MARTIN:
Prime Minister welcome.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
MARTIN:
The Aussies soldiers, the Defence people would have to favourites for Australians of the year?
PRIME MINISTER:
The most wonderful, inspiring, humanitarian work and the most moving thing to me about it was that they said it was a privilege to do it and that captured the spirit of what their doing. And you could tell from talking to the patients, you could see from the looks on the faces of the Indonesian medical people, the nurses who are working with the Australians that they not only admired the work they were doing but they were working with them. And this is a partnership, we are here as guests of the Indonesian Government and the Indonesian people and we're here to work together as friends on a mercy mission and that is how our men and women have seen it and I just want on behalf of the entire country to thank Georgina Whelan and her colleagues and Brigadier Chalmers and all of his men and women for the fantastic way in which they have taken the values and the decency of Australia abroad and used those values and expressed that decency in their deeds in helping these people and I just couldn't be more proud and every Australian should feel proud of what these people have done in our name.
MARTIN:
A couple of weeks ago you said with good reason you couldn't come up here, are you pleased you've come now to see it yourself...?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh very much so. I didn't want to come right at the beginning because I would've been in the way. Nothing could have prepared me, graphic though the television coverage has been and affective though it has been, nothing could have prepared for the scenes of devastation and desolation as we went over in the helicopter. I mean looking out from that helicopter and to see that enormous barge that had been picked up and dumped inland was just extraordinary, but you actually have to see it, as you know from being a reporter of many years standing. Actually seeing it is so much more graphic than, no matter how effective television is.
MARTIN:
Are your confident that the $1 billion the Governments put in is going to be well spent?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes it will be well spent because President Yudhoyono and I have agreed that nothing can be dispersed without our joint approval. Now it won't just be question of Australia writing a cheque and not knowing where it's going but Bambang Yudhoyono and myself are going to chair this commission and we'll have ministers doing the day to day work for us. But we will make certain, and the Indonesian Government will make certain together, I mean this is a partnership. We are determined and we will ensure that every dollar is well spent and that is my obligation to the Australian taxpayer.
MARTIN:
The soldiers insisted that I ask you, when are they going home? (inaudible) they like what they are doing but when are they going home?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I... they will go home when their task is completed and you know I do understand that. And that people much and all as they are committed they would like to go home, I understand that. When their task is completed and we're making progress, they will of course go home and I can't put a time on that Ray. There's always a beginning, a middle and an end and I don't quite know. I mean we're obviously past the beginning, perhaps we're a bit beyond the middle but I can't tell you exactly when the end is.
MARTIN:
An officer's moving in, I think you've got to go, you've got other things to do. Thank you for your time, good to see you again.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks Ray, good luck.
[ends]