PRICE:
Prime Minister Mr Howard has been good enough to give us a few moments, he's in the studio, thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
How are you Steve?
PRICE:
I'm very well. Is Mr Scrafton's memory of that night of November 7 contained in that letter correct?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. We did have two conversations that night.
PRICE:
Not three?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, two. And the sole purpose of my ringing him was to get his views on what was in the video, and I got those views. He described what the video depicted, and he said look, it's inconclusive and I decided that the video should be released, I didn't want an allegation being made that we were sitting on an inconclusive video. And that was it. But we had those two conversations, and interestingly enough a few weeks after the election I established an internal inquiry into this whole issue and he was interviewed for the purposes of that inquiry and he signed a record of that interview early in January and in that record of interview he said that he had spoken to me, but all he had mentioned was that the video was inconclusive.
PRICE:
This internal inquiry, is this a Department of Defence inquiry...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, this was...
PRICE:
... September 14?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, this was one that was established by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, a Ms Jenny Bryant conducted the inquiry, and the relevant reference in his statement was this, he said Mr Scrafton stated that the Prime Minister rang him later that evening, he said he spoke to the Prime Minister a couple of times, so he said on December 2001 that I'd spoken to him twice about the tape and informed him that it was inconclusive. Now in that statement he makes no reference to the fact that he told me that there was a belief in the Department that children hadn't been thrown overboard, he makes no reference to the photographs.
PRICE:
Did he not say in that inquiry that he had been involved in or aware of a number of discussions between Minister Reith's Office and the Prime Minister's Office and the Prime Minister would he could not discuss.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, but that was a reference and this was made very clear by Ms Bryant before the Senate inquiry, that was a contextual reference to the fact that a media officer, a senior person in Reith's office, there was some sort of secret thing that he couldn't talk about but plainly it wasn't...
PRICE:
But isn't he saying...
PRIME MINISTER:
... wasn't this issue because he did talk about this issue, I mean if he couldn't say anything at all about it in his conversations with me about the children overboard issue then he wouldn't have been able to say anything about it.
PRICE:
So you took his word 'inconclusive' to mean that he couldn't make up his mind...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no that was his objective assessment of what the video depicted. I mean it was perfectly possible that the video could have been absolutely conclusive in the sense that it didn't have any evidence of children being thrown overboard but there still could have been separate evidence that they could have been thrown over.
PRICE:
But you chose then to remain quoting publicly your ONA advice, you did it the following day the Press Club.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I quoted the ONA advice...
PRICE:
So nothing between you to that night changed your mind?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there was nothing in that conversation which caused me to be other than determined to release the video because I didn't want people to think I was sitting on a video that was inconclusive because people might have said well later on it comes out and people say there you are, it was inconclusive, therefore it didn't support the original advice.
PRICE:
So you dispute his version where he says...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I...
PRICE:
... go to Kim Jones at ONA...
PRIME MINISTER:
My very strong recollection of this is that we talked about the video. Now I said that in Parliament and I said it at a press conference early in 2002 and that's two and a half years ago, and he didn't dispute it at the time. Now he may well say I was a public servant and I couldn't do anything about it, you're the Prime Minister...
PRICE:
Well he's now saying he's out of the public service.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but he left the public service nine months ago.
PRICE:
And he says that the letter of the 43 of last week has prompted his conscience to come out now and...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't, you know I'm not wanting to denigrate the man, I can only speak of my own knowledge and recollection and this discussion I had with him, and I've never hidden the fact that I talked to him, I mean I made it clear to Parliament and in public that we talked and we talked about the video. That was my sole purpose in ringing him because he'd had a look at it and I would say in my defence that he gives a statement to an internal inquiry, he makes no reference in that statement to these two additional matters he claims he raised with me in the letter that was published in the Australian...
PRICE:
But don't you feel he felt he was still being held by confidentiality when he made that appearance? I mean he's now saying he is free to talk about...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well he left the public service in December of last year.
PRICE:
Did you ask him that night how it was that your own ONA report confirmed...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, Steve, we talked about the video.
PRICE:
So you didn't...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I have no recollection at all...
PRICE:
So you dispute that version?
PRIME MINISTER:
I do dispute that version, yes.
PRICE:
And then you would dispute that you'd (inaudible) asked that he said yeah well you better speak to Kim Jones...
PRIME MINISTER:
I dispute that we talked about anything other than matters related to the video.
PRICE:
So the name Kim Jones was never raised by him or you?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well what I'm asserting is that we only talked about the video, so therefore the answer is no.
JOURNALIST:
So in that discussion about the video, did you say to him...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it's almost three years and...
JOURNALIST:
How come he has such a clear memory of it then?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you know, maybe he has fewer conversations....
JOURNALIST:
So you didn't make any notes about that....
PRIME MINISTER:
No, of course, I didn't.
JOURNALIST:
....about that conversation?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I didn't make any notes about it.
JOURNALIST:
Seems rather strange for the Prime Minister to be talking to public servant like that twice on the same night?
PRIME MINISTER:
He was seconded to Peter Reith's office.
JOURNALIST:
Because the election was on?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, no, he'd been in Peter Reith's office a couple of years and he handled a lot of the departmental matters and the reason I spoke to him, Steve, is that Peter Reith had asked him to go and have a look at the video - that wasn't strange at all. He was actually in Sydney.
JOURNALIST:
But we're three days out from an election, you're a day before a Press Club Address where this is obviously going to be raised. You had a speech presumably that you knew you were going to deliver the next day in which there was a reference to the children overboard....
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't. Actually, I knew I was going to get questions on it - yeah.
JOURNALIST:
So did that prompt the telephone call?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I'll tell you what prompted the telephone call - I wanted to know what was in the video and I was determined that I wouldn't be accused of a cover-up by not releasing the video and I just wanted to know what was in it and I said after I had spoken to him, I said well we've got to release the video even though the video was inconclusive and people might argue that it really in a sense went against our original case. See people have forgotten that the issue in this election campaign to the extent that refugee policy was involved was not children overboard, it was the fact that the Government had turned the Tampa back, that was the issue that turned out to be decisive. All this attempt to suggest that the children overboard was the thing that turned the election, it did nothing of the kind. Now, that's not to say that it's not a legitimate issue for people to keep talking about. I am perfectly happy to answer questions about it but I think there is this sort of conflation of the two things. The children overboard was separate from the turning back of the Tampa.
JOURNALIST:
In those closing days to the election even defence was saying there was doubt about whether these children had been thrown overboard or not. That's why again, Scrafton was asking presumably to go and look at this video. You say then that it was still inconclusive?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, what was inconclusive was the video. I mean, see....
JOURNALIST:
So you hung the phone up that night still believing quite in your own mind that there was enough evidence before you that children were thrown overboard?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I hung the phone up that night after talking to Mr Scrafton knowing that he had indicated to me that when the video came out it wouldn't show clearly one way or another whether children had been thrown overboard. He said it certainly didn't demonstrate they had been, but acknowledged in his statement to Miss Bryant that it didn't demonstrate they hadn't been either. It was inconclusive and that's what he said and that's what I said. But is you also have a look at the statements I made to the Press Club the next day, they didn't harden the matter up or take the matter any further, they simply repeated the source of my original advice and it wasn't until after the event that it became absolutely clear from what people in the defence department said that the original advice had been wrong.
JOURNALIST:
As you say we're going way back but it would stick in you mind I'm sure following those conversations with Scrafton you the next day didn't feel the need to again go back and query the ONA advice you have on your desk?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I felt the need to release the video and deal with other matters because remember it was the last three days of an election campaign and this was by no means the dominant issue. This has become a big issue in the minds of people who resent the fact that we won the last election and they've continued to complain but it hadn't have been for this issue there would have been a different result in the election.
JOURNALIST:
But as you know this will be married up with the whole Iraq question and it will be central to the next campaign. They'll say....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't know...
JOURNALIST:
You can't believe this man, he lies to you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well....
JOURNALIST:
You must get angry when you hear the word liar in terms of your name in office?
PRIME MINISTER:
I reject it. But you gain nothing by getting over angry - you have to deal with the charge on its merits and that's what I'm doing and I point that this man within a few weeks records his recollection of his discussion with me as simply being that he told me that the video was inconclusive. He made no reference in that statement to Jenny Bryant of the allegation in the letter to the Australian today that people in defence regarded the claim as false, he made no reference to the photos. Now, you might say well he has no alternative but he signed that statement and he could easily have gone to the Secretary of his department and said look, I'm very sorry but my version of events and the Prime Minister's is completely different and I feel duty bound to tell you that, that happens often. This idea that people sort of get hung drawn and quartered for doing that is nonsense. Now he makes this statement which is consistent with the statements I made and this is all two and half years ago. He leaves the public service in December of last year and now in August he speaks out. I can but put those facts on the record, I'm not making any allegations - I'm just putting it on the record.
JOURNALIST:
You raise the Jenny Bryant inquiry. He tells that inquiry that he's been involved in or aware of a number of discussions between Mr Reith's office and the Prime Minister's office and the Prime Minister which he could not discuss.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that can't by definition include the discussion he had with me because he goes on later on to refer to that discussion with me.
JOURNALIST:
So you don't regard that as the Prime Minister which he could mean?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't regard that as being relevant to this issue. What that is relevant to is the fact that he would have been involved with some discussions involving secret Australian eyes only material, intelligence and so forth that under no circumstances he can allude to.
JOURNALIST:
How much of an issue is this going to be in the coming election campaign?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't believe it will be but....
JOURNALIST:
The public still are concerned about the way your Government acted before the election in regard to children overboard?
PRIME MINISTER:
Our critics are.
JOURNALIST:
Public?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we have critics in the public. I would say there is a good percentage who don't like me and don't agree with me and think poorly of me, I understand that and I just have to deal with that, but I can only tell you what is my very clear recollection. And this was a conversation about a video - that was my reason for ringing him, I had no other reason to ring him. I'd been talking to Mr Reith, if I wanted a view from the Defence Department or a view from the Defence Minister, I got it from the Defence Minister, I wouldn't get it from a member of his staff. I mean, you've got to think... in the nature of things I'd been talking to Mr Reith during the day and he said to me, well I've got Mike Scrafton we're going to have a look at the video, why don't you ring him. And I said, I will. And the reason that I wanted to ring him was that I wanted to make certain that there was no allegation made that we were sitting on that video.
PRICE:
You can remember quite clearly what he said to you that night?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I can't give you every word, but I remember the substance of the discussion and the substance of the discussion was about the video.
PRICE:
And his memory's different.
PRIME MINISTER:
His memory is different... it's different now.
PRICE:
Well... he said he couldn't...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. He doesn't, no he doesn't because that's not the ... it's different now. I mean, if he's under some kind of bond of secrecy, official secrets act in relation to certain things well that continues whether he's employed by the federal public service or not. So therefore by definition, the matters he's now referring to are not the sort of matters that he said in the opening part of that statement he couldn't talk about because if there's some kind of constraint, it's a constraint that continues for all time or for a statutory period, it's not a constraint that disappears immediately that you're no longer employed.
PRICE:
No September 18 election...? Any closer to deciding when?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I haven't made a final decision, no I haven't.
PRICE:
It would have been, I mean, I think it was a big rough of Con Sciacca to call you a creep if you thought about having an election during the Olympics but Australians don't really want to, I don't think about politics...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't...
PRICE:
If the letter hadn't come up in The Australian today, I doubt I'd be speaking to you at 3 o'clock this afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER:
Probably not. You are right, I don't think people really want to have the Olympics interrupted by too much politics. I mean, some will go on...
PRICE:
That narrows your window... we're really talking about October now.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the third anniversary is the 10th of November. There would be nothing unusual about having an election late in November.
PRICE:
And you don't feel any pressure from the US presidential election on your date?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it wouldn't make much sense to have our election perhaps the Saturday before the American election, but I note that people keep saying you can't have the Australian election after the American election. Well, some people will think that, some people will think oh I haven't made a decision yet.
PRICE:
You been getting up early to watch the Olympics?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have a bit, yes. I thought the relay, the women's relay was a fantastic result. I mean, I don't want to denigrate what Ian Thorpe achieved and Grant Hackett, but there was a strong expectation for them. The relay was, what, the first in that event since 1956...
PRICE:
Yes, Dawn Fraser.
PRIME MINISTER:
... Dawn Fraser. So that was a pretty remarkable...
PRICE:
Petria Thomas, I mean she just personifies the Australian...
PRIME MINISTER:
Very very good...
PRICE:
... shoulder reconstruction, swimming at butterfly, beating Inge de Bruijn, it's just amazing.
PRIME MINISTER:
It is amazing and I think, you said earlier before we came on air, there's always one that comes from nowhere. I mean, the cyclists...
PRICE:
Fantastic... we have been criticised by the Greeks for being a little overbearing in our attitude to whether they'd be ready or not, they certainly showed the world, didn't they...
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm very pleased for them and I think there's a lot of Australians, because of the large number of Greek descent people in our own midst, a lot of Australians are delighted that it's turned out so very good for them. And these attempted comparisons between Sydney and Athens are quite unfair because...
PRICE:
Well, as Ric Birch said, technology's available now, technology's better.
PRIME MINISTER:
Technology is advanced, but it's also so much... these different countries and each has its own culture and each has its own style.
PRICE:
Great to have you in. Just before I let you go, Ross Cameron, your colleague, were you surprised about him and that admission?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't really want to talk about that, they're private matters, I don't think people's private lives should be involved in their public duty. I mean, he chose to talk about it, but that ultimately is a matter for him and his family and I really...
PRICE:
Does it make it harder for you to win Parramatta?
PRIME MINISTER:
He's a very hardworking member - that is the message I have for the people of Parramatta.
PRICE:
Good to talk to you. Thanks for coming in.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]