MILLER:
Mr Prime Minister good evening.
PRIME MINISTER:
Hello John.
MILLER:
Thank you for taking the time out. I know you've had a very, very busy day today. A couple of things we need to deal with quickly though, immediately, or immediately in terms of breaking stories. Are you satisfied that the operation in the Solomons is going well?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I am. I've kept in touch during the day. It does appear that the additional Australian soldiers and police has had an immediate effect on the streets. They've gone out in a demonstration of force. The swearing in of the Prime Minister went ahead and it does appear that a semblance of order has been restored. That doesn't mean to say there won't be another outbreak, but the demonstration effect as well as the reality of the presence of additional forces has had a sobering effect, and that's the first stage of the rebuilding process. There's a lot of damage and it will be very costly. It's very tragic that a country with such few resources now has to devote some of them that they can scarcely afford in simply rebuilding assets that have been destroyed by wanton acts of criminal behaviour.
MILLER:
Yes and apparently the destruction according to a Reverend that I spoke to earlier in the programme today, the destruction in Honiara is quite horrific.
PRIME MINISTER:
It's very extensive. The people I've spoken to confirm that. The buildings in Chinatown have been largely burnt out. Recently erected buildings have been gutted; cars of course have been set on fire. It is quite extensive, but of course, you don't need a very large mob, once it is out of control and if there aren't enough police to restrain the mob, to do that kind of damage in a very short period of time.
MILLER:
Now, on another matter pertaining to our region, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has this afternoon issued a very uncharacteristically specific travel advisory warning people not to go to Indonesia.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I've seen that. It was based on some intelligence advice. You'll understand that I can't be more explicit than that, but the advice was such as to prompt the travel advisory to go out in the terms in which it did. A Government is damned if it does and its damned if it doesn't. It will inevitably attract criticism from Indonesia. On the other hand, our first obligation is to warn Australians of any potential threat based on the information that we have. And when a Government gets intelligence information, it does have an obligation to translate that intelligence information into the appropriate travel warning. Now I hope nothing happens and of course on most occasions when information like this is received and advisories are altered and warnings given, nothing does happen. But we have no alternative but to give warnings in these terms when something like this happens. It is quite explicit, I acknowledge that, but it's justified by the advice that we have received.
MILLER:
All right. And I can understand that you can't go into it any further than that.
PRIME MINISTER:
I can't talk about the nature of the intelligence. We have to work very hard at reflecting these things and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has to make judgements at the time.
MILLER:
Okay, lets move on to a local matter and on this programme oh gee whiz, only about 40, 50 minutes ago, Premier Peter Beattie was again having a go at you about the number of training positions for doctors in Queensland, saying that it's manifestly inadequate and that you're favouring Victoria at the expense of Queensland.
PRIME MINISTER:
No well I'm not favouring Victoria at the expense of Queensland. The reason why, in that latest batch of 400, we gave more to Victoria than any other state was that Victoria was behind. New medical schools had been started in other states and they were allocated places. I mean the James Cook University, North Queensland has got a medical school, I think everybody knows that, and what had happened over the last few years was that Victoria's ratio per hundred thousand of the Australian population had fallen behind the other states and in order to catch up, or ensure that Victoria caught up, we said out of the 400 that there would be preference given to universities in Victoria. Now that's only fair. That only restores Victoria to the same parity as other states. Now that's not being unfair to Queensland. I mean my responsibility is to govern for all Australians and I don't play favourites between states.
I think Mr Beattie would perhaps recognise that when people in Queensland have a particular need I respond to that and he would be aware of the way in which we've responded on other issues in other circumstances. But there's nothing discriminatory in this latest allocation. It is simply a catch up process because unlike other states where new medical schools have been established, that has not occurred in Victoria. There is going to be a Geelong campus I think for Monash University and there are going to be some additional places allocated there and also some additional places to Deakin University and all that will do is bring Victoria into line with the ratio per hundred thousand that the other states enjoy. So I'd say to the Premier that he really is not being fair to the other states. I know he's got to go into bat for Queensland, but I go into bat for all Australians and my job is to see that people living in different parts of the country are treated equally and fairly.
MILLER:
All right on the other hand though, he was highly complimentary of your water infrastructure initiatives announced today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I thank him for that and isn't that good that from time to time we can agree on things and work together. That's what the public want. They're fed up with pot shots being exchanged between state and federal governments for no purpose and we are very committed to working in partnership with state governments and also local government in relation to water projects and I think we've made quite a lot of progress on that front.
MILLER:
Yes, we are not Robinson Crusoe here in Brisbane with our water supply problems. I was talking to one of our Southern Cross reporters in Sydney today, oh sorry; it was actually the Weather Channel I was talking to on this matter. He was telling me that the dam in Goulburn, for example, has now literally run dry. What's left in it is stagnant, undrinkable.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well Goulburn has a very significant problem. It's missed out even when there were very heavy rains in about July or August of last year, in and around the Canberra area, which of course is not very far from Goulburn. Not enough of it seemed to go to Goulburn and Brisbane is not Robinson Crusoe. The water problem in Australia is not going to be solved by one single, giant project. There are some people who still think that if only somebody built a huge canal through the middle of the country and brought all that water down from the top of Australia into other parts of Australia and spread it around we'd solve the problem. It doesn't work like that. What we must do is, in a collaborative way, have many projects which deal in a sensible local fashion with the problem.
I launched one a long way away from Queensland, over in Western Australia, in Cottesloe, a couple of weeks ago and it essentially involved re-fabricating an aquifer and shutting off about 10 ocean outlets where water just ran into the ocean and turning that water to effective local use. Now that was a project in partnership with the Cottesloe Town Council. We put in some money and the local council put in some money. It will save, I don't know how many million litres a year, but small in the overall national total, but very important locally. What we really need are projects like that all over the country rather than imagine that there's one single big bang solution to the problem. There's not. You need a lot of very effective local solutions and I think some of the things that the Premier's referring to today probably relate to that and they are the way to go.
MILLER:
Time is against us Prime Minister, but one final question before we go and that is that on another network today you have been quoted as saying that you have no plans for retirement. That's the most specific I can recall you being. You're not a man prone to slips of the tongue, did you mean that?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I was asked whether I was contemplating retiring, and you ask me that question, no I'm not contemplating retiring. I'm speaking obviously in the present tense. Somebody asked me that. John, nothing new, situation normal. People should not get excited.
MILLER:
Fair enough.
PRIME MINISTER:
My position remains the same. I'll continue to do this job for so long as my Party wants me to and it's in the Party's best interests that I do. That has been my position now since the middle of 2003. It remains my position and what I said today was utterly consistent with that.
MILLER:
Well you certainly didn't sound like you were going anywhere in a hurry last night anyway.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks, John, okay.
MILLER:
Prime Minister John Howard good to talk to you. We'll catch up with you again. Enjoy the remainder of your stay in Brisbane.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thankyou, bye.
[ends]