JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, thanks for joining me on the programme.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning John.
JOURNALIST:
You actually announced the first 13 weeks on this programme, now you've doubled it yesterday. And I know last time there were a few people saying, oh it wasn't very generous, well there probably is one or two saying it again today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I guess no matter what one does you can never make everybody happy, but we have now provided, the Federal Government alone, has now provided assistance to the tune of $239 million, almost a quarter of a billion dollars. Now I regard every dollar as being well spent and I do not for a moment begrudge it, but I want to make the point that the Federal Government has been very ready with its money to help.
I think what we have done has responded to the need. We won't be extending it beyond 26 weeks. I thought long and hard about doubling it from 13, because 13 is a reasonable period. Twenty-six weeks is half a year. We have responsibilities to people in difficulties all around the country and I think the injection of all of this Federal money has played a major role in the revival of Innisfail, but of course nowhere near as great as the role played by the men and women of the town and the district who've carried the load and done all of the hard work.
And I think the extension of the period of the subsidy from 13 weeks to 26, that's a doubling, and also the extension of the cut-off point for the applications until the 31st of August, they represent responses to requests that were made of me when I was in Innisfail earlier this week. I spoke to a lot of people there and the message that came through was people were very grateful for the help that we'd provided. If we could go a little further in relation to the wage subsidies and to extend the cut-off time, they would see that as being very helpful. I have agreed to that, and that's effective now. I do think however that given the magnitude of the assistance provided it's not reasonable of people to expect that that wage subsidy period is going to be further extended.
JOURNALIST:
I can tell you one thing its done up here is teach us the importance of the banana industry and I think not just in North Queensland but the importance of bananas Australia-wide, the impact it's had the other day on our CPI figures.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it certainly did have a big impact. I mean that will disappear next quarter when the CPI comes out, but the effect was, of course, there were so few bananas after the cyclone, not only did the price of bananas go up, but people switched to other fruit and the price of the other fruit went up as well. And that had quite a one-off effect on the inflation rate. John, the really good thing is that the spirit of the community is terrific. I found that everywhere there was a vibrancy and an optimism and a forward looking attitude being adopted by everybody. It is amazing how quickly, when you have that atmosphere, how quickly communities can recover.
JOURNALIST:
You made that commitment to come back within six months and you came back actually just at the end of four months, so I think people up here, particularly in Innisfail, are very grateful for that. I want to quickly turn to another issue. I know you're in a hell of a hurry, but the illegal fishing in the Gulf is a big issue on this programme up here and people are astounded by this reaction down south. I'll read from the Courier Mail today. It says 'two centuries ago you were sent to the prison hulks for stealing bread, today you might get a berth for stealing fish. A Federal Government plan to imprison illegal fisherman in a prison ship appears to have troubled Australia's collective conscience.' I can tell you what, there's no suggestion that any consciences, any collective conscience here in North Queensland is being troubled by this because we know what a plague it's been.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well John, I think you speak for middle Australia in saying that. I don't think that many people compare what we're proposing with the prison hulks that people were sent to 200 or more years ago.
JOURNALIST:
For these fishermen, it would be like a cruise on a luxury cruiser.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I'm sure it would be better than what they have been used to, I have no doubt about that. But this is a sensible, practical response to a problem and I believe that most people will support very strongly what the Government is doing. It's not a new policy, it doesn't have any evil connotations. We have an accommodation problem with illegal fishermen from other countries and using this method of holding them makes a great deal of sense.
It would be a purpose-built vessel, some $17 million. The conditions will be good, in fact, you know, some people I've even heard on the other side of the argument say we don't need to spend that amount of money, so I guess if you've upset some on either side of it, you've probably got it about right. That's always a reasonable operating principle in this business.
[ends]