Government News Index
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP DOORSTOP INTERVIEW, SYDNEY
18 March 2002
Subjects: Justice Kirby; Bill Hayden; Zimbabwe; marriage
JOURNALIST:
The chief justice of the family court has said that …[inaudible]… breach of the separation of powers between the judiciary and the government?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t accept that. I’ve always fully and faithfully respected the separation of powers and to maintain that separation there is an obligation on members of the executive not to attack the courts as such and there is also an obligation on the courts to refrain from involvement in day-to-day political affairs.
JOURNALIST:
Is Justice Kirby a man of high moral character and integrity?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look Justice Kirby is a person who enjoys a very high reputation. I am not going to make any judgements – adverse or otherwise about a matter which is still under consideration and beyond that I am not saying anything further.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister if there’s nothing wrong with Mr Wooldridge’s $5 million grant why has it now been withdrawn?
PRIME MINISTER:
I didn’t say there was nothing wrong with it nor did I say there was anything right about it. What I said was that we’ve decided to suspend the process because the matter’s being investigated.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister you spoke about loyalty inside. Are you being loyal to Senator Heffernan?
PRIME MINISTER:
I am acting appropriately.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister on Friday … Mr Hayden [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
You will have to do a better than that. I can’t hear a word of what you are saying.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Hayden said on Friday [inaudible] had been formed … if criminality is not proved where does this leave [inaudible]?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I am not going to answer a hypothetical question.
JOURNALIST:
You’re heading to Zimbabwe tonight. What do you …
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I am heading to London.
JOURNALIST:
To London, I beg your pardon, to talk about Zimbabwe. What do you hope to…?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I hope that the three Commonwealth leaders – that’s myself and the Presidents of Nigeria and South Africa – faithfully do what we were asked to do by our fellow leaders at Coolum and that is read the report of the observer group and then apply the Harare and Mill Brook principles. And those principles encourage us, request us, to uphold the democratic principles of the Commonwealth. This is quite a moment of truth for the Commonwealth. We have to bring a fair dinkum judgement on this issue – it’s not something that can be swept under the carpet. It’s not something that can be fudged. We have to place fairly and squarely the responsibility we’ve been given and if we have the view that certain things have occurred and appropriate procedures were not followed then we have to honestly address that and accept that. But beyond that I don’t want to say more. I want to hear what they’ve got to say. But it is an impor!
tant meeting for the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth is being held together by a number of things and one of them has been the common commitment to democracy and we have to make certain that we maintain that tradition in our deliberations.
JOURNALIST:
Have your observers told you that their, or express the concern that there have been irregularities in the voting system?
PRIME MINISTER:
I had a lengthy discussion by telephone on Friday night with the four observers, the four Australian observers, and they gave me their very frank views. I don’t really think I should say more at this time.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard there is a report out today that a marriage can be preserved by a good long hello and a good long goodbye at the end of each day. Do you think that helps preserve a healthy marriage?
PRIME MINISTER:
Say that again?
JOURNALIST:
There is a report out today that saying hello and goodbye in a nice extended way at the end of each day helps preserve a marriage.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well there are a lot of things that help preserve marriages. There is, you know, I would have thought there’s no hard and fast rule. I think people who presume to lay down hard and fast rules can get themselves into awful trouble, including prime ministers. And I don’t intend to do that. I have enough things to do at the moment without becoming some kind of national marriage guidance counsellor.
Thank you very much.