JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, thanks for joining Sky News, if I can just start with AWB. Former AWB Chairman Trevor Flugge, we now know was paid by your Government almost a $1,000,000 for 10-months work in Iraq with the Coalition Provisional Authority. Can you understand people thinking that 'that's a bit rich.'
PRIME MINISTER:
Certainly in the context of the allegations against AWB, yes. At the time we didn't for a moment dream that AWB was paying bribes - the Government didn't. And although it is a lot of money, it was a challenging assignment and a potentially dangerous environment and there is a long list of precedents of where people for relatively short term consultancies, if I can call it that, of this type have been paid significant amounts of money. People's attitudes are understandably coloured by the allegations against AWB. And against that back ground I can understand people thinking it is too much. Clearly what is important is that we allow the Cole Inquiry to finish its job. Mr Cole, a very good lawyer, he has got all the powers of a Royal Commissioner and the blame will fall where it may and he has made it very clear that he has got the power to make findings of fact about the behaviour of anybody, including the Commonwealth.
JOURNALIST:
It is a dangerous place Iraq, no doubt about that. But you compare it to a private in the army in Al-Muthanna,. They earn about $50,000 a year. Now even before we knew of these allegations against AWB, was almost a $1,000,000 too much to be paying?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you have to look at the availability of people, you have to look at the fact that we wanted to have somebody in that position who knew a lot about the wheat industry generally, about agriculture and certainly somebody who on his track record to them was somebody who would look to the interests of the Australian wheat industry. When you know and appreciate and acknowledge the value of wheat exports to this country, having somebody with the background that Flugge had in the wheat industry able to look after Australia's interests. And bear in mind that the Americans and the Canadians and the Europeans are no shrinking violets when it comes to trying to knock off our markets and to take away our wheat trade. I mean it is a very tough business and you have to look at it in the context of all of that without superimposing, with the benefit of hindsight, the allegations and the knowledge that we have and in that context you can see the reason why it happened.
JOURNALIST:
Australia is now struggling to maintain its foothold in the Iraqi market. You congratulated Mark Vaile for his mission to Baghdad over the weekend. But Iraq said a couple of weeks ago that they would still buy Australian wheat as long as it wasn't through AWB. What has changed?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is one thing to have that general statement, it is another thing to have a joint statement from our Deputy Prime Minister, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister reaffirming the importance of the Australian participation in wheat sales to Iraq years into the future. I think this criticism of Mr Vaile by the Opposition is contemptible. He leaves last Friday, goes to Iraq over the weekend, he is now on his way home and Mr Beazley last night was calling on me to bring him home. How ridiculous, I think he had already got on the plane by the time that call was made. He has done it over the weekend and this ridiculous suggestion that he has done it to avoid parliamentary scrutiny. If he hadn't of gone they would have been attacking him for not going. He goes, does his job; in difficult circumstances. I mean a quick trip to Baghdad is not like 18-holes of golf. I just think that Mr Beazley is demonstrating by those sort of rather mean spirited attacks that he has run out of substance. He has been going on about this now, every question time since parliament resumed. He hasn't produced a skerrick of evidence that the Government, a Minister in the Government was told about these bribes. Sure we learnt that AWB was under investigation in the context of the Volcker Inquiry but that was long after the oil-for-food program had finished. Mr Beazley does not have any evidence to support the allegations he's made against the Government and now he is thrashing around with absurd calls for me to bring Mr Vaile back when he is already on the plane.
JOURNALIST:
And yet most voters, according to an AC Neilson poll this morning seem to think that the Government must have known what was going on. Does that surprise you, that finding?
PRIME MINISTER:
No it doesn't because all of the reporting to date, all of the coverage of the Cole Inquiry and some of it, as you would have heard from me last week was somewhat misleading. But even putting that aside all the coverage has been negative about AWB and there is an association in the public mind obviously because AWB was once the Australian Wheat Board, although operating independently, it was an agency. Now it's perfectly understandable because it has all been flowing in one direction. Now let us wait until Mr Cole reports. And in the end what matters is the truth. And the truth will come out as a result of Mr Cole's examination.
JOURNALIST:
You seem to be blaming the media for the fact...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I am not blaming the media. I pointed out on one occasion that I thought its coverage was quite misleading and I don't retract for a moment that observation that implied that everybody in Canberra knew that AWB had paid bribes, now that is wrong and it was not even supported by the document on which that headline was based.
JOURNALIST:
Well there is better news for you in the Newspoll today. It shows that most people think that you, well you're the most popular Prime Minister in modern times it seems. Which when you think back ten years ago, when you were first elected in 1996 would you have thought you would still be in the job and be seen as the most popular PM in living memory back then?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well let's deal with longevity first. No, I wouldn't have thought I would still have been Prime Minister in 10 years time. I don't know that I sat down in the 3rd of March of thought, now how long can stay in this job. I certainly didn't do that. My first thought then was to come to terms with enormous opportunity and the enormous privilege that had come my way and to get to work for the Australian people and I have certainly worked for them, even though not everybody has agreed with what I have done. I have worked very hard over the past 10 years. Look, as for popularity, well I don't get too carried away with polls like that. I think the remarkable thing is that a man like Sir Robert Menzies, who left politics more that 40 years ago can still retain, in the eyes of what is now a group of generations who would never have experienced his Prime Ministership. I mean you would have to be over the age of about 56,57. I voted for the first time in 1961 and Sir Robert Menzies was still Prime Minister and I am now 66 so he left 5 years later. Now that gives you an idea. And yet despite the passage of all those years, more than four decades, he still retains an extraordinary rating. I think that is a remarkable thing about that poll.
JOURNALIST:
Perhaps one of the reasons he is so well remembered is the fact that he was there for so long. Some 16 years...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, it was more than that...
JOURNALIST:
I am sure that is one of the reasons why people do remember him so well. Sixteen years in one stretch in the job is a long time. Is that something that...
PRIME MINISTER:
Let's not go down that path. You know my position on that, and it is just a waste of a question.
JOURNALIST:
Well I wanted to ask you about that position, which is that you will remain as Prime Minister while ever it is in the party's interest.
PRIME MINISTER:
I will remain as Prime Minister for so long as the party wants me too and it is in the party's best interests that I do so.
JOURNALIST:
And is it something that you continually canvass within the party?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no I don't spend every day, in fact I spend no days canvassing it. When you have been Prime Minister and leader of a party for as long as I have, you can work these things out.
JOURNALIST:
Are you genuinely undecided still?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I am just genuinely not going to add anything to what I've said.
JOURNALIST:
You have praised Peter Costello and Alexander Downer for their contributions in particular to your team. But clearly one of the biggest factors in your success has been your political partnership with Mrs Howard. Last night she was involved in opening an exhibition at the Portrait Gallery on Prime Minister's wives. Is the perception that she is your strongest influence, is that overstated in anyway. How significant a role has she played?
PRIME MINISTER:
She is far and away the most significant person in my life. Therefore she does have an influence on me. We are obviously, as husband and wife for more than 35, just on 35 years, 35 years next month, April rather. We are a couple that talk a lot about politics. She is very interested in politics. She has views. Sometimes we agree. We agree on a majority of things but not on everything. We often have sharp differences of opinion. Janette has the view that just because she's married to the Prime Minister, that doesn't automatically give her a platform to give her views on this, that and every other subject. Her view is that if she wanted to have a voice, then she should herself run for Parliament and she's never wanted to do that, interested though she is in politics. She expresses views to me, but in the end obviously I decide on my own assessment what is in the best interests of the country. But I always listen to her and she has been a fantastic supporter of mine. I would not have got where I have without Janette. She has been not only an emotional stabiliser and an emotional support, but she's also been a person who's been constantly thoughtful about my position and she has a genuine interest in public affairs and picks things up that I miss so she's fantastic.
JOURNALIST:
Sounds like a good asset. Now a lot has been said...
PRIME MINISTER:
She's great and I'm very grateful to her.
JOURNALIST:
A lot has been said and written this week about your ten years in office. How do you consider your style of leadership differs to some of your predecessors as Prime Minister? I mean it's often suggested that you run a more disciplined Government, that certainly you're a very strong traditionalist when it comes to the way Cabinet works. How do you see yourself operating in a different way to some of your predecessors?
PRIME MINISTER:
I won't compare myself with others. That's for commentators. I certainly do believe that cohesion and discipline is important and a key ingredient in our success has been the coalition between the Liberal Party and the National Party. Without the coalition, we would not have stayed in office for ten years and this event we mark this week is a team event, it's a team achievement, it's a Coalition achievement. It's not John Howard's achievement.
JOURNALIST:
And yet there are inevitably from time to time tensions between the Nationals and the Liberals. Do you think the Nationals still offer something to country voters that Liberal candidates can't?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the National Party has its own identity and it has its own constituency. Our values and our philosophies are very similar but we are two separate parties. We have achieved ten years of stable, successful Government by operating in close partnership and harmony. Anybody who thinks we could have done better, any Liberal who thinks we could have done better on our own is wrong. We'd have been a minority Government between 1998 and 2006. We have been successful because we have trusted each other and worker together. We have our differences and there will be arguments from time to time between individuals, but fundamentally there's one great divide in Australian politics between the Liberal and National Parties on this side, and the Labor Party on this side.
JOURNALIST:
So you think the Nationals do have a long term future?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes, I do. And I think people who write the National Party off as a separate entity will be again proved wrong.
JOURNALIST:
Just a couple of other issues. There's a tax inquiry that the Treasurer has called. It's suggested that it's going to look at some flat tax options in Asia and Eastern Europe. Is that something you would ever consider?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I've looked at flat tax in the past and unless the mathematics has radically altered, flat tax would be heavily discriminatory against low income people. Now it sounds great if you're a high income earner to say let's have a 25% flat tax rate, but stop, breathe and think for a moment and you find that the average bloke, average tax rate is way below the 25% because you've got $6000 tax free and then you've got another bit more below that. Look this inquiry will essentially compare our tax system with the tax systems of other countries and benchmark where we are in terms of levels of tax, the emphasis direct, indirect, federal, state, local, where there's a federation. It will be something that will lay out the facts about how heavily or lightly or moderately taxed we are. We are still, by world standards, not a heavily taxed country. And sure, as part of the examination, we will have a look at other systems including flat tax systems, but I can pretty confidently predict we wont be having a flat tax system in Australia because it would be unfair to low income people, that's why.
JOURNALIST:
If there is money in the Budget, this coming Budget for tax cuts, who deserves them most?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh look David, I am not going to speculate about the Budget. Let me give you another reply you've heard before, after you've provided for defence, and all the other important social investments, education, health and the social security safety net and balance the budget, had a reasonable surplus, if we have something left over, then it should be returned to the public in the form of tax cuts. Tax cuts is what people want. Commentators are interested in tax reform, the public out there is interested in the tax burden. Australian families have been well treated by this Government. Those with children have the best and most generous family tax system this country's ever seen.
JOURNALIST:
And just finally, you've also expressed some concern over the past day or so about Muslim women wearing the burqa, the full headscarf. Why do you have a problem with that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I just think it is confronting and it is confronting to a lot of people. I'm not saying it should be banned. I'm asked an opinion about something and where I express it, it doesn't mean that we're automatically going to...I'm not trying to ban anything. You don't ban what people wear and you don't pass laws as to what people can and can't do with their clothing. I am just making the observation that to the average Australian it is confronting. I think headscarves, like turbans or yarmulkes or whatever are entirely different things. And in expressing that view, I believe I express the views of most Australians, I think indeed of a lot of Islamic women. It's a view, I'm asked a question, I give a view. I mean we have to get to a situation in this country that surely views like this can be expressed without it immediately being seen as some kind of attack on a group that equally without somebody being required to state whether you want to change the law or not. I'm not calling for a change in the law. I'm expressing a view that Australians in general find the full cover-up or burqa as confronting. Now that's my view. I've said that on a number of occasions over the past year. I'm not taking it any further than that because you don't pass laws about what people wear and don't wear. But as Prime Minister, I'm asked a question, I give a direct answer. I always have and I always will.
JOURNALIST:
Well it is the ten years in office being marked on Thursday. There are a couple of functions being held. Will you have any quiet moments of reflections and...
PRIME MINISTER:
You quietly reflect all the time. But this is about re-dedication to the future. Its about renewing our commitment to the Australian people. Again saying to them that we work for their interests, not for our own. The last ten years has been a wonderful experience and a wonderful journey but it's been a journey of service to the Australian people, not a journey of self indulgence or self exaltation. And I'd say to all of my colleagues, this is not an occasion for any riotous celebrations, not an occasion to get carried away with our own genius. We just remember who we work for. We work for the men and women of Australia and we've got to do the right thing by them and while ever we continue to do the right thing by them they will support us but once we stop and once we get self obsessed, and self absorbed and look inwards we're finished.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister thanks for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]