JOURNALIST:
Good morning Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning, how are you Ross?
JOURNALIST:
Very very well thank you.
JOURNALIST:
Good morning Prime Minister. Prime Minister, yesterday Mark Latham held a very very emotional news conference, as we know, during which he told the media to or asked the media to lay off his family. Is there a dirt unit within the Liberal Party or, indeed, within the Government that is drip feeding these stories about Mark Latham's past?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, there is not. There is no dirt unit. This is an allegation Mr Latham has invented and the best proof of that is that over the last 24 hours, four journalists, very senior journalists - Laurie Oakes, Dennis Shanahan, Glenn Milne and Michelle Grattan - have said publicly that at no stage have they received personal dirt from the Liberal Party in relation to Mr Latham. I am not interested in Mr Latham's private life. I've never shown any interest in it. I don't care about it. That's his business. What I do care about is the fact that he is almost a blank sheet of paper when it comes to public policy apart from wanting to hand industrial relations control back to the unions and cutting and running from Iraq he doesn't really have any strong policy positions and I don't want to get into everything he said yesterday except to make the observation that Mr Latham himself has never been a person reluctant to use parliamentary privilege to say outrageous things about other people in a very vitriolic and wounding fashion. But the Liberal Party did not produce these stories that he talks about and he talked about things that quite frankly a lot of people in Australia never heard of until he mentioned them. But that was his decision. I just want to emphasise we do not have a dirt unit and I reject emphatically this attempt by Mr Latham to blame the Liberal Party; it's not the Liberal Party's fault and I'm not just going to wear this allegation because it's wrong.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, it must be of concern to you though that this sort of business does tend to obscure what would be considered to be probably the most important debate at the moment and that is the policies in the lead up to the upcoming election.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, John, that's not my fault. I have tried to talk about policy. I have come on this programme this morning not to talk about Mr Latham, I'm not interested in his private life, not the least bit interested in it. But I am interested in the choices that people have to make. I mean, for example, tonight I'll be making a very important speech to a small business gathering and I'll make several important policy announcements during that speech that affect the small business community. We are making policy announcements all the time. Last week I made a major announcement about obesity. This, tonight I'll be talking about small business. We are a well known policy commodity, people know where we stand, they know... not everybody agrees with my views on policy issues, a lot of people are violently opposed to many of the positions I have but at least they know where I stand. Nobody is in any doubt as to where I stand on issues but people are in massive doubt as to where Mr Latham stands. Where's his tax policy? Where's his economic policy? Where's his health policy? Where's his education policy? These are the issues that people are interested in. Now I'm not stopping Mr Latham talking about them, I'm not stopping him at all. I want him to talk about those things. I haven't raised these personal issues relating to him and he knows that and the Labor Party knows that and so, indeed, do many people in the federal parliamentary press gallery know that.
JOURNALIST:
Character is an important thing though and let's not labour the point, you've made your stand on the matter very clear and there are many other things that we need to move on to, but John Lyons from the Sunday programme, who's the executive producer of the Sunday programme has recently as half an hour ago given an interview on the national taxpayer funded broadcaster saying that they're going to run another story on who's digging the dirt on the Sunday programme this week.
PRIME MINISTER:
All right. He can... I mean, I don't control Channel Nine, they can run whatever they like. All I'm telling you is there is no dirt unit, we have not been peddling stuff about his private life and I resent the allegation and I reject it. My view is that somebody's private life is something that should stay off limits unless there is a clear link between some behaviour and the capacity of that person to perform their public duty - but that only arises very very rarely. So, as far as I'm concerned, details of this that or the other I'm not interested in it. And I have made it very clear to my colleagues that they should not display any interest in it and I have not seen any evidence to support the allegations that have been put around by Mr Latham. Now, as far as his performance as the mayor of Liverpool is concerned, that is an entirely different matter, that was a public office and it is perfectly legitimate of the Government or, indeed, any body else to pursue him over that because that goes to his credibility. If he can't manage the Liverpool Council how can he manage Australia? That is an entirely legitimate thing and I suspect what Mr Latham has partly tried to do is to wrap all of these things in together and say look, all of this comes into the personal domain, it's off limits, therefore you can't talk about it, including the Liverpool Council. Well, we're not going to talk about his private life, we haven't talked about his private life and I'm against talking about that but I'm not against raising questions regarding the Liverpool Council because that relates to his capacity to efficiently discharge a public office, it's a public office that he held there, he's seeking another public office, the most responsible one in the country and therefore his capacity in an earlier public office is relevant to the public's assessment of his capacity in a future public office.
JOURNALIST:
Okay, if someone from your staff whether your knew about it or not was exposed as digging some dirt, would there be action taken...?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there is no allegation, no evidence of that and I'm not going to deal with hypothetical questions. All I'm saying is that there is no dirt unit and I can only say again, and I saw two of the journalists last night, I saw Michelle Grattan and Glenn Milne on the Lateline programme last night say that they had not received any personal material from the Liberal Party on Mr Latham and I have been informed a similar view, the comment has been made by Laurie Oakes and Dennis Shanahan. Now, sure we have people pointing out inconsistencies in Mr Latham's policy positions - that's our job. They do that to me all the time and I'm accountable. If I say something on your programme and three months later I say something on another programme which is the exact opposite, the Labor Party's got a perfect right to go the gallery and say look at the difference between what Howard said on Miller and Davie on such a such a date and what he's now saying - there's nothing wrong with that. That's not personal... it's not a personal attack.
JOURNALIST:
Sure.
PRIME MINISTER:
That is just doing your job. Now, of course, we have people doing that, that Labor Party has people doing that. Absolutely nothing wrong with that but the allegation is we have been spreading rumours about his personal life, that we have a dirt unit. Now I'm denying that and I point again to the fact that you've had four people who are very very senior in the gallery say that they haven't been approached by the Liberal Party in relation to these matters. Now I think that's pretty relevant. Now I can only speak as I know fellas and that is my position. I have not peddled any of this stuff, I've made it very clear to my colleagues I don't want any of it and I'm not aware of it and I really reject emphatically this attempt by Mr Latham to land it all on us. We didn't start this.
JOURNALIST:
One could be forgiven though for drawing the comparison between this situation and the Pauline Hanson situation a few years ago and the existence of shall we say an effort to keep her quiet.
PRIME MINISTER:
No comparison at all, as I understand the Pauline Hanson situation on quick recollection it related to her compliance with the electoral laws. Now that's a perfectly legitimate thing for anybody to raise, if I thought Mr Latham was breaching the electoral laws I'd raise that and I wouldn't apologise for doing so, and if Mr Latham thought I were breaching the electoral laws. But that's not a private matter, that doesn't relate to your private life, that relates to your public behaviour and I am accountable for my public behaviour. My private behaviour is my business, Mr Latham is accountable for his public behaviour, his private behaviour is his own business, that's my philosophy and I've made that very clear, I'll go on repeating it and this attempt by him in his press conference to land it on us is...
JOURNALIST:
So your clear message then to anybody who might be wanting to support the Government, be they officially members of the Liberal Party or Government staffers, your clear message to them is stay out of the gutter, stay out of the bedroom?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well absolutely that is, but my further message is, and I don't accept they have been in the gutter or the bedroom as you put it, in the past in relation to him, I don't accept that. He's the person that's making that allegation and if he's got evidence of it then he ought to produce it, but I'm certainly not aware of it and it's against the instruction I've given and I deny absolutely that there's a dirt unit and I refer again to the fact that four very senior journalists have said they haven't been pedalled stuff by us. So where's his evidence? This is just a wild baseless allegation.
JOURNALIST:
Alright, you mentioned before, let's move on shall we...
PRIME MINISTER:
Please, please.
JOURNALIST:
... you mentioned before that...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I mean, you know, this is fair enough, I mean I didn't start this.
JOURNALIST:
Alright, let's move on then shall we, and as I said you mentioned before that you'll be speaking to small business tonight, without stealing your thunder, what are the sort of things you're going to be talking about?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'll be talking about, I'll be making an announcement which will represent a further significant relaxation in the compliance burden, the red tape burden on small business, I can certainly tell you that, and one or two announcements not quite as important as that one which are things that the small business community will find very welcome. We had a very significant announcement in the budget in relation to the filing of annual BAS statements for about 740,000 companies as opposed to quarterly statements. We are all the time looking at ways of reducing the red tape, the compliance burden for small business, small business is the driver of the economy, 62 per cent of employment growth after the last few years has come from small business, it's the real engine room of this country, it's certainly, in comparative terms, a major part, perhaps in a bigger way than many other states of the Queensland economy and I'll be looking to other ways of further lightening that burden as we move towards to the election. We've created a very good economic climate for small business, the lowest interest rates in a generation, cut the company tax rate to 30 per cent, very low levels of inflation, very high levels of unemployment, if it weren't for the Labor Party and others in the Senate we'd have lifted the unfair dismissal law burden from the backs of small business. So there are other things we could do if the Senate weren't so obstructionist on this issue for small business.
JOURNALIST:
On the subject of interest rates, Access Economics yesterday released a report saying the Government's free spending pre-election budget could lead to an interest rate rise of up to half a per cent next year. Their associate director David Rumbens describing the Government's spending fairly colourfully in the run up to the election is showing all the restraint of meatloaf at McDonalds.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's easy to make colourful statements, I'd refer Access Economics to the fact that year after year we've had surplus budgets and Treasury's estimates in the past have been conservative and they continue to be conservative. Rather than exchange colourful expressions with Access Economics I'd point to the record, this Government has repaid $70 billion of debt, as a nation we have one of the lowest government debts in the industrialised world and as a result of that we have $5.5 billion on average a year available to spend on tax cuts, health, education, roads and defence. There is no point when you have a low debt in storing up unnecessary surpluses, the whole purpose of economic policy is to so run the economy in an efficient manner that you can then afford to invest in health and education and where possible give people tax relief and family benefits and that's what we've done. There's no point in storing it away in the bank when you already have a low debt, it would be a different matter if we still had a high debt, but we have a low debt, but we're still in surplus and we'll remain in surplus and I predict now that Access Economics will be demonstrated to be wrong.
JOURNALIST:
Okay, we'll move on along a little further, the Indonesia vote count now delayed with Megawati Soekarnoputri looking like she'll be rolled in the sense over a former general and here's a name that rolls right off the tongues, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. How are our relations with Mr Yudhoyono, with Mrs Soekarnoputri a little bit hard to access?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Ross, I don't want to talk about who should win or who might win, that is a matter for the Indonesian people and the Government of Australia will work with however emerges as President from this ballot. I know three candidates well, I know Mrs Megawati Soekarnoputri better than the other two simply because I've dealt with her more, but I do know the other two, and I will work with and I'm sure any government of Australia will work with whoever is elected. Our relations are good, considering the difficulties we've had over the last few years, our differences over East Timor and some of the other ongoing difficulties between a very large country with a different background, different culture, different attitudes and Australia, I think we've got a very strong relationship, the security co-operation is very good, only a few days ago we opened a centre, an anti-terrorism centre in Jakarta which had been party funded by the Australian Government, I think to the tune of $10 million. We've worked together very closely in tracking down the people who murdered 88 of our fellow Australians in Bali and there was an extraordinary level of co-operation between the Australian Federal Police and the Indonesian police on that issue.
JOURNALIST:
Okay. Bearing in mind the events of recent times, are we any closer to a decision on just how long we'll be staying in Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I think the good news about Iraq is that we've had the handover, we now have Iraqi voices talking about the future of the Iraqi people and that is a very good thing but we must stay and help the Iraqi people, overnight the British Foreign Secretary in a Labour Government, Jack Straw, has made it very plain that he doesn't want Australian forces pulled out. You now have a situation where both sides of politics in America, both sides of politics in Britain, the Iraqi Government, the Australian Government, and yesterday I met the Prime Minister of Thailand, Thailand has 400-500 military personnel and engineers in Iraq, they're making a contribution, the Japanese, the Koreans, this is not just the Americans and the British and the Australians, there are 33 other countries, they're not cutting and running, the only person who wants to do that is Mr Latham.
JOURNALIST:
Okay, let's talk about the Thai Government shall we? The Free Trade Agreement, that is also, as I understand it from reports I read this morning, tied up with security agreements as well?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, not tied up in the sense of one being dependant on the other, but we signed a number of other agreements and we co-operate in counter-terrorism issues, we also signed a working holiday visa agreement which is a terrific step forward, we signed other educational co-operation agreements. Thailand is the most favoured destination, I'm sorry, Australia is now the most favoured destination for Thai students who want to study overseas, now that is terrific and the relationship between the two countries and Thailand has the second largest economy in the ASEAN region and it's got a population of about 62 million people, it's growing very strongly and we have a very close relationship with this country and yesterday's Free Trade Agreement, which is the first Free Trade Agreement Thailand has signed with a developed country, it's very good for our dairy industry, very good for our motorcar industry, good very for our wine industry. So overall a very good agreement for both countries and evidence that the fact that we are very close to the United States does not in any way affect our capacity to further build our very close relations with the countries of Asia.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, Amanda Vanstone yesterday making the announcement that we now have only one child of boat people left in the detention centre - very, very good news considering that the number, the highest number in 2001 was 842 children being detained. We still however do have children in detention centres, don't we? Not children of boat people, however.
PRIME MINISTER:
No well that's right. Look nobody likes anybody being in detention, but if you are to run an immigration policy that is effective, then if people seek to come here illegally and they bring their children with them, or if they overstay their legal entitlement to be here and children are in their family, sometimes it's unavoidable. We're endeavouring as far as possible and consistent with the maintenance of a strong policy and consistent with deterring people from resuming the illegal boat trade, we're trying to get people, children out of detention. But this policy of deterring people from trying to come here illegally has been a spectacular success. We don't have boats arriving in Australia now. If you cast your mind back three years ago, they were coming on almost a weekly basis. And we have sent a very strong signal to the world that that would not be tolerated, and that involved the Pacific Solution, it involved the tough measures that we took, it involved as an element mandatory detention which in principle the Labor Party says it supports. So overall the policy has been a great success, but I am delighted that we've been able, consistent with maintaining that policy, we've been able to bring people out of detention, children out of detention.
JOURNALIST:
Okay. Let's ask the question that I know you probably won't answer too clearly, with great respect I say that - the election date. August the 7th has passed. The pundits are now saying late October. Have you any date in mind at this time?
PRIME MINISTER:
John, the best thing I can simply say is that when I'm in a position to advise the Governor-General date about an election date, I will, and I will naturally announce it. But until then, everybody is wasting their time asking me. I haven't made up my mind and I don't really think there's much point in going further on the subject.
JOURNALIST:
Fair enough. What about the issues? What do you see as the key issues?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I think the key issues will be which of the two sides of politics is better able to guarantee a prosperous and secure future for this country. I think people will understand that unless you have a strong economy, you can't generate the capacity to fund the education and the health and the other services that you need. I mean one of the great things about the last few years is through the... is that through the introduction of the GST, we're now able to increase the amount of money that we provide to State Governments, so they have more money to spend on health and education and police and roads and all those sorts of things. As a result of the GST, the states of Australia are going to be $9 billion better off than they would otherwise have been under the old funding arrangement that we inherited in 1996. No state incidentally has done better out of the GST than Queensland. Mr Beattie admits this. He admits it both publicly and privately. I mean I always get a smile on my face when I hear him saying the Federal Government should give us more money. I mean he has been, and his government have been the greatest... and the people of Queensland, have been the greatest single beneficiaries out of the GST. I mean look at the last Queensland budget, and that was courtesy of the GST. Now that was... that's the whole idea - that they would have more money to spend on public hospitals and government schools and police and roads and all of those things that are the responsibility of the states. I think who can better secure and guarantee our future, that will be the main issue. Do they really want the economy run by John Howard and Peter Costello or by Mark Latham and Simon Crean? I mean they're the sorts of choices that people will face, and they're the sorts of choices people should face because that's our future.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, we thank you very very much for spending the time with us this morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]