LAWS:
And our Prime Minister is in the Canberra studio, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, John.
LAWS:
Good to talk to you. When did you reach the decision? Was it a flash decision? Were you sitting at dinner or something?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it wasn't a flash decision. It's one that I came to over a period of time. I, obviously, very closely consulted my wife and my three children and one or two other people who I seek advice from. I listened to quite a number of people. I came the to the view that there seemed to be a sentiment in the parliamentary party and the party organisation and in the broader community that I should continue and given that my health is good, that I still feel very engaged and very committed and very interested, and I've still got plenty of things I want to do, and came to the conclusion that while ever it was in the best interest of the Party - and that's a judgement that you've got to make from time to time - and my colleagues wanted me to, then I'd be very happy to continue. And I decided, I guess, last week that a good time to deal with the matter would be early this week. I was never attracted to the idea of making an announcement at the Liberal Party Convention - that seemed a little too...
LAWS:
Predictable, everybody...
PRIME MINISTER:
Predictable, presidential, pretentious. And having decided on it, I thought I owed a courtesy to my Liberal Party colleagues to tell them first because after all, I am the leader and therefore the Prime Minister because my Liberal Party colleagues have chosen me and the position I hold is their gift, it's not my right and I'm always accountable and answerable to them.
LAWS:
What did Mr Costello say when you told him?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I don't want to go into the details of our conversation, we talked for about an hour yesterday morning at 9.30 and then we went to the party room the following day.... I'm sorry, Monday morning, it's now Wednesday, Monday morning we spoke at 9.30 and then the following morning we went to the party room. Peter, understandably, has expressed some disappointment, I respect that and I understand that fully. We should be adult and realistic about these things, people are entitled to have ambition, we encourage ambition as part of our political philosophies. So it'd be very surprising if I of all people criticise or have reservations about ambition in other people - I had plenty of ambition and he's got a perfect right to have ambition. But I, you know, formed a view and we talked about it but as to the details of that discussion I owe it to him and he owes it to me to keep a confidentiality.
LAWS:
Have you made any commitment to him about the future?
PRIME MINISTER:
We haven't made any deals, we never have. I don't think that we have a right anyway because it's not my position to hand to anybody, it's my position as a gift from the Liberal Party and when I surrender it, it'll be their decision as to who gets it. I have no doubt that the next Leader of the Liberal Party will be Peter Costello - I'm sure of that.
LAWS:
Are you now committed to taking the party to another election?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well John, what I've said is I'll continue to lead - and I haven't put a time limit on that - I'll continue to lead while ever it's in the Party's best interests and they want me to and obviously, if those conditions continue to obtain that includes through to the next election, obviously.
LAWS:
Okay. What did you make of Peter Costello borrowing from your reply from 1984 when asked about a leadership challenge?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think it was a good reply then and I thought it was a good reply now - I told him that yesterday.
LAWS:
You didn't see anything ominous in it?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I think it's a perfectly understandable thing to say. I mean, he has been very loyal and committed and dedicated to the Liberal Party, as I have been, and I didn't think there was anything unexceptional about it and I think it's a natural thing for somebody in his position to say. I mean, I think we have to be adult about these things, people who've had ambition and achieved their ambition should understand ambition in others and should respect it.
LAWS:
Oh, I think most people do.
PRIME MINISTER:
And I do. I want people to have ambition, I want people to have ambition in their own lives - I don't just mean in political parties. I mean, we are a nation built on the ambitions of millions and if we ever somehow or other say people have to stifle their ambitions, I mean, we all have to direct our ambitions but people are quite entitled to have ambitions and not only in political parties.
LAWS:
And do you believe that they are quite entitled to have expectations?
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon?
LAWS:
Are they quite entitled to have expectations?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we all have expectations and in the end, it's all about performance, in the end it's all about what you can contribute. And the Liberal Party has won three elections, the Liberal Party is now working to win a fourth, it will be very hard. And I do want to take this opportunity of saying to everybody that winning the next election is going to be very hard for the Liberal Party and if anybody out there thinks that I take the next election for granted, that I've somehow or other deluded myself into believing that I'm unbeatable, the answer is definitely in the negative on both counts. It's imminently possible for the Labor Party to win the next election. We will have to work very hard to beat them. The Labor Party has great resilience, they will get their act together eventually.
LAWS:
Yes, I wonder how long?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't know. I mean, that is a matter for them, I'm not going to give any gratuitous advice has to who should be the Leader of the Labor Party.
LAWS:
No, I wasn't going to ask you.
PRIME MINISTER:
I mean, it's self-serving, what ever I say will be seen as self-serving. But I do know enough about Australia political history to recognise that every election is different from the previous one, every election is hard to win and anybody in my position who thinks that the next election is a walkover or a foregone conclusion is almost by experience and by definition doomed to lose it.
LAWS:
Who would you rather confront, Simon Crean or Kim Beazley?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, that implies that I've got an observation. I make the observation that I have faced Mr Beazley on two occasions.
LAWS:
And beaten him.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. I mean, everybody knows that.
LAWS:
Now that things have settled, now that the war is over, now that the travelling around the world will probably settle down for a little while, 9/11 is well behind us, perhaps we may return to a sort of normality in Australia, I trust we do. Are you concerned about the feelings among some voters that your Government has become a dishonest Government and this will now be discussed because of the other larger issues having gone?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think we're a Government, like any other Government, is criticises on certain things. You say we've become, in the eyes of some, a dishonest Government. I don't find that as a broad feeling in the community.
LAWS:
No I don't find it is a broad feeling.
PRIME MINISTER:
I mean some people will always think that of us, but...
LAWS:
I get the impression...
PRIME MINISTER:
It's not a valid charge.
LAWS:
Well, isn't it?
PRIME MINISTER:
No it's not.
LAWS:
There has been no dishonesty?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well John, there have been... I mean take children overboard. I mean, it's old ground but you know, bear in mind the facts. The facts are that we were given information, we reported it, I certainly never received any repudiation of that information, full stop. That's my position.
LAWS:
Okay. Does the issue of the weapons of mass destruction present problems for you? Because it appears they're non existent.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think people should hold their fire on that judgement.
LAWS:
Yeah, well I think they should too.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think people should just hold their fire. I think it is far, far too early for people to be making that judgement and even on the information now available, you can't gainsay the discovery of those two trailers, which clearly were connected with biological weapons. I would counsel a little patience and restraint on the part of people who are jumping too quickly to conclusions. Can I say this, that we got intelligence information, at no stage was there any political massaging of that. I was very careful when I made statements to Parliament - I made several formal statements to Parliament - that what I said about the intelligence and the existence of weapons of mass destruction, that was run past the relevant agency. And I didn't add things in, I didn't pressure them at any time. And the Office of National Assessments for example remains confident in the judgement that it delivered to the Government before the war started.
LAWS:
There is a view that William Deane spoke for a lot of people when he made his comments last week, strange though they may have been, and certainly critical of the Government.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well William Deane is perfectly entitled as a private citizen to express any views he likes on anything, and I didn't agree with him and I thought his very wide-ranging attack on the Government was flawed. And just as he is free as a private citizen to express those views, I am free as the recipient of the criticism to reject them. I mean, for example he picked up the mantra that so many carelessly use, that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. He may not have quite put it that way, but that was the implication. The reality is that over the last 10 years more people have got richer, but there has also been an improvement in the position of people at the bottom. I'm not saying it's been marvellous and I'm not saying it shouldn't have been greater, but the programs not only of my Government, but some of the programs of the former Government, did improve the relative position of people at the bottom, and therefore it's not quite accurate for that criticism to be carelessly flung around. He dealt with the Kyoto Protocol. Well, I mean I have a very strong view that signing the Kyoto Protocol in its present form would damage Australia's interests. I'm committed to seeing that the Kyoto emission control targets are met, and they will be met for Australia, but I'm not going to sign a treaty which would disadvantage Australian industries compared with countries such as China and Russia. I'm not going to do that, because that would cost jobs and be manifestly against the interests of Australia, particularly Australians living in Western Australia and Queensland, and this is an attitude that is I think shared by the Premiers, Labor though they be, of both of those states.
LAWS:
When you talk about Sir William Deane making these statements as a private individual, he's sort of not a private individual, is he, because he has been given status by the fact that he has been a Governor-General.
PRIME MINISTER:
He has been Governor-General but he is now a private individual, and I'm not seeking as the Prime Minister, I'm not seeking to place a fetter on him. I mean, people in the community will make judgements as to whether it's appropriate or not. I'm not saying it's inappropriate, let me put it that way. I'm not seeking in any way to place a fetter on him, but I do point out that the attack he made was a very broad-ranging one and it was fairly, in the range of subjects chosen, it was not just focused on a number of issues with which he had been strongly identified in the past.
LAWS:
What do you see as your biggest challenge in the next phase of your political career, your Prime Ministership?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think the maintenance - there's a number, there's no one single one - the maintenance of strong economic growth and more specifically I think the pursuit, in the economic and trade sphere, of the free trade agreement with the United States, and equally the furthering of our economic relations with countries such as China and Japan and Korea, all very very important export destinations for Australia. I believe the war against terror is going to be around for quite some time, although it is possible that some of the broadly defined security issues will diminish in importance as the months go by. We can't be certain of that. We mustn't assume that this country is immune from a terrorist attack.
LAWS:
It's certainly not.
PRIME MINISTER:
And we must continue to be concerned about that. We must develop as many inter-agency contacts between the security agencies of Australia and Indonesia and Malaysia and our neighbours as we can, and we have made a lot of progress on that front. I think those are all very important issues.
LAWS:
Could the issue of foreign debt emerge as a big issue? It's doubled to $360 billion under your Government.
PRIME MINISTER:
Most of that is private sector debt.
LAWS:
That's what Paul Keating used to say.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I can't deny the factual accuracy of such a statement, but I can point out that our capacity to repay it is at its best level for 20 years.
LAWS:
Are you any closer to naming a new Governor-General?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I've been giving it a lot of thought. People should not expect it within the next week or so, but I don't expect it by the same token to take months. It will be fairly soon, but not immediately. I have given it a lot of thought, and I guess it's fair to say that I am looking at a number of people.
LAWS:
Okay. Good to talk to you Prime Minister. Thank you very much for your time. I think the majority of Australians are happy with your decision.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'll try to repay their confidence.
LAWS:
Good to talk to you. Thank you very much.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]