HADLEY:
Prime Minister good morning.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Ray.
HADLEY:
Nice to talk to you. In relation to David's call and I think you probably heard the tail end of it.
PRIME MINISTER:
I did.
HADLEY:
The frustration and we do live in an area where Sheikh Al Hilaly can get into a mosque yesterday and say whatever he likes about you as long as it doesn't incite people to violence...
PRIME MINISTER:
...And long may that be the case.
HADLEY:
Exactly. But it is most important as we look to our history and more importantly to our future to realise that we are linked inextricably to the Americans.
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I believe that very strongly. That is why I push very hard to strengthen the American alliance. The Americans get criticised a lot, George Bush gets criticised a lot but if you have any understanding of Australian history it will be remembered that at the battle of the Coral Sea, America was all that stood between us and a possible Japanese invasion. Now true that the first land battle in which a defeat was inflicted on the Imperial Japanese Army was in fact around the battle of Milne Bay and it was inflicted by Australian ground forces, so we have nothing but great pride in our own individual contribution to victory in the islands. But overwhelmingly the intervention of the United States because of her enormous military power and industrial capacity into World War 2 was the decisive event. Now I say that as somebody who for all my life will be proud of the role that was played by Britain and Australia and the other parts of the then British Commonwealth in standing alone against Hitler before America entered the war. But the truth is that without America this country could have gone under. Could have, I wont say would've, but could've and we should always remember that and the other thing we ought t to remember is that we have common values. We are a lot less alike than many Australians imagine. It is a mistake to assume that Americans and Australians are the same. They are not, they are very different, Americans are not as sceptical as we are, they are more idealistic in a way, but they are also not, you know, some times they can be beguiled by people in a way that Australians can't. I think we have that strong deposit of celtic scepticism which enables us to identify the, how shall I put it, the in-substantial nature of some people and some causes.
HADLEY:
I'm just looking at The Bulletin magazine away from that with a photo of you and your wife on the front cover. And then I read Laurie Oakes look at you and you as Prime Minister. The story about Dame Patty Menzies that he starts with, about you having a shifting spanner.
PRIME MINISTER:
A tiny little spanner -I remember, it is very true - absolutely true. She gave it to me at a function in Sydney in 1987; I wasn't travelling very well at that time...
HADLEY:
...the shifter wasn't going to help.
PRIME MINISTER:
I was practically off the radar as far as public support was concerned and she said just keep working away. And I kept it in my briefcase and I carried it around for years after, in briefcases, after I became Prime Minister. It was very small it was just one of those remarkable things that I remembered and I kept it and she was a great lady.
HADLEY:
And it was more enlightened times. Because perhaps if you tried to do it today there would be someone at the airport taking it off you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Probably, it might show up in one of those things. Although it was very, very small-probably not; probably not..
HADLEY:
Now one of the things, the front page of the Telegraph which you have no doubt seen - Child Support Overhaul. If I mention child support today - and this has been something that I have realised all the way through my broadcasting career - one of three things, four things will happen. I get the mums who say 'we get dudded,' I then get the fathers saying 'no that is not right, we get dudded more,' then I get the parents of the mothers and fathers, in other words the grandparents saying 'both my kids get dudded,' and then I get the friends and associates of the wives phoning counteracting what the friends and associates of the husbands say. So what I am saying to you is...
PRIME MINISTER:
...And then you get the second spouse of the non-custodial father, now that is the other dimension. Because I have the same experience in my electorate office. It is a very difficult issue this. And I congratulate Mal Brough and Kay Patterson before him in having the courage to tackle it and I am not surprised that the switchboards have lit up and I am not surprised that everybody is having something to say about it. The aim is to try and focus more heavily on the interests of children and also to have a more relevant contemporary idea of what it costs to look after children, particularly in their teen years and we all know that's pretty important.
HADLEY:
I think one of the things that - the common thread with all people is that they're all dirty on the deadbeat dads who minimise their income so they pay nothing. And so you have fixed that up as a Government. That dads that minimise their income will pay $20 per child, per week. So I mean it is not a huge amount but it is a lot better than nothing.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it is a lot better than nothing and the other issue is to have a greater emphasis on the situation of the children rather than that of the custodial parent. Although in many cases it is one in the same thing. There is no way everybody will agree with these changes but they do represent a courageous attempt by the Government to tackle a very difficult issue. We have consulted widely. There is a fair range of endorsements from different groups but I predict this will be tough and a lot of people won't like it, but then a lot of people will. Sadly when a marriage or long term de facto relationship breaks up and there are children involved people are never totally rational or reasonable and they get very bitter and you can't talk reason to them. Now I understand that, human emotions being what they are. But the whole emphasis of these things is to try and make certain that we give a better deal for the children.
HADLEY:
The Australian Wheat Board saga continues bubbling along and every day there is a new angle to it. And I have to say Prime Minister that I have not taken one open line call from any listener and I don't get many emails about it as well. So I think in the greater scheme of things they're not too concerned about it. They think, well maybe the Australian Wheat Board based on the current evidence did do something wrong but it would appear that every other Government, or Government agency across the globe does the best to make sure their farmers are looked after better than someone else's farmers. But this latest revelation that Mr Downer was told six years ago something untoward was happening - Your reaction to that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it is not a new revelation. Mr Downer took questions about this in the Parliament last year. What happened was that the Canadian Wheat Groups, bear in mind that Canada is a competitor of Australia, there is a lot of wheat grown in Canada so Canada is not disinterested; Manitoba and Saskatchewan are very large wheat growing parts of Canada and they complained to the United Nations. The United Nations came to our mission in New York and said there has been a complaint, there is a suggestion, evidence emerged that the Iraqis were trying, or allegations were made that the Iraqi's were trying to extract bribes and payments. We talked to AWB, we even got from AWB the contracts that they'd entered into with the Iraqi Grain Board and those contracts were produced to the United Nations and the United Nations said that they were satisfied and that the misperceptions had been removed. Now, this has been out in the public domain before. I don't think what has been in the public domain before are the cables, which incidentally are in the public domain as a result of us establishing the Cole Inquiry and those cables were given to the Cole Inquiry before Christmas sometime in December of last year as a result of our process of co-operating with the inquiry. Now I believe Mr Downer's account is reasonable. I think it demonstrates that at the time the complaints were taken seriously and properly investigated. Can I just say that all of these things context is very important. It is very easy to say 'now oh well, look they should have asked another question, they should have done this, they should have done that.' That is because we now have evidence that AWB Limited may have behaved improperly, I wont say that did because the inquiry is still going on; but we didn't then and frankly back in 2000 our preoccupation was to sell Australian wheat and as always to make sure that our markets were not stolen by the Americans or the Canadians or indeed anybody else. Now that doesn't mean that at any stage did the Australian Government sanction the payment of bribes, never. It has never been the policy of the Government to sanction the payment of bribes or to turn a blind eye to their payment I want to make that very clear and if anything wrong has been done well, the law should be applied vigorously But back then everybody saw AWB as being the standard bearer of the Australian wheat industry. It operated the single desk, it had been in existence in various forms for what, 60 years and no body saw it as a payer of bribes. They saw it as a tough exporter and that is good, they saw it as a tough operator and you need to be, the Americans are not shrinking violets when it comes to trying to steal our markets.
HADLEY:
Given the history of the AWB it is hard to imagine, even this far out from Justice Cole handing down his findings that it is going to exist in its current form?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I can't speculate about that. I do in fairness to the people from AWB who haven't given evidence I do have to suspend judgement on that until Mr Cole has brought down his findings. I repeat, he has got all the powers of a Royal Commissioner, he said he can make findings of fact about the behaviour of anybody, including the Commonwealth and if he wants an expansion in his terms of reference he only has to ask. So we couldn't be more transparent. I would guess that part of the reason why you haven't had people ringing up on your program is that they see there is any inquiry going, he is a very good lawyer, he is running it well, fair enough let's wait and see what he has to say because he will have all the facts.
HADLEY:
Incidentally stations we will not be taking news at 11 o'clock, we will continue talking to the Prime Minister. Just on this story that the Herald's run today, the amount of money that they're looking at taking away from people in investment properties and making it retrospective. Alan Jones spoke about it in detail this morning. We all have grave concerns about the ATO making rulings about things that have happened in the past and then all of a sudden grabbing hold of retrospective type legislation.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I want to inform myself a little bit more on that before I offer a view. I understand...
HADLEY:
Generally you are opposed to retrospective...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I certainly am opposed to retrospective legislation although years and years ago as Treasurer I did bring in some to catch some tax avoiders and even that was seen as very controversial and I still carry a few scars in relation to that issue. But that's a long, long time ago. But what sometimes happens is that the tax office will rule that the current law applies in a different way than people had commonly assumed and that is seen as being retrospective. Now whether it is strictly speaking retrospective or not depends on the facts of each individual case. But I would like to see a bit more of that before I offer a view.
HADLEY:
Sure. But if we get a ruling from the Federal Court back in 2004 that short term accommodation investors were eligible for GST refunds and then all of a sudden the Tax Commissioner decides that the Federal Court was wrong in 2004, it does place all of us in the situation where we're inadvertently breaking the law based on a Federal court ruling that we thought would support us. The tax law that is, and we're talking about a hundred million dollars being repaid to the tax office. That's what the Australian says anyway, one hundred million dollars.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'd like to investigate the matter further. I can't give you a more informed answer at the moment.
HADLEY:
Okay, now a very important day tomorrow and obviously you've been the focus of much attention, you've got an important function or functions happening through the course of the week. But you know, can you allow yourself the latitude of reflecting back on the last ten years and I mean, perhaps offer some support to Kim Beazley and see if someone can give him a shifter in relation to the Victorian preselection battles at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think I'll leave that to the Australian Labor Party. I don't think I can be of constructive assistance to the Labor Party in preselection matters anymore than they could be of constructive assistance to me except to make this observation, that when a safe seat and the seat that Mr Shorten is running for is a very safe Labor seat and Mr Crean's seat is very safe. When a safe seat becomes vacant, the normal thing in the past has been that you have a big field. I remember when I sought Liberal preselection for Bennelong way back in 1973 I had 23 opponents. And I remember running unsuccessfully for the preselection for Berowra when Tom Hughes retired from that seat and there were 33 of us in that race, which was the norm. Now they were both safe seats and people rightly took the view ' well we're choosing somebody who if he or she performs well will hold the seat for 25 years perhaps'. It's a bit disappointing I guess for the rank and file of any political party, and this applies on both sides, that if somebody becomes vulnerable, he becomes vulnerable to just one person, not to a field of candidates. But beyond that, I think it's really a matter for them.
HADLEY:
But you must be delighted as Prime Minister that at a time when perhaps you could be, not you personally, but your Government could be coming to the attention of the electorate through other matters that we've got Martin Ferguson talking about sleazy deals being done, we've got Kim Beazley being attacked from within his own party because of the so-called sleazy deals, it takes the pressure off you as a Government.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, but I never think the public thinks highly of people gloating about the internal travails of another political party. I can remember when we were in opposition and we were going through difficult times, if ever Bob Hawke or Paul Keating overdid it and got up in Parliament and sneered a bit too much, the public reaction was to say 'well hang on, you get on with governing the country. That's what we're paying you to do.' The Australian public is marvellous in spotting too much opportunism in these things and I'll just, I'll leave all of those matters to the Australian Labor Party to sort out and I'm, how they handle them is really a matter for them.
HADLEY:
So is it right in the party room comments passed that once the Australian people get a whiff that we have tickets on ourselves we are dead and...
PRIME MINISTER:
Absolutely right. I said that when I addressed the Party Room after the 1996 election that the golden rule of Australian politics is not to get too full of yourself, to understand that you are there to serve the Australian people, not to tell them how good you are. Now we have tried very hard to follow that golden rule and it's been a great team effort. This is not a milestone just for John Howard. It's important for me obviously as the Prime Minister, but the contribution of the Coalition, the contribution of Peter Costello, extraordinarily significant contribution, the contribution of Alexander Downer as Foreign Minister, Robert Hill who has just retired, the former Defence Minister and Leader of the Government in the Senate. And the other person I mention particularly in the Party Room apart from the three National Party Leaders was Philip Ruddock who I think has done a great job in two very difficult portfolios and handled, in a very deft fashion, those difficult issues of asylum seekers and illegal immigration a few years ago.
HADLEY:
It's a battle between you two to see who is the last man standing Mr Ruddock and Mr Howard.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh he's been there longer than I have. He was there...
HADLEY:
He says he's younger than you. That's what he told me.
PRIME MINISTER:
He is younger.
HADLEY:
He was telling me that.
PRIME MINISTER:
He's four years younger than I. I remember going to his 21st birthday party. He is younger than I am.
HADLEY:
When you reflect back, and you spoke about having a couple of cracks at getting into Federal Parliament, then Bennelong, when did you think you were a hope of leading the country? When did that first enter the mindset?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I guess for a while after I became leader unexpectedly in 1985, Andrew Peacock and I had that funny encounter in 1985 and I ended up becoming leader and we've long since buried the hatchet and he's become a great friend and a strong supporter and he'll be at our gathering tonight. I guess at various stages while I was leader the first time around I entertained hopes that we might win the 87 election, but we had a very difficult time then. Our own party was disunited and then of course we had the extraordinary phenomenon of the "Joh for PM" campaign which wrecked the Federal Coalition. It was broken quite unnecessarily and quite foolishly and it really sent a signal to the Australian people that however unhappy they might have been with aspects of the Hawke Government and however much they might have liked some of my agenda, which they clearly did, they said 'this mob aren't ready to govern, because they can't govern themselves.' And Bob Hawke was right when he said 'if you can't govern yourself, you can't govern the country.' It was a phrase that I think...
HADLEY:
Might be coming back to haunt the Labor Party at the moment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it applies to any of us. Get your own house in order and then we'll have a look at you is basically what the average Australian rightly says.
HADLEY:
I know that you're probably not going to reflect back on your strengths and your weaknesses, but if Australia is to judge you as a person in years to come do you think the fact that you were so persistent is one of the more endearing qualities?
PRIME MINISTER:
I certainly have been persistent, I think you have to be. Persistence is greater according to a famous American mantra, than just about any other quality. And you do have to be persistent in anything. You have got to be persistent, you have to get up and do your homework, you have to toil away, you have got to understand the nature and the background and the character of the people you talk to and the same thing applies in my job. But you do have to be persistent. Hard work is very hard to beat as Arnold Palmer famously said, 'the more he practices the luckier he becomes.' And it is true in politics as well.
HADLEY:
Your wife will be by your side tonight and tomorrow night and Friday?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes indeed.
HADLEY:
Now how close did you go when she had that well publicised battle with cancer to pulling the pin and saying well maybe my time in public life in over. I'd better make sure that I'm here to care for my wife in the future.
PRIME MINISTER:
It was one of those situations where I just put everything on hold until we knew what the prognosis was going to be. She was diagnosed with cancer very suddenly as always seems to happen in the nature of that disease and pretty quickly she had a major operation and everything just went into suspension while that was going on, but fortunately it was very, very successful and the prognosis, although of convalescence and recuperation for quite a while was very good. And thank God she's been very healthty since and has had no recurrence and I'm very grateful for that. And she wouldn't have wanted me to quit politics I am sure, but everything was just put in suspension while that happened.
HADLEY:
Was it a case of her perhaps even saying to you at some stage, without wishing to pry into your personal details, but saying to you 'no, don't be silly, you need to...'
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's not something, I mean what we really did was when it happened, we just focussed on getting her through, which for any man or woman that faces something like this is a very difficult time and the family and all of us, we just focussed on helping her. And then I just know myself that she wouldn't have wanted me to, but the whole, you asked me how did I feel, well I just put everything in suspension for a while until I knew what was going to happen.
HADLEY:
All right Prime Minister, I've occupied enough of your time. I appreciate you coming on the programme and we will look forward to seeing you later in the week.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks Ray. Thanks mate.
HADLEY:
Prime Minister John Howard talking to us from Federal Parliament about a range of issues.
[ends]