KING:
Welcome Prime Minister both to Queensland and 612 ABC Brisbane.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you, very nice to be with you.
KING:
Now I might start with the Solomons if that is ok. What is your briefing overnight of the state of affairs there?
PRIME MINISTER:
The situation has got better now that the additional troops and police have arrived but it still hasn't returned to normal. But I have had a detailed report this morning from the High Commissioner and also from the Regional Assistance Mission headquarters and it does indicate that already the presence of additional police and soldiers is having a sobering effect on those who have caused the trouble. But we are not out of the woods and it doesn't mean that the situation won't get bad again. But I expected that once the troops arrived and they began patrolling the streets and their presence was known to everybody then that would start to have a salutary effect because what clearly happened was that the police establishment in the country, in Honiara, was overwhelmed by the mob and they did need reinforcements. Fortunately we were able to get them there very quickly because we had a group on standby in Townsville and they were able to go on 24 hours notice. I think we have to give a big pat on the back to the Australian Army and to the Australian Federal Police and also their fellow officers from state police forces because this is a combined Australian operation. They're there, and with the help of their friends from New Zealand and Fiji it will make a big difference.
KING:
Absolutely, they deserve a pat on the back. But we are living in a precarious part of the world aren't we? We have lawlessness in the Solomons, we are at odds with Indonesia at the moment, PNG is in almost a permanent state of civil unrest. How much of a role should Australia play to keep order, I guess in both a military and a police sense?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well putting Indonesia aside for the moment because the issues there are separate from the challenges of potentially failing states in the Pacific. No country in the world has a bigger role to play than Australia and what we have to remind ourselves again is that in our own part of the world, the rest of the world expects Australia to shoulder most of the burden. Not all of the burden. Obviously, New Zealand and other smaller countries have to make a contribution, but Australia is far and away the biggest, the wealthiest and the strongest country in the region and we have to be prepared to shoulder the major part of the burden. I have said before and I repeat it again that we will face, over the years ahead, perhaps over the next 15 or 20 years, the potential for small states in the region to face the possibility of becoming failed states. It is in our interest to stop that happening. It is not only good for them to stop it happening, but failed states create vacuums, vacuums are filled by people with bad thoughts and not necessarily good intentions.
KING:
But what you're saying in that is that the role of our police and military in the region will only grow?
PRIME MINISTER:
It is certainly more likely to grow than to diminish, far more likely and it is not only of course a military policing role. We have a governance role and we have made it very clear now, since a very significant change in policy towards the Pacific about three years ago, we have made it very clear that aid would be tied to improvements in governance and that means, without putting it too impolitely, less corruption and also it means better economic policies. In other words, we are prepared to provide financial help, providing the countries that receive that help are willing to adopt better economic policies. We understand that has to happen over time and also eliminate corruption.
KING:
Can I move onto some domestic issues and take some listener calls?
PRIME MINISTER:
Sure.
KING:
The strength of your Government has been very much low interest rates, your claim of helping out families, but I suspect much of that is now disappearing into the petrol tank. Have you applied your mind to how your Government might help families on this petrol price issue?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we start of course with the advantage of having, in the words of the OECD overnight, I noticed a very interesting report in The Australian newspaper which has hardly been loudly applauding everything the Government has done on taxation matters, that we have the most generous family assistance programme in the OECD for low income families.
KING:
But it doesn't change how much it costs when I fill up my car.
PRIME MINISTER:
I am moving to that, I am not trying to avoid it, but you have got to contextualise these things. If we didn't have generous family assistance then the cost of petrol would be hitting even harder. The high price of petrol is very painful, very painful indeed. It is due overwhelmingly to the world price of crude oil. Now over Easter the ACCC carried out an examination of fuel prices and the conclusion of the ACCC, an independent monitoring body, was that the price of petrol in Australia was due overwhelmingly to the world price of crude oil.
Do I think that price is going to come down in the near future? I think it is likely to recede a little bit from the very high levels of the past few days, but while ever there is tension in areas that supply oil and there is a very big issue at the moment involving Iran, not generated by Australia or the United States or the West, but generated by Iran because of its defiance of its obligations in relation to nuclear weaponry, there is going to be a much higher level of world oil prices than we would like. Now I wish it were otherwise.
KING:
But can you do anything from your end as a Government?
PRIME MINISTER:
No government in Australia, and I don't even hear the Opposition saying this and they criticise every single thing we do and more, no government in Australia can defy the world's crude oil price and you can put out press releases and you can make all the statements under the sun, but in the end a commodity like oil, the price of it is driven by the world availability and the world price of it.
KING:
OK let's go to John from Wooloowin who has question for the Prime Minister. John your question relates to tax relief.
CALLER:
Good morning Prime Minister. Congratulations on achieving your 10 years as Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
CALLER:
Prime Minister, you've mentioned in recent years you would like to see more older people continuing to work past retirement age.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I would.
CALLER:
And have actually provided a number of benefits, in fact, that encourage mature age workers, tax offsets etcetera, etcetera. I'm sure there's no need for me to mention these to you here. But you've also mentioned that you feel tax relief should be given to people paying tax in the higher end of the tax scale. And there's been examples of that in recent years where you've given tax relief in that area. I've worked all my life Prime Minister, I've never been on the dole or received any other benefits. I reach 65 next year and will be eligible for the pension. Unfortunately I don't have enough assets to do otherwise. I've intended to keep working, as I currently do, by my manual efforts for many years, and feel while the incentives are there for me to keep working, they are limited.
KING:
So what's your question to the Prime Minister John?
CALLER:
The pension is $12,800. If I earn $13,000 on top of that, the pension is reduced to $8,900 and I actually will earn a gross earning of $21,968 which is tax exempt and that's excellent. But if I earn more than that, past that, once I go past that point, things fall away dramatically.
KING:
John, do you have a question for the Prime Minister?
CALLER:
Yes, I'm just coming to it now. For me to increase my earnings by another $2,771 I need to earn another $8,334 dollars and I actually lose 66 percent of what I've earned past that point. Not in tax, but I give it back to the Government, it's out of my pocket. Do you believe there's any case to give further relief to retirees who are prepared to work, physically work, to earn more money as opposed to people who receive it through superannuation benefits or other ways?
KING:
Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well looked at in isolation, John, the answer is obviously yes. I would like to do a whole lot of things that people ring up about. We have made some changes and you were generous enough to acknowledge those and the other thing of course that we've done is we've introduced a pension bonus scheme whereby for every year you work beyond 65, when you do retire the pension is bigger and that is an incentive for people to stay in the workforce longer. You mentioned, John, that I'm in favour of giving tax relief to high income earners. Well I'm in favour where I can of giving tax relief to everybody although the emphasis has been very much on giving tax help to people who are raising children. And I think that's a very important social priority and I'm sure you and most listeners would agree with that.
John, the best answer I can give to you is to say that anything we can do consistent with our other responsibilities to provide further incentives we would like to do. I can't make any specific promises and I don't want that answer to be construed as a specific promise. But I applaud people who stay in the workforce longer, stay in the workforce beyond the age of 65 and I think more and more Australians are going to do that and you have a lot wisdom, a lot of experience and most importantly of all, from your own personal enjoyment of life, being able to work and contribute while ever you want to is a great way of delivering personal satisfaction.
KING:
All right, lets go to Anne from Fortitude Valley. Good morning Anne.
CALLER:
Hello Mr Howard, it's Anne here from the Brisbane Valley.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning.
CALLER:
Mine's more a plea actually than a question. Would you please, would the Federal Government please get together with the State Government, stop playing ducks and drakes and do something about the Ipswich Motorway?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I'm very happy to do that. See the Ipswich Motorway is something we've already contributed about $560 million to and we're having a feasibility study done into what's called the Goodna Bypass. We think it's better to do that than the alternative being advocated by the State Government, and bearing in mind that we carry a very large part of the financial responsibility for this, we think our view on this should be listened to. I am always ready to work closely with the Queensland Government. I think we demonstrated in the response to the cyclone in Innisfail that the two Governments could work together very closely and I'm very happy to talk at any time in a rational fashion with the Queensland Premier about that.
KING:
It's 18 minutes past nine. My guest the Prime Minister John Howard. We just talked about a Queensland issue. The big one where our Queensland Government is not at all happy with you is on the issue of doctors. They say the states went to COAG demanding another 900 places and that was based on departmental analysis, and from all the states. You came out with a number of about 400. How did you come to that number?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well let me say this, that that number was not the only increase. There are also another several hundred that have come out of the enhancements to Medicare and also we announced an additional 1000 nursing places. You say how did we calculate, well we calculated it on the basis of our assessment of the need.
KING:
Your department?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no, no, not just our department. Talking to the professions, examining reports that have been prepared on the health workforce in Australia by the Productivity Commission and what we are providing, not only through the announcement I made a couple of weeks ago, but also through other announcements, we are providing a 60 percent increase in the number of doctors in Australia between 2005 and 2011.
KING:
Is that enough?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well in the eyes of some people nothing would ever be enough.
KING:
Peter Beattie?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well can I just say to Mr Beattie and to all the other state Premiers, where are the clinical training places for the new doctors? Where are they? I haven't seen on the table yet from any of the states the requisite new clinical training places in 2007. It's no good putting doctors through university if there are no clinical training places and we don't control them. Now once again, in the spirit of talking, can I say to Mr Beattie, instead of wasting $11,000 of Queensland taxpayers' money taking out full page advertisements in The Australian at the weekend, why don't you come and have a sensible talk to me in the way that we were able to sensibly talk about the cyclone in Innisfail? That's what the Australian public wants. They don't like that other nonsense.
KING:
Peter Beattie's Government though has been very much wounded I think in this state over the health crisis. The political analysts would vary on whether the conservative side here are capitalising, or making any in-roads; an election due in less than a year. What advice would you have for our National and Liberal parties who are still facing several three cornered contests for example?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think the Liberal and National parties in Queensland have come a long way. They have had troubles in the past. Everybody knows that and there's no sense in denying it. But I was with a lot of them last night and I found that there's a new spirit of cooperation. The by-election in Gaven was a great outcome. It was a Coalition win. The person who won the seat was a National Party member, the campaign was run by Geoff Greene, the State Liberal Party Director, people were encouraged to vote for the Coalition candidate; that's what the people of Queensland want. The people of Queensland have been very strong supporters of the Federal Coalition and I wish my colleagues well.
Meanwhile of course, I will work with the current Queensland Government because that's the government at the moment that the people of Queensland have voted for and it's my obligation as Prime Minister of Australia to work with Labor Premiers all around the country, as it is the obligation of those Labor Premiers to work constructively with me, despite the fact that I come from the Liberal Party.
KING:
So but what you're saying is that three cornered contests in the state environment need do no harm to the Coalition parties?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I'm not saying that. Well virtually as I understand it, there have been, the number of three cornered contests will be released, reduced to two, three, four at the maximum, out of what 89, 90?
KING:
Eighty nine yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Eighty nine. Well that's virtually none at all. So it's not a big issue.
KING:
But does it reduce the chances of a Coalition victory?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, anything that can be done to present an image of total unity is a help. The point is that the two parties have come a long way. There's a new spirit of goodwill. It was evident in the Gaven by-election and I was greatly encouraged by that. They have won three by-elections in a row and that's not bad.
KING:
Would they do better as one conservative party in the state?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you can't look at Queensland in isolation from the rest of the country.
KING:
Alright. You talked about the federal seats, the number of Liberal Party people here, I think you've certainly got the lion's share of them in Queensland, I think 17, Labor's got about six. Any of those six winnable come the next federal election do you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I always operate on the basis that the best form of defence is attack and I would like to increase the numbers. But let me say this, I am very happy with the Liberal Party's representation in Queensland and the National Party, but I've got to fight hard, I don't take the people of Queensland for granted.
KING:
Do we have enough representation in Cabinet do you think at the table?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I think we do. I think Queensland is better represented in Cabinet now than it's been for 10 or 15 years, far better represented than it was in the Labor years. Queensland was almost totally ignored at senior levels when Bob Hawke was Prime Minister. I can remember you had a New South Wales, Victorian-centric Cabinet of mammoth proportions and I think at one stage Ben Humphreys was the sole outer ministerial representative in the Hawke or Keating ministries. They were very poorly represented after Bill Hayden went.
KING:
You are up against Beazley, Mr Beazley, again next time around. When you first ran against him I think you said he didn't have any ticker. Has that changed?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I still don't think Mr Beazley tells the Australian public what he believes. And what you've got to do in politics is tell people where you stand. People know where I stand, even people who violently disagree with me. They know why they disagree with me because I have a clear position. Mr Beazley sits on the fence. I mean....
KING:
Still no ticker?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, you know, he sits on the fence.
KING:
No ticker?
PRIME MINISTER:
You take this issue about the people from Papua. I'm not quite sure what his position is on that. He keeps bobbing around, he says that we have adopted a policy for a particular reason but he doesn't tell the Australian people whether he precisely supports or opposes that policy.
KING:
Do we know where you stand on everything do you think?
PRIME MINISTER:
All the things that matter to the Australian public, they know exactly where I stand.
KING:
Alright. Let's go to Craig at Moorooka. Good morning Craig.
CALLER:
Good morning Mr Howard, how are you?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm well mate.
CALLER:
I just wanted to ask a quick question of you. I'm a small business owner, a very small business owner, wondering if you would, the Government would look at allowing access to our superannuation funds to keep the businesses going during the hard times?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think some instances of that occur at the present time, don't they?
CALLER:
I've asked and I've been told no.
PRIME MINISTER:
What sort of superannuation arrangements do you have?
CALLER:
I've got the one that's locked up, the one, the Government one.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes. Well the problem with allowing it, full and unfettered access, of course, is that the purpose of superannuation is thereby undermined. I mean the whole idea of superannuation is that it's put away for your retirement. If we allow it for small business, why don't we allow it for everybody? And if you allow it for everybody than the dedicated funds disappear altogether.
KING:
Can I ask you about an education issue, we've had Julie Bishop the Federal Education Minister on the programme and she's talked about younger formal education for children. Literacy, basic literacy skills, everyone says is falling. Yesterday you were here to open the first stage of Education City at Springfield. Do you see this type of prototype where private companies essentially can run part of our school education as part of the education vision for the country?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't think Education City involves private companies running education. I still believe very strongly that the curriculum and the syllabus has got to be set by education authorities and by and large that should be done by state education authorities. I sometimes question the decisions they make as an individual about the content. I think....
KING:
Oh you've got me interested there because I mean a lot of parents are saying this.
PRIME MINISTER:
I mean I feel very, very strongly about the criticism that many people are making that we are dumbing down the English syllabus.
KING:
Are we?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think there's evidence of that in different parts of the country. I mean when the, what I might call the traditional texts are treated no differently from pop cultural commentary, as appears to be the case in some syllabus, I share the views of many people about the so-called post modernism. I think there's a lot of validity in that. But in the end you do need to have a syllabus and a curriculum set by an independent education authority. I just wish that independent education authority didn't succumb on occasions to the political correctness that it appears to succumb to.
KING:
I think that's a view supported by a lot of parents and grandparents out there. We've got the Western Australian Government I think talking about outcome based education.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I mean that is gobbledegook. What does that mean? I mean we all understand that it's necessary to be able to be literate and coherent in the English language. We understand it's necessary to be numerate and we also understand that there's high quality literature and there's rubbish, and we need a curriculum that encourages an understanding of the high quality literature and not the rubbish.
KING:
Let's go to Paul at Loganholme. Your question for the Prime Minister, Paul?
CALLER:
Thank you firstly, John, for the new industrial relations laws, I'm a small businessman and I wholeheartedly welcome them.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
CALLER:
Next thing, on dealing with Indonesia, why are we so accommodating of these people? We will decide, and you've said before, that we will decide who we take in, whether they be asylum seekers or migrants and I am more happier to have those poor Papuans come here because I know for sure they will not be killing anyone else in the name of their god.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well not all Indonesians have that attitude. Most Indonesians are as repulsed by fanatical Islam as you and I are. Nothing that we have decided in relation to refugees in the future alters the fact that we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come. I mean I noticed a few people have made that comment. We are not altering that in anyway. We're saying that in future if people arrive in an unauthorised fashion they're going to be processed in a different way. Now that is exercising our right to decide who comes here and the circumstances in which they come because we're altering the circumstances in which they are processed. We're not in anyway handing over that authority to any other country.
KING:
Speaking of Indonesia, seven of the Bali Nine have got life sentences, is that something, is your Government actively negotiating a treaty to try and bring them back to Australia to serve their time at some stage?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there is a discussion going on in relation to people serving sentences imposed overseas back in Australia and if it gets negotiated then it might apply to some of those people, yes.
KING:
And how far are those negotiations along?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh they're proceeding, but those sort of negotiations always take a long time, but we are negotiating in good faith. It's not an easy thing negotiating a prisoner exchange agreement like that with another country.
KING:
Has the West Papuan thing made it more difficult to negotiate?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Indonesia has made noises, how long that will continue we'll wait and see. But we have a principled position. We gave asylum or gave protection visas for those people and they were dealt with in accordance with Australian law. And let me say the announcement I made last week about the changed policy, in no way affects the 42 West Papuans; their position in Australian will not be affected by that decision.
KING:
You always holiday in New South Wales come Christmas time, how can Tourism Queensland send you a message to come for Christmas holidays up here next time around?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it's not so much, I just spend time at Kirribilli House at Christmas. That's a challenging thought, I'll have to take that on board.
KING:
What's your favourite place in Queensland?
PRIME MINISTER:
My favourite place in Queensland, well my wife and I honeymooned at Currumbin Beach, so I suppose I have, you know, that's a few years ago now.
KING:
The producers are nodding, they like the Currumbin Beach. Is that a place you'd consider retiring?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not considering that, good try.
KING:
You're not considering retiring full stop.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm not considering retiring, no.
KING:
You've been a good sport, thank you very much for your time, we hope we see you much during the election to take our listeners calls.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]