MITCHELL:
On the line in our Canberra studio is the Prime Minister. Mr Howard, good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Neil.
MITCHELL:
I'm also told that the Commonwealth countries had to approve this marriage. Did you have to approve it?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. That's not right.
MITCHELL:
No?
PRIME MINISTER:
I wouldn't have expected to have been consulted about this. He's not the monarch. It would have been different if it had actually involved the monarch, but I certainly wasn't consulted and I wouldn't expect to. I tend to agree a little bit with your introductory remark that this is very much an expected, sensible, understandable decision on their part. I wish them well, and I think it's entirely unsurprising, and entirely desirable.
MITCHELL:
Here's a thought - why not invite the Prince to bring Camilla with him to Australia at the end of the month?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. Look, I'll leave all that to him.
MITCHELL:
She's welcome if he wants to bring her.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, look she's welcome, but I understand he's coming alone.
MITCHELL:
Do you think Australians will sort of care much about it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, I think some people will be interested in it. I don't think people will have strong views either way. I think most people will think it's a perfectly natural thing. They've obviously had a long relationship, and she's divorced, his first and only wife to date is dead, and they've had a long relationship. It is an entirely sensible, natural thing to do. I'd be very surprised if a logical argument could be mounted against it. I mean, after all, people are entitled to take these decisions even if they hold positions like he holds. And for their own happiness and their own convenience, I don't really think it's the role of others to sit in judgement, and I do wish them well. I think he has a difficult role in the constitutional setup in the United Kingdom and also in other countries that retain the monarchy, because he's now a man well into his fifties, his mother is hale and hearty and doing an excellent job and seemingly growing in the office every year, if you can after you've occupied that position for as long as she has. It's quite a difficult job. I feel for him on occasions that he gets pilloried because he's forever in that next one in line role.
MITCHELL:
Camilla Parker Bowles, we're told, will not be Queen of Australia. Why not?
PRIME MINISTER:
Because, presumably, the decision's been taken due to the circumstances of the fact that Charles was previously married, that when he becomes King (or if and when he becomes King) the next in line, namely William, will not of course be the son of his wife. I think that would have been one of the reasons. I don't think there's anything unusual. From what I have read and heard the arrangements that have been worked out make a great deal of sense. She will be (inaudible) his Prince's consort and called the Duchess of Cornwall. All of that sounds eminently sensible to me. I think most Australians will take the view that this is a sensible thing. It will make them happy - that's a good thing. They'll be interested in it, but it's not going to have a monumental effect on their lives, and I don't think anybody expects that it will any more than it will have a monumental effect on the lives of the people of the United Kingdom. It's just a sensible thing to do.
MITCHELL:
Do you think Charles will be King of Australia one day?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think the question of whether he will or won't is a long way off because the Queen is very healthy and my assessment is that she's a lady who will stay on the throne for so long as she lives, and I think she'll live to very old age.
MITCHELL:
Yes, well I hope she does. This will throw a lot more attention on his tour of Australia, won't it? It's sorts of a buck's tour.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think it will. Well, I don't know about that bit.
MITCHELL:
We should throw him a buck's party, shouldn't we?
PRIME MINISTER:
Come on. What's your next question? Look, obviously there will be a lot of interest because - and he's going to a number of countries - and there will be a lot of interest in it being a trip immediately before the wedding. That's fine. He's visiting a number of states, coming briefly to Canberra, and, as always, he will be welcome.
MITCHELL:
How much will it cost us, the trip?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know, but the financial arrangements will be the same as they always have been.
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister, other matters - money matters - unions pushing for, and a number of areas pushing for, a 5 percent pay rise, which is ahead of inflation obviously. Is that too much?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think we are getting into a period now where there's a danger that wage claims and increases will run ahead of productivity and inflation. If that happens we'll be doing potential damage to the economy. I don't want to say that every wage claim is unreasonable, because obviously the economy is doing well. If productivity is increased a wage rise is justified, but I saw the other day there'd been a settlement in the auto industry, the car industry rather, which involved a very significant wage increase. Now, that is an industry which is doing very well, but it is also an industry that gets a lot of government assistance, and I would not like to see a situation where any part of industry feels that we're living in the circumstances where wage increases can be given that aren't fully offset by productivity, and, at the risk of some people not liking my saying it, I think, in this particular situation, senior executives of companies have got a responsibility to make sure that whilst their remuneration remains adequate, appropriate and competitive, it is not so large and so excessive in some cases that their employees are entitled to say, well if it's good enough for the bosses to get these very large amounts, why isn't good enough for us to have a big increase?
MITCHELL:
Do you think that's the mood that's come out? Look at Toyota - the 10 percent claim - female workers want twelve days off menstrual leave at Toyota.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think, you know, the point I'm making is that if this becomes the trend, that is wage rises that are in advance of productivity, then it will damage the economy. And the point I make again is that, whilst I'd be the last person to argue that chief executives shouldn't be well paid and competitively remunerated, there have been some examples of excess in that area. Let's face it - great excess.
MITCHELL:
You can't blame the unions...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, well you can't. I mean it doesn't make it make it any better. It doesn't relieve the damage it will do to the economy. But it's not much good somebody who's helped himself to an excessive increase turning around and tut-tutting at unions asking for what, in their terms, by comparison is a modest increase. Now, it's just a warning I want to give because we are starting to, I fear, enter a period where you could have excessive wage claims, and everybody's got to do a bit in relation to this.
MITCHELL:
Do you think your changes to industrial relations will help keep a lid on wage claims?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think anything that takes the uniformity and the across-the-board nature that still exists in our industrial relations system out of it will help. We need increasingly to have an industrial relations system that throws the focus back on the enterprise and the capacity [break in tape] to pay. Things like pattern bargaining and various characteristics of the award system do work against that. I'm in favour of wage increases. I'm very proud of the fact that in the time that I've been Prime Minister real wages have gone up by something like 13 or 14 percent, whereas under the former Labor Government they barely moved at all. And the reason they've gone up is that we've had higher productivity, and higher wages based on higher productivity are terrific. That's what we all want.
MITCHELL:
Some of the unions are saying that we're headed for industrial war. Do you think that...
PRIME MINISTER:
No. I don't think that at all. I think there has been a very big change in the culture of the workplace in this country. I think people are recognising that if you work hard and you get properly rewarded with higher wages, everybody is better off, and I don't think people want to go back to the days when you had a dog chasing it's tail situation in wage increases, inflation, interest rates, and unemployment. I mean, we have low unemployment, we have low interest rates, we have high wages, and we have high productivity. Now, you've got to maintain the high productivity to maintain the high wages, and also to maintain the high employment, because if firms have to pay wage increases that are not based on productivity, they'll pay those wage increases out of employing fewer people. I mean, it's an old equation that we are all very familiar with, and we shouldn't forget it. And every body has a role in this. We have a role in a government to continue to reform the industrial relations system, and to bring down a budget that doesn't exert any pressure on the surplus, and this will have to be a fairly tight budget, this coming one. I'm not foreshadowing draconian cuts or anything that represents a repudiation of fundamental things. I'm not asserting that at all, but we have great prosperity in this country, but we cannot for a moment take it for granted, and I just worry a little bit that there are some signs, and it's better to say so and to identify some of the problems before they gather traction.
MITCHELL:
And prepare for a tight budget. Presumably that means no further tax cuts?
PRIME MINISTER:
Didn't say that.
MITCHELL:
Oh.
PRIME MINISTER:
Didn't say that.
MITCHELL:
Still possible?.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I'm just not going to get into the detail of it.
MITCHELL:
No, of course not, but you...
PRIME MINISTER:
But look, I'm not ruling anything out. I'm just saying that is needs to be a budget that doesn't add to any inflationary pressures.
MITCHELL:
Okay, just something else before we go to a break. Mamdouh Habib is being paid $200,000 by Sixty Minutes for an interview. Do you object to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I better wait and see what's in the interview...
MITCHELL:
Are you going to watch it?
PRIME MINISTER:
As a matter of principle I don't like it, but I have no right to object to it because it's perfectly lawful.
MITCHELL:
Would you try to recoup the money?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I don't have any advice that the receipt of that money is contrary to the law.
MITCHELL:
What would you ask him if you cold ask him a question?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think that's not appropriate for me to respond to. I'm in a different position from an average citizen.
MITCHELL:
Fair enough. Well take a break and come back with more of the Prime Minister. If you'd like to speak to him give us a call - 96961278.
[advertising break]
MITCHELL:
The Prime Minister is in our Canberra studio, Mr Howard APEC 2007, many world leaders here, quite a coup for Australia, even what will be next election I assume. Will you be the host?
PRIME MINISTER:
The Prime Minister of Australia will be the host. Look, I have a clearly stated position on my future and I'll remain in this job as long as my party wants me to and obviously I'm planning as Prime Minister for that meeting. But I don't really intend to say any more than that.
MITCHELL:
North Korea has admitted having nuclear weapons, as reported today, is this a threat to Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think it's a threat to the whole region if North Korea a) does have nuclear weapons and b) were to hand those weapons, or any of the capacity that produce them to terrorist outfits, that would be a potential threat to the entire region. Now there could be an element of bluff, and I'm not completely certain that the talks, the six power talks have broken down and we're putting a view that they should be resumed if they have broken down - or trying to find out whether they have in-fact fallen apart. But this is a very serious development and North Korea is an old style Stalinist communist regime, pretty brutal dictatorship and we're not dealing with a nation that has behaved in a reasonable or open fashion and it just underscores the fact that naivety in international affairs can get regions and countries into a great deal of bother. Now to date there's been tremendous co-operation between China and America and Japan and South Korea and others in order to try and engage the North Koreans. The Americans are not trying to destroy their regime. Obviously we would share the American view that it's not a democratic or desirable regime but the Americans are concerned, as we are, and I'm sure the Japanese and the Chinese are, about the fact that contrary to many assurances that were given, North Korea has covertly been developing a nuclear capacity.
MITCHELL:
Have they got the capacity to get it here? Have they got the capacity to deliver it this far?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there's debate about that and there's some suggestions that they might have the capacity to deliver things to the northern part of Australia, I think that's probably fairly debatable and it's likely, but I can't be certain of this, that North Korea had relatively crude nuclear capacity but it might be greater than that and it would foolish for us to assume that the announcement that's been made in the last 24 hours is all bluff but there's probably an element of bluff in it. It makes the situation more fraught and it puts an even greater responsibility on countries that can exert influence on North Korea, and China is one of them to try and do that, and we'll certainly be putting that view to the Chinese in the appropriate way.
MITCHELL:
Take a quick call for the Prime Minister, Sean go ahead please.
CALLER:
Good morning Mr Prime Minister. David Hicks tribunals which he faces in the US have rules and evidence which are different to normal courts. There is no viable, a court process and those tribunals are not arms length independent from the US Department of Defense. My question is why will your government not advocate on his behalf to prevent him facing tribunals which are patently unfair?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we don't agree that the tribunals are patently unfair. There were a number of changes made to the rules governing the tribunal and those changes were judged by us to be acceptable and satisfactory and the rules governing the tribunal, the commission rather, are very different now in a number of respects from what they originally were and as proposed by the Americans and it was on that basis that we accepted it. But can I just remind you again sir that this man was apprehended in another country by the Americans. There is, under international law, no automatic (inaudible) if somebody is apprehended in a country other than that person's own country, there's no automatic right of repatriation when you've been apprehended in another country. I mean there seems to be this idea that we in Australia can demand a return of our citizens who have been apprehended in other countries for alleged crimes. Now that is not the case anymore than it is the case that if an American were to commit in our view a crime in this country that the Americans could then say well we don't care what you Australians think we want him sent back to America. The world does not operate that way...
MITCHELL:
The Americans would be objective if we held somebody for years without charge though.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we have argued all along, as we did with Habib, that he should be charged or let go, and in Habib's case he wasn't charged and he was let go.
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister I wonder if you're aware of a case, there's a young Australian trapped in Spain, been there for six months, he was facing charges, but they won't let him leave the country, they kept him in jail for five weeks and he's still stuck there, are you aware of that case?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm aware of some of the details of it, I'm not across it. I will make some further inquiries about it.
MITCHELL:
Adam Dolton is his name. On teachers, I'm sure you're aware of the New South Wales academic teacher this week who talked about; they failed their ex-students because they still voted Labor. Given that and the discussions we've been having about sex education, everybody accepts sex education is a good thing, but can we trust teachers to do it? They might be pushing their own views there too.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is why in the comments I made a couple of days ago about this I said it had to be in consultation with parents. It will vary from school to school and it may well vary from teacher to teacher. It's a difficult area this. We invest a lot of trust in our teachers and the great bulk of them do a fantastic job and I've got a lot of respect for teachers as a profession. But unfortunately public education in particular, is done a lot of damage by comments such as those made the other day by this English professor, as he is. He teaches English, or the teaching of English, at a university. Now those sort of remarks merely confirm the suspicion that a lot of people have - on some occasions quite unfairly - that there is a bias in a particular direction in some areas of public education in this country and I think that is a tragedy because it does bring the whole system into disrepute and the I thought the defence that was mounted of him by one of his colleagues to say it was absurd of me to even complain about it... I mean the idea of a teacher in that sort of position should express regret that his teachers, his fellow English teachers, had not indoctrinated their students to vote in a particular way I just thought was extraordinary.
MITCHELL:
Kofi Annan has warned today about terrorists possibly getting dirty bombs, getting nuclear capabilities, in light of what we're talking about with North Korea, is that something that haunts you as well?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's been something that's haunted me for years. That's not a new warning. I mean Kofi is saying the sort of things that George Bush and I and Tony Blair and many other people have been saying for a long time. I know we don't talk about so much about the weapons of mass destruction debate anymore because of the failure thus far to find any evidence in relation to Iraq of anything beyond an intent and some programmes perhaps, but there's nonetheless a reality that if dirty bombs or chemical or biological agents ever got into the hands of terrorists, then the consequences of that could be quite horrific.
MITCHELL:
Just received an email from Stephen - I'm originally from Indonesia. I'm permanently living in Melbourne. I'd like to thank you Prime Minister for your enormous support for Indonesia over the tsunami tragedy. May God bless you and your family and Australia. That trip you made to Aceh, and you've had some actually dreadful things to attend in your time as Prime Minister, how do you cope with that when you actually get back to the country and the impact of it hits you? How do you cope with it with that sort of event?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think part of the job is to recognise the need to engage not only by a physical presence but also emotionally but equally to try and preserve a proper decision making capacity. I mean those things are never easy but it's one of the jobs, part of the job.
MITCHELL:
But it must be emotional.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well of course it's emotional. I mean I was profoundly affected by the visit to the hospital. I've mentioned the lady before, poor woman who had a leg amputated, she lost her husband and I think her children and then she'd lost a limb, but there was still a certain positive attitude; she had a bit of a smile on her face and I thought my God, what a terrible experience.
MITCHELL:
What do you do, how do you debrief? I mean some people would go out and get drunk, you don't do that.
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no I don't do that. I talk to my wife and family and friends about it, but life is full of ups and downs, it's not easy, I think articulating your experiences (up to a certain extent) in an interview like this, it's all part of the process, but life is full of grimness as well as a lot of joy and happiness and it's part of the job to try and engage in both.
MITCHELL:
You do sound very tired today, has it been a rough start to the year?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no, I'm not, I'm talking about a sombre subject.
MITCHELL:
That's true. That's true. Thank you very much for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Okay.
[ends]