MCGRATH:
Prime Minister good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning.
MCGRATH:
If we can start first of all with the issue of the Iraq pre-war intelligence from Britain. Now the report back in February, before the war begun, from the British, that warned of risks of war, it warned particularly of the possibility of weapons of mass destruction getting into the hands of terrorists and the threat of al-Qaeda possibly increasing as a result of the war, now when you became aware of that information how important did you think it was?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that particular report was not given to me or to Ministers but we received advice from our own agencies which would in part have been influenced by that report which they would have seen. It was the judgment incidentally of the head of ASIO that the war in Iraq would not influence what al-Qaeda did. He said it might influence the timing of terrorist attacks, but our consistent advice was that the war, or a war in Iraq would not of itself alter the nature or the intent of al-Qaeda, and given that al-Qaeda was the main terrorist network I found that advice quite compelling. And bear in mind that advice is coming from our own agencies. The way this system operates is that we get reports from the British and the Americans, in their raw form those reports are very rarely passed to Ministers. I know some people find that hard to understand but it is the case. We get our own assessments from ONA, DIO etcetera and those assessments are in part influenced by and the views of others are reflected. I mean we understood there were short term risks and that was stated through our travel advisories and those travel advisories were of course mentioned in Parliament by the Foreign Minister, mentioned in Parliament in an detailed answer I gave to the Leader of the Opposition on the 24th of March. So there was no attempt to ignore the short term risks. But, as I';ve said repeatedly, gathering all the intelligence and all of the information we made a judgement and our judgement consistently was, and it';s reflected in my speeches that over the medium to longer term the real worry was that if you didn';t do something about Iraq then other rogue states would feel that they could have weapons of mass destruction and as more states had them the risks of them being given to terrorists would multiply and if that were left unattended then there was a real threat to a lot of countries including Australia. Now that in a nutshell has always been our argument, it was then, it remains so and I am confident in the judgement.
MCGRATH:
So looking back at that particular information, back in February, looking at it now, was it important…
PRIME MINISTER:
When you say this particular information? By saying that you continue to imply to the listeners that I saw the JIC report. Well you shouldn';t do that because I didn';t and you see this is one of the things we';ve got to keep in mind, I mean the JIC report was provided to the British Government. Now I';m not saying, I mean JIC';s a very respectable body, I';ve had several discussions with the chairman of it, but there were short term risks and they were reflected in those travel advisories but you have a short, medium and longer term assessment and we made the judgement and that was the reason why we joined the military operation.
MCGRATH:
If we can move onto another related issue and that is Andrew Wilkie, the Australian analyst who wrote an ONA report that ended up in the hands of Melbourne journalist Andrew Bolt, questions are being asked about how that got there. Yesterday in Parliament Mr Downer was asked whether he could rule out the involvement of anyone in his office and he didn';t rule it out. What would happen if anyone in his office was found responsible?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look Catherine I';ve answered a lot of questions on this in the Parliament and I invite people to have a look at those answers but I';m not going to add to those answers.
MCGRATH:
Tax cuts, newspaper reports today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I';ve got to say, I haven';t seen these boosted estimates of revenue, it would be good if it';s the case but I haven';t seen any information from my Department or the Treasury or the Department of Finance that would tell me that the likely revenue for the Budget next year is much greater than we forecast at Budget time. We have a mid-year revenue in October/November and if the revenue side of the Budget is much healthier, then that would be good but I haven';t had any advice to that effect.
MCGRATH:
You';ve previously indicated though, as has the Treasurer, that where there is surplus money it will go back in the way of tax cuts. With an election looming…
PRIME MINISTER:
It is our philosophy if I can put it that way that once you';ve attended to the things that need money spent on them, if you';ve got money over it';s better to give that back by way of tax relief than to find something new to spend it on just for the sake of spending it. That';s our philosophy.
MCGRATH:
And what did you think about the comments yesterday from Ken Henry, the Treasury boss? He talked about the housing bubble and the global economy, indicting that they are the possible threats to the Australian economy.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think everybody is watching the growth in house prices, although keep it in perspective Catherine, I haven';t found a single person in seven and a half years stop me and say I';m angry with you Howard, the value of my house has gone up. People like the value of their houses going up. There is a problem in relation to first homebuyers and the productivity commission today so it happens will be releasing what I could call an issues paper which will be inviting views and submissions on the major issues relating to the cost of housing, and I think this will be a very valuable exercise by the Productivity Commission.
MCGRATH:
What about in terms of the threat to the economy though. How do you…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I didn';t read Mr Henry';s comments suggesting it was a threat to the economy, and I actually read them rather more fully this morning and whilst there was an interesting word in his comments which obviously...
MCGRATH:
The housing bubble [inaudible] key word.
PRIME MINISTER:
… has excited people';s attention, when you actually read the full context of it, I don';t think he could be regarded as forecasting doom and gloom.
MCGRATH:
Yesterday, you virtually ruled out an early election to your party room, saying that it';s your preference that the parliament run into the second half of next year. Are you tempted though given that Simon Crean is at the moment languishing in the polls. It would be possibly a good time for you to go.
PRIME MINISTER:
It would not be wise. It would not be soundly based as a decision for the Government to go to an early election based purely on the poll ratings of the Opposition Leader. They are low, but many people have had low poll ratings in the past, and I take the opportunity of saying to Liberal supporters who might be listening to this program around Australia – don';t get complacent, don';t assume that the Government is unbeatable, don';t think the Opposition is unelectable. There is no such thing in Australian politics as an unelectable Opposition. That has been proved time and time again. My view is that the Australian public punishes governments if they call elections for purely opportunistic reasons. They understand that given a choice of certain dates within a timeframe that is close to the three year period, that a government is entitled to go at a time that suits it rather than the Opposition, but when you';ve only got three years, if you';re going to go two-thirds of the way through that period, you';ve got to have a good public policy reason. You';ve got to be able to say it';s in Australia';s interest to have an early election. It';s not sufficient to say well, my opponent is on the ropes so I';ll try and take advantage of it. I think the Australian public marks you down for that, and rightly so.
MCGRATH:
Do you think that Labor has a strong public recognition still in the areas of health and education, and do you think that';s difficult for [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, the Labor Party is always competitive. Federal elections are always competitive. In the time I';ve been in politics, 29 years, there has only been four federal elections that have been in a sense landslides or emphatic results. The rest of them have been a separation of one or two or three preferred party percentage points. So it will be a very tough fight. We';ll be seeking a fourth term and it';s always… it';s harder each time because inevitably, no matter how well you may think you govern, you aggravate people and you alienate people, and the sense of building for a change develops. So I think the next election will be very hard indeed for the Coalition.
MCGRATH:
And you';re sitting down next month, as I understand it, with your senior Cabinet colleagues looking at policy directions. What';s the aim…
PRIME MINISTER:
We do that on a fairly regular basis. There is nothing… there are no sort of new secret messages that have gone out. My Ministers are always exhorted to visit marginal seats and to be ready and to develop new policy ideas always.
MCGRATH:
Do you feel now is the time though in a sense to focus more on the domestic issues. There has been so much focus on international issues, the war on terrorism…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we';ve had a lot of [inaudible] because of Iraq and because of the war against terror and because of my role as Commonwealth Chairman. Inevitably there will be a heavier focus on domestic issues, inevitably.
MCGRATH:
You mentioned there your role as Commonwealth Chairman, which brings us to the issue of Zimbabwe. You may have heard the news reports this morning from Zimbabwe that Robert Mugabe';s spokesman has described Australia as extremely rude, condescending and even racist in the way it has dealt with the Zimbabwe issue.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that';s wrong, and I think all Australians know that. Zimbabwe is a disaster, a human disaster – a 425 per cent inflation rate, five or six million people depending on food aid. It is quite unacceptable that Zimbabwe continue to participate or be allowed to resume participation in Commonwealth affairs until there is a complete change of approach, and that can only happen with the disappearance of the Mugabe Government.
MCGRATH:
Prime Minister, thanks for joining AM this morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]