20 October 2002
E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
OAKES:
Mr Howard what should Australians be feeling today? I mean grief obviously, but what else? Anger, fear?
PRIME MINISTER:
They should be angry, they should be angry at the people who did this. They should naturally feel compassionate about the people who've lost so much. But they should also reflect on the strengths of this country and also resolve to keep it an open and free and adventurous and tolerant country. It's very important that you don't lose what makes us distinctive and that is we are an open people and we travel a lot and we feel adventurous, particularly the young. We shouldn't lose any of that.
OAKES:
Should we be afraid?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't want to sound alarmist, but we are living in a different world and something like what occurred in Bali last Saturday night could happen in Australia. It's less likely because Australia is a stable, mature, democratic country. We don't have the network of terrorist groups as exists in Indonesia and other parts of the world. But I can't look any Australian in the face and give them a guarantee that it won't happen here. In fact it could and that has been the case now for some time and the possibility of it has clearly been heightened. But perhaps by the same token I don't want to suggest that the possibility or the likelihood is nearly as great as exists in other countries.
OAKES:
Are we any closer to identifying and catching the people who did this terrible thing?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, quite a lot of valuable information has come from the crime scene. I spoke this morning to Mick Keelty, the Commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, and I want the police to do the daily commentary on the operational matters and I don't think it's a good thing for a political leader to sort of pretend to be a policeman. But he told me that they have obviously gathered a lot of information from the crime scene. They are matching that with the 400 useful witness statements that they collected. They got information from about 6,000 different pieces of information from people returning home and about 400 of them are helpful and they're putting all of that together, but it will take a long time. And even though you might start an investigation like this with a strong suspicion, it will often take a very long time to verify that suspicion. For example, it was about 13 months before, in the case of the Lockerbie air disaster, the investigators there were able to match their suspicion with presentable evidence.
OAKES:
Do you still believe that Abu Bakar was responsible for this, the leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah?
PRIME MINISTER:
I can't assert that with any, you know, sense of proof. He is apparently being questioned but not in relation to Bali.
OAKES:
Now that's a worry isn't it, if they're not asking about this?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'm not saying they won't but at the moment my information is that he is being questioned or will be questioned in relation to the bombings of the Christian churches just before Christmas in 2000. There are a lot of similar patterns emerging in the Bali bombing, similar to other al Qaeda, or to al Qaeda activities in other parts of the world, but I can't say the evidence is there at the moment of a direct link.
OAKES:
Now this man, we read, came to Australia three times recently. Was the government aware of that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I have been told that he did come. I mean, what was ... was I specifically informed each time he came? I don't recollect being so but I mean others may have and there may have been no method under Australian law to prevent him coming.
OAKES:
Do you know why he came?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I think to have, presumably, contact with other people of perhaps some of his religious views but I can't be certain about that.
OAKES:
I mean, is it possible he was here plotting terrorist attacks in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
I've not been given any information to that effect and I've not been given any information, to my recollection, suggesting that anybody has been plotting a terrorist attack in Australia. But that doesn't mean to say that there aren't possibly people who could have the will, or might over time develop the capacity to do that. And that is obviously something to which all of our authorities are furiously turning their attention now.
OAKES:
The New South Wales Premier Bob Carr has called on you to establish a Department of Homeland Security with a Special Minister for Homeland Security as George Bush has done. Does that idea now appeal to you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm prepared in the wake of what's happened to look at a whole range of suggestions. But you don't cure something like this or you don't build or protect just by creating a different bureaucratic structure. I mean I've got to be satisfied that the existing structure needs improvement and I mean, look, that's the sort of, you know, initial response. I can understand people… I mean look I don't want to be critical of anybody, everybody's trying to help and I'll look at that. But I don't think any Australian should imagine that you build a protection against terrorism by changing the name of the bureaucracy.
OAKES:
You’ve already asked Bill Blick, the Supervisor of Intelligence, to look at the intelligence you received and whether we got a warning. When do you expect a report?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I think that will take a while. I can't be certain exactly when. But as far as I'm concerned I want a transparent process.
OAKES:
And will he be looking at the adequacy of our intelligence services as well?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I have asked for a whole lot of things to be reassessed and I hope to get the first cut of all of that during the coming week. And one of the things that obviously I will look at again is the adequacy of the structure. Now, you have to do that when something as dramatic like this happens. It doesn't mean that I'm trying to find fault. But as far as I'm concerned I'm more than willing to have the whole process examined. I can only repeat what I've said before - we didn't receive any information that could have identified attacks coming in Bali, and we are determined though to have a transparent process and if there are ways in which it can be done better in the future, if there are lessons to be learnt. Intelligence is a very inexact science, and as you saw tragically in the United States with all the, you know, the massive paraphernalia and the enormous resources of the United States of America, the most powerful nation the world's ever known, its intelligence wasn't able to anticipate that. And it's a very difficult operation and in the end you get a mountain of raw intelligence data every day and the agencies have got to make assessments and make them in a bona fide fashion.
OAKES:
The reason I asked the question is I've been contacted by people associated with the intelligence community over the last week telling me that ASIO doesn't have enough Arabic translators to deal with the material it collects from monitoring. And The Australian says that ASIO has a budget of only $80 million and only a handful of people in some of the capital cities. Isn't it sensible now to boost ASIO, give it a bigger budget?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look Laurie once again that is something that I will examine and if we need to and we can get, you know, an improved service as a result, of course we will do it. But a lot of the security services received significant boosts recently. Now, that doesn't mean to say...
OAKES:
But $80 million is chicken feed, isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
But Laurie look it goes without saying that anything additional that is needed will be provided but, once again, just as altering the name of a department is not going to stop a terrorist attack, just spending more money on its own is not going to stop a terrorist attack. But if it needs to be done it will be done, yes.
OAKES:
There's been criticism of the Governor General for not being here at a time of national crisis and mourning. Should he have been in the country?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that criticism has been unfair. It's always a hard call. He left on Sunday. He was going to a commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Battle of El Alamein, that has involved visits to the President of Egypt and discussions with the leaders of moderate mainstream Islamic groups. In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, the suggestion that either he or I should have gone to Bali on the Sunday or the Monday or the Tuesday is not right. It would have been ... it wouldn't have been helpful. I mean, when you have a disaster like this the first thing you've got to do is to evacuate and care for the wounded. And I just want to say that to get all of those injured people out within 48 hours was a stunningly efficient operation by the Air Force and by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Defence. I think it was amazing, and they were all back in Australia, all accounted for, all with fantastic medical attention. And that was the first thing we had to do. And quite frankly for anybody in my position or the Governor General's position to have been in Bali while that was going on, it wouldn't have been of benefit. And then, clearly because of the nature of what has happened, this was not just an accident - it was, you know, mass murder - you needed a very strong involvement and response at the level of the political leadership of the nation. So, with all of those things in mind, although he will always have his critics who are ready to take a piece out of him no matter what happens, I don't think the criticism has been unfair, but I think he recognises and I recognise there will be some people that, no matter what he does, will criticise him.
OAKES:
The US Secretary of State Colin Powell has recognised this Bali outrage as our 911, but he says he hopes that you can convince Australians to remain committed to the broader war on terrorism. Can you do that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think we must remain committed to the broad war on terrorism because this is part of it. I mean I can't understand how anybody could argue that you can respond adequately in the name of the scores of Australians who were killed in Bali without being part of the worldwide war against terror. Because I, in my heart, don't believe this is an isolated incident specific to Indonesia. I think it... I believe, although I cannot prove, but I believe it is part of a worldwide terrorist operation and if we think that we can fight that battle on our own and without being involved with the United States, with Britain and indeed, you know, also with Indonesia. Because the people who did this are no friends of Indonesia.
OAKES:
No.
PRIME MINISTER:
They wanted to hurt Indonesia, they wanted to destabilise and potentially destroy Indonesia's government and see it replaced with a more radical extremist government, so it is a world threat and I think the answer must, in the name of the Australian dead, must necessarily be that we continue to fight on a global scale, because it's a global problem.
OAKES:
But Australians have now seen this terrorism come right into their backyard. They're bound to think now that we need our forces, our armed forces, here to deal with the threat in our area. Surely that must affect the government's judgment when it comes time to think about any move on Iraq.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I hope a military move on Iraq doesn't become necessary, and we are seeing a move towards a strong resolution in the United Nations and what I've said on that before remains. But you are right when you say that, and it's something identified last week, that naturally our first concern must be our own backyard. But that doesn't mean that we should see our back yard as not connected, going onto a street to which there are other backyards and...
OAKES:
But surely it means Australians won't want to see the SAS in a desert on the other side of the world when they're needed here.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not going to speculate about individual groups of forces hypothetically committed to a military action we don't know is going to occur and which we hope doesn't occur. But I can say this to your viewers, Laurie, that the first priority of the Government will obviously be to ensure that every necessary... every required capacity is there to protect our own patch.
OAKES:
Now, the Greens have apparently scored a stunning victory in the Cunningham by-election in New South Wales. Their leader, Bob Brown, says the overwhelming message from that is that Australians don't want to see Australian troops fighting in Iraq. Do you read it that way?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Laurie, because it really is part of some domestic politics I don't want to talk today, on this day, about the reasons behind the Cunningham by-election results. I'm happy to talk about it tomorrow and I'll have something to say then. On the broader issue, I don't accept the theory that if Australia stops criticising terrorism, if Australia disengages our friendship and alliance with the United States, that if Australia walks away from taking a stand against evil around the world that that will buy us immunity. Quite apart from the moral issues, I'll put them aside for the moment, I'll address the practical. That won't buy us immunity from attack. Plenty of other countries have seen their citizens slaughtered. There were Indonesian citizens slaughtered, there were innocent people from Bali slaughtered. There were 230 odd Kenyans slaughtered in 1998 when the al Qaeda destroyed the American Embassy in Nairobi. Now their government hadn't been shaking its fist at ... necessarily shaking its fist in a very visible way at al Qaeda. So, this idea that terrorism has some hierarchy of disdain and that you are treated according to what you say, it's just disproved by that experience. Terrorists don't care who they kill and, as I said earlier, one of the prime motivations I'm sure behind all of this was to destabilise the Indonesian government and to try and halt the movement towards more popular democracy in Indonesia.
OAKES:
A quick question - you're off to APEC next week. What will you hope to achieve from that meeting in your talks there with George Bush and President Megawati?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's a great opportunity, sadly, to have a renewed focus on the terrorism challenge and I will certainly in talking to President Megawati be emphasising the need for her to continue as tough a line domestically as possible against terrorism. And obviously it's another opportunity to talk to President Bush about the terrorism challenge generally. And he's made it very clear both in the telephone conversation we had last Monday and in his special message, that America will do everything we ask and everything it can to help us find the people who murdered our fellow Australians in Bali a week ago.
OAKES:
And have we asked for that help?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well at this stage we don't need it because we have enough forensic people, we have enough medical support and all of those things, but there may be other requirements as yet unspecified, and we could need their help.
OAKES:
Prime Minister, we thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]