TRANSCRIPT
of
THE HON PETER COSTELLO MP
Treasurer

Doorstop Interview

Monday, 16 December 2002
8.55 am
Sydney

SUBJECTS: Budget, defence, national security

TREASURER:

Good morning.

JOURNALIST:

[inaudible] Cabinet today, are you going to be pushing the case for no new

Budget spending? Is that right?

TREASURER:

Look, as we move up to next year’s Budget, our priority is going to be defence

and national security, and the demands of securing Australia against possible

terrorist attack and to strengthen our defence forces, are priorities above

other spending priorities, and they will go first. And they will take precedence.

And I have made that entirely clear. We think national security is the number

one issue at the moment.

JOURNALIST:

Do you think that that will be easy to sell to the community – that there will

be no new spending on other programmes and it will have to go to defence areas?

TREASURER:

I think the community understands that protecting Australian citizens and securing

the country against the threat of terrorist attack is a key priority for the

Government. I think the community understands that. And we have put in place

numbers of measures already, in relation to aviation, in relation to regimens

to respond to chemical and biological outbreaks, we have been stockpiling various

medicines and the community understands that safety is the number one priority

at the moment.

JOURNALIST:

There are reports this morning that the Defence White Paper [inaudible]. What’s

your response to that? Is that a real threat?

TREASURER:

Look, it is always important that, when we look at defence spending, one –

we make sure that the defence forces are adequately funded, and two – we make

sure that the funding is used efficiently. And we will be working on both, I

can assure you of that.

Thanks.