JONES:Now Senator Hill told us on
this program the charter needs to be liberalised in order to
allow for pre-emptive actions, with self-defence at the
heart of it, as he put it. You have said today the charter
is not as flexible and appropriate as current circumstances
require. How should it be changed?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well
I think what Robert was saying, and the international
community needs to debate this with a view to seeing whether
the UN charter can't be changed, was very simply that when
it was written, we thought in terms of states invading
states, we didn't think of random, stateless terrorist
groups invading and creating mayhem and murder and
destruction on other countries and other societies. And it's
hardly legitimate to go on saying well you have to respond
to that kind of conduct in accordance with rules that were
written when that kind of conduct was never contemplated.
That's the point Robert Hill was making and it's a very
logical point and I agree with him.
JONES:
Does it
appear then that Australia is going to be leading some kind
of debate, international debate, to see change happen? And
if so, what sort of change would you envisage? What needs to
be changed within the charter?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't
know that we're setting out to lead the debate. I think
other people are talking about this as well. The National
Security Strategy of the United States recently published to
the Congress canvasses some of these issues. I just want the
international body of law, including the UN Charter to
recognise the new reality. We face attack on our societies
and our way of life, not through the formal declaration of
war and armies rolling across borders and smashing down
barriers has happened when Germany invaded Poland in 1939,
but rather to accommodate the new and different
circumstances. And I think we do need a debate on this and
that is really the essence of wanting to address the issue
within a proper legal framework and not go outside the
existing legal framework.
JONES:
But in a sense what
you're talking about is changing the legal
framework…
PRIME MINISTER:
There's nothing unusual about
that. I mean, I constantly hear calls within Australia for
our constitution to be changed for example, because they say
it is no longer contemporary and that may or may not be
right and that is a debate for another time and another
occasion. But there's nothing illegitimate, illegal,
improper, provocative about somebody arguing that current
international law has been overtaken by changed
circumstances where individually sponsored aggression and
terror and not state sponsored aggression and terror, is now
the greatest challenge the world has.
JONES:
Of course,
acting pre-emptively, you could make the case for sending
the SAS after Hambali, if you knew where he was…and that was
the point I was making before.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, I
know it was and I heard it very carefully. But I'm also
making the point that it is not appropriate, I think very
unhelpful for me to hypothesise of some assumed failure of
what is occurring in relation to Bali, when indeed the
reverse is the case. I think the police there, both
Australian and Indonesian, have done a very good job and I
know that the relatives of so many of our people who died
there will feel the same way.
JONES:
Well, I'm wondering
then were you at all disturbed to find that the General of
the Police, General Pastika, who was leading the
investigation so well apparently in Bali, appears to have
been removed from the case or so it's been reported.
PRIME
MINISTER:
Tony, I'm not going to give a commentary on a
detail like that. I have found in relation to this issue
that there has been a steady determination by both police
forces to achieve results, results are being achieved. The
Australian Federal Police tell me that the investigation is
going extremely well, that there is nothing exaggerated
about what is being claimed. And on that basis, the last
thing I want to do is to be making gratuitous comments about
an element of the administration of the Indonesian
investigation. I am pleased indeed that people have been
arrested, that there appears to be great substance in the
charges. And it looks as though a lot of people are going to
be brought to justice and that in the end is what we all
want.
JONES:
Mr Howard, one of the most vital pieces of
intelligence we could possibly have in the this country
right now is whether or not Australians were specifically
targeted in the Bali attacks. And it's fair to say that one
of the key organisers, indeed, the man who chose those
targets - the Sari Bar and the Paddy's Bar - has now
confessed to his role. Have you had a report from your
Federal Police or intelligence officers as to whether this
man specifically targeted Australians?
PRIME
MINISTER:
There's nothing I've had that contradicts the
publicly claimed confession that the Sari Bar was chosen
because it was frequented by westerners. There's nothing
that I have seen that I can recall that suggests that it was
anymore specific than that. Now, it is true that Bin Laden
has talked quite a bit about Australians in his recent tape,
but it's also true that he has related his criticism of
Australians more to our role in East Timor than to any other
act by Australia. My general view remains that it is
fanatical, Islamic hostility to the west to its way of life,
its freedom, its democratic values, its openness, its equal
treatment of men and women - all of those things that is the
real target of the terrorists. We are part of the west.
Whether, for example, Iraq had existed or not we would still
be part of the west and therefore, we would be part of the
target.
JONES:
Right. Now the US has now appointed Henry
Kissinger to investigate the intelligence and security flaws
that led up to September 11. Will you consider having some
kind of inquiry, perhaps even a Royal Commission now into
looking at what led up to October 12?
PRIME
MINISTER:
Not because of what has happened in the United
States. They are two separate issues and two separate
countries. We had no specific warning of Bali. I’ve asked Mr
Blick, the Inspector General of Intelligence, to review all
the material. I expect that he will report to me soon. I’m
not going to say any more on that general subject until I
get his report. I’m not somebody who orders royal
commissions at the drop of a hat and there’s been nothing
that’s come forward since the original statements I made in
Parliament to contradict them. But I don’t want to hide
anything that shouldn’t be hidden and I’ll wait and see
until I’ve got Mr Blick’s report. But nothing suggests that
we were given a specific warning of Bali.
JONES:
At this
stage though you’re not ruling out the possibility of a
broader inquiry, a royal commission even?
PRIME
MINISTER:
Well I’m certainly not ruling it in. As of now,
as I speak on this last Friday in November there is no
evidence and there’s no persuasive argument to establish a
royal commission.
JONES:
Mr Howard, yesterday you made a
brief reference to the war time prime minister John Curtin
and I’m wondering if you’ve been reflecting in this time of
national crisis on the burden of leadership.
PRIME
MINISTER:
Well I certainly have. Curtin interested me as a
prime minister as indeed did others. I read a biography of
Curtin on a long flight to and from London earlier this
year. He carried a lot of burdens. Any war time prime
minister carried enormous burdens. Part of my fascination
and admiration for Winston Churchill was the way in which he
carried the weight of the free world on his shoulders alone
for so long. Of course they were infinitely more difficult
times than what we have now although what we are living
through right at the moment is very challenging by peace
time standards.
JONES:
It’s been an extraordinary 14
months hasn’t it since the September 11 attacks and I’m
wondering if you’ve found the job of leading this country to
be vastly more taxing during that time?
PRIME
MINISTER:
Well it is very taxing but I’m a very committed
disciplined person. I’m greatly sustained in the job I’m
trying to do now by the tremendous response and positive and
courageous attitude of the Australian people. The dominant
emotion I felt after the tragic events of the 12th of
October was unlimited admiration and affection for the way
in which the Australian people came together and comforted
those who needed comforting yet defiantly told the rest of
the world that we were going to remain Australians and
remain true to the sort of things we really believe in. It
was incredibly encouraging and inspiring and
uplifting.
JONES:
I asked you about John Curtin earlier
specifically because he died in office at the age of 60, but
he never considered stepping down in a time of war. Now you
don’t strike me and you don’t strike many people as the sort
of person to run away from a fight and so I’m wondering are
you now reconsidering that possibility?
PRIME
MINISTER:
Well it is true Tony that I’m not a person who’s
ever run away from a fight or who ever will run away from a
fight. It’s also true that difficult though things are at
the present time we are not involved in a war and therefore
my situation is different in that very important sense to
John Curtin’s. But it’s also true that I don’t have anything
to add on what I’ve previously said about my future.
JONES:
You’d have to agree though that the present
crisis could hardly be more acute. We have the possibility
of attacks at home and I’m wondering is it actually
responsible to even consider passing on the baton to an
untested leader in a time of crisis, in a time of national
crisis?
PRIME MINISTER:
Tony I don’t get the impression
as I move around the Australian community and talk as I do
on a daily basis to hundreds of, indeed thousands of
Australians, I don’t get the impression that they feel I’m
behaving in any way irresponsibly.
JONES:
Do you get the
impression they want you to stay?
PRIME MINISTER:
We
talk about current things, we talk about things that affect
their lives. I will always do the right thing by the
Australian people.
JONES:
Alright Mr Howard. We will
have to leave it there but thank you very much for taking
the time to join us and we hope that you actually enjoy your
Christmas break.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I hope that all
Australians do and I know that all of us will be
particularly thinking of those families who lost so much in
the Bali tragedy, and the to community generally a very
merry Christmas.
JONES:
John Howard, thank
you.
[ends]
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