Subject:
Brian Burke; uranium; pensions; David Hicks; forestry
E&OE...
WOOLEY:
Good morning, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Charles. Very good to talk to you again.
WOOLEY:
Now, not only is it my mum's 90th, but it's your 11th anniversary in power and what a gift Brian Burke and Kevin Rudd have handed you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is 11 years yes. The 2nd of March 1996, and a lot has happened in that 11 years. But the best thing, in a way, is that we now have the lowest unemployment rate in Australia for 32 years and there are many things of which I am proud, but I don't think anything tops that because in the end the best thing that you can do with good economic policy is to give as many people as possible jobs and I really am very, very happy that we have been able to get unemployment down to four and a half per cent. Now having said all of that, there's still a lot more to be done, particularly in rural and regional Australia with things like water.
WOOLEY:
Yeah well in the course of our discussion this morning, and I am sure people who are calling in will also make that point, that regional Australia has its own distinctive problems. If I can just talk the big picture for a moment; Kevin Rudd and Brian Burke, it was quite a gift they gave you. You don't get too many free kicks in politics do you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's more than just a free kick, it's more than just the politics of the day, it does demonstrate a very serious error of judgement, a lack of experience on Mr Rudd's part. He can hardly say he didn't know the gun was loaded, so to speak. I mean, he did know who Brian Burke was. I mean it's disingenuous to say oh I didn't know about this, I didn't know about that. I mean he's the bloke who was demanding that Alexander Downer and Mark Vaile recall the detail of, every detail of thousands of cables that had been sent to their office in relation to AWB. I think it is disingenuous and I think most interestingly this morning Graham Edwards on Radio National, the man at whose invitation allegedly he went along to these three meetings, Graham Edwards confirmed what we had suggested and that is that this was about Mr Rudd building popularity and support in Western Australia, and this is what he said.