Subjects: Cathy Freeman; war on terror; India-Pakistan tensions; insurance; Rodney Adler; Afghanistan asylum seekers; prescription drugs; Telstra
E&OE...........
MITCHELL:
Mr Howard, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Could I just start by saying that I commend this station on the support package you are suggesting for Cathy Freeman. It is very scary when somebody that is as close to you as Sandy is of course to Cathy, is diagnosed with cancer. And I know that all of the people who have experienced that plus millions of others around Australia will get behind her and wish her well and cheer her on and give her all their moral support and cheerful thoughts as they did at the time of the Olympics. And I hope she and Sandy get through it.
MITCHELL:
We will be putting together a tape, so we';ll include your message on the tape Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
MITCHELL:
And you';ve been through a similar thing yourself. Okay, there';s a sense of dread in the world on several fronts today. The US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has made it clear that they will ask Australia for more troops in the fight against terrorism. Indicated not just Afghanistan but other areas, presumably Iraq and Iran. Will we send further troops?
PRIME MINISTER:
We don';t have any plans at present to send any more and if there are further requests then we will consider those requests on their merits, having regard to the scale of the request and our capacity to respond. We are committed to the fight against terrorism. We are very proud of the role Australian troops have played, and the deserved praise they have drawn from the Americans and from others, and they will stay there while there is a job to be done. But we don';t give a blank cheque. We haven';t said to the Americans, whatever you ask for will be provided. What we have said is that if they want further assistance or if there is any desire to include Australia in an extension of the war against terrorism, then we look at that on its merits. And to be fair to the Americans, they have not at any stage taken Australian support for granted. They have been very respectful, as they should be, of Australia';s total independence in these matters. And what we have done, we have done because we have thought it to be in Australia';s interests.
The war against terrorism is not over. And of course things are complicated by this separate but quite threatening dispute between India and Pakistan, where a lot of effort is being poured into persuading both of them to exercise maximum restraint. It is an old dispute. It is an old enmity, and they';re the worst because self-evidently if they haven';t been solved in a period of more than 50 years, they';re unlikely to be solved in the next year.
MITCHELL:
Do you believe there is a chance of nuclear war in that region?
PRIME MINISTER:
I would still be on the side of optimism that there won';t be. And that was certainly the view that was put to me by the Chinese Government when I was in China last week. And the Chinese are very close to both countries, particularly to Pakistan, and I would still be on the side of optimism. But as we know from history, when people confront each other and unleash rhetoric upon each other and stimulate respective displays of national passion, things can get out of hand. And we are doing what we can at the diplomatic level. My Foreign Minister has spoken a number of times to the Indian and Pakistani Foreign Ministers. There are other initiatives underway. I notice this morning that Donald Rumsfeld is planning to go to the sub-continent, Rick Armitage the Deputy Secretary of State is going, Jack Straw the British Foreign Secretary. So there are plenty of friends of both countries, and we are a friend to both. We have strong links with both countries. There are plenty of friends of both countries urging restraint but it is a threatening situation and one that justifiably is of great concern.
MITCHELL:
Are there any arrangements in place for the evacuation of Australian citizens?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there are always arrangements of that kind. We don';t think it is appropriate to trigger them but arrangements are always there as a standing precaution.
MITCHELL:
Just back to the war on terror. Do you think there is a need to extend it beyond Afghanistan, as the United States seems to be suggesting?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there remains the problem of Iraq and the capacity of that country to develop weapons of mass destruction. Obviously that is still an issue. I don';t expect any action being taken by the Americans as action that is imminent. And we certainly haven';t had any requests from the Americans to be involved in that.
MITCHELL:
There is a heightened fear in the United States of another terrorist attack. They are on increased alert. Is this country also on increased alert?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we';ve maintained a permanently higher level of alert since last year. There has been no particular incident recently to increase it further. The prospect of an attack here is still real. I';ve been saying that ever since September of last year. It is not as great a danger here as the United States, but it is higher here than in some other countries. I understand why the Americans should be on permanent alert. That is the result of the recommendation and assessment of the FBI, an assessment that was confirmed to me by Robert Mueller, the Director of the FBI when he was in Canberra about two months ago. We just live in that kind of world now. You can';t think about it all the time. But you';ve got to be ready for it.
MITCHELL:
This latest information doesn';t relate to Australians?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. We haven';t lifted the level of alert and there have been no particular new incidents that suggest we should.
MITCHELL:
There was a suggestion earlier today on this station there were a couple of Qantas jumbos have been leased, ready to evacuate people from the sub-continent. Is that right?
PRIME MINISTER:
I';m not aware of that.
MITCHELL:
On to another matter if we may. That meeting yesterday on the insurance crisis really doesn';t seem to have achieved anything. People are going under now.
PRIME MINISTER:
I';m not sure that it… I think actually the meeting achieved a lot of things. There was uniform agreement on caps, there was agreement in relation to volunteers. At my urging, the States have agreed as a matter of urgency to examine the concept of taking not-for-profit organisations completely out of the law of negligence.
MITCHELL:
When will the benefits flow through?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they';re not going to flow through immediately because you need action at individual State levels. Can I say, in fairness to the States and as you know I can sometimes be critical of State Governments, but the evidence I see is that most of them are seized of the problem. Most of them see it as a challenge. And most of them are anxious to get on with the job. And I believe that yesterday';s meeting was a quiet achiever. On the scale of Commonwealth-State meetings, this one was much higher up than many because everybody agreed on the main issues, but they now have to go back to their States and they have to change the law. What we';re seeking in the first instance is to restabilise the insurance position.
MITCHELL:
What do you say to people whose businesses are about to close, and I';m talking to them regularly, what do we say to them? What can they do when the premiums are there, they';re in this situation, they see these meetings and nothing…
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes but it depends a little on what each individual circumstance is. There are some things that Government…. I mean you can take away the obligation under the law of negligence for a particular activity. But there are some other activities where premiums have gone up, not necessarily because of the litigation disease, there may be some other explanation for it.
MITCHELL:
I suppose it is related. What was your reaction to the sentencing of Rodney Adler and others?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don';t like commenting on individual cases, except to say I believe the law should take its course.
MITCHELL:
Okay we';ll take a call. Jeff go ahead please. Jeff.
CALLER:
Good morning. Good morning Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Jeff.
CALLER:
Just ringing up… conscription, national service. With the tension at the moment heightened, sort of with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and with the terrorism, do we have enough military personnel for our needs?
MITCHELL:
National service, Jeff.
CALLER:
No, well I';m not suggesting that. But our numbers of military people and navy and airforce must be at their lowest ebb they';ve been for many years.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, not necessarily.
MITCHELL:
Do we need more?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I can say this that as recently as a couple of days ago I spoke to the Chief of the Defence Force and he indicated that recruiting interest over the last 18 months had been the best for years. He said overall there's been a renewed interest in the services as a career. We assess that the level we have at the moment is about right. We were able to meet our obligations in East Timor readily. I mean, there are always stretches and strains here and there when you have a big deployment like that. The deployment we have in Afghanistan is, of course, of Special Forces and they are of a limited elite type. There are…you only need a small number them. They are doing a fantastic job and only this morning I read in the paper that the Deputy Defence Secretary in the United States, I think you mentioned it, Paul Wolfowitz, praised them and said that the Americans would have Australians beside them any time they could.
MITCHELL:
Well, is there any appeal to national service to you?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't think there's any need for national service. My view is that I would only support the introduction of national service if there were a clear military need. There is no clear military need. We have not received any advice that we should have it and I don't expect to receive any advice that we should have it.
MITCHELL:
Ian, go ahead please.
CALLER:
Yes, good morning. I just wanted to know whether any of our uranium ends up in either India or Pakistan and if there was a conflict between the two what would Australia's position be?
PRIME MINISTER:
What, you mean, taking sides?
CALLER:
Well, what would our position be.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, our position is that we will move heaven and earth within our capacity to stop it happening. I'm not going to get into the business of who we'd support. I just don't want anything to happen and obviously it's not something we'd ever get involved in directly, of course not, but what we have to do as a friend of both countries is to work very hard and bring what pressure we can to bear and what persuasion we can bring to bear to prevent it occurring.
MITCHELL:
And what about the uranium?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'm not aware that there would be any, I just don't know about that. I doubt it very much.
MITCHELL:
We'll take a break and come back with more for the Prime Minister.
[COMMERCIAL BREAK]
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister, why does the Government want to bring back Australians who have committed crimes and are serving time overseas, why bring them back here to serve time?
PRIME MINISTER:
I guess part of the reason for that is that you might see a certain obligation, in relation to people who remain citizens of this country, for them to serve out their sentences. It does mean that they can have regular access to their relatives.
MITCHELL:
Are they entitled to that [inaudible] country?
PRIME MINISTER:
I know, well, they would only be brought back in circumstances where the authorities in that other country approved of them being brought back.
MITCHELL:
But they'll approve them, they get them off their books and we bring them back here and have to pay for…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I mean, that is an argument. It's one of those things where it's an on balance judgement. If you do have some belief in the concept of rehabilitation and the reabsorption of people in a civilised way into the community, the more contact they have with their family and friends and…
MITCHELL:
We're talking about murderers and paedophiles, we're talking about serious crime.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, yes, we're also talking about people who perhaps have not committed quite as serious set of offences. But it's one of those on-balance judgements and I can understand a lot of people disagreeing with it.
MITCHELL:
But will it happen?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there are some discussions underway, yes.
MITCHELL:
Is it right that only one Afghani has taken up the offer to return for $2000?
PRIME MINISTER:
I had been told it was more than that.
MITCHELL:
How many?
PRIME MINISTER:
Certainly into double figures.
MITCHELL:
Ten. [Inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, no, I was given some information, from recollection, and, look, I am a little hazy on this because I haven't had a discussion with Mr Ruddock for several weeks but I'd been told some weeks ago that it was, I say double figures, I mean, I can't remember the precise figure but certainly a good start but as to what it is now, I would have to ask him.
MITCHELL:
Doctors are beginning to complain about something they say was sort of a hidden nasty in the budget, which wasn't entirely hidden, but this is the monitoring of doctors to see whether they're judged to be over-prescribing certain drugs and therefore patients who get the drugs from that doctor may have to pay more for it. Isn't that really interfering too much with the role of the doctor to prescribe what he thinks is necessary. The example was put to me, if a doctor specialises in a particular area like arthritis, a GP might have a particular interest in arthritis, therefore, he is dispensing a lot of a particular arthritis drug. The Government's saying, no, you can't do that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there's nothing in the monitoring rules that is going to prevent proper allowance being made for that. I understand the point, that it is your predisposition as a doctor because you treat a particular ailment to prescribe a lot of drugs to treat that ailment, that should be taken into account in any monitoring whether you're over-prescribing, there's nothing in the rules that is going to prevent that occurring.
MITCHELL:
So you can tell us that it won't happen.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, look, we are interested to prevent a ready resort to prescribing. I mean, we don't make any apology for that. I mean, I've talked to quite a number of doctors and I've talked to a lot of pharmacists who say that if a little more time was spent encouraging people to make slight adjustments to their lifestyle, be it diet or exercise, then you could reduce the need to prescribe certain drugs and that would have an impact…
MITCHELL:
But that's the role of a doctor not a government.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, it is the role of a doctor. In the end, nothing we're going to do prevents a doctor doing what he or she thinks is right for his or her patient. But you can influence behaviour in a particular direction by government advocacy and the Government drawing the attention of the medical profession and I've seen this happen. And I think it's something we've got to be able to assert. Sometimes it is better for a doctor to say to somebody, well I am not going to prescribe something for you, I'm going to suggest you do a bit more exercise or that you adjust your diet or you stop smoking or you do this or that. Now, I mean, if we are so timid as not to assert that self-evident reality then of course we're going to have a situation where the non-life saving drugs become so expensive that our capacity to fund the critical lifesaving drugs is impaired.
MITCHELL:
Bob Brown is suggesting he may support the full sale of Telstra if you're prepared to stop logging old growth forests, is that a chance?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'm fascinated to hear what he's been saying on this. I picked it up this morning. We're not going to be, as it were, bargained out of good environmental policy or good resource policy but I'm prepared to listen to what Senator Brown has got to put if he gets it through the policy review by his Party. What this indicates and also some remarks made by Shane Murphy, the Independent Senator from Tasmania, indicate that even some of the more strident opponents of the full privatisation of Telstra realise that we cannot go on forever with this half pregnant situation where Telstra is neither fish nor fowl. There';s no way we';re turning back the clock. We';re not going to renationalise the 49%. Nobody';s arguing that. Not even the extreme left wing political position in Australia is arguing that. So in the end at some stage and we argue after we';re completely satisfied with conditions in the bush or facilities in the bush are up to scratch that you then can move to a further privatisation. We haven';t reached that point yet but clearly people are starting, no matter what the strength of their previous opposition has been, people are now starting to turn. And I would say to Senator Brown, and we are happy to listen to you. That doesn';t mean to say that we';re going to agree with your conditions. We';ll listen.
MITCHELL:
Theo Theophanous, brother of Andrew, likened the children overboard affair to the corruption of which his brother';s convicted. What';s your reaction to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is wrong. I don';t want to react unduly sharply to a family member of somebody who';s clearly in the eyes of the law done a very criminal thing and I don';t want to dwell on it because it';s painful for a family. But I regard that analogy as just quite despicable.
MITCHELL:
Is there any Labor Party culpability for what Andrew Theophanous has done?
PRIME MINISTER:
I';m not alleging that for a moment, not for a moment.
MITCHELL:
Do you agree with Michael Kroger that the ABC is biased?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I speak for myself in relation to the ABC, not through Michael or indeed anybody else. I believe in certain of the ABC';s current affairs programs there is a lack of balance. I think it varies. I';ve said before that the Insiders program on Sunday morning is a fine example of a very balanced ABC current affairs program and if the balance in that program were repeated in programs like Lateline you wouldn';t hear me complaining.
MITCHELL:
Do you think that that bias should be addressed by the new Managing Director?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think the new Managing Director has a responsibility to see that the charter of the ABC which includes a commitment to balance in all things is fully implemented.
MITCHELL:
Clearly you believe that charter';s been breached in the past.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I';m very up front about this Neil and I';ve expressed these views on ABC programs. In some ABC programs there is a lack of balance and I';ve cited examples of that, but I also recognise that the ABC in other areas provides a fine public service and I learnt, as a young kid I got most of my sporting information and learnt to appreciate many sports by listening to the ABC so I';ve always seen it as being an important institution in this country and I just wish it could lift its game in relation to balance on some of its programs.
MITCHELL:
Will Peter Costello conduct the next budget?
PRIME MINISTER:
I certainly don';t intend to seek another Treasurer. I think he';s doing a magnificent job.
MITCHELL:
He seems to be hinting at the possibility…..
PRIME MINISTER:
I don';t want to comment on what…..
MITCHELL:
[inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
I picked up pieces here and there but Neil, Peter is a terrific Treasurer, he';s done a great job, and I';m very happy to see him continue in that position.
MITCHELL:
Can you believe that he hasn';t thought about whether he wants to be Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don';t want to comment on that.
MITCHELL:
Why?
PRIME MINISTER:
Because I choose not to.
MITCHELL:
Can you tell us why you choose not to?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don';t have to.
MITCHELL:
I know you don';t have to.
PRIME MINISTER:
You know, free country.
MITCHELL:
That';s like you saying you haven';t thought about retirement. You';ve said well you have, you';re going to consider it.
PRIME MINISTER:
I don';t have anything to add on that matter.
MITCHELL:
Getting a bit dangerous isn';t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don';t have anything to add.
MITCHELL:
We';ll take a quick call. Margaret go ahead please.
CALLER:
Hi Prime Minister. I just wanted to pick you up on a point you made about the drugs and doctors oversubscribing and making money from lifesaving drugs. What about people, I';ve got a daughter who';s got juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, the medication she';s taking it';s not lifesaving but if she wasn';t taking it she certainly wouldn';t be able to be as active as what she is.
PRIME MINISTER:
Please, I';m not criticising that for a moment. I';m saying…. I don';t regard your daughter';s circumstances as you';ve described as being in any way an over prescription. But I';m saying in cases where there is a non drug alternative as part of the treatment, doctors should be encouraged to explore that with their patients. That';s really all the Government is arguing. Now in the case of your daughter, how old is she?
CALLER:
She';s 18 now [inaudible] now but I just think [inaudible]. But what you';re now doing is what the media saying is you';re trying to play God or something because you';ve just made the suggestion…..
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
CALLER:
Yeah. You';ve just made….
PRIME MINISTER:
Not in relation to your daughter I haven';t.
CALLER:
You';ve just made the suggestion that there may be a non-drug medication alluding to a herbal or something or a natural drug that you could take.
PRIME MINISTER:
No I';m not. In the case of somebody like your daughter clearly there wouldn';t be. But there are some cases, for example, where more exercise and a better diet, and this is something that';s been argued in relation to cholesterol, anti cholesterol drugs. That';s the sort of thing I have in mind. Not your daughter';s case.
MITCHELL:
Thank you very much for your time. There';s a theory running around today that you';re trying to keep politics off the front page. Is that right?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. I';m just trying to govern well.
MITCHELL:
Who are you going to support in the World Cup?
PRIME MINISTER:
It';s a bit difficult. My three predictions, I don';t know precisely which order, would be Italy, France and Argentina, although I';ve got a member of the family madly barracking for England.
MITCHELL:
Okay. Thank you very much for speaking to us.
[Ends]