PRIME MINISTER:
Well ladies and gentlemen, I've called this news conference just briefly to outline what I'll be doing over the next week. I leave this afternoon for the United States. I'll call and see the Governor of California; I'll be accompanied on that call by Mr Don Argus, the Chairman of BHP Billiton and senior executives of that company. And the purpose of that call will be quite literally to lobby the Governor and those charged with authority in those matters in California on behalf of BHP Billiton for a favourable response to a contract they're proposing to let, it involves a floating platform, LNG would be taken from Western Australia and then processed and sent onto the mainland in California and the project could be worth billions of dollars over the years ahead. In fact, I see great prospects for a very strong energy partnership between the United States and Australia given the great political stability and the similarity of our political and legal systems and it would be a very fine and balanced compliment to the very close energy partnership that we are building with China.
After being in California, I'm of course going to Washington and I'll have discussions with President Bush and the Secretary of State and the Vice President and I hope also the chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan. It'll be an opportunity to get his assessment of American and world economic conditions and I guess amongst other things if we meet we may talk about the price of oil and the possible developments that will bear upon that.
I will also importantly have opportunities to visit congressional leaders to push Australia's case for the Free Trade Agreement, which is a very important opportunity for this country. It is a once in a generation opportunity and I am very keen to promote our case as strongly as possible and I also may have the opportunity subject to the final advice of Mr O'Leary over here to address the National Press Club in Washington, but that is a matter which is being negotiated at the present time. During my discussions with President Bush we will obviously talk about the current situation in Iraq and I'll also be canvassing the situation concerning Hicks and Habib. I spoke about that at the weekend but it will obviously be something that will be canvassed in our discussions.
I then go to London very briefly. I'll have lunch with Mr Blair. We'll also talk about Iraq. We'll also probably canvass a number of commonwealth issues, particularly Zimbabwe and perhaps also very briefly the pending readmission of Pakistan to the councils of the commonwealth, a development incidentally that I very warmly welcome.
I'll then attend the Normandy commemoration on the Sunday and I'll return to Australia the following day and I'll be going to Perth where I'll be fulfilling a number of engagements in Western Australia before returning to the eastern seaboard. It is very much a working visit. There are a lot of things, not only economic but also political issues to be discussed and of course it includes participation on behalf of Australia in the important 60th anniversary commemoration of the Normandy landings on the 4th of June 1944. Any questions?
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, will you apologise to the Parliament and the Australian public for misleading them over Australian knowledge of the extent of serious abuses of prisoners in Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
I did not mislead the public or the Australian public or the Australian Parliament. The advice that I gave the Parliament and the public was based on the advice I'd received from the defence department.
JOURNALIST:
The Defence Department now concedes that advice was wrong.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that's... I will be indicating, as I have already, that everything I've said was based on the advice of the Defence Department. I did not set out to mislead anybody. It is impossible in a situation in which I am placed for me to have direct personal knowledge. I wasn't in Baghdad. I have to rely on the advice of the department. I regret very much that I was given the wrong advice, I regret that very much.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, why didn't you insist on being better briefed, especially when the man involved who had all the knowledge was just down the road?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'm sorry, Michelle, it is simply not possible for somebody in my position to talk to every single person in a department. It's just... that is an unreasonable proposition. It is not unreasonable for a prime minister to rely on a written brief from a department in relation to a matter, I do it every day. And if in future I have to personally sit down and talk to each person in a department who provides that written brief and to interrogate the people in that department my job becomes quite impossible.
JOURNALIST:
... at least one minister have known before April?
PRIME MINISTER:
Not according to the advice that I have, no.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, what do you think about the quality of that advice? I mean, what does it say about the competency of defence, given they had these reports with a senior defence official on May 11 and what does it say about the motives of defence that they didn't bring it to the attention of the Government until Sunday as I understand?
PRIME MINISTER:
Let me say this - I am very unhappy that I was misinformed by the Defence Department, so is the Defence Minister. I have, as you know, an extremely high regard for the men and women in the Australian Defence Force. We're dealing here with what was clearly an inadequate briefing, not only of me, but bear in mind that the Chief of the Defence Force and the Secretary of the Defence Department themselves were equally poorly served by the advice they received from the Department.
JOURNALIST:
Are you confident that it won't happen again?
PRIME MINISTER:
Jim, I can't give a guarantee that a department in the future won't give inaccurate advice to a Minister. I can't, I can't.
JOURNALIST:
What are you doing to ensure that it doesn't happen again?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the Minister will be, at my request, making a detailed statement to the Senate when it meets again about the chain of events, the knowledge of and involvement in and communication with the ICRC, the CPA, communications back to Australia and the timelines involved in all of that. I have asked the Defence Minister to make that detailed statement to the Senate. But I'm plainly unhappy because the information I gave, I believed to be correct, and it was based on a brief I had from the Defence Department. And this proposition that I have to sit down with individuals who originate that advice, particularly when I have to preposition any advice I give with the comment that this has come from the department, I mean no Prime Minister has the capacity, given the other demands on his time, to do that.
JOURNALIST:
If you had known then, would you have expressed your concerns...
PRIME MINISTER:
Had I known what?
JOURNALIST:
If you had known about this earlier, would you have expressed your concerns at the time to the Americans?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well if I had known, if I had known what back in October? Well I didn't know about it until April. That remains...
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I mean, look I would have done the right thing, and of course if I had have known about it, of course I would have expressed my concern. Of course I would have.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible) didn't go up the chain and back to Canberra in October when it was first clear that there were serious problems and allegations being raised about the conduct of the coalition in Iraq...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the response...
JOURNALIST:
...so we could have done the right thing?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well ok, well one question... can we have questions and not speeches? The response that has been given to that question, and it has been asked, is that it wasn't passed up the chain because it didn't involve Australians. It was believed that the issue was being responded to and dealt with by the Americans, particularly in relation to the January report. And as I understand it, and I choose my words carefully, as I understand it, the working papers that were referred to in the Senate in October, which clearly contained references to unacceptable behaviour and unacceptable treatment of prisoners, that they fed into the February report. The February report, as I am told, has been commented upon in the Senate by Senator Hill and General Cosgrove and Mr Smith. The February report, when presented to the relevant people, caused a great deal of concern, and that the response of the British and the Americans was satisfactory to the Red Cross, and that is another reason why it is claimed, it is said, that the material was not passed up the line.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, will you apologise to the Sydney Morning Herald after you said that we conflated reports and were involved in a despicable slur?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I withdraw the claim that you deliberately conflated the report, if you feel I made that claim. I do not withdraw what I regarded as the more serious allegation or implication in the story, when you said that a claim by Senator Hill that quote, as best I can remember, there was no association of Australians with the abuses, I think that is a paraphrase of it, that that might appear to be misleading.
JOURNALIST:
But the association I was referring to was the deep involvement of...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well can I say if you say that somebody is associated with an abuse, it means that they are in some way an active participant in it. The idea that because you're investigating something, you're associated with it, is the equivalent of saying that a police officer investigating a robbery is in some way associated with it. That was the bit...
JOURNALIST:
But the report also clearly says that he did not witness, endorse or participate.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but you use the expression 'associated' and I think that... I thought then that was unfair, I still think it's unfair, and I think it's very important that I stick up for the reputation of the Australian Defence Force, because however what is being written and reported may be explained, the danger is that some will imply a guilt by association, and to my knowledge no men or women in the Australian Defence Force have been in any way involved in abuse or have in any way condoned that abuse, and that is why I feel quite strongly about this.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, what's the point of having Australian military officers attached to the coalition command in Iraq if they don't keep their own Government and their own department and their own hierarchy informed, abreast of developments?
PRIME MINISTER:
Jim, that generally is a fair observation and it's one of the things that in the aftermath of this, that I will be expecting a response to.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think it's a bit peculiar, Mr Howard, that a couple of Labor Senators can get all this information out in a day and a half, and the Prime Minister couldn't get it, being charitable, in the last two weeks?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes but Michelle, in the last two weeks there have been a lot of other things that I have been dealing with, and the truth of the matter is this - that there has been never any allegation of Australian involvement, never. There is no suggestion of Australian involvement. The allegations are against the Americans. They're not against Australians. I mean you... many of the questions are asked as if the inquiry is whether or not Australians were involved. We're talking here about knowledge of allegations in the context of those allegations being responded to by the people against whom the allegations were made, and I think the context of that, with respect, is being missed by some people, yourself included.
JOURNALIST:
What do you make of Labor's decision to block your bid to ban adoptions by gay couples?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think the Labor Party on this issue is trying to have two bob each way. They're not willing to take a firm position. I mean it seems to me that if you are in favour of our legislation regarding gay marriage, it is illogical to be against our legislation regarding overseas adoptions. And this cop out that adoption is the responsibility of the states is a really flimsy cop out. You're dealing here with specific arrangements between countries. Now that is undeniably the responsibility of the Commonwealth Government. It's not the responsibility of the states. And given the great difficulty that people have in adopting children, in my view it is a very good piece of public policy to say that in relation to overseas adoptions, particularly from countries where there would be greater sensitivities than in others about same sex adoptions, I think it is a wholly sensible and legitimate thing for the Government to legislate as it has done, and I believe what the Labor Party has done here is to say well we'll have one for that side and we'll have one for the other side. And I think there is a... it's just a naked exercise in two bob each way politics.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, is the O'Kane affair another example of the bureaucracy telling the Government what it wants to hear to suit its political ends?
PRIME MINISTER:
That is an absurd proposition Tom. I mean there is no reason why I wouldn't want to know the full story on this, no reason at all, absolutely no reason at all. I first became conscious of these allegations about behaviour by the Americans and to some extent the British, although just exactly what happened in relation to the British appears unclear, after I came back from Baghdad. I mean to give you an illustration of my state of mind, nobody mentioned this to me when I was in Baghdad. I met General Abizaid when I was in Baghdad, I met General Sanchez when I was in Baghdad, I met Paul Bremer when I was in Baghdad, I met two people in the Iraqi Governing Council, I met the Australian Commanding Officer in Baghdad - I met all of these people and nobody mentioned it to me. The journalists who were travelling with me didn't pick it up. I mean if it was all around and it was the subject of a lot of conversation, and if there were widespread concern about it, why wasn't it mentioned to me?
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible) failure of Defence to appropriately brief you, what do you Prime Minister then...
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I don't know the answer to that.
JOURNALIST:
And for their failure to...
PRIME MINISTER:
Mark, I don't know. I am unhappy. I mean I don't enjoy being misinformed. I am very unhappy with it.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, are you satisfied...
PRIME MINISTER:
But I am, you know, I am equally... I can't in this, you know, early winter morning or afternoon just sort of declare precisely why it happened. Of course I've asked Senator Hill...
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible) not happy about it.
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon?
JOURNALIST:
You're obviously telling us how unhappy you are about it. From your preliminary inquiries, what reason...
PRIME MINISTER:
It's too early. They are too preliminary because bear in mind that over the past couple of days the three people principally concerned and to whom I would speak have been tied up in Senate Estimates. I mean, I had the opportunity last evening of having a very brief discussion with Senator Hill, with General Cosgrove and Mr Smith before I went off to have a Monday evening chat with Kerry O'Brien.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, are you satisfied with the way those three people have handled this?
PRIME MINISTER:
If you're asking me whether I have confidence in them, yes of course I do. I have great confidence in the three of them.
JOURNALIST:
...down the line to the junior people who can't speak for themselves?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Michelle, I'll find out what happened and before then I'm simply not going to respond to those sorts of questions.
JOURNALIST:
...cause of action that you might take?
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon.
JOURNALIST:
General Cosgrove (inaudible)...?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I'm not going to canvass what General Cosgrove said to me. I have a tremendous regard for General Cosgrove. I think he's one of the outstanding military figures that this country has had for a number of years and I have very strong regard for the administrative skills of Mr Smith and, of course, Senator Hill is a very close and very senior member of my Cabinet.
JOURNALIST:
Did you enjoy reading the Newspoll this morning, Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, I guess, you always like to see them up rather than down. But I've told my colleagues to take the Newspoll with a grain of salt.
JOURNALIST:
But you also told them, didn't you that it possibily wasn't an aberrant Newspoll?
PRIME MINISTER:
I gave it a lot of descriptions. I still think we're behind. I don't think that if an election had been held last weekend we would have won with a bigger majority than we got in 2001 and almost as bigger majority as we got in 1996 as what the Newspoll suggested. There are some features of it I guess, that are encouraging but it's a long way off and I still think we are facing the fight of our lives.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, you said that liquefied natural gas would be coming from Western Australia - which fields is BHP looking to use to supply that platform?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, one of their existing fields.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, in view of what we know now about these matters is the Australian public entitled to hear directly from Major O'Kane what he saw and what he thought about what he saw and to whom he reported it?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it's appropriate that the normal procedure in relation to these things be followed and that is being followed and what Senator Hill has said and done in relation to this is similar to the attitude that has been taken by Ministers on both sides of politics when similar situations have arisen. Thank you.
JOURNALIST:
Senate inquiry...
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon.
JOURNALIST:
Senate reform - what's the state of play?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'll be tabling the report this afternoon and making a short statement. I had a discussion with Mr Latham about this, this morning and he indicated that he would not be willing to support even the Lavarch proposal which I think on balance is the better of the two that have come out of the inquiry. He would not be willing to support that, unless it were coupled with a proposal to remove or significantly reduce the power of the Senate to block supply. I think, our proposal is a more sensible way of resolving deadlocks between the two Houses. I think to take away the power to block supply is a more full on assault on the role of the Senate and would not be supported in the less popular states. And certainly wouldn't be, as I'm advised, supported by the Government party room.
Thank you.
[ends]