Richard Glover, Radio 2BL, Political Forum with Richard Butler, Natasha Stott Despoja and Dr Kerryn Phelps

With me, Kerryn and Richard and Natasha, you're there?

STOTT DESPOJA: I am and I want to know why you've got a problem with people born in 1969, Richard. I heard those comments.

GLOVER: It's a bit worrying. Next there will be political leaders who were born in the seventies.

STOTT DESPOJA: Hear, hear. A bit of fresh blood.

GLOVER: Very worrying. Both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have given strong hints that the war against terrorism soon might involve action against Iraq. Here's General Wesley Clark on the US President's stance.

CLARK: I think he's certainly laid the foundation for going against Iraq. He brought in the problem of weapons of mass destruction in a very clear and unambiguous way and he said that while we would proceed deliberately we weren't going to avoid action and that's a very, very clear indicator to me that Iraq is certainly on the hit list.

GLOVER: OK, a simple question. Should the US go in and should we help if they do? Richard Butler.

BUTLER: I think the first thing I want to say is that whatever you do you've got to do it for the right reasons. General Wesley Clark, a friend of mine, terrific guy, said it's good that they brought in the issue of weapons of mass destruction. My God. Richard, I can only agree but there's a sleight of hand taking place here.

That issue has always been there. It's been there for a long time and Iraq is not the only country in the world that has weapons of mass destruction.

I don't want to be misunderstood here because the largest possessor of such weapons in the world is the United States.

Then there's the issue of terrorism. Was Iraq connected to what happened on September 11, connected to Al Qaeda? There is some suggestion now that maybe that was the case.

I don't think it's any - to keep this short - I don't think it's any longer a question of whether or not they will do it. They will do it. They're going to go and remove the Government of Iraq.

My concern, Richard, for stability generally including our own, is that they do that for the right reasons and that they do it effectively and that they know what's going to happen the next day, who will replace Saddam Hussein. Will it be a clone or will it be someone who actually make the world a better place? I don't yet hear the answer to those questions and I think we need to know those answers.

GLOVER: When you say they'll go in, in what form will it take, do you think?

BUTLER: It will be a combination of military action and support to groups on the ground who are opposed to Saddam.

GLOVER: So we're talking full scale invasion, aren't we?

BUTLER: No, starting from the air. Remember, this is the era of video wars, you know, from the air where no American loses their lives and so on. And there's nothing wrong with not losing your life but no, they will start from the air, it won't be able to be completed from the air so there will be some ground troops as well but it will be very important that indigenous groups, the Kurds in the north and some others in the south, take part and there's some Iraqi interest in getting a better deal, a better government for themselves.

In a way, roughly analogous to the action of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan that came forward and played an important indigenous role in getting rid of the Taliban.

GLOVER: Will the support for the Government fall away as quickly as it appeared to in Afghanistan or will Saddam Hussein still have a large hold on the populace if the US goes in?

BUTLER: That's a tough one to call but I'll have a shot at it. From my experience there, I deeply believe that the people of Iraq know exactly the character of the man who has been ruling them for too long, that he is a despot, he's homicidal, a dictator and I think when they see the possibility that he's going to go, they'll be happy and they will support a change.

That doesn't remove the need for what I said earlier. If there's not to be an explosion in the Arab world and, indeed, in some of the European world, about US action, it has to be made very clear why it's being taken, what are the real reasons for it and it is also important that they know what will follow, what will replace Saddam.

GLOVER: But given they have those pieces in place, you sound as if you think they should go in.

BUTLER: I don't think there's any doubt that the world would be a much, much safer place with Saddam Hussein out of the way.

GLOVER: Natasha Stott Despoja, do you agree?

STOTT DESPOJA: I'm inclined to agree with a lot of what Richard has just said. I mean, it certainly sounds increasingly likely that the US will take that military action. I must admit, I get very concerned thinking about the political and the humanitarian consequences of such an action, particularly in relation to the Middle East, recognising, of course, getting rid of both the weapons of mass destruction and also Saddam Hussein would be a very good thing.

In relation to Australia's role, one thing I can say on behalf of the Democrats is that any suggestion that Australia supports this kind of US-led military action, it must be debated by the Parliament and, as I've said before on your programme, it must be ratified by the Australian Parliament.

GLOVER: Can you start that debate today? Do you think they should go in?

STOTT DESPOJA: The Democrat position is that we don't believe, at this stage, we first of all want to hear what the UN Security Council has to say. We're very wary of any kind of unilateral action by the United States. I understand that there is some indication from Prime Minister Blair that the UK would offer some assistance but even his members are divided on the issue and I'm not quite sure how the UK populace feels about it but I'd be curious to see how Australians feel about it.

I think they're a little wary of that kind of increased support but I do know one thing, that there's usually very strong sympathy from Australians for at least having that kind of military action and that kind of support from Australia debated in the Parliament.

GLOVER: Dr Kerryn Phelps.

PHELPS: I think the Australian people want to have a say in an action like this and in order to do that I think they have to understand a whole lot more than they currently understand about the political situation, not only in Iraq but in the broader Middle East context and I have to agree with Natasha that I think that this is a debate that should be had in the Australian Parliament and that Australians should let their MPs know without any shadow of a doubt what they feel and how they want to be represented.

GLOVER: Is it something that makes you feel anxious though or something you feel the world has got to do?

PHELPS: That three letter word, war, always makes me feel very anxious and from a humanitarian point of view and the question that remains, and I don't believe that anyone has the answer to this, is would the world indeed be better off without Saddam Hussein there, would what or who replaced him be any better than having him there? And I don't think that we have the answers to that to hand at the moment.

GLOVER: Richard Butler, you're saying there's a lot of cause for anxiousness just to think about what he's got in his weapons drawer.

BUTLER: Absolutely and that's a very serious problem. But I don't hear any serious disagreement amongst the three of us, Richard. I didn't mention a parliamentary debate. Maybe I should have. Absolutely. This is an electoral democracy, let's have a debate. Let's have our own leaders tell us what they're going to decide about such an action and what Australia's role might be and why.

Remember, the basic principle I advanced is whatever we do, we've got to do it for the right reasons and, by extension, it follows from that that we, the people, ought to know what those reasons are.

PHELPS: I think we're very lucky, as Australians, to have had an Australian diplomat actually see what's happening on the ground so we're in a better position than, I think, most countries because of Richard's work, to know what's going on when the time comes.

GLOVER: Coming up we're going to talk about whether women should have babies well into their fifties despite the fact that science now says it is possible and, of course, the Oscar results, with due warning with the bell. We might discuss whether the academy got it right.

Boring is the latest key word in Australian political debate, it seems. The Prime Minister says the Heffernan matter is getting boring, Tony Abbott makes the same case about the children overboard inquiry.

ABBOTT: It's been done to death, it's been endlessly explored and analysed and I really think that people want to move on and I certainly think that Mr Crean should move on. A scandal a day keeps the policy away, that seems to be labour's attitude and they keep trying to beat new political life out of old issues, that people are sick of it.

GLOVER: Are these two issues, indeed, boring and generally does the caravan of public interest move on too quickly or too slowly? Natasha Stott Despoja.

STOTT DESPOJA: I think describing some of those events as boring is a pretty obvious attempt by Government members to deflate what - not boring issues but incredibly serious and, in some cases, quite scandalous issues when it comes to government accountability and then clearly the Senator Heffernan issue is not going away, nor should it.

I don't believe it's resolved and the issue of the extraordinary and blatant abuse of parliamentary privilege will remain on the political agenda.

GLOVER: Don't their views chime, though, with that of a significant sector of the public who might think, oh, not another day of the same issue?

STOTT DESPOJA: Sure, I think there's an element of that and you're right, that we are often influenced by the news cycle. I mean, if the news cycle wants to move on to something less boring, more interesting, that's considered a bit more sexy, well, it will move on. In fact, there's an argument that initially this was Senator Heffernan's attempt. He wanted to deflect away from the Government's woes in relation to a different issue, then the issue of the Governor-General and, of course, it didn't exactly work out as he'd hoped but I still think that there are some accountability issues that have got to be resolved and in relation to children overboard, it's not boring today.

I don't know if anyone's been listening to the inquiry but certainly it's not only got a lot of life in it, as a news story, but that inquiry is uncovering some new facts and figures and I think some outrageous issues will come to light.

GLOVER: Kerryn Phelps?

PHELPS: If the Government's word at the moment is boring then my word is infuriating because I think that these issues go to the very core of the fundamentals of integrity and of democracy: issues like parliamentary privilege, issues like being truthful during election campaigns. These go to the fundamentals of our democracy and if that becomes too boring to a politician, I think we're all in trouble and they should look for another way to make a living.

Australians have a right to know. These issues have not played themselves out. We don't know the whole truth behind the children overboard incident yet. Hopefully with this inquiry we will. With the Heffernan incident, I think that has shaken the fundamentals of parliamentary privilege and certainly has not played itself out yet by any extent.

And I think that Australians have a right to know and a desire to know exactly what was behind this range of issues that we've seen just in the last month.

GLOVER: Richard Butler?

BUTLER: Richard, I think this is the first thing I've ever heard Tony Abbott say with which I agree. A scandal a day keeps the policy away, provided he was describing his own Government's attitude which, in this claim that these things are boring, has been exactly their attitude. They think the Australian people can't count, even up to six.

One, Hollingworth; two, Heffernan; three, kids overboard; four, $5 billion of our money lost; six, sorry, five, Dr Wooldridge's $5 million what shall we call it, takeaway for the General Practitioners' Association; and now number six, Chikarovski. Why do I mention that one? Isn't it hilarious? Only yesterday the Prime Minister was in this city, Sydney, telling the New South Wales Liberal Party that he had undying faith in her leadership and certainty that she would win the next election and just having come from seeing the Queen. I wonder what he said to the Queen when she said, you know, an Australian republic is inevitable. Did he say, "Ma'am, I have undying faith in you just as I do in Mrs Chikarovski?"

I'm making fun of this, Richard, because it is just too silly for words, that these people tell us that we should turn our attention away from things that are truly serious and that they know are truly serious, that they have done and to which they have no answer or are trying to suppress answers. No, I don't think the Australian people are as silly as that and I do think they can count.

GLOVER: If you have only just joined us, the story which Richard Butler was referring to with Mrs Chikarovski, the news in that John Brogden, the Member for Pittwater, has announced that he has the numbers, he believes, for a leadership spill in the state Liberal Party and that he will, indeed, roll Kerry Chikarovski and become the new leader. Kerry Chikarovski's office, for their part, saying that she will not stand aside.

Researchers from Monash University said yesterday that new methods will soon allow women to have babies well into their fifties. Is this a good thing or is there a wisdom in the body's natural limits? Dr Phelps.

PHELPS: I think if you ask the majority of women in their fifties they'd have to say, "You've got to be joking." You imagine having a pregnancy in your fifties or beyond. It is obviously more difficult for women physically as they get older. I think emotionally, though, it would become easier to bring up children with the benefit of wisdom and years of experience under your belt.

GLOVER: Harder to get up in the middle of the night, though.

PHELPS: Oh, absolutely, although as you get older you have to get up in the middle of the night for other reasons but a screaming baby is probably not the one that you wanted. That being said, there are many, many people who bring up grandchildren, have a great deal of input into bringing up their grandchildren and it's not a great leap of logic to see older people bringing up children.

Where I think the issue of the body's natural limits comes into play is this, and that is where parents cannot reasonably expect to see their child through to adulthood and I think that if you're having a baby you'd need to think about what your probably life expectancy is.

GLOVER: So, say 75 then you shouldn't be having a baby much after, say, 55 or something.

PHELPS: Fifty or so. I think you need to be able to expect - I mean, nobody ever knows how the cards are going to be dealt or how long they're going to be able to live and we certainly know many sad cases where young parents have died and left children with the other parent to be raised or, indeed, by other members of the family. But I think that where you are able to plan something like a pregnancy at a given older age, that you should at least have the expectancy of being able to bring that child through- -

GLOVER: This is an old medical problem, isn't it? Obviously, as medical practitioners, you want to help people achieve their goals and achieve their ambitions and yet there are times when you wonder whether you're not pushing the natural order too far.

PHELPS: It's a parallel ethical dilemma for doctors that where we have the technology, has that outstretched our ability to handle the ethical dimensions of that problem? And so I think that we always, with the technological progress, must have the parallel ethical argument.

GLOVER: Richard Butler?

BUTLER: I agree with what Kerryn has just said in her last few sentences. I have had to address this issue of technology and ethics over and over again, particularly in my long involvement with nuclear weapons and some related technologies and I think there is an important principle that we should always keep in mind which says that just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done and the answer to whether or not something should be done lies in its ethical dimension not in its merely technical dimension.

And finally, could I just say, without signalling lack of sympathy for those who want to become pregnant, and not been able to at an earlier stage - this is purely personal but as a person who has been a father four times I stopped that after the fourth one because, having had the experience of the first three I thought one of the key considerations I must take into account here is what will my physical fitness be to run around, play with and help bring up a given child? And I figured that 40 years of age was probably a cut-off point for me to impregnate yet another woman, because of that question of how old would I be when a kid was wanting to run around and play tennis or football or swim.

GLOVER: You're talking to a man who had his children early and still on Saturday played squash against the 14-year-old and very sore today.

Natasha Stott Despoja, what do you think?

STOTT DESPOJA: I certainly bow to Kerryn's medical knowledge on this one.

GLOVER: And Mr Butler's mere productivity in the child--

STOTT DESPOJA: Certainly. I do agree with Richard on a particular point and that is in relation to the debate about technology and ethics and it concerns me that we have more debate - and it's a good thing - we have more debate on radio than we do in our parliaments about sort of emergent technologies and their ethical implications and obvious examples range from the issue of human reproductive cloning through to human therapeutic cloning and the issue of stem cells but I have to say that given the lack of paid maternity leave in Australia today, maybe women would prefer to wait until they're in their fifties and personally I support technologies that do give women more choice but in terms of whether or not there are natural body limits or whether or not a lot of women wouldn't necessarily find it the best way to go, I mean, there are interesting debates to be had but certainly, as the party's biotechnology spokesperson, I relish the day that we actually have some of these ethical debates in our Parliament and we actually look at the issue of regulatory systems that should be in place but aren't, to deal with these new technologies.

GLOVER: I'm going to ring the warning bell. We're going to talk about the Oscars. If you want to avoid the answers, you'll have to turn down your radio for the next three minutes.

GLOVER: The Oscars. Did the right films win and what did you think of the wonderful acceptance speech from Hally Berry?

PLAYS EXCERPT

Ooh, she's good, isn't she?

BUTLER: Maybe that's why she got the Oscar.

GLOVER: It was a little bit disappointing for the Aussies, even though Andrew Leslie won a cinematography award and Catherine Martin a couple of awards for the art direction of Moulin Rouge. Baz and Russ and Nicole didn't win. Do you think they got it right? Richard Butler.

BUTLER: No, I don't. That's a purely subjective thing, Richard. I'm a film buff. I've seen both Moulin Rouge and Beautiful Mind twice and I've seen the other contenders. I actually had to address this recently on American television and they instantly fell on me and said I was being nationalistic and proud of Australians and so on. My objective opinion is no. No, they didn't get it right.

GLOVER: What about Denzil Washington in Training?

BUTLER: I've seen Training. They didn't get it right. OK, I mean no harm to anyone but they didn't get it right, in my subjective opinion about these things. I think questions are inevitably relevant about the politics and the money involved in all of this. Am I crying foul, sour grapes? No, I'm not satisfied with those.

GLOVER: After being UN arms inspector in Iraq, could we make you the Oscars inspector for us in LA next time? You'll go round and check out the money and all that.

BUTLER: More fun and less dangers, yes.

GLOVER: Kerryn Phelps?

PHELPS: It might be more fun but I don't know about less dangerous.

GLOVER: Not if Hally Berry is between you and an Oscar. Did they get it right, Kerryn?

PHELPS: What Australian would not love to have seen Russ and Nic get the Oscars, really? But I've spent the whole day trying to avoid the news and here I walk in here and I had to hear it from you, Richard.

GLOVER: I did ring the bell.

Natasha Stott Despoja. Democrat policy we have to win next time, do you think?

STOTT DESPOJA: We've launched an inquiry.

GLOVER: In the Parliament.

STOTT DESPOJA: Look, of all the nominated films I've only seen Moulin Rouge, many times I might add, and A Beautiful Mind. I love them both and I thought both Nic and Russell were brilliant. So I'm disappointed but I can't say that I have anything against which to assess their performance so I'm saddened that they didn't get the gong but oh, what an acceptance speech. I've got to try that in the Parliament some time.

GLOVER: That's right and I hate to sound clich d but very nice to get so many nominations too.

Thank you very much for coming in. Dr Kerryn Phelps is the President of the AMA, Natasha Stott Despoja is the leader of the Australian Democrats and Richard Butler the UN's former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, now a diplomat at the Council of Foreign Relations. Thank you very much.

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