JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, the ONA issued a statement today talking about the intelligence that they had on Bali specifically a year before the Bali bombing. Does that contradict anything that the Government has said to you?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. In fact, it reinforces what the Government has said. What ONA said this morning was that nobody in the Indonesian section has any recollection of that... recollection of Mr Wilkie's last night - now that's ONA speaking, it's not me - and they reinforced the fact that there was no intelligence predicting an attack on Bali.
JOURNALIST:
Given that that report was issued a year before though, shouldn't have alarm bells been ringing?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I could say to you that a certain part of Sydney would be an attractive terrorist target, but if I don't have any intelligence I hardly tell people not to use that facility.
JOURNALIST:
What do you... what would you describe then as [inaudible] inquiry?
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon?
JOURNALIST:
What would you describe as the worth of an inquiry into such [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the Opposition wants an inquiry into the question of weapons of mass destruction existing or a capacity existing in Iraq before the war. My response to that is that it's too early to be doing that because you haven't given the inspection process a proper opportunity. They are doing it for purely political reasons. They opposed what we did. Everybody knows that and they're now trying to discredit what the Government did. Now... and they're entitled to do that, but I'm entitled to point out that they are behaving in a completely opportunistic and totally political fashion.
JOURNALIST:
How long should we wait then for such an inquiry?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think you do need to allow more time to go by so that the proper inspection process can proceed and can proceed effectively. Okay.
[ends]