27 July 2006

TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
INTERVIEW WITH LIAM BARTLETT
RADIO 6PR, PERTH

BARTLETT:

But what about the other end, what about the other end, what about any chance of any sort of regulation?

PRIME MINISTER:

Well you mean price control?

BARTLETT:

Well I mean it's biting into the back pocket of virtually every Australian.

PRIME MINISTER:

I know that.

BARTLETT:

But the major oil companies are making record profits, record profits, their refining margins are enormous.

PRIME MINISTER:

Well their refining margins vary, they do bounce around, but that is not the main reason why petrol is.the price of petrol is high. I mean no company is going to invest in refining capacity unless it makes a decent profit.

BARTLETT:

But their profits have never been better.

PRIME MINISTER:

Yes but.

BARTLETT:

They're not turning around and saying 'well the world oil price is high, we're hurting,' they're having a field day.

PRIME MINISTER:

One of the reasons why the world oil price is high is that companies in the past have not invested enough money in building new refineries and you don't invest more money in building new refineries if you don't have a decent profit. I mean we cannot turn the laws of economic arithmetic on their head.

BARTLETT:

But Prime Minister we're not asking that. But the price at the bowser goes up, it goes up at the sniff of a rocket overseas.

PRIME MINISTER:

Well it goes up for a number of reasons. The main reason it goes up is that the price of the product goes up. Now if there were some solution to this Liam then it would have been found by some government around the world. I mean the sort of questions I'm getting asked or asked of.when he does interviews are asked of George Bush, they're asked of Tony Blair, they're asked of the Canadian Prime Minister, and we are all in the same situation. None of us has found the silver bullet. If there were one, I tell you what, I'd grab it.

there’s no doubt about our little rodent ….. yessirree …… the international oil cartel has to be able to make a “decent profit” …… after all, surely that’s what “aspirational prosperity” is all about …… isn’t it?

on the subject of the little con artist’s “aspirational prosperity” …..

Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe's second-largest oil company, said Thursday its second-quarter earnings jumped 40 percent as high oil prices offset production difficulties in Nigeria and the Gulf of Mexico.

Net profit rose to $7.32 billion from $5.24 billion a year earlier. Sales rose less than 1 percent to $83.1 billion from $82.6 billion.

Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer said in a statement the earnings were "underpinned by overall good operational performance and not simply high energy prices."

Still, the main reason for the increase was higher oil prices, with earnings at Shell's oil exploration and production arm leaping to $4 billion from $2.75 billion, despite an 8 percent drop in production to 3.25 million barrels a day.

Prices for benchmark North Sea Brent crude averaged $69.51 a barrel in the quarter, compared with $51.65 a barrel a year earlier.

That was in line with other major oil companies reporting results this week. BP PLC said its second-quarter profit rose 30 percent to $7.3 billion, while ConocoPhillips reported a 65 percent increase to $5.18 billion. Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, Exxon posted $10.36 billion in profits this quarter, the second-largest quarterly profit ever recorded by a publicly traded U.S. company.

and whilst the world’s “great decider” & his little loyal side-kick, the “great besider”, had no trouble ridding the world of the awful dictator, Saddam Hussein; destroying the world’s oldest civilization; orchestrating the deaths of more than 500,000 innocent men, women & children, whilst plunging the middle-east into a state of unparalleled crisis, they are helpless to reign-in the a group of private sector corporations, guilty of grand theft from every person on the planet …... no silver bullet indeed

and whilst the former CEO of Exxon makes off with nearly US$500 million in his “retirement package”, the rodent’s government wrings its hands over the terrible economic consequences that our little nation would face if its peasant work force was awarded a living wage …..

just gotta luuv those awstraylen values …..