Fed: PM says he'snot embarrassed by backbench revolt

AAP General News (Australia)
02-18-2004
Fed: PM says he'snot embarrassed by backbench revolt

CANBERRA, Feb 18 AAP - Prime Minister John Howard today denied he was embarrassed by
a backbench revolt which forced the withdrawal of an overhaul of war veterans' benefits.

Nor had Opposition Leader Mark Latham's rising popularity anything to do with the decision,
he said.

Veterans Affairs Minister Danna Vale was rolled by her own backbench yesterday just
hours before she was to announce the government's long-awaited changes to veterans' benefits.

She was set to make a ministerial statement outlining her response to the Clarke review
of veterans' entitlements but had to beat a retreat from her proposals after 13 government
backbenchers raised concerns about the response in a party room meeting.

Mr Howard, facing another backbench revolt on government policy, ordered a cabinet
review of the response to the Clarke review's 109 recommendations.

Today he made no apologies for the backdown and said it had nothing to do with Mr Latham's
improvement in opinion polls.

"I don't intend to adjust the way in which I deal with the views of my colleagues according
to who is the leader of the Labor Party," Mr Howard told ABC radio.

"I deal with the views of my colleagues on the merits, and on the merits they had a
strong view that we should be even more generous (to veterans) and I said the cabinet
would have a look at it.

"I don't apologise for that, I'm not embarrassed by it, I think it is just sensible leadership.

"A leader who is never willing to listen to the strong views of his friends and colleagues
is not a very good leader."

He said every so often the party room had a different view to cabinet but that was
the normal operation of government.

"The men and women of my party room are not siphons, they're not yes men and women
and every so often they will say to the cabinet, `We don't agree with this' or `We would
like you to go further' or `We'd like you to make a change'," Mr Howard said.

"That is normal."

He said the party had disagreed with cabinet on two or three occasions last year and
predicted it may happen again this year.

"Every so often you have differences of opinion: it's not a question of who's right
or who's wrong, it's a matter of working through the differences," Mr Howard said.

He refused to give details of what backbenchers wanted for war veterans.

"I'm not going to go into the details, suffice it to say they wanted to be more generous,"

Mr Howard said.

AAP sm/tma/sp/br

KEYWORD: VETERANS HOWARD

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