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Version 8 Version 9
John Howard on Iraq: there was no lie, there were errors of intelligence – politics live John Howard on Iraq: there was no lie, there were errors of intelligence – politics live
(35 minutes later)
4.47am BST
04:47
Paul Karp
Meanwhile in the count, Paul Karp reports:
Labor’s lead in Hindmarsh has been whittled down to just eight votes.On Thursday morning Labor had a lead of 151 in Hindmarsh. The Coalition needs to win Hindmarsh and one more of Cowan, Capricornia, Flynn and Herbert to win majority government.
Labor’s candidate in Hindmarsh, Steve Georganas, told the ABC: “I think we may go down a little bit more while we count postals and then turning it around with the absentees.”
He estimated there were 5,000 absentee votes and about 2,500 postal votes yet to be counted. “But look, it’s on a knife edge and whoever wins it will win it by a handful of votes.”
4.41am BST
04:41
John Howard to journalists: don't put Hanson in a special corner, she will play off that
Howard:
Everybody’s got to accept that to sort of put her in a special corner is stupid and all it does is enhance her position. I watched this debate back in 1998 and1999 and the more she was attacked, the more popular she became because those attacks enhanced her Australian battler image and she plays off that. I think you all know that and you should understand that when, if I may say so, with great respect, when you write about her.
4.36am BST
04:36
John Howard: no good making Hanson a particularly scorned species
Howard makes the point that anyone who believes in freedom of religion cannot make distinctions between churches mosques or synagogues. And that he completely disagrees with Pauline Hanson’s policy of a royal commission into Islam. But.
Let’s not resort to all of these isolating remarks. That gets nowhere but that includes, may I say, Pauline Hanson is entitled to the same respect. People have voted for her and there’s no good saying she’s a particularly scorned species. That doesn’t achieve anything. You have to recognise that people voted for her.
4.32am BST
04:32
John Howard: disagree with Hanson but don't isolate her
Question to John Howard: Do you agree with Mr Turnbull that Pauline Hanson is not a welcome presence? What is your response to the fact that she looks like she is going to have an equal bloc in the Senate to Nick Xenophon?
Howard says anyone who is elected should be respected for that. Given Howard was the prime minister the first time Hanson appeared, he disagreed with many of her views but said it was wrong to brand her supporters as racist.
I don’t agree with some of her views on foreign investment. I didn’t agree with her when she said we were being flooded by Asians because we weren’t, and I didn’t agree with her when she said that Aboriginal people weren’t amongst the most disadvantaged in our community because those things were manifestly wrong but I did understand that she was articulating the concerns of people who felt left out and I was very critical of people who branded everybody who supported her as a racist because that is nonsense.
We are not a racist country and I wish people would stop reaching for that adjective whenever they want to isolate somebody who they don’t agree with. We’ll get nowhere doing that, absolutely nowhere.
Updated
at 4.37am BST
4.26am BST
04:26
Howard to Cory Bernardi, stay in and fight
John Howard:
If you’re a bit worried about the party, stay in and fight. Don’t start talking about separate movements. Stay in, fight and argue your case because the Liberal party is – as I’ve always said – a combination of small L liberals and conservatives. Nothing wrong with that, I’m a combination of small L liberalism and conservatism, I think you’d know from the stances I took on various issues as I had a very liberal, even economic approach, but a conservative approach and retain a conservative approach on social issues and foreign affairs and I don’t apologise for that and never will. I say to people who feel this or that kidney of the party is being ignored, you stay in and fight, you don’t start wandering off the reservation.
Updated
at 4.38am BST
4.23am BST
04:23
Howard says he did not write any memos to George W Bush similar to the Blair memos – (That he was with the US, “whatever”).
Asked if he would apologise to families, Howard said:
Well, as I understand it, there were no battle deaths in Iraq but obviously I am sorry for anybody – for the wounds or injuries that anybody suffered. That applies no matter whether a military conflict is a matter of controversy or not but if you’re saying to me do I apologise for the decision that I took, the core decision? Well, I defend that decision. Of course I defend it. I don’t retreat from it. I don’t believe, based on the information available to me, that it was the wrong decision. I really don’t.
Updated
at 4.35am BST
4.20am BST
04:20
Howard rejects Chilcot’s assessment that if the diplomatic efforts continued, the French and Russians would have agreed.
The idea that is implicit in what Chilcot said, if you just kept going eventually the French and the Russians would agree. They weren’t going to agree. That is why at the time I said the Labor party had decided to outsource our foreign policy to the French and the Russians.
Updated
at 4.30am BST
4.19am BST
04:19
Someone follows up, saying you put monetary policy in the hands of the Reserve Bank. Why not the power to go to war?
You want to hand everything over to unelected bodies? That’s why the British voted to leave the European Union.
4.17am BST
04:17
John Howard does not agree the power to go to war should be taken out of the hands of the executive and given to the parliament (as the Greens propose).
4.16am BST
04:16
Howard: more reinforcement would have improved Middle East instability
John Howard on Islamic State:
Isis, to a large extent, came out of the confluence of forces coming out of Syria, joining with forces in Iraq and I might remind you that after the successful surge overseen by General David Petraeus which the Bush administration undertook, Iraq had entered a period of relative stability and had also entered a period where nationwide elections were carried out despite intimidatory threats of many. There is a view which I think has a lot of merit that if the process or the aftermath of the surge had been reinforced by a greater continuing western particularly American presence, the situation would have been lot more stable.
Updated
at 4.20am BST
4.13am BST4.13am BST
04:1304:13
John Howard does not share the view that Islamic state grew out of the Iraq invasion.John Howard does not share the view that Islamic state grew out of the Iraq invasion.
I don’t share the view that the terrible conflict in the Middle East is the direct consequence of the operation in March of 2003. I don’t share that view.I don’t share the view that the terrible conflict in the Middle East is the direct consequence of the operation in March of 2003. I don’t share that view.
4.12am BST4.12am BST
04:1204:12
John Howard: there was no lie, there were errors of intelligenceJohn Howard: there was no lie, there were errors of intelligence
Howard:Howard:
In the years that have gone by there’s been this constant claim that we went to war based on a lie. There was no lie. There were errors in intelligence but there was no lie and can I also make the observation that the Chillcot Report imposes a standard of beyond doubt. Can I offer the view that when you’re dealing with intelligence it’s very, very hard to find a situation where advice is beyond doubt. Sometimes if you wait for advice that is beyond doubt you can end up with very disastrous consequences. In the years that have gone by there’s been this constant claim that we went to war based on a lie. There was no lie. There were errors in intelligence but there was no lie and can I also make the observation that the Chilcot report imposes a standard of beyond doubt. Can I offer the view that when you’re dealing with intelligence it’s very, very hard to find a situation where advice is beyond doubt. Sometimes if you wait for advice that is beyond doubt you can end up with very disastrous consequences.
4.09am BST
04:09
John Howard says while it was subsequently found not to be the case, the advice was there were weapons of mass destruction.
It was the judgment not only of the joint intelligence committee in the United Kingdom, and that was informed principally but not only by MI6 but also the national intelligence assessment of October or November of 2002 in the United States which is a distillation of the views of all of the American intelligence agencies including the CIA was that Iraq did possess weapons of mass destruction.
UpdatedUpdated
at 4.13am BST at 4.31am BST
4.08am BST
04:08
Context is everything, says John Howard who disagrees with Chilcot
His views are naturally informed by subsequent events. We are all informed by subsequent events but as somebody who’s been in a decision-making position in relation to these matters, I make the obvious point that you make judgements based on the information available at the time. Context is everything, as a wise man once said, and it’s very important to keep that in mind.
His view seems similar to Tony Blair.
4.04am BST
04:04
John Howard is speaking about the Chilcot report. He makes the caveat that he has not read the very large report entirely.
He does not think another enquiry is necessary.
3.57am BST
03:57
Bob Katter: prayers to the good lord
Here is a little bit of Bob Katter from a release today:
The financial oppression of the elderly, the struggling abandoned young families will be addressed
It looks like we’ll be in a very powerful position.
We will be saying our prayers to the good Lord and we hope we can get enlightenment through to the people to have to date exercised power in Canberra.
3.54am BST
03:54
Bob Katter and John Howard are both coming up in separate press conferences shortly.
3.51am BST
03:51
Just a quick take from chief economist of AMP Capital, Shane Oliver, before doubling back to Bowen and Morrison.
Being put on negative credit watch by a ratings agency is not surprising. Australia has now seen years of slippage in returning the budget to surplus and the messy election outcome threatens more slippage whichever way it goes.
In short, a downgrade is not disastrous but it would be a bad sign for Australia.
Of course being put on negative watch is not the same as a downgrade and a country can remain on a negative outlook for up to two years without being formally downgraded.
But I suspect it’s probable that a formal downgrade will follow unless the new government is able to hold the line on the budget deficit projections which will be hard given the likely state of the Senate.
The $A fell slightly on the news from around $US0.753 to around $0.747 but has since recovered to around $US0.75. Bond yields were little changed.
Updated
at 3.53am BST
3.48am BST
03:48
Chris Bowen is asked, given the cost of Medicare’s growth into the future due to demographics (ageing population), do you need further revenue measures to pay for it?
And we have. We led the debate on negative gearing, capital gains tax reform, high income super, we were talking about this 18 months ago, announcing detailed policies. The now treasurer railed against it, tobacco (tax), and we have led that. If you’re asking will we support an increase in the GST, the answer is no.
Updated
at 3.49am BST
3.45am BST
03:45
Bowen is asked whether Labor will support more of the government’s savings measures. He says we have supported some, not others. Yet the Coalition is still relying on savings which will not pass the parliament.
Scott Morrison’s budget is based on those measures passing as well as highly heroic assumptions on things like the iron ore price. They will not pass and it is about time he was honest about it to the parliament and to the people.
3.43am BST
03:43
Bowen is asked, given the statement, is now the time for a banking royal commission?
I think those two issues are completely unrelated, with respect. The ratings agencies have expressed no concerns about a royal commission into the banks.
3.42am BST
03:42
Chris Bowen:
The Liberal and National parties said there was a budget emergency and that they that they would be the party to fix it and of course what we’ve seen is three years of policy missteps, false starts and missed opportunities, particularly since Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison took the reins we’ve seen a lack of strategy and a lack of coherence in their economic approach.