Subjects: Sydney airports; illegal immigrants; high speed train; economic growth; next election
E&EO …………………………………………………………………………………
OLDS:
Joining us from his Sydney office, the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard. Mr Howard, good afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER:
How are you Murray?
OLDS:
I’m fine thank you sir. How are you doing?
PRIME MINISTER:
Very well indeed.
OLDS:
You’ve been copping it today over Cabinet’s decision on Badgery’s Creek. Is it a – well I’ll just give you a flavour of some of the calls we’ve had today. Some are saying it’s a cop out yet again by another Government on a second airport for Sydney or others are saying it’s a carefully crafted decision balancing the needs of now with longer term considerations.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the latter version is correct. The former version is wrong. It is not a cop out. It was a hard decision. No matter what decision was taken on this issue, some people would have been unhappy. As you know the reality is that people simultaneously want the convenience of an airport without any of the noise. We’re all like that. I’m not suggesting any immunity from that kind of reaction myself but what we’ve tried to do is take a decision that accommodates the long term airport needs of Sydney, spreads the noise levels around and also recognises that over a period of time there can be technological changes and so forth that mean you can have larger aircraft which are quieter and you can, by doing what we’ve done in relation to Bankstown, progressively provide an overflow airport for Sydney Kingsford Smith. Now we’ve hung on to the Badgery’s Creek site….
OLDS:
Yeah, I wonder why you’ve done that?
PRIME MINISTER:
Against the possibility that one day circumstances may require the building of another airport there. I personally doubt that that will ever happen but you have to be prudent. We already own the land and people have known for a long time of the possibility of there being an airport there and we’re going to keep the land because that’s all part of the prudent planning. I mean just as the Government’s attitude towards the capacity of Kingsford Smith to handle aircraft has changed over the last five years. The airlines themselves are using Kingsford Smith now far more efficiently. You do not have the long delays at Kingsford Smith you had a few years ago. You still have some delays but everybody tells me that there are fewer delays now. And what has happened is that the airlines and the airport has learnt to use that airport more efficiently. Now just as that can change over a five year period so over the next five, ten or fifteen years other things can change and it’s sensible to hang on to something that you’ve already got. But personally I doubt that there will ever be a second airport built at Badgery’s Creek but I may be proved wrong and a future government may take another view and that is their prerogative.
OLDS:
But the pressures on Kingsford Smith though Prime Minister because the latest tourist figures we have – that 10 million tourists, I mean this country is booming with tourists…
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I understand all of that.
OLDS:
By 2010, 10 million people. Where are they going to land. How will …
PRIME MINISTER:
Well many of them will choose to land elsewhere in Australia and what’s wrong with that?
OLDS:
But don’t they want to come to this, the gateway of Australia …
PRIME MINISTER:
Hang on, hang on. I am the Prime Minister of Australia. I’m not the Prime Minister of Sydney. I’m the Prime Minister of Australia. No I am and I have to take an Australian view. I’m not taking a selfish Sydney view of this.
OLDS:
It’s a national view.
PRIME MINISTER:
Of course it’s a national view and as the Prime Minister of this country I express no preference as to where people land in this country. I’m just as happy to see tourists who come to Australia land in Brisbane and Perth and Melbourne as I am to see them land in Sydney. I know I’m talking to a Sydney audience on this occasion but my responsibility is to the entire country and one of the consequences of this is that more people will choose, for a combination of reasons, to fly into Melbourne or Brisbane or Cairns or Canberra. And we’re going to upgrade the airport at Canberra so it can take 747s.
OLDS:
Right.
PRIME MINISTER:
If they choose to make another city their first point of entry into Australia well I don’t mind that. I really don’t.
OLDS:
But I just wonder …
PRIME MINISTER:
Every Australian is the same.
OLDS:
But I wonder Prime Minister how many people sitting in Iceland tonight are going to say gee I want to go to Canberra? They want to come to Sydney.
PRIME MINISTER:
I know and most of them will still be able to do so but you’re talking here at the margin, that’s all you’re doing. You’re talking at the margin.
OLDS:
Can this cost you the election?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I, look that’s a matter for the Australian people. I don’t look at these things in terms of whether it’s going to cost me the election. I look at it in terms of what is the best, most balanced, carefully crafted I think is the expression you used long-term decision.
OLDS:
Hand on your heart there was no politics involved here?
PRIME MINISTER:
What we decided was something that we believed long-term would work and is fair. Of course you think about political consequences but there are political consequences in the decision that we’ve taken. There’s political consequences in every decision but in the end you have to ask yourself, does this decision make sense against the future airport needs of Australia. And also bearing in mind that the people of Sydney have made it very clear that there are certain noise level arrangements that they simply won’t tolerate and people want the curfew in this city and they’re going to have it. We’re going to keep the curfew. And people want the noise spread around. What people resent about aircraft noise is where a flight plan is developed and an approach is adopted which loads all of the aircraft noise onto one section of the Australian community. And that is what we faced before this Government came to office. I mean it was a blatant attempt by the former government to dump most of the noise over certain parts of the city. Now I’ve changed that and there’s a greater spread of noise which has meant that some people who previously had virtually no noise have now got some noise but it also means that some people who had virtually all of the noise have now got less noise and I just think that’s fairer.
OLDS:
You’ve spread, you’ve actually spread the burden. I mean, what about Kurnell Prime Minister? Why was that idea floated …?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well because it was floated – and I acknowledged that it was floated – because Kurnell is close to Kingsford Smith and the view was taken we ought to look at whether it’s possible to build a parallel runway and thereby expand the capacity of Kingsford Smith. Now we got some advice on that and we had maps thrown up on the overheads and we went into all the detail and we got all the environmental assessments and the cost assessments. We got advice about the cost of building a people mover under the water from Kurnell through to the main terminals of Kingsford Smith.
OLDS:
That broke the calculator didn’t it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Beg your pardon?
OLDS:
The costs of that would have broken the calculator?
PRIME MINISTER:
Ah, yeah, there was a bit of a spike of a few zeros there and we came to the conclusion that for a combination of reasons – not least the environmental considerations that that really wasn’t a goer so we ruled it out. But when you’re doing a decision like this, if you’re to do it conscientiously you’ve got to look at every option. Now obviously if you go out onto the streets of, you mentioned Kurnell, and you go out to Kurnell or the streets of Sutherland and you say to people what do you think, they say oh dreadful idea. Then you go to Bankstown and people say dreadful idea. You go to Badgery’s Creek, people say dreadful idea. You go to some of the inner suburbs and you talk about maintaining Kingsford Smith and they say that’s a dreadful idea. I mean, there’s no one decision on this that’s going to satisfy everybody. What you have to try and do is take a decision that you know in the long run will work but is also generally fair to most people. And that is all you can ever do with something like this.
OLDS:
But Prime Minister how big would you imagine Bankstown Airport might get?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh look, nothing near Sydney Kingsford Smith but remember Bankstown now is one of the busiest – I know you’ll find this amazing to believe – it’s one of the busiest airports in the world.
OLDS:
In the world, that’s right.
PRIME MINISTER:
Because it has so many light plane movements. Now the idea will be, I think over time a lot of those flying schools and so forth will go out to Camden, perhaps Hoxton Park, more particularly Camden, and in actual aircraft movements it may not end up as busy as it is now. That’s one of the ironies but over time some of the aircraft will be bigger.
OLDS:
Prime Minister – at 2UE we have the Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, on line, it’s 18 minutes to 6 o’clock in Sydney, the gateway to Australia – Prime Minister I’m wondering if I can ask you a few questions just while I have you here about a couple of other issues.
PRIME MINISTER:
Go right ahead.
OLDS:
Well, a predecessor of yours, Malcolm Fraser, has been very critical of your Government on Woomera. I’m wondering what you make of Mr Howard’s (sic) criticisms and are they valid?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well his criticisms, Mr Fraser’s criticisms, are not valid. Nobody likes detaining people but when people come to this country illegally then you have no alternative but to detain them. Otherwise you are only inviting more and more people to come to the country illegally and you lose control of the movement of people in and out of this country. And no sovereign nation can afford to do that. There’s nothing unreasonable about detaining people who’ve arrived illegally.
OLDS:
What about making conditions a bit better though for women and children?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I haven’t been to Woomera myself, neither incidentally has Mr Fraser. People who’ve been there say it’s not something that by preference you’d want to go to but …
OLDS:
It’s not a holiday camp?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the allegations in relation to particular alleged events at Woomera – they are being investigated and until we’ve got the results of that investigation I’m going to hold my judgement on those allegations. They may or may not be justified but a lot of people who have been there have disputed some of the stories. I was interested to hear on the radio the other morning a Labor Senator from Western Australia, Jim McKiernan, who normally doesn’t praise us – he was quite critical of some of the things that have been said about Woomera. I think that’s interesting because he’s a Labor Senator and a person who’s normally always hopping into the Government.
OLDS:
Can I ask you about the train proposal between Sydney and Canberra? Now the private sector spent millions of dollars and a great deal of time looking at this and the Federal Government has now said no, no I am sorry all bets are off it’s not going to go ahead. Is it not very damaging to you know the infrastructure, I mean people out there making decisions spending you know big sums of money looking at these projects and perhaps the Government may have been a bit clearer a bit earlier on.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we were. We, the basis of the private sector looking at this was that it would be at no net cost to the taxpayer. Now in the end it would have been at a net cost of at least $1 billion up to $2 billion. I mean I am sorry that the project can’t go ahead but it’s not fair of some spokesman from the private sector to say that the Government has let them down. We never said that we were going to subsidise it.
OLDS:
Has the well not been poisoned?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I am sorry, I want to make that point again, we never said that it was going to be subsidised. I mean you would imagine that from some of the comments I’ve heard, some of the comments I’ve heard today that all along we said we were going to subsidise it and then right at the last minute we withdrew that commitment. Now that was not the case.
OLDS:
Can I? Sorry, go ahead.
PRIME MINISTER:
Now when you say, we haven’t poisoned any well. I mean at the very beginning the whole basis of this understanding, of all the work they did and everything was that they had to produce something that was at no net cost. Now that was not the case. And that’s why we couldn’t go ahead with it. We couldn’t justify spending $1 billion to $2 billion on that particular train link. People all around the country who wanted the Government to spend money on their infrastructure would have said what is so privileged about the people of Canberra or Sydney that they should have that money spent when the Government won’t subsidise uneconomic projects in other parts of the country. You just can’t do that.
OLDS:
Prime Minister growth figures today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
OLDS:
When we look at those, obviously they’ve slumped . . .
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no, slump is…hang on, we’ve had the thirteenth quarter of growth over 4% a year.
OLDS:
Housing starts though, there’s a slump there isn’t there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, housing is down significantly. The economy’s growth is moderating, the economy’s growth is moderating.
OLDS:
What impact can you anticipate on jobs?
PRIME MINISTER:
I would not expect a significant impact on jobs in the immediate future, perhaps not even in the medium-term future. What you’re seeing at the moment is some moderation of growth and you’re also seeing the impact of some distorting factors such as the introduction of the GST and the Olympic Games. The introduction of the GST encouraged a lot of people to spend on housing before the 1st of July, correspondingly spend less on housing after the 1st of July. In relation to motor vehicles, it had the opposite effect. It delayed people spending before the 1st of July and encouraged them to spend afterwards. So I think you need these distorting patterns of behaviour, or distorted patterns of behaviour to wash themselves out before you get a longer term bead on what’s happening.
OLDS:
Any, I guess you won’t even canvass the notion of interest rates – you know an easing next year?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I keep reading comment in the papers that people think that they’ve peaked. I don’t offer a view as to what’s going to happen. I don’t comment, I don’t speculate on the future level of interest rates.
OLDS:
Can I ask you just one final one, you’re heading into the Christmas Break, I am sure in your heart of hearts, in much better shape than you ever dared hope. Is that fair comment?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes Murray that is a fair comment. I expected the Government to be significantly behind the Opposition at this time of the political cycle. I thought that the inevitable wear and tear of a big economic change like the introduction of a new tax system would have had an impact. The reality is that it has been received and accepted by the Australian community, and I thank them for that, far more than I would have thought was the case. The other thing that has to be said is that the Labor Party has not in almost five years of Opposition developed any alternative policies.
OLDS:
And now they’ve got lead in their saddlebags up in Queensland.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that’s right. I mean in the end the community wants both sides of politics to present policies and to do things for the benefit of the country. And what I’ve tried to do over the last year and particularly over the last six months is to tackle all of the difficult issues that we face, take decisions on them, accepting that not everybody’s going to agree with every decision we take of which the airport is an example. But in the long run people want you to take decisions, that’s what we’re elected to do and it will never be possible for people to say that this Government and this Prime Minister are or is unwilling to take decisions.
OLDS:
Can you win a third term?
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s a matter for your listeners and their fellow Australians all around the country. I don’t know, I would like to win a third term.
OLDS:
You’ll be there?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I’ll be leading the party to the next election if that’s what my colleagues want and so far that’s the indication they give me. I don’t get any other impression. I am very happy to lead the party to the next election. But I don’t take it for granted, I think it’s a hard ask, a third term is always difficult but I do think that if we keep on taking decisions that people see as part of a pattern of doing the right thing for the country than we have a good chance, but I can’t put it anymore strongly than that.
OLDS:
Just for your Christmas reading can I recommend a great book about Alec Griffith, he’s one of the old diggers who went back to the Western Front in 1993.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes.
OLDS:
A fantastic story. He was born on New Year’s Day 1900 and he was on the Western Front before he was 17. It’s called until a Dead Horse Kicks You by a young Melbourne guy called Robert Crack. If you haven’t seen it I will send you a copy it’s a great read.
PRIME MINISTER:
Murray you have a nice Christmas.
OLDS:
Mr Howard thank you.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
[ends]