Subjects: Bali warning; Brian Deegan's letter; terrorist threat.
E&OE...........
JOURNALIST:
Good morning Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, that';s Matthew is it?
JOURNALIST:
It is Prime Minister, thank you for joining us on such short notice.
PRIME MINISTER:
That';s alright.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister you would have had a chance to read Brian Deegan open letter to you this morning, what are your reactions to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I have read the letter and my first reaction is one of great sorrow and sympathy towards Mr Deegan. I have children around the same age and I can only begin to try and understand his feelings at the present time and I can only express to him my own personal sorrow and sympathy about what happened. I';ve been through the letter and there are a number of things in it that I want to respond to. I guess the fundamental point it makes is that Bali may have happened because we are seen as a country by the people who orchestrate these atrocities as being too close to the United States, particularly as his letter says in the War against Terrorism. Everybody will have their own view about why these atrocities occur. I believe they occur because there are a group of Islamic fanatics who hate us for who we are, people of liberal democratic persuasion in the western world, whether we';re Australians, British, American, German, French, the whole long list, they hate us because we have an open society, they hate the equality we extend to men and women.
JOURNALIST:
Is it more to it that though? I mean do we need to go another layer? Do they hate us because okay we are free and democratic and we do things they don';t do but also we have done things to them or have neglected them or made life difficult for them for many many years. Do we need to do that extra step?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you';re asserting that is a proven fact, when you put that proposition that we have done these things to them, I don';t believe that Australia has done anything wrong to people of Islam, we have no argument with Islam. The response that we gave to the attack on the United States was totally justified and if you';re looking for particular Australian related reasons for Bali, and in saying what I';m about to say I';m not suggesting for a moment that people should believe everything Osama bin Laden says, but if you do down that line and if you look at that recent tape, he again mentions our intervention in East Timor, he';s previously mentioned that. In fact, of all the Australian specific issues that have been raised by bin Laden, East Timor has been talked about more frequently than anything else. Now I can only say to all of your listeners that we intervened in East Timor because it was the right thing to do and indeed Mr Deegan in his letter in The Australian acknowledged that it was the right thing to intervene in East Timor, I guess 80 to 90 per cent of the Australian population supported that decision. You have to bear in mind that since the 11th of September there have been orchestrated terrorist attacks around the world which, apparently orchestrated, you can';t be certain about a lot of these things, we have to make suppositions, we all do, there have been attacks all around the world which have claimed the lives not only of tragically many young Australians but British people, French and Germans. I mention the French and Germans in particular because many people would say in relation to an issue such as Iraq and perhaps also the War against Terror they may not have been seen as, in the eyes of some, although to be fair to them they've been very active in the War against Terror, as being as strongly committed to that as say the Australians and British. So in the end everybody has to make their own judgement about these things but I think it would be a great mistake and a great error of national judgment for a person in my position to accept and conclude that if we had walked away from the United States or shown greater distance from the United States that we would have prevented Bali occurring. I don't believe that. I know some Australians will believe that and that is their right in a democracy and that's what makes us special. We talk about… we debate these things, but that is certainly not my view. And that is quite apart from the question of whether it is ever right for a country to ignore the moral dimensions of what we do. And obviously, you have to take those things into account.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, David Bevan here… as much as is possible I think this should be a conversation between you and Brian Deegan. He writes in his letter - "to what extent was your Government aware of imminent danger to our citizens prior to October 12? After all, the US was reportedly aware and has apparently alerted your Government, but your Government did not make my son aware."
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is, and I say this very sensitively and very carefully, that is not right. We did not receive any specific warning in relation to the attack in Bali. It is not right to say that, or imply that a specific warning was received by the United States and that was passed on, and we in turn didn't pass that on. I have mentioned in Parliament some weeks ago that contingent upon certain events happening which did not happen there was a generalised warning indicating a number of places in Indonesia, including Bali, but a whole lot of other tourist and cultural spots. And that generalised warning was fully consistent with the alerts that we already had which the travel advice included references to bombings, to bombs having gone off and the possibility of them going off in the future. But there was nothing specific about Bali. There was nothing in the intelligence information we had that could have given a clue to this terrible event.
JOURNALIST:
He writes in another place - "I have forgiven those uneducated people who with fear in their hearts have murdered my boy for a paltry $10. But I will never forgive educated people who caused the death of another child as a result of belligerent policy." Prime Minister, can you respond to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't believe, and I say this very sincerely, I don't believe that the policies we have followed have caused the death of Josh. I really don't. I'm profoundly sorry. I have met the parents of the many of the young people who died in that tragedy and I've listened to them and I've tried in different ways to comfort them. They are a cross section of our country. They will have different views on different things and I respect those different views. I can only answer for myself and I can only speak for my own conscience. This has been a terrible experience for our country and I feel very deeply for all these people who have lost so much. It is heartbreaking and nobody can say anything that is going to fill the void. I understand that, but I, in the spirit of respect for somebody who obviously has some different views from me on a number of issues, I'm doing my best to respond to the points that have been raised.
JOURNALIST:
We appreciate that and we appreciate your availability. This is Prime Minister, John Howard, on 891 ABC Adelaide. Matthew Abraham and David Bevan with you. It's just gone 17 past 10. Prime Minister, one… I suppose, one of the things that Josh Deegan hasn't said in his letter but he was saying…
PRIME MINISTER:
Brian.
JOURNALIST:
Sorry, Brian Deegan, I apologise. Brian Deegan was saying in his interview with us this morning was that he wanted to, you know, his children looked to him to protect them and he wasn't able to protect Josh, but…
PRIME MINISTER:
That ws the most touching part of the letter. I feel the same way. I mean, I have an obligation to protect my children. I imagine if something terrible happened, I would feel the same way.
JOURNALIST:
And he goes on to say - now when his children go to school in the morning, he feels he can't protect them. And I suppose there is a great mood afoot that we are being told to be alert, we're being told to be suspicious and yet there's a powerlessness there. I mean what, you know, he makes the point that politicians and others have quite appropriately body guards and police protection and appropriate security. The rest of us out here are just sitting here feeling worried.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, can I just say all politicians don't. I have a security detail because…
JOURNALIST:
Well, it's appropriate, you';re the Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
But I mean, I don't… I mean, we all move very openly and…
JOURNALIST:
But I'm saying out here in the 'burbs, Prime Minister, you have millions of Australians, who I think quite justifiably are worried. And the question is what do we do when we wave goodbye to our kids in the morning? Is it just say Hail Mary, or what?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, a lot of people have different ways of expressing the hope that their children will be safe and that can apply to things like road accidents and so forth. I don't have a simple answer to that and nobody in my position does. I mean, we live in a situation where the possibility of a terrorist attack is greater and we've had to say to that to the public. We have had no specific threat of an attack. We've had a generalised warning that one might take place and it's sufficiently related to Australia to justify the public warning that Senator Ellison issued a couple of days ago, we will soon be providing, launching a campaign which through television and otherwise will give people some general advice about how we can be more careful and more attentive and more alert.
JOURNALIST:
But what form will that take? Will there be specific numbers for instance if people need advice?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, yes there'll be that, but it'll also be advice about certain things to look out for. I don't want to be too prescriptive at the moment about what might be in it. I 'm getting some professional advice on this. We haven't faced this sort of thing before and we have to really work our way through it together as a country. I'm on a learning curve in relation to it. I haven't faced this before and you are and everybody in the public is in that same situation and you're dammed if you do and you're dammed if you don't. If we have said right - we've had this warning, we've not going to say anything about it because we can't tell people, chapter and verse, exactly how to respond if something we don't know the nature of might happen at some time in the future. And then if it were revealed that we'd received this warning but we hadn't said anything about it, people's trust in us would have been totally destroyed. So we had to say something. My admonition to people is to continue to live their lives. I';m sorry that we live in a heightened state of anxiety. That is not because of the Government, it';s not because of either side of politics in Australia, it';s because of the behaviour of terrorists. And we have to be very careful when something like this happens that we don';t sort of end up being too defensive about ourselves and our culture and our society, and end up almost thinking well gee maybe this is all our fault. It';s not our fault. There is nothing this country has done which justifies the bilious hatred that has been directed against it, by the behaviour of these terrorists. And I think it';s very important at a time like this that we don';t lose our sense of justified self-belief. This is a free and open and decent and compassionate country and it';s very, very important that we keep that in mind.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, the front page of the Herald Sun today runs the headline ‘Raids expose terror links';. ‘ASIO raids on Jemaah Islamiah targets proved the Muslim terrorist organisation has well-established cells in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth';. And later the report goes on to say ‘new information obtained by ASIO prompted it to warn the Federal Government the terrorist threats made this month are the most serious and believable ever';. Most serious and believable ever. Prime Minister could you comment on that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I haven';t read the story in full. I';ve been told about it. It sounds as though it';s putting together a series of things and it';s not based on any particularly new information. There are people who have associations with Jemaah Islamiah. You might, in one sense of the word, say that they constitute a cell or they together might represent a cell. You might on the other hand say that they have been associated with Jemaah Islamiah. Can I say in relation to these raids and I do, if I may, want to here go back to something in Mr Deegan';s letter in which he was rather critical of the raids, as I read his letter. I think he actually spoke of torturing of citizens in the raids – why is your Government torturing certain citizens of our country by allowing armed invasions upon their private properties, all in the name of national security? Well I certainly don';t regard what ASIO and the Federal Police have done as torture of our citizens. They are completely justified. Once again, here is the dilemma of you';re damned if you do and you';re damned if you don';t. We have some people who have criticised the raids as being an invasion of civil liberties, yet if we didn';t carry them out we would be criticised for being too soft on people who might at some time in the future have some association with a terrorist attack in our country. I';m not saying anything more than that as a general statement but these raids are completely justified and I would defend them 100% anywhere and in any circumstance.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, Brian Deegan';s letter however – and we spoke to him off air about this as well – he';s saying there needs to be an inquiry. That okay, what has happened has happened, but we need to make sure this doesn';t happen again. Do you feel the need for an inquiry beyond that that has been set up? He wants a Royal Commission, nothing less.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't see the need for a Royal Commission. If I were presented with clear evidence of a blatant intelligence failure, clear evidence that there was advice that represented a specific warning and it wasn't passed on, well, I'd have a different view. But that is not the case and we are having an investigation by the Inspector General of Security, he's going over all the material and he's going to report to me about the status of it. I think the response by the authorities to the tragedy was very good. I have to say that within 36 hours, largely through the superb efforts of the RAAF, we'd evacuated 67 injured people. I went to Bali and could I just say there is one point in his letter I did particularly notice and that was a reference to the visit to the morgue. I, in fact, raised with the police and others there the possibility of my visiting the morgue.
JOURNALIST:
So you asked to go to the morgue?
PRIME MINISTER:
I did. And they argued that I shouldn't for a couple of reasons. I remember one of them was that it was a subject of an extensive media stake-out and also the suggestion had been made to me that there wasn't unimpeded access being made available to some family members and that if I were to visit and that would become known that might possibly complicate things. I don't want to make a big thing of this.
JOURNALIST:
But you weren't shying away from it. [Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, I mean, the suggestion of the letter is that I was encouraged to go and I knocked it back. Can I say, with great respect, that it's really essentially the other way around. And there were a number of people present at the meeting, including the Opposition Leader and the Deputy Prime Minister, where that matter was discussed. I mean, I don't want to make a big thing of this.
JOURNALIST:
Well, he says understandably [inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, no, I mean, I understand, I mean, please, I';m not criticising.
JOURNALIST:
No.
PRIME MINISTER:
I';m just really correcting the thing. I don't want to give the impression that I was invited to go and said, oh no, I refuse, sort of thing. But, equally, I';m not making, not wanting to make a big thing of it either. I mean, these things are very difficult for everybody and, of course, overwhelmingly difficult for family members.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, you've been very generous with your time and we do appreciate that. Can we leave you just with the last words of Brian Deegan, and you might want to respond to his final words.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, sure.
JOURNALIST:
He write: For the sake of the remainder of my family, for the sake of your children and for the sake of all of Australia's children please think hard before you take us down a track from which we can never back out.
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I understand that and he's asking me to think very carefully about the judgements I make as Prime Minister about military commitments or political or diplomatic commitments we might make. That is always the biggest challenge a Prime Minister's got. If you decide to do something that can, in the shorter term, possibly, only possibly, risk life and limb of others - and I';m very conscious that it's young people who get involved in military conflict overwhelmingly - on the other hand, it is also the case that if you don't take those decisions you may, in the short term, avoid some loss of life or limb but in the longer term run the risk of an infinitely greater loss of life and limb. And history is strewn with examples of where people held back from saying no or putting their hand up in the belief that the problem would go away. It didn't and the ultimate cost of making it go away was all the greater. That is the huge, sort of, difficulty anybody in my position faces. I have been affected by what happened on the 12th of October like no other event in my public life and I've never been more touched by the suffering and the sadness of my fellow Australians than I have been by this. And if there was anything I could have done to have stopped it happening, I would have. And I just want to say again to Brian Deegan, I feel desperately sorry for you and for your family for Josh's siblings and, indeed, for all others who are in the situation. If we could have stopped it, we would have. I guess having read his letter and thought about it, I guess, on a few things, as you do in a great democracy, we'll agree to disagree but there's one thing we won't disagree on and that is that we both want the best for our country, we both want the safest place for our children that we can possibly, in this very difficult world, make it.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, thank you for talking to us this morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay then.
[Ends]