E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
PRICE:
Joining us on the line is Prime Minister John Howard. Thanks for your time Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Steve.
PRICE:
You must be very proud of your countrymen and women after yesterday.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes and I was very proud of the Australian spirit in Bali on Thursday evening and Friday. The strength and dignity of those people who had lost their sons and daughters and husbands and wives in a foreign country however beckoning and friendly it had always seemed to be. I was humbled by that. And I felt the way in which the country came together yesterday and generally has come together… there is a lot of anger and that’s very understandable about the people who did this, but there is also a determination to get on with life. We will have to take further precautions. We will have to do things in the name of those further precautions. But we’re not going to stop the open, free Australian life. While it has been a terrible experience and one that will stay with me for the rest of my life, and I guess I speak for most people in saying that.
PRICE:
You’re reported as leaning to one man in Bali and saying into his ear, we’ll get the bastards who did this. It’s a very Australian way to describe it. I hope that’s accurately reported.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is. I in fact said that to all of the people who were gathered, all of the relatives.
PRICE:
Well good on you because I think what we needed to hear.
PRIME MINISTER:
Because that’s how I feel. I think that’s how Australia feels. It’s not going to be done stupidly and blindly and we have to work with the Indonesians, but when something like this happens that is how people feel. And I think it’s the, you know, the monstrously cruel and random character of it, and a lot has been said. In the end you run out of different descriptions to express how strongly you feel because nothing in the world, nothing, no perverted view of religion or ideology, could ever justify this. I mean it’s an obscenity in my view to say that something like this is done in the name of religion or God. I mean’s it’s an obscenity to the very idea of Islam or any religion for that matter.
PRICE:
I saw you on 60 Minutes last night get quite angry at suggestions that you would have even contemplated not releasing information from Foreign Affairs about Bali. I mean it was a fairly silly question.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look I don’t mind questions being asked. And what I have said in the last week about that issue is right. We have received nothing that could be regarded as a warning of what was going to happen. The material that I have put in front of the Parliament is the situation but I am perfectly happy for the Director General of Security, who is sort of the auditor if you like of the performance of the Auditor General of the intelligence services, to have a look at all of the material and I’m perfectly happy for the whole thing to be done in a transparent way. And if we can improve our intelligence agencies in the future, well I’m happy that that occur. I mean the last thing I intend to do as a result of this is to say, well look we can’t change anything, everything is perfect, we’ve got the most perfect warning systems in the world. Clearly no intelligence system is capable of predicting every outrage. The wealth and power and the might of the United States couldn’t effectively warn that country about the 11th of September.
PRICE:
Are you confident now you have the right people in the right place for this investigation?
PRIME MINISTER:
The police? Yes. I’ve spent a lot of time with the joint team and we have some very, very experienced people from both the Federal and the State polices and it’s been a combined operation. And I want to thank the State police forces for the way they have cooperated. We’ve got some people from different parts of the world. A couple of forensic experts from Scotland Yard, people from the FBI and the German police. But they’re all working under the joint leadership of the Indonesians and the Australians, and the way in which the Indonesians have accepted joint leadership of the investigatory team is very good.
PRICE:
Were you pleased that Abu Bakar Bashir was detained?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well perhaps I shouldn’t give a running commentary on a police investigation. Let me put it this way – I’m generally encouraged, very strongly encouraged, that the Indonesian Government is taking this whole thing very seriously and that is very encouraging.
PRICE:
Back home, we now turn our attention to our security. Are you going to look at this idea that has been tossed up of a Homeland Security Ministry?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well yes, along with a whole lot of other things. But Steve, changing the name of a department is not… you know, reshuffling ministerial names and so forth, that’s not of itself necessarily the answer to something like this. I mean I’m willing to look at all of these things but whatever you call this and whoever has responsibility, in the end it’s the quality of the people and the policy directions they receive, rather than the name.
PRICE:
We have a former advisor to Peter McGauran suggesting that Lucas Heights be closed down and secured by the military until we are confident that it is safe. Do you believe that that is necessary?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I haven’t heard that suggestion. Who said that?
PRICE:
Dr Mike Sully, a scientist, biochemist advisor to former Chief of Staff to Peter McGauran.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no I haven’t. Along with all things like that, I will naturally have it examined. First up I think that’s an overreaction but in the view of the changed circumstances in which we live, I don’t rule anything out. But it does seem a bit of an overreaction to me.
PRICE:
The speed with which the people are now having their loved ones identified. Is there just physically just no way to speed that up?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well not without running the risk of making a mistake. You could do that and you could end up in a few weeks time having to exhume a body because there was an identification error made. And that would only just multiply the grief of the people affected.
PRICE:
But you understood the anger over there obviously.
PRIME MINISTER:
I do and that is one of the reasons I went there and I listened to what people had to say. I spent hours listening to people and talking to them privately, as well as hearing what they had to say publicly. And I understand. They went there to bring home the bodies of their children and to be told that they had to wait for identification has been the final agony. But there is no alternative. It took two weeks to identify 16 victims in Childers. You’re dealing here with 180. Some sadly will never be identified. And you have to go through these processes just to guard against error. And it was complicated initially by the fact that it was in a foreign country. Even in the Childers case, it was in Australia with a controlled crime scene, modern, sophisticated western country, and even there 16 victims it took two weeks.
PRICE:
I don’t think it’s appropriate to ask you about Cunningham so I’m not going to. Can I just finally say and I said this earlier this morning, in times of crisis Australians always look to their sporting heroes to give us something to look forward to. Steve Waugh’s 103 – I mean that must have made everyone who went through that grieving process yesterday just feel that we can now, some of us, start to move on.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’m very pleased for him, very pleased, because he’s gone through the horrors and copped a lot of flak and it shows what a tough, resilient bloke he is and of course what a wonderful cricketer he is. And congratulations to you Steve. I’m personally very happy for you and I know that your cricket loving Australian public is too.
PRICE:
Can I just say from all Australians, thank you for your leadership over the last eight or nine days.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you Steve.
[ends]