Andrew Bolt tackles the PM on the big issues The polls indicate Tony Abbott will be our next Prime Minister. What sort of leader will he be? Bolt Ep25 Seg1 Andrew Bolt meets the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott for an interview at the Prime Minister's office at Treasury Place. Pictures: Jason Edwards Source: News Limited AB: How does it feel to be Prime Minister? PM: It's exhilarating. It's a little daunting, though, because, obviously, as the Prime Minister of Australia, there are some great strengths that we have as a nation, but there are also some serious challenges, and the Government has to come to terms with them very quickly. AB: Has it proved to be as difficult as you feared? PM: Well, we don't know, because these are still very early days ... I think we've made a good start to repealing the carbon tax and the mining tax, to stopping the boats, to getting the Budget back under control, to getting our infrastructure under way. We've made a start, but that's all it is, it's just a start. AB: It's been a slow start in some respects. You only announced this week a commission of audit, for example. PM: It's been more important to get things right, rather than to rush them. If you are going to get something like the commissioner of audit, which was a one-off, you only get one go at it and you've got to get it right if you're going to make the most of things. It's important to get the right personnel. AB: Isn't that something you should have decided before the election? PM: Yes, but due process is very important too, Andrew. You see, one of the things that the former government got badly wrong was the due process of government. Now, if you are going to avoid making unforced errors and gratuitous mistakes, you need a proper Cabinet process. A proper Cabinet process ... has got to be a meeting of 19 people who are well informed and well advised ... All of that means that in order to get a proper Cabinet submission up takes a fortnight, maybe three weeks, so you can't just leap into action on day one. AB: So, not for you a Kevin Rudd four-man kitchen Cabinet? PM: I thought about swearing in a kind of duumvirate (just two ministers, as Gough Whitlam did after the 1972 election) or quartet or something like that, and kicking off the day after the election, but then I thought, no, the best way to do it was to be steady, methodical, purposeful, calm. AB: I was referring more to Rudd's four-man team ... PM: The problem with both Rudd and Gillard was that everything was micromanaged. They thought they could confuse announcements with real action. They tried too much all at once and ending up doing nothing very well ... The great thing with John Howard was that he picked the best people he could to be his ministers and he allowed them to get on with being ministers. He allowed them to be, if not quite CEOs, then certainly general managers in their portfolios. Obviously the important decisions were supposed to come back to him and to the Cabinet, and that's as it should be. But the day-to-day management, even the strategic direction, was very much shaped and determined by the relevant ministers. And that's how it will be in this government. AB: It's 50 days on Sunday since you were elected. You've done very little media management. PM: One of the differences between the good government that I served and the poor government that I replaced, is that the good government didn't feel that its main job was manipulating the media. It understood that its main job was getting on with government ... AB: Well, give me an example. You've had the expenses scandal running for a couple of weeks. Very little has been said to rebut some stuff. It was left to run. What is the strategy there? PM: Well, the Prime Minister should not give a running commentary on every issue under the sun. AB: Well, here's something to say about it. Every MP claiming an expense saying it is business should in the statement say what that parliamentary business was. PM: You are putting to me a change to the system, and I am not convinced that any of the proposals currently floating around are necessarily an improvement on the existing system ... And what about if, for argument's sake, the purpose of your trip was to meet with someone to discuss something that was an important part of being an effective Member of Parliament, but wasn't something that you could disclose? You either trust people or you don't. AB: You can't trust them, it's clear. (Volunteering to fight) the fires. Was there an element of running away from the office? Mate, I got up to the station at 4pm Saturday and I got back to the station at 10 Sunday morning. So there's no question of running away from the office, because the office is closed then. The office is closed. AB: I've been struck by the insanity of the reaction in the media and outside, particularly linking the fires to global warming and blaming you for making them worse potentially by scrapping the carbon tax. PM: I suppose, you might say, that they are desperate to find anything that they think might pass as ammunition for their cause, but this idea that every time we have a fire or a flood it proves that climate change is real is bizarre, 'cause since the earliest days of European settlement in Australia, we've had fires and floods, and we've had worse fires and worse floods in the past than the ones we are currently experiencing. And the thing is that at some point in the future, every record will be broken, but that doesn't prove anything about climate change. It just proves that the longer the period of time, the more possibility of extreme events ... The one in 500 year flood is always a bigger flood than the one in 100 year flood. AB: The ABC, though, has run on almost every current affairs show an almost constant barrage of stuff linking climate change to these fires. PM: That is complete hogwash. AB: It is time to really question the bias of the ABC? PM: But people are always questioning the "bias" of the ABC. AB: Yes, but you're the bloke that is handing over $1.1 billion a year to the ABC to continue a bias that's against their charter. PM: If we were starting from scratch we may not have the media landscape that we do, but we're not starting from scratch ... The ABC is an important part of a pluralistic media landscape, and I'm not going to complain about it, Andrew. I will do what I can to ensure the ABC is well managed, has got a good board, a strong board, and ... AB: But would you agree that the bias of the ABC, as observed even by former ABC chairman Maurice Newman, is in breach of its charter? PM: I would say that there tends to be an ABC view of the world, and it's not a view of the world that I find myself in total sympathy with. But, others would say that there's a News Limited view of the world. AB: Taxpayers don't pay News Limited. PM: But I'm a conservative, I'm a traditionalist. I'm not persuaded that we need radical change here. AB: Does it disturb you that the ABC is venturing into new areas like the internet, in direct competition with Fairfax in particular, offering the same audience the same product for free? PM: If the ABC were to come to us, this government, seeking more money to do things that took it into competition with the private sector, we'd say no. AB: Talking about things that government is funding that perhaps it shouldn't. Your Commission of Audit is going to look into exactly that. Have you got a "for instance"? PM: I'm just not going to pre-empt the work that it does, Andrew, but I would be amazed if, for argument's sake, we need as many public servants in the areas of health and education, for instance, that we have at the moment, given that we don't run schools, we don't run universities, we don't run hospitals, we don't run medical practices or pharmacies ... AB: Would that breach your commitment not to cut health funding? PM: No, no. We're not going to cut health funding, but that doesn't mean that we're going to have the same back office systems that currently exist. We did say that we would reduce the Commonwealth public sector by 12,000, and that's going to be over and above the modest reductions the former government started to put in place. AB: Talking about modest reductions, you've asked the Commission of Audit to find savings so you can finally return to surplus in a decade. That's rather leisurely. PM: We'll get back to surplus as quickly as we can. AB: It actually says, a decade. PM: Well, no ... I wasn't just talking about any old surplus, I was talking about a surplus of 1 per cent of GDP. Now, that's a $15 billion plus surplus. And I was talking about sustained surpluses at that level. Now I like to hope, I would hope, that not only we'd be in a position of delivering sustained surpluses at that level, but that far out, should we be in government for that length of time, we would also have delivered significant tax cuts over and above the tax cuts that we committed to delivering during this term of parliament. AB: Do you really think it is acceptable not to return to surplus and start to repay all Labor"s debt plus what you'll add for another decade? PM: We will get back to surplus at least as quickly as the former government claimed that it would get back to surplus. AB: That's no standard. PM: I said at least as quickly. I'm not going to give a hostage to fortune by making promises that we can't keep. And, Andrew, there's a difference between getting things done and rushing around like a blue-arsed fly. AB: I assume you believe all Australians should be treated equally on the grounds of race and ethnic origin. AB: Why do you then want the Constitution rewritten so that some Australians are given different status on the grounds of their racial ancestry? PM: Well, that's not I want. I want to appropriately acknowledge indigenous people in the Constitution. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that we have two classes of Australian citizens, and any proposed amendment that did in effect create two classes of citizens wouldn't be put forward by me, and would deserve to fail if it was. AB: But dividing people by race ... PM: Yeah, but you're assuming that anything along these lines will divide people by race. AB: Yes, I do. PM: Well, I don't accept that this is mission impossible. AB: How much does your faith influence your position on gay marriage? PM: Religious faith is and has been an important part of my life but religious faith should not - must not - determine anyone's political position in a secular society such as ours. If something cannot be justified on the basis of ordinary human reason it shouldn't be a political decision. As a traditionalist, I don't think we should lightly change patterns of behaviour, institutional arrangements, which have stood the test of time. And since time immemorial, as far as I'm aware in all cultures, marriage, or solemnised relationships, have been between a man and a woman. I am disinclined to think that all of that history should be turned on its head just because, at this moment in time, albeit a significant section of the population thinks that we could do things in a way which is in need of something different. AB: There's a thing called impostor syndrome, this feeling of, 'My God, am I really up to this?' I think you suffered that early on as Opposition Leader. I don't get that sense of you now as Prime Minister. PM: The short answer is no ... I know exactly what you are talking about, but no, this is a position that I have every right to hold. And these are duties and responsibilities that I think I am more than entitled to discharge.