Subjects: petrol prices; pensions; Tough on Drugs; Ryan by-election
E&OE................................
KENNERLEY:
John Howard, a very good afternoon to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good afternoon, Kerri-Anne, nice to talk to you again and your listeners.
KENNERLEY:
Well, it's great to have you on the programme. I guess it's been more than a little bit busy for you lately. How are you stacking up? It must be very, very difficult in the face of it all to emotionally and physically just stay on top of it.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'm pretty well seasoned for this, Kerri-Anne. I lead a fairly active life. I keep exercising regularly and I'm in very good physical and mental shape. It's challenging at the moment but it always has been in this position and I'm a great optimist and I have no doubt that we'll give a very good account of ourselves over the next few months.
KENNERLEY:
Is it tough maintaining that optimism in the face of daily challenges from every sector?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it's a challenge but I believe in myself and I believe in what we are doing and I believe that with the right way of explaining and advocating what we are doing and a continued, a commonsense, sensitive approach to the way we implement issues we can be understood and supported. But in politics you are always accountable to your bosses and my bosses are the people who listen to your programme and similar programmes all around Australia. And, in the end, I'm accountable to them and I'll be very happy to accept whatever judgement they make about the job I do for our country.
KENNERLEY:
You are our Prime Minister and clearly the top job is in your hands but, again, trying to keep positive when things are tough, because you need [inaudible] who occasionally have a down time whether their job situation changes or their life situation changes. What is the key to just trying to keep an attitude on a positive note and keep on top of it? I mean, there's a lot of people listening who've been through tough times, what would you suggest?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, obviously focussing on your long-term goals and not being completely distracted by what's happening in the short-term. But the most important thing to retain is a self-belief. Self-belief is very important in my job. It's very important in your job. It's very important in the lives of all of your listeners. And everybody goes through difficult times. I mean, okay, my contests are in the public gaze but I'm very conscious that all the people listening to your programme, that they have personal and individual challenges which, in many ways, are just as great, indeed, greater than challenges that somebody in my position may have. The difference is that mine's in the public gaze and the way I react can affect the lives of the rest of the community. I can say to all of your listeners that in responding to challenges I always do what I believe is in the best interests of the community. People will not always agree with what I do. There's never been a Prime Minister of this country who's had everybody agreeing with him all the time. And a Government like mine that is endeavouring to reform and change things to make them better in the longer term is always going to go through periods when their approaches are criticised and people say, well gee, this is a bit of a nuisance, even though it might be of benefit later on, it's a bit of a nuisance now. You have to deal with those. You have to explain things and you have to listen to what people have got to say. You have to try and put yourself in their position and try and understand why they might have concerns. It's very much a question of interpersonal skills on a grand scale. Every person has a different situation and everybody reacts just a little bit differently to decisions that the Government takes.
KENNERLEY:
Well, talking about those interpersonal skills, you've got to make sure people are listening to what you're saying but there has been criticism aimed at you recently saying that you are listening but not hearing, how do you respond to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, some of the criticisms, of course, are made by my political opponents and to use that famous phrase of Mandy Rice-Davies they would say that wouldn't they. I mean it's just inevitable that my political opponents would say I'm not listening because that's a kind of political swear word, a swear expression. I can assure you that I do. I take careful note of what people say. I'm not a person who when I talk to people monopolise the conversation. I try and hear and listen to what they say. Some of the things I can't do anything about. I mean I can't do anything about the fact that the world price of oil has driven up petrol prices in Australia. We have cut excise by 1.5 cents a litre and we've abolished automatic indexation. But I can't stop the OPEC countries putting up the price of oil. President Bush can't stop them either. There are some things I can't do anything about and it is better for me to say so and not pretend that I can. And if Mr Beazley were the Prime Minister he couldn't do anything about it either. He shouldn't pretend in his criticism of me that he can.
KENNERLEY:
But at the same time you must get really frustrated by a lot of those issues that you don't control. I mean even state connected issues that you occasionally get a whack for and are completely out of your control.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's true and my responsibility and the challenge for me in those situations is to tell people why I can't control it and for my colleagues to tell them. Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don't. When you're the Prime Minister it's easy to pass the responsibility upwards. It's easy to say well look we'd love to do this but the federal government won't give us enough money. Now that is an excuse that all state governments use. Sometimes people believe them and sometimes they don't and that's just one of the constant daily challenges that we have.
KENNERLEY:
So I guess at the end of the day you've got to figure out a better delivery so that people can actually recognise what you're saying.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you've got to do that. You've also got to take the right decisions, and you've also got to enjoy a modicum of good political fortune. Over the past few weeks a lot of things have gone adversely for us. Some can be blamed on us, others can be blamed on circumstances beyond our control. But they're the things that always come along and I'm not asking and nor will I expect to receive any particular sympathy in relation to that. That's my job. My responsibility is to worry about the impact of those things on the Australian people, not their impact on my Government's political fortunes.
KENNERLEY:
Well one of the sectors, the pensioners, really believe they are hurting. What have you got to say to them?
PRIME MINISTER:
Can I assure them that we are not cutting their pension. Their pension is in fact going up today by $7.90 a fortnight for single pensioners and a larger amount for couples. There's this claim being made that we're clawing back a certain amount. That's not true. What happened was that part of the pension rise that was otherwise due today was paid nine months in advance last July, nine months in advance. And all we are doing with the increase today is making sure that that amount that was paid nine months ago is not paid again. It's a bit like if I owe you one hundred dollars in July of this year, and I say Kerri-Anne I'll pay you in March of this year instead of your waiting until July. Come July you would hardly expect me to pay it to you again. You might be happy if I did but you wouldn't expect me to. Now that really is what's happened here. And unfortunately there's been a fear campaign run by the Labor Party about this. They're running around scaring elderly people and many elderly people are vulnerable to fear campaigns. I think we all have a particular responsibility not to play politics with something that makes people feel as though they're being hurt. I mean I don't mind being criticised by my political opponents for policies where there's a legitimate difference. But you shouldn't use vulnerable elderly people as pawns in a political debate.
KENNERLEY:
Indeed. The National Council on Drugs. There seems to be a shift in policy and the type of representatives on the board. How aware of that are you?
PRIME MINISTER:
I've read that criticism. Some of the people who were on it have not been reappointed. Some new people have been appointed. They are not all that different in their backgrounds. You can't have the same people all the time on these advisory bodies and the suggestion that I've deliberately got rid of people who don't agree with my so called zero tolerance approach is not correct.
KENNERLEY:
Tony Trimingham, who spoke to me yesterday on the program is one of the people being moved off after three years. He was more than a little disappointed, even angry, because he was asked by a journalist and then picked up the newspaper and read his appointment would not be renewed without being personally told. What's your response to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that was not my doing, nor was it the doing of Major Watters who's the chairman of the council. I suspect that some person perhaps in the bureaucracy decided to leak the information because they may not agree with the way the Government is handling it. That happens all the time unfortunately with government policy. People who work in the system who may have a different point of view think they have the right to put things out. Now I don't know where that came from. It certainly didn't come from me.
KENNERLEY:
But at the end of the day are you going for a more zero tolerance approach or is it just a change of people and representation?
PRIME MINISTER:
People Kerry-Anne. We're not trying to go for an even stronger zero tolerance approach. We've always had a tough approach. We believe in tough attitudes towards peddlers. Everybody does. We believe that you should educate children against the dangers of starting to take drugs, and we believe very strongly that you should provide rehabilitation services. And I've literally just come from launching a joint initiative in Brisbane with the Queensland government that will provide the opportunity for people to go into rehabilitation as an alternative to being caught up in the courts and the criminal justice system. Now we have a very sort of varied approach to tackling the drug problem, but I make no apologies for the fact that I am tough on drugs. I despise drug peddlers. I don't believe the solution to the problem is to throw up your arms and surrender and say we can't do anything about it. Now that is the counsel and reaction of despair and defeat. And if people criticise me for that well I will wear that criticism but I will not change my attitude. I believe that in the long run it is the right attitude. But I can equally say that we are not pushing people off the council because of their views. It's important with a body like this that you don't have the same people there all the time. And the people we've put on to replace those who've gone off have no particular axes to grind and they have a great deal of experience and a strong personal and professional background in their own areas.
KENNERLEY:
Mr Howard, looking at the Ryan election.by-election from the weekend. It's now only a hundred-vote difference. What does that say to you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it proves to me that the swing is less that everybody predicted.
KENNERLEY:
It must give you a little joy, a little wry smile on your face.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm a little less discomforted than I would otherwise have been. It is still a big swing. The normal by-election swing is 4% to 5%. The swing on this occasion appears to have been between 9% and 10% which is double the average. It's a big swing and it gives me a lot of food for thought. But it's not nearly as big as people were predicting. What the final outcome will be I don't know. It's literally too close to call with only a hundred or so votes between them and another 2,000 to 2,500 to count. Either candidate could win. Whoever wins will only win by a handful of votes.
KENNERLEY:
Have you decided on when the federal election will be held?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I haven't. It's not due until the end of the year. I certainly don't have in mind calling it in the next month or so.
KENNERLEY:
Small business seems to be overwhelmed by paperwork and bureaucracy. Can you help?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we did make a lot of changes to the Business Activity Statement. When you bring in a new tax system, no matter how well it's done there will always be some teething troubles, there'll always be the process of adjustments. And we sat down with representatives of all of the small business organisations and we listened to what they had to say and we implemented just about all of the changes that they asked for. And I believe with the passage of a few more months the teething troubles will be put behind them.
KENNERLEY:
Have you had a chance to look at the cricket at all Mr Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
We have. I thought Hayden's innings was quite magnificent. Absolutely magnificent. And the last match, the 2nd Test, was a superb game of cricket. I've got my fingers crossed but the Indians are putting up quite a fight in this match. It could be a very near run thing.
KENNERLEY:
And when do you think you'll get a chance to take those RM Williams boots to Washington?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm working on July Kerri-Anne, I'm working on July. That is the time that I expect to be in Washington. It's the 50th anniversary of the signing of the ANZUS pact between Australia and the United States in 1951. So it's quite a big year in relations between our two countries.
KENNERLEY:
Well Mr Howard, we're very grateful for your time. I know you've got other pressing engagements. But we certainly appreciate you squeezing us in from the car there. So thank you and a very good afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks very much Kerri-Anne. It's always nice to talk to you.
[Ends