
PRIME MINISTER:
That creates challenges and that's why I can't give blanket guarantees and I don't think people would expect me to because, on the one hand, they don't want the boats to come and they want us to do everything we can to deter them but they don't want us to behave other than in a decent, Australian fashion.
WOOLLEY:
No matter what countries, in the end, end up taking these people for processing there is an interesting contradiction, a chance that some of these people will end up in Australia, where they wanted to be in the first place.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, that's right, but they will end as properly assessed refugees.
WOOLLEY:
But if any of these people do end up legally in Australia, I mean, what kind of message does that send to the smugglers?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, well it means, it sends, more importantly, a message to other would-be illegal immigrants it's far better to go in through the front door and that is exactly what we want.
WOOLLEY:
Looking back over this week, are there any things that you might have done that you didn't do or did that you now wish you hadn't done?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't have time to think about that. I mean, I might in six months time or twelve months time or something but when you have a situation like this it moves so rapidly from one episode to the next that you never stop and think, oh gee, why didn't I do that. You don't have enough time, you don't have the luxury of lamenting whether you should have done something differently. You just move on to the next thing and you keep driving hard towards getting a resolution and that's what I've been trying to do. I mean, I've been on the phone talking to people so that we can actually get an outcome that is good for Australia.
[Ends]