E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
JOURNALIST:
Mr Beazley says .. (inaudible)..raise the GST?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we are onto that now are we?
JOURNALIST:
Do you think he is right?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that he is completely wrong.
JOURNALIST:
And are you suggesting that the ….avoid any Senate legislation being passed?
PRIME MINISTER:
No what I am suggesting is that Mr Beazley has deliberately tried to make political capital out of an enormous human tragedy. He should have never have linked the sinking of that boat with competing Australian policy. I mean he was, he cast the first slur, he said that there was a link between the sinking of that boat and our policy. Now that was wrong, wrong wrong. You don’t try and use an immense human tragedy to score a political point and what he now says, I heard him on the radio at lunch time saying ‘oh this is because of an evil trade’ He didn’t say that this morning. He said it was just a failure of policy. He is backing off because he realises that he did go too far. He is wrong. He should never have dragged this immense human tragedy into the political arena and I think it was a contemptible thing to do.
(ends)