HOST: Prime Minister, thanks for joining us.PM: Thank you, Tony.HOST: Do you think Australian voters will by and large applaud images of asylum seekers being forcibly removed to Malaysia?
PM: Tony, what this is about is smashing the people smugglers' business model. I don't think Australians want to see people risking their lives on a dangerous journey. They certainly don't want to see a repeat of the kind of scenes we saw at Christmas Island around Christmas time when asylum seekers drowned in the water.HOST: Prime Minister, it's about politics too, isn't it? I mean, surely you wouldn't disagree with the proposition that you're trying to neutralise a hot political issue?PM: Tony, what I'm trying to do is send the people smugglers the strongest possible message that they cannot say to people ‘jump on a boat, pay me some money and I'll take you to Australia and your claim will be processed there.'What I'm trying to do is stop this evil trade because I don't want to see people being preyed on and I don't want to see them risking their lives in a boat. I also do want to bring more genuine refugees to this country, and through the arrangement we've entered into with Malaysia, we will bring 4,000 people who have been waiting in Malaysia for an opportunity to start a new life in a new land.HOST: If these people are taken away in handcuffs, in distress, resisting onto that aircraft, do you think Australians will be happy at those kind of scenes?PM: Well, look, how individual people feel about any footage is a question for them, Tony. But my responsibility as Prime Minister is to do what I can to stop people smugglers preying on people, preying on their misery, taking their money and getting them to risk their lives at sea. What this is about is smashing the people smugglers' business model.HOST: If some of these people are potentially vulnerable - which is the great fear of the UNHCR: that they'll be vulnerable in Malaysia - how will you be able to assess that within such a short period of time, 72 hours?PM: Tony, on the position of the UNHCR, what we've always said is that the UNHCR has been involved in the discussions which led to this arrangement with Malaysia and they will be involved in the implementation.And what we've said consistently is that there will be no blanket exemptions. There are no blanket exemptions. There will be pre-transfer assessments and they will be undertaken properly by the relevant officials.
HOST: Are there any children in this group? If so, how many and are any of them unaccompanied?PM: The Minister for Immigration will deal with all of the details here. Tony, my understanding is that there are some children in the group. Obviously officials will need to work through to ascertain who's who on the boat and also which are family groups and who is accompanied.HOST: Let's look at what happens briefly when they get to Malaysia. Under the deal, Australia will be paying to house and feed these people, along with their health care and the education of their children. Is that time-limited?PM: Tony, we've released all of the figures and the commitments here. When the Minister for Immigration and I first announced this package, we said $76 million would be devoted over the Government's budget period, that is the four-year of the forward estimates, to making the necessary arrangements for the transfer to Malaysia, so that's the costs of the transfer and of providing some support for the people who have been transferred.Then the balance of almost $300 million is the costs associated with taking 4,000 genuine refugees from Malaysia and resettling them here. As you would know, Tony, we have a refugee resettlement program.We're a generous nation, we take people in need from around the world. That does have costs, and if you're going to take 4,000 more, then you need to make appropriate provisions for those costs-HOST: -I don't mean to interrupt you. I mean, we know that the people who come here will be taken care of; the big question is what happens to the people sent to Malaysia.Evidently their health care and the education of their children is part of the arrangement. And I'm asking how long for? Is there a time limit? Will it be one year, two years, 10 years?PM: Well, for the persons who are taken to Malaysia, they will then be able to have their claims processed by UNHCR and they will have some services provided to them by the International Organisation of Migration.The cost of us supporting all of this is the $76 million that I've referred to. There are around 90,000 asylum seekers in Malaysia and these people returned will take their place alongside those 90,000 asylum seekers.Their claims will be processed. If they're genuine refugees, then, alongside the other genuine refugees in Malaysia, they will wait for a resettlement opportunity. If they are not genuine refugees, then arrangements will be made to return them to their country of origin.HOST: So very briefly, just on that point: they'll be cut loose once they're processed by the UNHCR from Australian responsibility-PM: -No, no - no, that's not what I've said, Tony, and that's not right. We have said we will provide some continuing support through UNHCR and IOM for persons transferred, so no, Tony, there's not a time limit on that, but what I was trying to explain to you was what would happen to the people in Malaysia.
So they would be processed by UNHCR. They may not be refugees, in which case they would be returned to their country of origin. If they are genuine refugees, then alongside the 90,000 other asylum seekers and refugees in Malaysia, they'd take their place looking for a resettlement opportunity.HOST: Alright, let's move on to other issues. Australia's heading for a demographic and budgetary crisis as the baby boomers retire from the workforce, and now the aged care industry is saying you need to shift to a user pays model. Do you agree with that?PM: Well, Tony, I spoke on these matters a bit earlier today and I confirmed that on Monday we will release the Productivity Commission report on caring for older Australians.The point I made today is that we really have two generations of older Australians. We have people who are retired now, living longer, many of them lived through the days of World War II, and they are a generation with certain outlooks and attributes.Then we have the baby boomers moving into retirement phase, and we know because they changed what it meant to be young and they've changed what it's meant to be a family and adult relationships, they've had a big impact on society and its views, that they will change what it means to be an older Australian.And across each of these demographic groups, I view older Australians as an asset to be valued, but we need to make sure that as a nation we are supporting them, providing security, making sure no-one gets left behind and also providing them with more choice and control over their lives as older Australians than perhaps the system has provided them in the past. And we do need to make sure that the financing is fair and sustained.HOST: Alright.PM: Tony, when we announced the Productivity Commission report-HOST: -Can I just ask you about the financing issue, because-PM: -Sure.
HOST: Just to get to the point the aged care industry is talking about? Are we likely to see a system where old people are forced to commit equity currently held in their family homes to pay for their care?PM: Tony, what you're going to see is precisely this: the final Productivity Commission report you'll see on Monday. You will not see a government policy response at that time.We will release the final Productivity Commission report, and I suspect that there will then be and there should be and I will be encouraging a national debate on aging and caring for older Australians.Out of that debate the Government will appropriately respond, so we will work through the Minister, Mark Butler will be out there strongly engaged and consulting.HOST: OK, but can we rule out for example certain things, like the-PM: -Oh, Tony, I'm not going to play rule in, rule out games against a Productivity Commission report that hasn't been released yet.HOST: Well there has been reporting, for example, about the use of reverse mortgages to help pay for things like this which eat up the equity in people's houses.PM: Tony, you can-HOST: I mean, that's something you could rule out now. If there's going to be debate about it, let's start the debate now.PM: Tony, I'm not playing a rule-in, rule-out game against a Productivity Commission report that hasn't been released yet. That report will be released on Monday in its final form.HOST: Joe Hockey last night threatened to axe the Department of Climate Change if he won government because it had been providing, he says, false data on the cost of the Coalition's direct action policy. What would happen if he carried out that threat?PM: Well, isn't this what we've come to expect from the Opposition? If you don't like what scientists say, then get in there and criticise the scientists.If you don't like what Australian economists say, then get out there and criticise Australian economists.Now, when professional public servants say things that the Opposition doesn't like, they threaten their jobs.Where this leaves the Liberal Party is that their policy proposition for the Australian people is, ‘we're going to have a big slush fund. We, the Liberal Party, are going to have a big slush fund, we're going to give that big slush fund to polluters and we're not even going to have any professional public servants to provided advice about how to do this.'Presumably, Tony Abbott's just going to sit down with Joe Hockey and a big bucket of money and chuck it wherever they think they can.HOST: But why is the Department of Climate Change being used to model the costs of a Coalition policy? I mean, that sounds like you're putting public servants in the middle of a very fierce public policy debate.PM: I believe the Australian people are entitled to information about policy propositions in the national debate. I think that's a good thing. I think they should be able to look at the Government's policy and plans and see how it adds up and stacks up, see what the Treasury modelling is, see what it means for them.They're also entitled to see what it is that the Opposition is saying to the Australian people and the costs of that.HOST: You've promised to close down the dirty coal-fired power generator in Victoria's Latrobe Valley.Mr Hockey says he might actually support you on this if you replace the coal-fired power generator with a gas generator, which of course would be logical because you could actually use the same location where there's a coal-fired power generator to put a cleaner one.The people working there would then have jobs to replace the jobs they would likely lose. So why not seek bipartisanship on this issue and go down that path?PM: Tony, I don't like to correct you, but you've misconstrued the Government's policy.What the Government has said is that we will have a tender process where we will say to coal-fired power stations, to the people who generate energy with the most emissions ‘come forward and offer a contract for closure.'We will go through a tender process and then we will select what is the best value for money to reduce emissions, and of course any closure process would have to happen over a period of time so that we had energy security and certainty and we would have a structural adjustment process for any affected region.So, we haven't picked a power station; that isn't right. Now I've said - precisely those words that I've just said to you - I've said that to concerned power workers in the Latrobe Valley who work at Hazelwood and I'll say it to anybody who asks me about our policy.The problem with talking to the Opposition about all of this is you'd need, Tony, to tell me who I should speak to. Should I speak to Andrew Robb, who says that they want to close a power station and in fact the Government's stolen their policy; or should I speak to Tony Abbott, who went down to the Latrobe Valley and promised people that the Coalition wouldn't close any power stations?Who would you suggest I speak to, Tony, given that they've got diametrically different views, pursuing, as they do, a different message for different audiences? They never say the same thing twice, they just say what they think people want to hear and then hope they don't get caught out on the contradictions.HOST: We've got a few other issues to deal with. On the issue of high-speed rail, after the BER and NBN, does your government really have the energy to try to create another giant infrastructure project in Australia that could cost up to $100 billion, according to some estimates?PM: Tony, let's just be clear about what we've done. Australians, I think, have talked and thought about high-speed rail for a long period of time. I think many Australians over cups of coffee and maybe a few drinks as well have talked about ‘wouldn't it be good to have high-speed rail and we could have the trains run here and the trains run there.'Well, we have published a document which informs that national conversation. I think it helps get a sense of perspective into that national conversation about the costs of this, and, yes, there are very considerable costs.So the information is out there. The Minister for Transport and Infrastructure has released this information. We think that as people consider the merits and opportunities of high-speed rail, they should have the facts and figures in front of them.HOST: Yes, but we keep having conversations without outcomes. We want to know - I guess the public wants to know when the outcomes will appear, when will you make a decision on whether you close down Hazelwood? When will you make a decision on where you're building and when you're building high-speed rail?PM: Oh, well, Tony, I can't agree with your question, and really, frankly, I think that's a little bit of an odd analysis in Australian politics. What we said to people at the last election is we understand you want more information about high-speed rail, we'll do a study and release it. That was our election commitment, and we've done it.On pricing carbon, well, Tony, we couldn't have had more action on putting the policy proposition together; it's out there for all to see, including the tender process in relation to closing dirty coal-fired power stations.And then of course, as a government, we've acted on a series of other fronts. The Malaysia arrangement that you and I have just spoken about, the health reforms that I've announced recently, the opportunity and participation package out of the federal budget, the mental health package out of the federal budget, the reconstruction of the nation through the flood levy and other financing mechanisms, the structural separation of Telstra and the rollout of the NBN, and the list goes on.So I said this year was a year of decision and delivery and it has been. We continue to decide on big questions and deliver, but of course there are also topics where it pays to go out to the community and say ‘we believe these are things that are on your mind and we're interested in your views.'We're going to make some big decisions for the nation's future about questions of aging and questions of dealing with Australians with disabilities and making sure they get the services they need. Going out to consult the public is the right thing to do in those circumstances, Tony, and we will.HOST: OK. Alright. We're nearly out of time. You met with News Limited editors just the other night. Senior Labor figures say Murdoch is at war with your government. Is it true you called for a truce?PM: Tony, I went to an editors' meeting. Prime ministers, opposition leaders have talked to such meetings in the past. I went at the invitation of John Hartigan.It was a good discussion, it was a broad-ranging discussion, it was also a private meeting, and so it's not my intention to go through the topics discussed there, but you would expect, as Prime Minister, when I go and meet with fellow Australians, I talk about my vision for this country's future and my policies and plans.HOST: You said that News Limited had some serious questions to answer. Did you ask those questions at that meeting?PM: Well, as I've just said, it was a private meeting and, Tony, I've been asked about this-
HOST: -I'm only asking if you asked the questions; I haven't even asked what they are.PM: Tony, I've been asked on these questions publicly. I've made publicly the very simple point - and I genuinely do think it is a very simple point - when we see something big happen overseas - and we've seen of course the News of the World telephone hacking scandal - when we see something big happen overseas, then those things influence the discussions and questions that people are asking here.HOST: Just briefly on that, do those questions warrant a new inquiry into the concentration of media ownership in Australia?PM: And what I've said on that, Tony, is when Parliament resumes, I understand there'll be people who'll want to raise the issue with me and I'll have a conversation with them then.HOST: So, there could be an inquiry into media ownership in Australia?PM: Tony, what I've said is some parliamentarians want to raise an issue with me, when Parliament resumes, I'll have the discussion with them then.HOST: Julia Gillard, I've learnt not to pursue those questions without getting the same answer over and over and over again, so, we'll leave you there. We thank you for much for taking the time to join us tonight.PM: Thanks, Tony.