PRIME MINISTER:
Well could I congratulate England on regaining the Ashes and winning this series. It's been an amazing cricket series, a wonderful series for the game of cricket and the true victor in this series has been this wonderful game that so many of us love. I do congratulate England. I commiserate with Ricky Ponting and the Australian team. Shane Warne had a remarkable series to take 40 wickets and to be the spearhead of the Australian attack, a truly great performance by Shane Warne. But we shouldn't take any credit away from the Englishmen, they played very well and they deserve our congratulations and no doubt when we next meet there'll be a renewed determination by Australia to regain the Ashes.
JOURNALIST:
Very well broadcast in Australia too Prime Minister, was it not?
PRIME MINISTER:
Very well broadcast in Australia. I want to congratulate SBS, a very, very fine decision, I give full credit to SBS and to Channel Seven for the one-dayers and I just think what is great is the way interest in cricket has been regenerated in England, and of course sustained in Australia and just a wonderful series for the game, and that in the end, is what matters most of all.
JOURNALIST:
PM, will there be a national day of mourning?
PRIME MINISTER:
No. But look there's natural disappointment but it's a situation where you give credit to the team that won, and I do that and they will no doubt celebrate and that will be difficult for some, but I mean that's the nature of these contests and we should not take anything away from England, they played very well, it's the best team that England has had for a very long period of time.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
The world will go on. I'm just making the point that it's the substance of relations between countries in the end that matters most. I think the United Nations will continue to be a very relevant organisation. I don't think we should slit our wrists if an agreement about a particular document on a particular occasion hasn't been achieved. I think this is part of the problem that I'm referring to. We get too hett up and we get too worked up about the importance of reaching agreement on a particular document and that is elevating form above substance. What is often lost sight of is that the wonderful work of UN institutions like UNICEF and the High Commission for Refugees, organisations that I think have done some of the most wonderful work for which the United Nations has been responsible over the years. That sort of work goes on, but we do live in a world of nation states and we can't get away from that fact and we should always keep that in mind.
JOURNALIST:
So should they stick to the humanitarian and not be so...
PRIME MINISTER:
No I'm not saying we shouldn't try to solve political issues in a multilateral way, I'm not saying that. But I think we make the mistake sometimes of investing too many hopes in a formal architecture without recognising that at the end of day unless there is a consent from those who have a capacity to change situations, you're not going to get the multilateral system working.
JOURNALIST:
On Telstra, will the fall in your personal popularity, according to the latest poll, force you to rethink Telstra? And also a second aspect to that, will that $2 billion future fund be cash? Is that guaranteed?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I'll leave the details of that to Helen Coonan. Come and join me on the walk.
[ends]