E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
LOANE:
Good morning Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Sally, very nice to be back.
LOANE:
Nice to see you here. The latest newspoll has Labor closing the gap, the two party preferred vote gives the Coalition a narrow lead of 51% to Labor’s 49. In fact the Australian this morning predicts on the basis of this poll that Labor has an equal chance of winning on Saturday. Are you getting a bit nervous about the results?
PRIME MINISTER:
I’ve been nervous about the result from the time the campaign started. It will be close. The preference deal that Labor’s got with the Greens and the Democrats will make it harder for us. So we need to have a healthy primary lead over the Labor Party to be certain of winning. So it will go down to the wire, all those usual sort of political clichés that get used as descriptions, but it’s going to be very close and I’ll be working until I drop at about 6:00 Saturday night.
LOANE:
You’ve faced a couple of elections now, now is this the toughest one do you think because you came into this election so far ahead and it seems now that the gap is closing.
PRIME MINISTER:
They’re all very different. This one has been complicated by the fact that I’ve had to do a great deal of governing as well as…make decisions as a Prime Minister – very important decisions involving our military commitment to the coalition fight against terrorism, involving aspects of our determination to stop illegal immigration and they are ongoing responsibilities - as well as leading the Liberal Party, leading the Coalition in a political campaign. So it’s had that double burden if I can put it that way. Every campaign is different but this campaign ultimately will, I believe, be determined by the judgement that undecided voters makes about the relevant capacities of myself and Mr Beazley to lead the country during these challenging economic times and also challenging security times and I’m saying to the Australian people that this is not a time to change, it’s not a time to take a risk on a man and a party who on some very important issues has been very equivocal and chopped and changed his and their view. And particularly in relation to economic management, we do have strong credentials. The reason Australia can face this difficult period with great confidence is that our economy is a lot stronger, our debt is low - that 96 billion has been reduced by 58 billion, our interest rates are down from the 17% a few years ago to historically low levels. We’ve reformed our tax and workplace relations system, our trade position is very strong, our current account deficit is lower than what it was. All of these things have happened because of what we have done and we have laid the ground work and there’s no evidence that Labor would do better, indeed there’s a lot of evidence that Labor would do worse on that front.
LOANE:
I want to get onto the economy in a moment, Mr Howard. But if I could first ask you about your Liberal Member for Curtin, Julie Bishop, who told a newspaper, she said ‘I agree we have to take more refugees’. How widespread is this view in your party, particularly on the moderate wing?
PRIME MINISTER:
Not very widespread. I haven’t had anybody actually raise that issue with me. But our position, which she acknowledges is Government policy….
LOANE:
So she spoke out of turn?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, she talked about the level of the refugee intake, she didn’t in any way criticise our policy on illegal immigration, they are really separate issues. We take refugees as a country …. more generously take refugees than any country in the world except Canada, but the issue of our border protection is about illegal immigration and nobody in my party has been arguing that we should change our policy and allow illegal arrivals now to come onto the Australian mainland. And that’s the attitude that was hinted at by Laurie Brereton on PM last Friday night when he said that the processing of people in the pacific island countries had failed and that that had to stop and that a Labor Government would have an inquiry into that. Well if you don’t process them there, while they keep coming, the alternative is to process them on the Australian mainland.
Now, the situation with illegal arrivals, Sally, is that we believe that the measures we have taken since August have began to slow the number coming into the pipeline. This is a very difficult issue for Australian, but people who are critical of the Government should contemplate what the alternative, what the realiseable alternative is, that if you don’t have a policy of having them processed elsewhere, which acts as a deterrent to more coming, because the goals when they leave is to come to Australia, not to be processed somewhere else. And if you don’t have that policy you are going to encourage more people to come. And people who criticise that policy like Laurie Brereton and others are really in effect saying, if we get into Government we’re going to really encourage more people to come because if people believe the policy of being processed on the Australian mainland is going to be resumed, then they will be hugely encouraged to come in the first place.
LOANE:
What evidence do you have Mr Howard that this, your policies have slowed down the boat people. Because we’ve already got reports of a couple more boats are on there way.
PRIME MINISTER:
I’m talking about the ….what I said was, we do have intelligence advice that people, the number coming into the pipeline. The people who are coming on boats now, many of them, many of them have been in Indonesia for a long time. There’s a pipeline and it’s the only way that I can describe it. They are people who came to Indonesia at a time when it was believed it was very easy to get to Australia, and of course until August it was a lot easier to get to Australia. The assumption was made that if you got onto a boat and you got to any Australian territory you would be processed on the Australian mainland, you would then have access to fairly open refugee and resident laws, even though you may not have a proper refugee claim. That has been very significantly tightened. The Government has excised Ashmore Reef and Christmas Island from the migration zone and we are pursuing an active policy of processing people in a third country. Now the purpose of this, and I say this to my critics – and there are a number of them…
LOANE:
On your side of politics.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, not on my side of politics, I mean people for example like Richard Woolcott and so forth, well I say to them the alternative they put forward, to do an agreement with Indonesia, now we all would like an agreement with Indonesia but Indonesia’s made it very plain that having an agreement doesn’t depend on the political colour of the Australian Government.
LOANE:
And they don’t particularly want to talk to you at the moment.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t they want…. we are going through a situation where Indonesia’s priorities are a little different from Australia’s. We’ll continue to argue for that but the Labor Party romances in this naive belief that if there’s a change of Government on Saturday they’d be able to sort of get an agreement signed the following week. Now that’s ridiculous and Indonesian spokesmen have made that very plain. But the point I’m simply making is that if you abandon the processing of people in third countries which Laurie Brereton is arguing for, and he’s the Labor Foreign Affairs spokesman, the only alternative if they come is for them to come onto the Australian mainland and that will represent a return to the policy that was followed up until August or earlier and that really will send a signal to the rest of the world, well look you can all start coming again.
LOANE:
Mr Howard has this issue given you a lot of traction here in NSW particularly, is this the one that you want to really harp on in the last four days of the campaign?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Sally I’m not a political commentator, I’m a political advocate. I’m talking about this issue because it is very important.
LOANE:
…giving you traction?
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s asking me to offer a political view, I’ll leave that to you and Antony Green and all the other commentators. I mean you’re a race caller, I’m one of the horses if I can put it like that.
LOANE:
Can I ask you about another one of your horses, Tony Abbott? How’s he going…
PRIME MINISTER:
He’s a very good horse, he’s got a big heart and he can stay the distance.
LOANE:
He’s having to do a lot of doorknocking. He faces a bit of a concern though from Peter McDonald doesn’t he?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the good thing about Tony Abbott is that he never takes anything for granted. And neither do I. He doesn’t assume because he’s got a seat that’s always been held by our side of politics, although it was held briefly by an independent Ted St John way back, and another one a long, long way back. But it’s a seat that is fundamentally quite a safe Liberal seat but he nurses it like a baby, he thinks he’s very fortunate to be the Member for Warringah and he doesn’t have the arrogant view that they are fortunate to have him and in those circumstances I’ll put my money on Tony, I reckon he’ll get across the line.
LOANE:
Is he the best one to take over from you in the Liberal Party as Leader?
PRIME MINISTER:
Take over from me? Oh don’t start. I’m enjoying this job immensely and as I said, continuing the analogy in one area, you know those proverbial wild horses wouldn’t get me out of the job at the present time, although as I said the other day, Australian voters are stronger than wild horses, they might decide they wish to despatch…
LOANE:
They can be pretty wild too.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what ever they decide they’re right. That’s the law of democratic politics.
LOANE:
The prospect of either the Liberal Party or indeed the Nationals losing seats to independents, there are a few very high profile independents standing in this election, does that worry you unduly, particularly New England?
PRIME MINISTER:
I went to New England and I put a very simple proposition to the people of New England. Some of them seem to be saying, look we want you back, we want the Coalition back but we’d like to have Tony Windsor as our member and I’ve said to them well you can’t have both. If you want an unambiguous Liberal/National Party win then you have got to vote for Stuart St Clair who is the National Party member for New England.
LOANE:
Sounds as though he is in trouble, very big trouble.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t know that he is in big trouble, but it’s a tough fight and he acknowledges that and he is working very hard. Windsor has got a following in that area but the people of New England if they want a Liberal/National Party government they really should support Stuart. I mean if Stuart had been a lazy, indifferent, complacent member who had been there for a long time they might have a reason but he has only been there for a term and I can tell you that he is anything but lazy, he is incredibly energetic and he has fought a number of very strong fights on issues like communications and farm family trusts and so forth.
LOANE:
Are you going to get Bob Katter back in Parliament?
PRIME MINISTER:
Don’t know.
LOANE:
That’s a tough call.
PRIME MINISTER:
Once again you’re asking me to call the race.
LOANE:
Can I ask you then about a couple of very specific issues, we will get onto the economy in just a moment. But this $10 levy that the government has collected from air travellers at the moment, now last week Tony Abbott told me this was going into some sort of fund. He thought perhaps for the tourism industry in the future. Now Ansett workers of course are worried about this because they think it’s going to go to them.
PRIME MINISTER:
No no let me just clear something up. The purpose of the ticket levy is to fund the cost of our guaranteeing workers’ entitlements in Ansett. The day Ansett was grounded, the day I got back from the United States I said after the Cabinet meeting that the government would guarantee the workers’ entitlements, that’s the holiday pay, the long service leave…
LOANE:
Only eight weeks though.
PRIME MINISTER:
No no hang on, accrued annual leave etc and redundancy up to a community standard of eight weeks, that’s right. Now we didn’t think it was reasonable to go beyond the eight weeks, because that’s the normal average that people get by way of redundancy. Now that was our guarantee from the very beginning. Of course we can’t afford just for that to be a hit… it could be several hundred million dollars. I mean we were told at the time that it could be up to four hundred million dollars ..
LOANE:
…extra entitlements for Ansett workers …
PRIME MINISTER:
No no no the $400 million just for that and we said we can’t afford just to write a cheque for that so we will have to replenish the budget and that’s what the $10 ticket levy was for. Now what Tony is saying and how tourism comes into it is that if in the end we are not required to meet that guarantee, in other words if money comes from somewhere else either from a new purchaser or whatever and the workers’ entitlements, not only the bit we have guaranteed which is a very big bit, but the rest are met from elsewhere then you don’t need the ticket levy money, we will cancel the levy and refund the money we have already collected and direct the refund as best we can to the tourist industry.
LOANE:
Generally? So the Ansett workers won’t get anything over and above the eight weeks.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, but we never said they would from us, from us Sally. If a prospective buyer comes along they will, but what the ACTU is saying is that we are welshing on the promise I made the day Ansett was grounded. Well can I say to Sharon Burrows I know it is four days out from a Federal Election but don’t mislead the people you are meant to be representing. I give an unconditional repetition of the guarantee that I have given to the Ansett workers. They will be guaranteed their entitlements. Guaranteed their entitlements. We have never wavered from that. Sharon Burrows and all the other characters in the unions they are just running around with their placards trying to sow doubt and confusion into the minds of a lot of very decent people and I don’t think they are serving their interests well. I mean it’s quite undignified even if it is four days out from an election.
LOANE:
I want to ask you about the ABC. I want to ask you about Australian story. Did you enjoy watching the Howards?
PRIME MINISTER:
I did. I did. I thought that the ABC did a very good job. I rang Wendy Page who was the producer of the programme and I thanked her for what I regarded as a very nicely put together programme.
LOANE:
What did the other family members think?
PRIME MINISTER:
They all liked it.
LOANE:
Bit nervous watching it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes of course, it’s very immediate isn’t it and very up front and personal, up close and personal. It really is very much so but we liked it. It was, everybody in the family who participated I spoke to, my eldest brother and his daughter and all the others and they were very happy with it.
LOANE:
What about the Beazleys? Did you watch the programme?
PRIME MINISTER:
I unfortunately didn’t but I am told it was a nice programme but I didn’t see it.
LOANE:
Is it worth another $100 million for the ABC?
PRIME MINISTER:
Gee wizz. Well done Sally.
LOANE:
Donald McDonald, our chairman would he make a good managing director?
PRIME MINISTER:
That is really a matter for the board, the question of the next managing director. I have taken quite a strong line on divisions of responsibility.
LOANE:
There have been divisions in your own party, you have had some ministers backing Mr Shier.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I was asked whether I though Mr Shier was doing a good job and I supported him.
LOANE:
Others went further.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well.
LOANE:
Mr Alston.
PRIME MINISTER:
Anyway in the end this is a matter for the board. I mean we do have an independent board and if I have a complaint about something that was put over the airwaves in the ABC I tend to be public about it. I don’t carry on some kind of behind the scenes communication with people on the board on it, believe it or not. I mean in fact because Donald is a very close friend of mine we don’t talk about ABC affairs very much. We sort of think it is a good idea to sort of keep it separate. I mean he is a very competent person. He was chosen for that job because of his managerial skill and his understanding and sensitivity towards a lot of cultural and artistic things and I think he has done a great job and I have confidence in him and his fellow board members. We have appointed them. The old expression you can’t have a dog and bark. We have appointed a board and it is the board’s responsibility to deal with these matters and they shouldn’t be double-guessed by the government.
LOANE:
Alright. If we can get to the economy. It’s starting to look a little bit wobbly around the edges. Jobless figures out on Thursday, predictions say it could go as high as 7% and possibly higher next year. The second time in a row these ANZ job ad figures have slid and that doesn’t seem to sit with the predicted growth figures for this country of 3% when the rest of the world is looking wobbly, the US is probably on the brink of a recession. I am wondering whether there is room to get the budget into some sort of deficit to stimulate some sort of spending perhaps. Is that on the horizon or is it still a dirty word?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Sally we have stimulated the economy quite a lot.
LOANE:
You have spent a lot.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, and I am glad we spent all of that for two reasons. The first reason is that everything we spent it on, like defence and roads and science and education and salinity and self funded retirees, all of it was justified in a specific sense in the areas of expenditure but the other thing that it justified was that it provided a stimulus to the economy at exactly the right time.
LOANE:
Would you go into deficit then, saying…
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no you don’t need to. One of the reasons why the economy is holding up much better than people thought is because we helped with that….the stimulatory effect of that spending has been a help. You see, the Labor Party has attacked that, although they haven’t attacked the things we’ve spent it on. They’ve sort of had this double game. They’ve said on the one hand, you know, Howard should not have spent the money, but we still somehow or other wanted resources put into areas like defence and science. I don’t apologise for any of that spending. If I had my time over again I would have done it because all the projects were worthwhile, they were good investments in Australia’s future. But more than that Sally, it provided a stimulus for the economy when there were some signs of slowing down, and it has helped us carry forward.
LOANE:
But surely you could look at perhaps next year when things are probably going to be worse.
PRIME MINISTER:
At the moment we think, and we’re going on the Treasury forecast, we expect the growth they have….
LOANE:
Do you believe those forecasts?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I do, I do believe those forecasts. You’ve got to remember that our trade account is still going very well, and inflation is very low. Our interest rates are extremely low.
LOANE:
Is there room for even lower interest rates?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that’s a matter for the Reserve Bank, but even if they don’t go any lower, they are, you know, deliriously low for home buyers and small business compared with a few years ago, and as far as employment is concerned, we have generated about 830,000 jobs since we’ve been in office. And the employment figures have held up pretty well. Now they may change in the future, I don’t know. But it is true that the world economy is more difficult, there’s no doubt about that, and that is one of the reasons why you need proven economic managers remaining in charge of the ship.
LOANE:
You’ve got an economist though, like Saul Eslake saying, look, deficit is not going to hurt us, we’ve got very low levels of public debt. When you’re coming in to perhaps a bad cycle next year, you’ve got to start talking about it, at least, haven’t you? Or is it still a verboten word.
PRIME MINISTER:
It’s not a question of a verboten word. It’s a question of getting the right balance. And there are quite a number of stimulii going into the economy. You have increased spending, you had discretionary tax cuts of $12 billion from tax reform which are still feeding through. You’ve also got very low interest rates. Now when you put those three things together – look at the housing industry, one of the typical drivers of a broad area of economic momentum, whitegoods and all the associated things, the housing industry is going gang-busters still. It’s a combination of that first home owners scheme which we doubled for new homes, and are phasing down.
LOANE:
Some people have said you’ve been I guess more handing out of money than a Labor government ever has been.
PRIME MINISTER:
Sally, I inherited $96 billion of government debt, Mr Beazley gave us five budget deficits in a row. By the end of this financial year we will have repaid $58 billion of that $96 billion. Now that is a very proud record of fiscal responsibility and fiscal prudence. Something the Labor Party could only ever dream of and if they win on Saturday we will go right back into debt, pressure on interest rates – up they will go again. As surely as night follows the proverbial day.
LOANE:
Can I just … we’ve got a minute or so before the headlines, Mr Howard. Can I just ask you about one issue that really hasn’t come up much during the campaign, and that’s the issue of Aborigines. Now, Noel Pearson, Hal Wootten, are two very respected commentators, have both called for a much tougher approach to issues like welfare, and alcohol and drug dependency in Aboriginal communities. Is the government going to start listening to people like this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well to some extent, what Noel Pearson said in certain areas, and I read his Charles Perkins lecture in full on the plane the other day…..
LOANE:
What did you think of it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Ah… very compelling. I agreed with a lot of it, quite a lot. I think you do have to follow policies of self empowerment, and that means people being required to accept personal responsibility, and that’s … I mean, Noel’s argument very much is that you’ve got to give people self responsibility and from that follows self respect.
LOANE:
But he’s also calling for prohibitions too.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, well I think people should not be afraid to consider that. If that is what a local community wants. And I think when you get respected leaders like Noel Pearson saying that, you’ve got to listen. I mean Noel Pearson is by far the most articulate and cerebral of the younger Aboriginal leadership. Now, he’s not, I’m not saying that because …
LOANE:
He can’t do it on his own though. He needs help from the state government, and the …
PRIME MINISTER:
Well of course he needs that, but also he needs an understanding from commentators, and from the media, and everybody who’s just assumed that Aboriginal affairs… all you had to do was abjectly apologise for everything that happened in the past, and then everybody would be liberated, and the problem would be solved, and you’d move forward into some sort of new era. It’s not like that, and that speech systematically dismantled that view. What he pointed out in that speech, which is so distressing, was that things had got worse in those communities, because the societal structures have disintegrated, the authority of the elders has declined. Now, who am I as a white person, to argue with that kind of analysis from a person who’s….. he’s not a supporter of the Liberal Party, or a supporter of mine, he’s just… and that’s irrelevant in a way, if you’re really trying to get to the truth of the thing. I think we’ve wasted too much time on what I might call the politically correct side of the indigenous argument in this country, and too little time on practical reality and personal responsibility.
LOANE:
Just finally Mr Howard, the story this morning that your brother Stan Howard, who’s become involved in another employee entitlements controversy, is it time that he retired from the business world?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I think it’s a bit unreasonable to bring my brother into this. I don’t know any of the details of that, and I don’t intend to, it doesn’t affect the government, it’s a private matter. I do know this though, that he’s a person of great integrity and honesty.
LOANE:
Mr Howard, finally your tip for the Cup. Big Pat, I think you patted this horse the other day.
PRIME MINISTER:
I put in $50 on the nose for Big Pat.
LOANE:
All right. Good luck. Thank you very much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ENDS]