15 August 2006

TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
INTERVIEW WITH JOHN LAWS

RADIO 2UE, SYDNEY

PRIME MINISTER:

Well there's no easy solution to this problem and I don't hold out the LPG subsidy as being a silver bullet, as being the answer to high petrol prices. It's doing something at the margins to help, I suspect, a reasonably large number of people. I guess the best way of helping people in relation to high petrol prices generally is to put more money in their pockets through things like tax cuts. I remember at the time of the Budget, there was a debate about whether there should be a cut in the petrol excise. I don't mean a debate within the Government; I mean a debate in the community. And I said at the time, as did Peter Costello, that we both thought the best way of helping people a little with high petrol prices was to make sure everybody got some tax relief, because that's putting money in the pocket, and people can then use that money in whatever way they think fit. Now I'm not representing to the community that what I announced yesterday is an answer to high petrol prices. What I announced yesterday will help at the margins. There is no cure-all answer to high petrol prices, absent a fall in the price of crude oil, which of course is influenced by forces beyond our control.

the lying little rodent is at it again. Worse, he not only lies, but his pathetic attempt at allegedly relieving the pain being felt by the community, due to higher fuel prices, involves promising to give us some of our own money!!

John Howard has repeatedly asserted that the federal government “is powerless to do anything meaningful” about soaring petrol prices. Hello?

The world’s most powerful &, arguably, its most dangerous man, George Bush, along with his urgers, “aussie Tony” Blair & our own “great besider”, John Winston, had no trouble in justifying their invasion of Iraq, to depose its leader & turn over control of its huge oil resources to the oil majors.

Whilst our warrior princes wring their hands in mock sympathy, all the while arguing that big business is entitled to make “decent profits”, there is nothing decent about what is being done to the people of Iraq, nor western fuel consumers.

Contrary to our “prime minister for life’s” repeated claims, the oil majors are not helpless pawns at the mercy of OPEC oil producers. Quite to the contrary, when producers raise the price of crude, “big oil” directly benefits via their profit sharing agreements.

The proof of this argument is evident to all who take the trouble to look at the profitability of the oil majors, with the world’s five largest oil companies having increased their profits from US$34 billion in 2002, to US$113 billion in 2005: conveniently coincidental to the time frame during which we sought to bless Iraq with the benefits of our style of democracy.

Recently John Howard called for ideas on how to ease the pain of high petrol prices.

Instead of insulting our intelligence via a transparent pea & thimble trick, whereby he offers us financial relief, paid for with our own money, why not impose windfall profit taxes on the oil companies, thereby encouraging them to be a little less greedy or, at worst, clawing back some of the billions they have misappropriated?

Given the boys’ claimed capabilities at democratising the planet & rendering us safe from the evils of “terra”, surely nailing a few suits would be child’s play.