THE HON. JOHN HOWARD
PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA

Mr Howard, thanks for your time.

Good evening, very good to be with you.

Mr Howard, how many policies do you have on Aboriginal affairs?

Do you mean in town or in the bush?

Let’s look at the ‘in town’ ones first.

In the city, or in the regional centres?

In the cities.

In an election year or just normally?

All the time, ideally.

An all-the-time, work-for-all-cases Aboriginal policy?

Yes.

I’m afraid I don’t understand your question.

Let me put it this way. Can you explain the business of mandatory sentencing?

Certainly. Do you know what mandatory sentencing is?

No, that’s what I want to ask you.

OK. Do you know what ‘mandatory’ means?

It means obligatory.

What does obligatory mean?

Obligatory?

Is it Irish?

Not O’Bligatory. Obligatory.

Where is it? Is it up in the Territory?

It’s a bit like ‘unavoidable’.

Ah yes. Mighty pretty country round there. I was up there recently.

You were in the Northern Territory?

No, but I was up that way.

Where were you?

I had to go up to Pymble for a meeting.

Mr Howard, why is the United Nations being critical of Australia at the moment?

I don’t know. I’ve been trying to work that out. This has got nothing to do with the United Nations.

What hasn’t?

The treatment of Aboriginal people in Australia.

The UN has said they haven’t got basic human rights.

The UN has got no business criticising us at all.

Why not?

Because we support them. We helped write their human rights charter.

They have a human rights charter?

Yes, the member countries of the United Nations formed a charter years ago.

Are we a member of the UN?

A very important member. Doc Evatt wrote a fair bit of the UN charter.

And what is the purpose of the UN human rights policy?

To prevent governments from acting in a way which would threaten the lives of their own citizens.

Would that happen?

It has. Look at East Timor.

That was tragic, wasn’t it?

Sometimes a government is so bad, so bereft of what the broader world would accept as a basic standard of moral responsibility to its own citizens…

…That it will simply ignore the plight and condition of sections of its own people?

Yes.

And what might happen?

Many of them will die.

So the UN seeks to protect the fundamental human rights of those people?

That’s the idea.

And if it doesn’t, who will?

Exactly. If the UN doesn’t say something about the condition of these people, their privations and their distress might continue.

These are genuinely appalling governments you’re talking about, aren’t they?

They are. I’m citing the extreme to highlight the UN policy and its importance.

So what is our objection to the UN’s criticism of us on this issue?

It’s none of their business when it happens here in Australia.

Do you mean ‘What right do they have to speak about what’s going on in an individual country?’

I do. We’re running Australia. The United Nations isn’t running a country.

Doesn’t it represent all the countries?

Yes, but there’s a difference between what you’d like to happen and what actually happens in the real world. It’s like going to church. You go to church on a Sunday, you listen to a lot of stuff about what you ought to do, how you ought to live your life…

You agree.

Yes, you agree. That’s why you’ve gone to church.

But you don’t act on the principles you’ve expressed your support for.

No, you wouldn’t need to go to church if you lived like that anyway. You’d be out there doing it.

So what is Australia’s position on human rights? We support the UN charter on human rights?

We support the UN charter on human rights, but we are opposed to the UN charter on human rights.

Hang on, Mr Howard. You can’t say that. It doesn’t make sense.

Doesn’t it? Are you sure?

You just said, ‘We support the UN charter on human rights, but we’re opposed to the UN charter on human rights.’

I see. I can’t be on both sides.

That’s right. It doesn’t make sense. Do you want to answer the question again?

Yes. Ask me again.

Mr Howard, do we support the UN charter on human rights?

In theory, yes.

But not in practice.

We support it in practice in Timor.

But not south of Timor.

No.

We support it in the Gulf.

But not in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Do we support it in the Falklands?

Yes, but not in the other rural electorates.