JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, how much importance do you put on the seat of Solomon?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's very important, all seats are important, I love them all. And when you've got a very marginal seat you fight hard to hold it. But David is a great local member, I mean take the Kakadu announcement I made today, David's been lobbying for that, this is something he said is needed for the people of Solomon, it's irked them, and a result of that the Government has responded.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible) quite controversial, are you confident that it will be accepted?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm sure it will be accepted, it's the right decision and it will remove an irritant for the people of Darwin and the people of the Territory and I have no doubt it will be very strongly supported.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible).
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I've made it clear in my announcement that we will talk to the traditional owners and they won't be out of pocket, they won't lose as a result of this, I've made that very clear.
JOURNALIST:
How will ensure that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Simply by making sure that that happens, I give that assurance.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, during the last meeting someone called you a war criminal, you've got an election campaigning coming up, do you expect more than that? More of that?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think people have called me a lot of things over the years. But can I just say that the decision that we took to go into Iraq was the right decision and it was based on our good faith assessment of the intelligence available at the time, it was also based on the importance of the American alliance and I am very strongly committed to staying the course in Iraq and to give the people of that country a democratic future.
JOURNALIST:
Speaking of Iraq, have you received the Flood report yet into intelligence services leading up to Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have received the Flood report, the Government's analysing it and it will be released as soon as possible, that is the unclassified version, and it will be dealt with expeditiously.
JOURNALIST:
What does it recommend? Anything in terms of changes to...
PRIME MINISTER:
I won't be commenting on its recommendations until I'm in a position to release it. I will however repeat what I said earlier and that is that we took the decision in good faith based on a fair assessment of the intelligence advice and we certainly won't be retreating one iota from the decision that we took and the intelligence services were at no stage subject to any pressure or intimidation from the Government.
JOURNALIST:
... similar analysis to the British and the American...
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not going to talk about its contents until I release it and then I'll have something to say about it.
JOURNALIST:
What impact (inaudible) recall to the frontbench have in terms of the election date and the chances for re-election?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I'm not going to talk about the election date.
JOURNALIST:
What about Mr Beazley?
PRIME MINISTER:
I dealt with that last week.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, what about (inaudible), are you going to...
PRIME MINISTER:
All the which?
JOURNALIST:
The Uluru, Ayers Rock?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, the announcement I made today related to Kakadu.
JOURNALIST:
So they're not going...
PRIME MINISTER:
The announcement I made today related to Kakadu.
Thank you.
[ends]