Subjects: biography on Peter Costello; GST increase; Eminem; first home owners grant; Indonesian President; Villawood; building inquiry.
E&OE................................
MITCHELL:
First today in Perth on the telephone today, it's very early in Perth, the Prime Minister. Mr Howard good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Neil.
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister a new biography of Peter Costello which includes 50 hours of interview with Peter Costello suggests a simmering war between the two of you. Have you discussed those claims with Mr Costello?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh he spoke to me last night and said that he heard some stories were coming out but I think more importantly he was on radio this morning dealing with it.
MITCHELL:
Did you suggest he go onto radio?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I didn't. no I didn't. Look Neil we've had a very long association and it's been a very successful association. We do have a good relationship, we disagree from time to time as two intelligent strong willed people working closely together in positions of very high responsibility inevitable will. But we couldn't have a better partnership than we have at the moment. We are both very strongly committed to leading the Government to victory at the next election and implementing together our plans that we take to the people at that election and Peter made some comments on some of the things that were in the book, he of course is the person in a position to talk about his views far better than I. But can I simply say to you that the relationship is very good, we have differences of opinion on issues and I don't make any bones about that, neither would he, I mean what would you expect? Us to have exactly the same views on everything? That's unrealistic? That insults the intelligence of the voters, I think we have to be a little adult about the fact that if two people have senior positions, (cough)excuse me, there are inevitably from time to time going to be some differences of emphasis. But on most of the really important issues except where there's clearly been an accepted different attitude, say on the republic, we work together very very closely.
MITCHELL:
Did you ask him in your conversation to reassert his loyalty?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I didn't.
MITCHELL:
Did you need to?
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
MITCHELL:
On the reports in the book he has been extremely critical of you personally and professionally.
PRIME MINISTER:
He's ,I understand,gone on radio this morning and refuted most of those claims.
MITCHELL:
What about on the GST? Did you consider setting the GST at 8 per cent?
PRIME MINISTER:
We had a whole range of discussions about possibilities but in the end we decided on the programme that was put forward and look when you're preparing something like that you look at a whole range of things. A whole range of things.
MITCHELL:
Yeah but the suggestion is that you wanted 8 per cent and he wanted 10.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we discussed a whole lot of things, I can tell you this that we were both very very committed to the plan that we came down with in the end and I ,frankly, on that particular point it was always my view that we should have as part of the package we should have very significant tax cuts..
MITCHELL:
Did you at one stage prefer 8 per cent and he preferred 10 per cent?
PRIME MINISTER:
What I preferred was to look at all the options and my preference was what we went for and that was 10 per cent.
MITCHELL:
So you always preferred that? That aspect of the story, of the book is wrong?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look it is true that we looked at a whole range of options, it is not true to say that I was in any way uncomfortable with the final decision.
MITCHELL:
Oh yeah but I mean the way it said is that you wanted 8 per cent, Costello said that you were being weak on it and talked you into 10 per cent.
PRIME MINISTER:
Can I tell you that's not true.
MITCHELL:
Okay. Did you direct him not to take part in the reconciliation march?
PRIME MINISTER:
Did I direct him not to take part in the reconciliation march? I didn't direct him, no. Well,that matter was discussed, why wouldn't it be discussed.
MITCHELL:
I'm sure it'd be discussed, but the way it's reported you told him not to take part.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he took part in the second reconciliation march.
MITCHELL:
Did you tell him not to take part in the first.
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
MITCHELL:
Did you advise him not to?
PRIME MINISTER:
We discussed it in Cabinet.
MITCHELL:
Will you tell us what you advised.
PRIME MINISTER:
No I wont. I mean we discuss a lot of things, I'm not going to go through chapter and verse. Look Neil this is a book about Peter, it's not an authorised biography and if you want to know his views on claims made about him you should ask him. I can answer in response to my own conduct in so far as I'm willing to answer in relation to certain discussions that are held confidentially. I mean I'm not, although I'm a pretty forthcoming bloke as you know on radio, I'm not willing to canvas every single private discussion that I have with my senior colleagues and I don't make any apologies for having that attitude. As to the character of the relationship it is as I've described it, it's very close, very successful, he has been an extraordinarily successful Treasurer, he's a very effective political performer, we are working very closely together. From time to time we have differences on policy, we have had in the past, and undoubtedly there'll be differences of emphasis in the future. That's only human. And he would be a very poor deputy leader if he just faithfully agreed with every single view I had and I would be a strange person if I sought always to have total consensus on every single thing..
MITCHELL:
Of course.
PRIME MINISTER:
The reason I say this Neil is that so much of political commentary on a relationship like ours is posited on the unreal proposition that we should never disagree and that when we do there's some kind of shock horror leadership fight.
MITCHELL:
Sure but I guess the issue.
PRIME MINISTER:
We worked through the republican debate.
MITCHELL:
There will always been tensions in any sort of relationship, particularly a political relationship.The question is whether the tensions get destructive and whether ambition at times can overwhelm the energy or creativity of the relationship particularly in the Government.
MITCHELL:
Can I say I think that is a very fair description.
MITCHELL:
Okay.
PRIME MINISTER:
What I would say in relation to our relationship is that that has clearly and demonstrably not happened and you don't only have my word for it you have his.
MITCHELL:
This won't help you though this attention going into an election campaign will it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look Neil everytime something comes up they say oh well this won't help you. In the end people make an overall judgement about who's better to govern and in the sort of stream of experience in time this will just be a dot.
MITCHELL:
I don't think there's any doubt Peter Costello wants your job though is there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Everybody, I would be the last person in Australian politics to decry ambition in another. I had ambition, I would be dishonest if I said to you that I didn't. If I had ambition why shouldn't others have it?
MITCHELL:
Okay but its not destructive?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is certainly not destructive. I mean if it had been destructive like the Hawke/Keating relationship then it would have boiled over. Look you work together very closely with people, you have common goals, along the way inevitably in the hot house of the focus and everything you, I think, to put any relationship under a of a lot of strain and the sort of pressure that we've worked under the last well six and a half years since we came together as leader and deputy leader of the Liberal Party.It's a very long period of time, and I believe the relationship has been incredibly successful over that period of time. Of course there have been differences but there is nothing odd about. But as you rightly say it's a question of whether it becomes destructive well you ask any of our colleagues and they will tell you that is clearly not the case. I'm saying that and Peter's saying that but in the end we demonstrate that by the way we deport ourselves, we demonstrate it by the way we react to this book. I mean I notice in some of the papers this morning that I was going to be infuriated by it. Well I don't know that I sound infuriated do I?.
MITCHELL:
Oh well Mr Costello was obviously sufficiently concerned to talk to you about it yesterday though.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he told me that he heard it was going to be reported. Well,that is the normal professional courteous thing to do. I mean it would be very strange if he didn't and I would be likewise if the boot were on the other foot.
MITCHELL:
Are you at one still on taxation? In a speech this week Mr Costello talked about putting the weight onto indirect taxation.
PRIME MINISTER:
We are completely at one, he wasn't suggesting there for a moment indirect tax would go up.
MITCHELL:
How do you pay for the increasing bills if they don't?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the advantage of a broad based indirect tax is that it has a natural growth built in to it.
MITCHELL:
Ok, so there's unequivocal guarantee no increase in the (inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
There's an unequivocal guarantee there'll be no increase in the rate of the GST.
MITCHELL:
What about other indirect taxes?
PRIME MINISTER:
We have absolutely no intention of increasing them. Neil, we've just cut them on petrol. I mean as a result of a decision we took on petrol there'll be no automatic increase in indirect tax on petrol in the August. next month. And we also cut the excise rate by 1.5 cents a litre, so we've made two reductions in indirect tax. The person who can't give the unequivocal guarantee about income tax is Kim Beazley. Mr Beazley says that income tax is not too high, I don't say that the GST is not too high. I mean if I said the GST were not too high you would be right all over me saying 'ah, you're gonna put it up'. I make the exact same claim and legitimately in relation to Mr Beazley and income tax. I mean he said to you that income tax is not too high and he asserted that with some vigour.Well that is a man who's leaving open the possibility of increasing income tax in order to pay for rollback and his other programmes.
MITCHELL:
Ok, now from you we have no new taxes.
PRIME MINISTER:
We have no increases in existing taxes and we have no new taxes. I mean we fought very hard to get a good sound tax base. And the GST has been tough, it's been difficult, the beauty of it is that now that it is in it will provide a growing source of revenue over time to the states. And this is something the states have wanted for decades and they now finally have it.
MITCHELL:
If you were to increase the GST, you probably.you wouldn't get it through the Senate anyway.
PRIME MINISTER:
You wouldn't get it through the Senate, wouldn't get it through the states, but Neil, we're not going to try. But you are right, even if you were to try, theoretically, which we're not, you have to get it through the Senate and also get it through the states. So it's not on, the Labor Party knows that and I say again it grows naturally over time because of it's character and that is one of its strengths and it provides resources for welfare and for services.
MITCHELL:
Mr Howard a bit of a message to you from Eminem last night in his Melbourne performance that he'd like to live in Australia but he didn't think you'd like to have him here. Would you?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't like his lyrics, I don't like his performance. As a Liberal Government there were no credible grounds on principles of free movement of people unless they're demonstrably unacceptable criminals, demonstrably unacceptable characters, there were no reason in Phillip Ruddock's eyes to keep him out. But I don't really mind being insulted by Eminem.
MITCHELL:
You wouldn't want him living in this country though would you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't like his music, I don't like his lyrics, I don't like the illusions to violence that are involved in his performance, no.
MITCHELL:
It's interesting because they were all there last night, he even took a pill claiming to be ecstasy and at one time claimed he had a gun with him, then he said he was joking, then he said he wasn't. I mean its all a bit of an act. But the point is, he's under a bit of a warning isn't he, behave yourself or you're thrown out.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah well he certainly is, I mean that's a matter for the discretion of the Immigration Minister but I think he just demonstrates the point but when you're in my position or Phillip Ruddock's position you have to apply principles, you can't make judgements about the movement of people according to personal (inaudible).That is not the way to run a democratic society. We are a liberal democracy and you have to apply those principles and I think they're worth upholding, distasteful though the behaviour of certain people who are the beneficiaries of that liberal democracy may be. It's always been a feature of liberal democracies that people take advantage of the freedom, the freedoms that are extended under those liberal democracies.
MITCHELL:
Ok we're need to take a quick break here, we'll come back with more from the Prime Minister, we'll try some calls if you'd like to speak to the Prime Minister. We may have a little difficulty because as I said it's very early in Perth and it's on the telephone but we'll give it a try and see how we go. So if you'd like to speak to the Prime Minister give us a call now. The Prime Minister's in Perth as I said. Our first caller's Daryl. Go ahead Daryl.
CALLER:
How are you going Neil?
MITCHELL:
Yes go ahead Daryl.
CALLER:
Right. Look I was the person, the local resident who was at that [inaudible] community meeting which happened during the by-election. Basically I went there, I was a protestor or [inaudible] Prime Minister about public transport as the [inaudible] candidate hadn't made it clear to the constituents what he supported as public transport. And one allegedly, at this stage one of his staffers ripped a little card [inaudible] I gave to my son.
MITCHELL:
How old's your son.
CALLER:
My son's one.
MITCHELL:
Okay I remember that. You had your son there. There was an incident with one of the staff.We never really established whether it was the Prime Minister's staff or who it was.
CALLER:
Yeah well that's probably my question to the Prime Minister is, and I want a yes or no answer and he would have seen the incident during that week, is this person a member of his staff or his government's staff who he's responsible for?
MITCHELL:
Well have you heard anything further about it since Daryl?
CALLER:
I've heard nothing, no apology.
MITCHELL:
Did you refer it to police?
CALLER:
Yes and they were investigating of last week.They only had to make two phone calls to ascertain their investigation and basically I went on sunrise on Monday morning and for the first time it publicly went that the Knox police were looking into it. Then suddenly the other day I got a call from a constable that the head of the police at that station knocked the investigation on the head.
MITCHELL:
Okay. So the investigation is over. You want to know from the Prime Minister if he knows who it was and I guess youre looking for an apology. Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah I heard that. I wasn't there when that incident took place. I did see footage of it on television. I frankly don't know without checking who the person involved was. I'll make some inquiries and if I can throw any further light on it I will. I just don't have a recall of all of it and I'd have to talk to people about it.
MITCHELL:
You're not aware if it's one of your staff?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. I'd be surprised if it were because my staff normally travel with me with perhaps one or two people in advance and others will travel with me. But look I'd just have to get information about that. It happened before I came. You'll remember I was caught in the fog.
MITCHELL:
Yeah. Okay thank you very much Daryl. Nathan hello.
CALLER:
Yes hello Neil. I've just got a question for the Prime Minister on the $14,000 home grant. Is it going to be extended after December or not?
PRIME MINISTER:
..havn't made any decision to extend it. I want to make that very clear. It's open to us to extend it or to phase it down and that is something that we will give thought to later in the year. It will in any event even if we don't extend it it will still revert to a very healthy figure of $7,000 which is the figure that now applies to existing grants. Now all I can say to you is that we will give consideration but I'm not promising that it will definitely be extended. It is certainly working and working very well and it's providing a very strong stimulus over a short period of time to pull the housing construction industry up and it's doing exactly as I wanted it to do and it's working marvellously. I'll give consideration to its phase down or extension but I can't make any promises.
MITCHELL:
Mr Howard,I heard on radio reports today on the ABC that you'd spoken to the new Indonesian President last night. Can you tell us...
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I did. I rang her last night and we had quite an amiable conversation, and apart from the courtesies of congratulating her and wishing her well, we both agreed that a good relationship between our two countries was very important. She invited me to visit Indonesia at an early date and I'm going to give consideration to whether that's possible. She was obviously very anxious at a personal level to see the relationship between the two of us in the context of the future and not in the context of the past. We both agreed that there had been difficulties between our two governments over East Timor but we've worked through that. So I thought the discussion, both that it took place and the tone of it and the warmth and spontaneity of the invitation, all of those things boded well for the future.
MITCHELL:
Would you aim to visit Indonesia before the election?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. I'm going to see if that's possible, yes I am.
MITCHELL:
The building inquiry, $20 million, why is this worth $20 million?
PRIME MINISTER:
Because it's a very big industry. I mean, the whole building industry, both the building construction, the CBD and the housing industry is a big part of the economy. I mean, look what it did to our December accounts, particularly the housing industry, when there was a bit of a downturn. So if there are allegations of thuggery and so forth, which apparently can't be met without further exposure of details, then I think there is justification. We had a big inquiry in New South Wales on this a few years ago and the Commissioner, Roger Giles, made a lot of recommendations. Unfortunately the taskforce that was implementing many of those recommendations was abandoned by Bob Carr when he became Premier in 1995, presumably because the unions didn't want the thing further pursued.
MITCHELL:
Villawood - a death now. Do you have a report on that yet and what can be done about Villawood, death and escape?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Mr Ruddock may have a report. I haven't got one yet. The death occurred very recently. Look, this is a hugely difficult issue and the Minister is being sniped at from both extremes. There are some people who are saying he's too unreasonable. I think they're in a minority, a very small minority. There are other people who are saying that we should adopt a harsher approach. I don't think that's acceptable. We are a civilised, humane country and we're trying to achieve a balance. If only the Labor Party and the Democrats in the Senate hadn't been so obstructive in some of the legislative, in relation to some of the legislative changes we've wanted over the last few years Australia might be a less attractive place for illegal immigrants than it is at present.
MITCHELL:
I noticed New South Wales is going to ban 24-hour pokies. They don't want 24-hour poker machines, which is a pretty big step for New South Wales I would have thought. Do you think that is a good idea, should it be extended through the country?
PRIME MINISTER:
I must say I've not caught up with that. Is that in the press this morning, is it?
MITCHELL:
Yes, it is. Well, I'm sorry, I have not been briefed on that and as you observed at the beginning, it's half past six here in Western Australia. I will.I'm just not across that, I'm sorry, Neil.
PRIME MINISTER:
I read you're going to sort of outline your third term agenda next week. Can you give us an idea of the thrust of it?
MITCHELL:
Well, I'll be saying something about it. The answer is I'd like to leave the detail of the speech. But part of what we intend to do in the third term, of course, is to continue the momentum of all of the changes and commitments we've made over the last 18 months. But quite obviously there are a number of other things that I want to address and one thing I will be making very clear at the Press Club is that if there are further surpluses available to be returned to the Australian public we're going to return them by cuts in income tax. We're not going to return them overwhelmingly via higher expenditure. I think we have very strong expenditure levels in this country. We think there's a case, if there's further surpluses, to give people relief via income tax. Mr Beazley wants to spend more, we want to tax less, that's the difference.
MITCHELL:
Just finally, Prime Minister, the women's 4 x 200 relay team up in Japan are very stiff being disqualified. What about a prime ministerial message to them?
PRIME MINISTER:
I will be sending them a message.I send a lot of messages. I think.it is tough, youthful exuberance, I feel for them but unfortunately there are rules like this and I guess everybody wants them applied rigorously. It's just that when they work against our people it always seems a bit rough, doesn't it?
MITCHELL:
Thank you for speaking to us.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay.
[Ends]