SPICER:
And Prime Minister Howard is in our Canberra studio. Mr Howard you've said this election is about trust, given the recent revelations about the children overboard affair can the Australian people trust you?
PRIME MINISTER:
It's a question of who do you trust to keep your living standards safe? Who do you trust more to keep interest rates low? Who do you trust more to lead Australia in a time of international terrorism? And who do you trust more to keep the Budget strong so we have more money to spend on health and education? It's that kind of trust, the trust that people have in me versus Mr Latham to deliver a strong economy, to keep living standards high, to keep interest rates low, to keep the budget strong so we have more money to spend on education and health. We have a track record, in the past people have trusted us and we have delivered and so it will be in the future. We can be trusted more to deliver a strong economy and to keep living standards safe and to keep interest rates low. Labor in the past has always presided over high interest rates, big spending, big Budget deficits. We by contrast have kept the Budget strong and it's because of the strength of that Budget that we can now afford to spend more money on health and more money on education. That's the kind of trust of which I speak.
SPICER:
Just on the children overboard issue, Mr Latham says you're calling an election now to avoid further parliamentary scrutiny on that issue. Are you running scared?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not doing any of the kind. Tracey all of those things will be taken into account by the Australian public when we vote. But this election Tracey is about the next 10 years, it's not about the last three days of the last election three years ago. If Mr Latham wants to wallow in the past, let him go ahead and do so. I'm going to spend the next six weeks talking about the future of the Australian people over the next 10 years. That's what the Australian people want to hear about.
SPICER:
You speak of the next 10 years, what about the next three or four years? When will you hand over the reigns to Peter Costello?
PRIME MINISTER:
Tracey, I'll remain Leader of the Liberal Party if the Australian public are kind enough to re-elect me. I'll remain Leader of the Liberal Party for as long as the Party wants me to.
SPICER:
So finally the Australian people can't trust you to serve a full term?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'll remain Leader as long as the Liberal Party wants me to. I have poured myself into this job over the last eight and a half years and even my fiercest critics know how committed and focused and dedicated I am.
SPICER:
Mr Howard, thanks very much for your time this evening.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.