MITCHELL:
In our Canberra studio is the Prime Minister. Mr Howard, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Neil.
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister, this man had wooden stakes which would be difficult to pick up, but he also had an aerosol can and a cigarette lighter which is a security failure, is it not?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm told that carrying those on - there's something wrong with this reception, can you hear me alright?
MITCHELL:
Yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm told that they can be carried on airlines anywhere around the world. That's what I've been told.
MITCHELL:
What, even aerosol cans?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I've been told that.
MITCHELL:
I thought they were banned. They're potential flame-throwers though.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, look that is the information have. Look, I'm not a security expert and obviously I'm going to be very careful what I say given that any security failures that may have occurred, and I'm not accepting they have, will be investigated. But can I just make a couple of general comments. The first and most obvious one is I think the bravery of the steward and the hostess and the instantaneous reaction of the passengers has been fantastic. I think it does indicate that we have changed. I think you're dead right about that. I mean, people do react now, and in a typical Australian fashion, they've taken the initiative and done something to subdue this bloke themselves and I think that's fantastic. The second observation I make is there is no suggestion that this is a terrorist incident, no suggestion at all.
MITCHELL:
It's a terrifying but not terrorist...
PRIME MINISTER:
That's right. I think it's important to say that because we're all a bit on edge because of what has happened over the past few years. And thirdly, difficult, traumatic, challenging, horrifying though it would have been for the people involved, it is the first incident, major incident, of this kind in about 20 years in Australia. So we have to try and keep the thing in perspective. But having said all of that, the Government naturally will be part of, and facilitate and support and want to see all the investigations that should be carried out, but I don't think in the process of doing that we should accede to the view that has been [inaudible] around on some news media outlets this morning, that aviation security is in crisis. I think we have to in all of these situations do what those passengers did. That is, be very calm and purposeful and resourceful.
MITCHELL:
So you've rejected there is a problem with security?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, look I don't know what the reason for this was and until there has been an investigation, it's stupid of me to make comments other than to make the observation that there will be an investigation. I'm just asking that the matter be kept in proper perspective and people remember that we have very safe, very secure airlines. We have a safety record in Australia which is the envy of the world. It really is a remarkable safety record. And whilst you take any incident like this very seriously, and you go over everything and you make sure that if changes need to be made, they are made, you nonetheless keep a sense of perspective and you do as you have done quite rightly Neil - and you pay tribute to the extraordinary courage of the two flight attendants and the great courage and resourcefulness of the passengers. I'm very proud of them.
MITCHELL:
There would be a few medals we could nominate them for.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they are very courageous people and they deserve the admiration of their fellow Australians, and on their behalf I express that admiration to them.
MITCHELL:
What about the issue of the security doors. I know that under the law they don't have to be installed until the 1st of November - the security doors on the cockpit. Is it perhaps worth looking at speeding that up?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that's one of the things that can be contemplated. When something like this happens, you put everything on the table. You look at everything. But I don't want, once again, I don't want to preempt the outcome of it and I don't want to, however inadvertently, lend support to the view that there is some kind of crisis in airline security because that will only unfairly, unreasonably and inaccurately unsettle passengers. The airline industry in Australia is coping with a lot of difficulties already and I don't want to needlessly add to them.
MITCHELL:
Do you think this will affect airline travel?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I hope it doesn't, and it shouldn't because you can't run something that carries as many passengers as the Australian airlines do, and we increasingly travel as a people despite the temporary interruptions of things like SARS and so forth. Every so often there will be an incident. I mean we have had a remarkable safety record in Australia. We have to remind ourselves of that. It is very safe to travel in Australia on the airlines. In many respects, there will be some statistician listening who will try and prove me wrong, but in many respects it's much safer to travel on airlines than it is in a motor car.
MITCHELL:
This is one concern - we've had an air crew member call in and say aerosol cans are banned on every flight around...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look Neil, I'm just reporting... I mean not surprisingly I got a brief on this from departmental sources, and I was told that lighters and small aerosols are apparently allowed on board. Now that's what I've been told. If I've been told wrongly, well I'll complain about that. I'm just reporting what I've been told. I'm not a repository of detail on that without getting advice.
MITCHELL:
I'm not [inaudible]. We'll check it through on what we've been told. The change of attitude in passengers - it's terrific it ended the way it did yesterday - is it a good thing though, is it a dangerous thing, if passengers are going to react or is it what we should encourage people to do?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I think it's natural and whether we encourage them or not, we are now living in an era where people are hypersensitive to the possibility of terrorist attack. After what has occurred both in Bali, tragically to our own people, and also to some of our own people but many more Americans, in New York and Washington in September 2001, and the whole focus on terrorism, people are more attuned to that. You automatically think of it now and there is a natural reaction, and then look how quickly it was that people said well it is a terrorist attack, instead of just accepting that in all probability it is the act of somebody who is quite unstable, and we've had unstable people from the beginning of time. And from time to time things like this do occur. What it does indicate though is that the self-defence or citizen arrest instincts of the Australian community are well and truly alive and I think that is a very, very good thing. Very good thing.
MITCHELL:
Will the number of sky marshals be reassessed as well? I know we don't really say how many there are, but...
PRIME MINISTER:
I imagine that that will be part of the process, but Neil I'm not going to sort of... when something like this happens, you look at everything and I'm sure that will be done, and if we need to, we will. I mean, if there is anything coming out of the investigation that reveals a shortcoming, well that will be immediately addressed.
MITCHELL:
We'll take a break and come back with more questions for the Prime Minister and calls - 9696 1278 if you'd like to speak to the Prime Minister in our Canberra studio.
[commercial break]
MITCHELL:
The Prime Minister's in our Canberra studio. Mr Howard, I've checked the Qantas website on aerosol. They're not permitted as carry on baggage, they are permitted in checked baggage.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay.
MITCHELL:
So, it would seem to have been a security breach there...
PRIME MINISTER:
Right.
MITCHELL:
Which no doubt should be investigated. Frank Kellow, go ahead please.
CALLER:
Yeah. Hello Mr Howard, how are you?
PRIME MINISTER:
How are you, Frank?
CALLER:
Good thanks. I fly around a fair bit in my job and one of the things I've noticed that brings a little bit of concern is that there's a number of cities that I depart from quite often and they don't check anything in relation to your luggage, or your bags until you arrive in Melbourne. At that point in time, they check you when you're walking into the terminal. So, I could easily [inaudible] you mind if I mention a city?
MITCHELL:
No.
CALLER:
Devonport, Mildura, I can hop on a Qantas flight and I can fly into Melbourne and no-one's checked my luggage and I walk on.
MITCHELL:
Okay, you're talking about small regional airports really?
CALLER:
Yeah, but I can hop on - if I wanted to do something nasty - I could just get on at Devonport and Mildura and take something on with me.
MITCHELL:
Okay.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I can't argue with your personal experience and it could well be the case and fairly the level of scrutiny is higher at the very busy at airports than it is at that other ones. I would need to check out what you've said and I will and I will pass it on... your comment on to the Transport Minister. I think his staff are probably monitoring this interview anyway.
MITCHELL:
Thanks Frank. Richard go ahead please.
CALLER:
Good morning, Mr Howard.
MITCHELL:
Yes Richard go ahead.
CALLER:
Good morning, John.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, Richard.
CALLER:
John, in the event of what happened yesterday, don't you think it's about time we had the death penalty in this country?
MITCHELL:
What for hijacking?
CALLER:
Well, attempted terrorist attacks.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, my personal view, and this is something I'll express a personal view, I'm personally not in support of the death penalty, the reason is that I know from a practical point of view, the law sometimes makes mistakes and you can't bring a person back after they've been hung or electrocuted or whatever. That's a pragmatic view. Some people agree... I mean, I guess the majority of people that don't agree with me. I'm not sure that the experience of other countries indicates that the death penalty is automatically a deterrent. The homicide rate in the United States where the death penalty is applied quite widely is relatively speaking much higher than the homicide rate in Australia or the United Kingdom where's there's no death penalty.
MITCHELL:
Are the penalties tough enough? I'll just put the death penalty aside. The penalties for what happened yesterday, are they tough enough?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think they're very tough, I don't know offhand what they are but they do carry very substantial jail terms.
MITCHELL:
[inaudible] terrorism and it's reported that the JI meeting in Indonesia discussing Australian targets....
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, there are reports on it yes.
MITCHELL:
Is that accurate?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think I... can't confirm or deny it but what I can say very definitely is that we don't have any additional information indicating a specific new threat to Australia. We remain a terrorist target and we have been, as I indicated in Parliament yesterday, a terrorist target or a potential one from a period even before the 11th of September 2001.
MITCHELL:
That's extraordinary. What was... do we know what was targeted in that pre-September 11?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think all I can say is that the targeting of Australia was examined. I can't say anymore than that because I don't want to be more specific. I did arrange for a specific, fairly specific briefing to be given to the Opposition Leader.
MITCHELL:
But the specific information exists...
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yeah, oh that's right.
MITCHELL:
We know what target...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, no, they were considering the targeting of Australia, let's put it that way. And the reason... I mean, the two reasons I made it public - I think the Australian public is entitled on general principles to know that and I think it's also right to make the point that the targeting of Australia is a generic thing. We are a western country and it pre-dates many of the incidents, that the targeting has been attached to in the eyes of some.
MITCHELL:
An Australian or Melbourne man arrested in Cairo, what do we know about that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, not much more than we released yesterday and he's being interrogated and if there's more information we can make available, we will.
MITCHELL:
Is there confirmation that there was some kind of terrorist cell within Melbourne?
PRIME MINISTER:
Not automatically.
MITCHELL:
Possibly?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well not automatically.
MITCHELL:
No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq. Do you still believe they will?
PRIME MINISTER:
I believe they will and I can I say that it's not quite right to say that there is no weapons of mass destruction, they've certainly found and pretty clearly established to the satisfaction of the American agencies, that those trailers, two of them, were production facilities for biological weapons. Now that has got to indicate, I mean what do you have them for?
MITCHELL:
Well, that justification [inaudible] war?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the justification for war was the accumulated intelligence and can I say that the assessments that were made by our own intelligence agencies were made, of course, on the basis of a lot of shared intelligence with the British and the Americans. But they were independent assessments and we genuinely believed the security advice, and I still do - or intelligence advice, I still do. I think it is entirely possible that steps were taken either through destruction or concealment immediately before the war began to try and pretend to the world that the Iraqis have never had weapons of mass destruction. That wouldn't in any way, of course, alter or gainsay or contradict the justification that was advanced.
MITCHELL:
There's a report the Americans want 15,000 troops here, is that correct?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it hasn't been raised with me, it's never been raised with the Defence Minister. The Pentagon, Neil, is a very big place and you can get a comment out of the Pentagon from somebody on just about anything you like.
MITCHELL:
But would you view it...?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I would want to hear what has been put on. I don't give advance gratuitous blank cheque commitments about the stationing of troops in this country to anybody. If the Americans had a proposition, they would need to put it in the proper fashion and we would consider it. But I'm not saying yes or no. I mean the thing has not come up.
MITCHELL:
Do you believe that the ABC is biased Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think in some of their programs there is a lack of balance and I think the way to deal with them is as Richard Alston has done, and that is to put the case.
MITCHELL:
He seems to be putting an enormous amount of effort into collecting...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's no good making generalised swipes. I mean if I say something like I think, you know, a certain ABC program lacks a bit of balance, the natural response of people who disagree with me is to say - what's your evidence?
MITCHELL:
Would you link funding in any way...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't. I don't. Look we have kept our word given at the last election in relation to ABC funding. We said that we would maintain ABC's funding in real terms and we have done that. We never gave any indication that we were going to increase the ABC's funding, but we said we would protect it against the ravages of inflation. We did give the ABC some more money previously in relation to a number of things. As far as these cancelled programs are concerned, it appears that the ABC committed themselves to those programs without any assurance of ongoing funding. Now in those circumstances, if the programs have got to be cancelled, that is entirely an ABC decision.
MITCHELL:
But none of this is to do with bias or perceived bias - money or the rest of it.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. Look I'm not going to tie money to issues of balance and bias. Definitely not. But that does not mean that from time to time, we don't have the right to express a view about a particular program, and I've said that in the past. I mean I'm not making a generalised swipe. I'm talking about individual programs who from time to time lack balance, and when they do, a complaint is legitimately made, and it is far better that that complaint be particularised rather than be just a generalised gripe about the ABC being too left-wing or something like that. I mean people may... some people may think that, some people would disagree with it, but it's far better that if you have a view that you actually document it and say well, this is what happened and this is what we think.
MITCHELL:
I think that's fair enough. In the interest of balance, Qantas is now telling us aerosol cans... some aerosol cans were allowed on board as long as they've got a lid and they're not dented.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there you are.
MITCHELL:
It's all over the place. I'll be talking to Geoff Dixon after 9.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay, well you can see my problem.
MITCHELL:
The former Governor-General William Deane has made a blistering attack of the [inaudible] of your Government, accusing the Government of lying over the children overboard, a challenge of justice and truth, and really promoting the vision through dishonesty. What's your answer to him? A very well respected man.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't agree with him. I can only react to the report of what he said. Whether he actually said all of those things, I don't know because I have not seen the speech. But he raised four issues. One of them was that we'll save the environment effectively by signing the Kyoto Treaty. Well the reason we haven't signed Kyoto is that it is not in Australia's interest to sign Kyoto. Australia almost uniquely is a developed country which is a net exporter of energy. If we sign Kyoto under present conditions, we would run the risk of losing investment that would otherwise be in Australia...
MITCHELL:
[inaudible]
PRIME MINISTER:
... countries like China and Russia, because they don't have the same obligations, because they are regarded as developing countries, that we have because we are regarded as a developed country. And we have a very good national interest reason.
MITCHELL:
But more basically Prime Minister, he said you have sought advantage by inflaming ugly prejudice and intolerance.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't agree with him. I mean that is a very, if that was said, that is a very generalised criticism. If he's referring to our policy on asylum seekers, which perhaps he is...
MITCHELL:
and people overboard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well let's deal with asylum seekers, which is the generic issue. What we did in relation to asylum seekers was not inflaming prejudice. We maintain a completely non-discriminatory immigration policy. What we were defending was a refugee policy that allowed for ordinary choice according to merit, assessed according to internationally accepted principles. I do not regard that, by any stretch of the imagination, as inflaming prejudice. And any suggestion that my Government inflames prejudice is one that I totally and comprehensively reject.
MITCHELL:
Thank you for your time. There is one last quick question. Rene Rivkin - suitable punishment?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't want to comment. He's on appeal. I think it is a bad principle for Prime Ministers to be commenting on individual court decisions that affect individuals.
MITCHELL:
One last question. When will we get the Governor-General - the new one?
PRIME MINISTER:
Quite soon, but I don't mean in the next few days.
MITCHELL:
Okay, thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks.
[ends]