JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, can you hear me?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I can hear you quite well, quite clearly.
JOURNALIST:
Good morning Prime Minister, I'm sorry about that. As I was saying this is obviously a very sad morning, for not just the Catholic world but for the world in general.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, the Pope was an inspirational leader, not only to one billion Catholics around the world but he was an exemplar of the Christian life for all Christians. He was a leader that had both tremendous strength and courage, but he also exhibited very great compassion and tolerance. He did reach out to not only other Christians but also to people of other faiths and indeed people of no faith at all. He was not only a great moral and religious figure, but he was also a very significant political figure, in the best sense of that term. The contribution he made to the freeing of his native Poland and what was set in train ultimately leading to the collapse of Soviet communism is one of the more remarkable features of his life. So for all of those reasons the world has lost one of the dominant personal influences of my generation and indeed of many years.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think it's perhaps hard to underestimate the Pope's contribution to the collapse of communism, after all he was in the forefront on the fight against communism in his native Poland.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think as time goes by that will loom very large indeed in the writing of the history of his contribution. I don't in any way of course want to diminish his role as the leader of the Catholic Church and therefore the foremost Christian of the time, I don't want to do that, I think the two things are interwoven because his opposition to Soviet communism was based on his faith and his belief in human freedom and human dignity. So one was a natural extension of the other.
JOURNALIST:
Now it's only a few hours of course since the announcement of the Pope's death, but have you spoken to anyone in the Vatican about his passing?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I haven't, I don't know that I will particularly do that, all of the information about it is available. I will of course be saying something more generally to the Australian public later this morning, I do want particularly to express to Australian Catholics who will feel this loss especially my sympathy, my admiration for the leadership he gave to the Catholic Church, his steadfast defence of the values and the beliefs and the traditions of that church. He was an impressively strong man in defending his faith against what he regarded as negative modernist trends, those positions of course were always debated but one could never debate the strength of his commitment to his faith and the determination he displayed during his 26 years as Pope to defend the central tenets of the Christian faith.
JOURNALIST:
Now there's also been some other tragic news this morning of course, the report that nine Defence Force members are missing, presumed killed, after an helicopter accident in Indonesia. What do you know about the incident?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I know that sadly it appears that nine have been killed, two have survived. This is really quite heartbreaking, these young Australians were on a mission of mercy and compassion, they were helping the poor people of the island of Nias in the wake of the latest earthquake there. It appears to have been a terrible accident, naturally there'll been an official Defence Force investigation. Every life of an Australian service man or woman is precious to all of us, it's precious to me and I am really very, very saddened by this. To lose nine young Australians on a mission such as this is really quite terrible news and I do express my sympathy and sorrow and sense of grief to the families of these nine people and I do hope that the two that have survived make a full recovery.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, many thanks for joining us this morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]