DOYLE: Kevin Rudd, good morning to you.
PM: Good morning.
DOYLE: Thanks for coming in. I've got a couple of questions I want to throw at you from topics today before I get to Steve and Ray, they are waiting. The papers today, claiming that you're going to seek a double dissolution on health as a trigger for an early election - are they right?
PM: We've got an election due in 2010. Three years is up at the end of the year. Private health insurance rebate is before the Parliament again because it's a big budgetary measure. I think it adds up over time to about a $100 billion slug over time and we need to use that for other investments in the public hospital system, for example, for big reform. And this only affects the very highest bracket of income earners.
Now, as for election timing, what form an election takes, well let's wait and see. My intention, as I've said many, many times is for our Government to serve its full term. But let's just see how this one unfolds. My attitude overall, though, is people want governments to serve their full terms.
DOYLE: OK, but we know the Opposition's going to block it.
PM: Well let's just see what they do. I mean this is a huge budgetary measure, it's a lot of money and I would much rather have that to invest in the public hospital needs of our country. And as I said, this leaves the vast majority of those on private health insurance completely alone. It only affects a very, very small number of people at the upper end of the income range.
So let's just see what the Senate does, but this is an important part of overall health and hospital reform. You've got to use that money to deal with the challenges in our accident and emergency, our elective surgery, and all those things which people want.
DOYLE: Ok so will health be a major election issue and if so, have you done enough to impress. Just this morning for example, we're hearing stories 100,000 people in New South Wales alone last year waited up to an hour to be seen in hospitals, despite being rushed there by ambulances.
PM: Well my attitude to that is it's just not good enough. That's one of the reasons in just two years in office for the first time the Australian Government has put in three quarters of a billion dollars directly into accident and emergency. So right across Australia at the moment there's probably 37 or so hospitals where this investment's going in to expand the capacity of accident and emergencies. That's what we've just done in two years, but there's much, much, more to go. And on your broader question, health and hospitals, that is a huge challenge for our future - aging of the population, the pressure on state budgets to actually fund this stuff, and the numbers you've just referred to before, are just not good enough.
DOYLE: Ok but we know all of that. We've heard all of that for many, many years. You did promise to have hospitals -
PM: No, you haven't heard that for many, many years. The Australian Government -
DOYLE: OK, but we know there's pressure -
PM: Hang on, Mel, Mel, Mel - for the first time the Australian Government is funding, directly, hospitals to increase their accident and emergency capacity. Two years ago that didn't happen. So we have put in $750 million, 37 hospitals across the country, you ring up some of them and ask what's been added, I've been around the country and inspected - it is one big step in the right direction. But there are 750 hospitals in Australia. The total number with accident and emergency departments I don't have off the top of my head, but we will be making a big difference in this area as well.
DOYLE: OK, let's go to Steven Jaeger. He runs a small business that imports foil insulation. The use of foil insulation, of course, has now been suspended by your Government following the deaths of four people. So Steve, good morning to you. What is your question to the Prime Minister?
CALLER: Good morning Mr Rudd.
PM: G'day, Steve. How are you?
CALLER: Good, thank you. Our small business has spent a lot of money importing foil insulation and it passes all your Government's standards. We'd like to know what the Government will do to help our small business now that the foil insulation has been suspended and all the bad publicity about our products. Our installers have received several phone calls now to have our foil insulation removed and have batts put in, so we'd like to know what the Government is going to do about that?
PM: Thank you Steve, for your question. You're right, the standards concerning foil insulation being used in roofs goes back to 2002. That's how long that standard has been in for the quality of product to be used in roofs, and I understand from what officials have told me that this foil insulation material has been used right back from the 1950s.
However, in response to advice to Peter Garrett's department, they've decided to, first of all suspend or ban the use of metal fasteners and subsequently of foil itself.
The reason we're doing that Steve, and I know it's really tough, is to put an absolute premium on safety. Now, on the specific circumstances concerning your business and the people that you're employing, can I make simply, this undertaking to you, that Minister Garrett's department will get onto you in the days ahead to see what practical arrangements can be put in place given your circumstances.
Our number one priority is safety and security. You're right to point to the fact that the standards have existed for a long, long time, but let's get to the bottom of the details in your business.
DOYLE: But can I interrupt on behalf of Steve and hopefully that will start. But you say practical measures, I mean, Steve is not alone, he's got half a million dollars' worth of product sitting there, he's got people calling up saying 'take it out of our roofs'. Would something like compensation work for businesses such as Steve's?
PM: Let's look through the individual details of each of these firms. Remember, through this program we have provided employment and business opportunities for 7,500 businesses across Australia, we've had more than a million homes have various forms of insulation put into the roofs and a proportion of that has been foil. Let's work through the detail of each individual business. I think that's the right and responsible thing to do. Steve, all I can say is that the Minister's department will be onto you direct and through the industry association as well.
I know this is a difficult and hard time. We're dealing with some implementation difficulties with the program. They are real. There are problems, but let's work through them and let's deal with the individual circumstances of your business.
DOYLE: Alright, so you'll get back to every individual one that's in the same situation. Let us know, too. Drop us an email and we'll obviously pass those details on to Peter Garrett's office. Now the other one, we've got a viewer question from Ray, Ray Dargavel in Queensland. Ray, good morning to you. You're up.
CALLER: Good morning, good morning, Prime Minister. How are you?
PM: Good, Ray.
CALLER: Thank you. Prior to the last election, one of your vote-grabbing promises was to take legal action against the Japanese for their illegal slaughter of our whales. Now, nearly three years on, you're still sitting on your hands. And the only thing you're doing is rolling out that very tired diplomatic excuse, which really is polly speak for doing nothing as far as most people are concerned. My question is when are you going to take an active approach, and when are you going to give us a timeline by which you will take legal action against the Japanese to stop this illegal slaughter?
PM: Well let me be absolutely blunt with you Ray, in terms of dealing with the challenge of getting rid of commercial whaling in the Southern Ocean, and particularly in the Australian Whale Sanctuary - we oppose it. What we've said we've done for the last two years is work diplomatically with the Japanese to try and get them to agree to an outcome. Specifically, what we're putting to the Japanese is to take where they are now, which is the slaughter of some hundreds of whales each year and reduce that to zero. If we don't get that as a diplomatic agreement, let me tell you, we'll be going to the International Court of Justice.
Secondly, on the timeline question which you asked about, can I say this to you Ray - if we don't reach a landing point with the Japanese diplomatically, that action will occur well before the commence of the next whaling season, which is this November, OK?
So, we have put ourselves onto a timeline, we're working it through with the Japanese, but if they don't come at this agreement to reduce to zero, we will initiate that action.
DOYLE: Alright well, can I jump in? Can I play for you a grab from you, the 20th May 2007.
PM CLIP: It's time that Australia got serious when it comes to the slaughter of whales, particularly the slaughter of whales in the Australian Whale Sanctuary. What we will do in Government is to take Japan and other countries as necessary to court in the International Court of Justice to bring a stop to this practice of whale slaughter.
DOYLE: So the Oceanic Viking went there in early '08. At the end of that year your Minister said that you'd gathered enough evidence to take it to court, so know you're still telling me we're still taking evidence, to take it to court?
PM: No, no, we've collected evidence through that. The reason we sent the vessel that year was to actually put together the pictures, the photographs and all the film evidence that you need to substantiate a court action. Then, secondly, with the Japanese - and there have been three Japanese Governments since then - is to work with the Japanese to reduce, through negotiation, their current catch to zero.
If that fails, and I'm saying this very bluntly and very clearly on your program today - if that fails, then we will initiate that court action before the commencement of the whaling season in November 2010.
Now, that is a direct honouring of the commitment I gave to the Australia people. And that is the right to handle it with a friend and partner which is Japan which is also a very significant, long-standing economic partner as well. But, that's the bottom line, and we're very clear to the Japanese that's what we intend to do.
DOYLE: Ok, and also, before I let you go, last week truckie Steven Foster, you might remember, was talking about the Pacific Highway, offered to take you on a bit of a road trip so you could have a look at it for yourself. Are you going off with him, going for a ride?
PM: Not sure I've got all that time available this time, Steve, but you asked about the upgrade of the Pacific - good question. We should have, based on the investments we've agreed to already, have 70 per cent of the Pacific Highway duplicated by '13-'14. That is based on the investments we currently have in the system.
When we came to office, only 50 per cent of the Pacific Highway was duplicated. We've trebled our investment in the Pacific Highway. And we're going to have to invest more to hit the 2016 target of full duplication.
But you something, there's 102km of road being worked on now. There is $3.1 billion of investment going into it. I mentioned last week I think Kempsey, but there's Bulahdelah, there's a whole series of other places as well, and Ballina bypass.
DOYLE: So, will you invest more?
PM: We put it through the Budget process, but we have that as our 2016 objective. 70 percent's not bad, it's a stepping stone there. I want to get it done Mel, but it's going to take some more money.
DOYLE: Alright, thank you for coming in this morning.
PM: It's good to be here. I'm still recovering from that cow that bobbed up just before.
DOYLE: Yes, well, you know, it'll keep you on your toes on a Friday morning. Thank you to our viewers, too, that sent in all those questions, and keep them coming.