HOST: Prime Minister Kevin Rudd joins me now. Good morning to you.
PM: Good morning Mel.
HOST: Gee, timing. You're five days out from releasing the budget, things seem to be going along quite swimmingly, markets were settling, now this. What effect will this have on the budget? Will you have to do a rethink?
PM: Mel, we have been very mindful of what's been going on in international financial markets over quite some months now. Our Treasury officials have been monitoring, very carefully, what's been happening in Greece. I've spoken about this in a number of recent speeches I've made on the economy.
We believe that the two big messages out of what's happening globally is this, One, coordinated global action to deal with financial problems in Greece and other European countries. We have the G20 Summit coming up next month in Canada. I imagine this will be clearly on the agenda there. But nationally, within Australia, the key thing is this, the International Monetary Fund has said we must continue to implement the remainder of stimulus strategies in Australia and other countries because we are not out of the global crisis yet. But secondly, have a clear path back to budget surplus. That is the strategy we have been embracing over a long period of time. That will be reflected on Budget night as well.
HOST: So those of us that might been expecting you to wind up the stimulus, you probably won't, could we be seeing a GFC Mark 2 and therefore the need for more stimulus payments?
PM: Well can I just say, Mel, that the International Monetary Fund only a few weeks ago was very clear on this. It said that when it came to its member states, including Australia, that the remaining elements of what we have by way of the stimulus strategy should be implemented and, in part, they are mindful of the fragility of the global economic recovery. Our own stimulus strategy peaked in the second quarter last year, nearly nine to 12 months ago and has been coming down ever since.
But the other thing is this - just to be very, very mindful of the need to, as I said yesterday in a speech to the Melbourne Press Club, mindful of charting a clear path to return to surplus. We announced our fiscal rules to do that in the last Budget. You'll see those rules implemented in this Budget as well.
HOST: Alright, as we said, a lot to take into account, five days to absorb it all. I've got a viewer question for you this morning. Bob has written into us and he asks us to play an advertisement to you which ran during the last election.
[CLIP PLAYS]
HOWARD: Who do you trust to keep interest rates low?
VOICEOVER: We've now had six rate rises since Mr Howard promised to keep them at record lows. His response?
HOWARD: Australian families have never been better off.
VOICEOVER: Authorised T Gartrell, ALP, Canberra.
HOST: So Bob asked us to play that. Now John Howard ended up with six rate rises during his last term in office, you're now up to eight. Bob, our viewer says that you're being a little hypocritical. He says did you mislead voters into thinking rates wouldn't rise so often under your leadership?
PM: Well Mel, can I just say, that's wrong on both counts. The first is in the period that Mr Howard was the Prime Minister leading up the last election there were 10 interest rate rises in a row, that's just the first point. But the second is this. I said it was completely irresponsible for Mr Howard then to make any public commitment to keeping interest rates at record lows and I would refuse to make any such commitment myself and I did not provide such a commitment prior to the last election. The key thing though is this - when you've got the sort of volatility that we've seen in global financial markets and the global economy, it's really important, absolutely important to be maintaining a prudent policy of economic management. We've had an interest rate rise this week from the Reserve Bank. But I'd draw your attention to the fact that rates now still are two and quarter per cent points lower than when Mr Howard left office and that's something like $500 less in difference in terms of an average repayment on an average mortgage.
HOST: Alright, well that was a question from Bob. Polling, gee there's been a bit of polling lately, your popularity has taken a bit of a battering. We had a marketing expert on the show yesterday who said that voters don't know your brand any more. Jane Caro was speaking and she says that they don't know what you stand for. Just have a listen to this.
[CLIP PLAYS]
CARO: Well, the first thing I would do is look really seriously at what he's going to do about climate change. I think that that's the major promise he made to the public, the major reason people lost faith with John Howard and he's got to tackle that in some way and also I think he's got to come out with some principles, what he believes in. What he stands for. And be prepared not to back away from them. He's got to prove that to us.
HOST: So, we've got a few broken promises, we've got some policy back flips. Malcolm Turnbull says a leader needs to have guts to stand up for what he believes in. How do you address perception and questions that you've become a little wobbly?
PM: On the question of pollsters Mel, every time an opinion poll has come out in the more than three years that I've been leader of the Parliamentary Labor Party, I've never got into a discussion about what they mean because, frankly, my job is to act in the national interest. Sometimes decisions are going to be popular, other times, less so.
Let's go down to a couple of things though that the Government has done. We committed, prior to the last election, to bring about a fundamental reform of the health and hospital system whereby the buck would stop with me. What we've now negotiated is a reform to the health and hospital system whereby for the first time in history, we the Australian Government are the dominant funder of the hospital system of Australia, delivering better health, better hospitals, for working families. That's a fundamental commitment that we made.
You raised the topic of climate change, let me go to it. On the question of climate change, what changed in December last year, and you mentioned Mr Turnbull before, is that the bipartisan support we needed to get an emissions trading scheme through the Senate evaporated because Mr Abbott politically assassinated Mr Turnbull and turned on its complete head the support that the Liberals had provided up until that stage.
Now you could wish that you could get legislation through the Senate now but you can't because the Liberals on the one hand voted it down and the Greens on the other hand voted it down. That's why we've said what we've said about the action on climate change and in the meantime, we'll get on with implementing a very fundamental renewable energy plan for Australia.
HOST: Alright, we've kind of, I guess, covered that. I must say, the Soapbox doesn't reflex what you're saying on that one but I'll leave that one for another day. I've got another view this morning, Jesse Rob is a year eleven student in Ipswich and he's got a question for you. So Jesse, it's all yours.
JESSE: Good morning Prime Minister.
PM: G'day Jesse.
JESSE: My question to you today is, during your election period in 2007 understand that you had promised, or guaranteed that all, if not most, senior students in high school would receive a federally government paid for laptop. My question is, will this promise be kept and if so, when will this promise start to be in motion?
PM: Well, thanks very much for your question. We do believe in the importance of computers in schools because it's all about the digital revolution of the future that we need. Our commitment prior to the last election was, by the end of 2011 to have a computer for every secondary school student in Australia from year 9 to year 12. So how have we gone so far? We've calculated that to meet that commitment we need something like three-quarters of a million computers in schools. So far, I think what I heard from the education department the other day, we'd rolled out 250,000 of those. We're about one-third of the way there. The Budget to deliver the rest is already in the education department and so we've got about 18 months to go to complete the implementation of that commitment. But we intend to do it, every single last computer.
HOST: Alright I'm sure that lots of viewers will hold you accountable for that one. Jesse, thank you very much for your question, that was great. A year 11 student with a long way to go. Prime Minister, we are out of time so can I get a yes/no answer on this final question. Senator Cory Bernardi, Liberal Senator, saying we should ban the burqa in Australia.
PM: Not government policy, no advice from any law enforcement agency that this is been recommended by them. I note Cory Bernardi is Mr Abbott's Parliamentary Secretary. He goes out there and says that's what he wants to do. Mr Abbott then says it's not their policy. I think they're walking both side of the street.
HOST: Thank you very much for that. Alright, good to talk to you. Thank you, we'll see you next week.
PM: Thank you.