E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
WOOLEY:
Prime Minister, I know it’s early days yet but the question everyone wants to know is who did it? What is your thinking?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is early days. There are some patterns to this. There are al Qaeda practices. I’m not saying there is clear evidence that al Qaeda is involved. I don’t want to complicate the police job by trying to be a Police Commissioner rather than a Prime Minister, so I’ll leave the operational stuff to them but they’ve obviously collected a lot of stuff from the crime scene and when I was in Bali two days ago I was tremendously impressed with the effort that is going in. And a joint team between Australia and Indonesia is very good news for Australia because you must remember, this crime occurred in a foreign country.
WOOLEY:
You immediately say al Qaeda, so can we rule out any complexities of Iraq, payback for Timor, even the complexities of Indonesian politics at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t think you can start ruling things in or out. All I’m saying is that there are some patterns, but it will be a long time before we can be certain of that. And as far as Indonesia is concerned, we’ve got to always remember this outrage was designed to shake and rattle Indonesia. The people who did this are no friends of the Indonesian Government and are no friends of democratic stability in Indonesia.
WOOLEY:
I know that you tread delicately on the diplomatic issue here, but is Megawati’s Government strong enough and secure enough to handle this situation?
PRIME MINISTER:
We’re encouraged by the responses since the 12th of October. It is in our interests, particularly in the interests of catching the people who murdered our people, and that we work closely with them and that we have the support and the goodwill of the Indonesian Government.
WOOLEY:
Your immediate response to Bush’s call in the Iraq situation, many people say that that has made us a target. In fact we’ve had a lot of mail this week and substantially 90 per cent of it has said that you have made us a target. What do you say to those?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t agree with that. But leaving aside any moral dimension about whether you should ever take a stand against evil and do what you regard as the right thing internationally, the argument rests on the proposition that if you never criticise anything, you make yourself a small ball and roll over in the corner, you’ll escape.
WOOLEY:
But there is some price to be paid, as we now see, for standing up and being counted?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that assumes that if you had not stood up and been counted that nothing would have happened. I mean terrorists don’t dispense their horror according to some hierarchy of disdain and dislike. It doesn’t work that way.
WOOLEY:
These people don’t care who they kill, you’re saying?
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course they don’t. Of course they don’t. I mean the aim is to inflict the maximum amount of horror. There is a common anti-western character and if there is a hostility to us it’s because we are western.
WOOLEY:
When you went to the bomb site this week, you saw the carnage and you were able to put human stories and human faces to it. That would have been difficult.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes it was the most moving, emotional week I’ve had in my life in public life. I felt so desperately sorry for those grieving mothers and fathers, for these men who had come on behalf of their families to collect the bodies of their sons and daughters. It’s a very gripping experience.
WOOLEY:
Some of these people are understandably upset by the ideas being touted now that there were warnings somewhere in the system that weren’t passed on to the people who went to that nightclub.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is nothing in the intelligence.
WOOLEY:
You didn’t receive…
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course not. Does anybody imagine if I had known that we wouldn’t have moved heaven and earth to warn people? Does anybody really imagine that any Minister, any Government would be negligent in relation to that kind of information?
WOOLEY:
What about the feedback up through the system. Did somebody know further down the system?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I haven’t seen any evidence of that.
WOOLEY:
Will you be inquiring into it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, and I already have. Last Sunday night I saw the head of ASIO and the head of the Office of National Assessment and all the Security Chiefs, and I said is there anything that should have been seen as a warning for this bombing? And they said no. They went through everything. I mean I answered a question in Parliament on that but I’m going to have the Director General of Security and Intelligence look at all of the material and I will favour and sanction and encourage a completely transparent process. But remember that intelligence is a very inadequate science.
WOOLEY:
Let’s talk about the mood of Australia. I think in a sense the big, very simplistic question I’m afraid that people have on their mind at home tonight is are we safe? Are we safe here in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
We are safer here than in just about any other country in the world. Of course we are. But I can’t look you in the eye and your viewers in the eye and say it will never happen here, because it could. But sadly we live in a world where you do have fanatics who care nothing about human life. They despise our civilisation. I mean if these things are a strike against anything, they’re a strike against our civilisation rather than a strike against individual policy stance.
WOOLEY:
So if we’re under threat in that way, what can we do now? Do we [inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
Well life has got to go on. The terrorists win if we stop living. Of course they do. And I’m not asking Australians to stop living, to stop going out to bars and nightclubs. I mean you can’t do that. They win. But I have to in all candour say I can’t say it would never happen in Australia. We will do everything we can consistent, not interfering with basic liberties and interfering with people’s normal life, but in the end you can’t give a total guarantee.
WOOLEY:
Prime Minister thank you very much.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]