Agenda Program with Rawdon Christie, TVNZ

Rawdon Christie: Let’s start with the reason for you being here. The framework is now set for the election in Fiji next year. How confident are you that it will happen?

Stephen Smith: Well, we are confident that we are doing everything we can to hold the interim Fiji Government to account. They gave a faithful undertaking to all of the leaders of the Pacific that they’d have an election no later than the end of March 2009. And at the forum Australia, New Zealand, other forum countries, expressed a couple of concerns. One, we are very concerned about their state of preparedness or their lack of preparedness and we want to see much more activity on that front. And secondly we’re concerned that they may be using the so-called ‘Peoples’ Charter’ as either a distraction, a deflection or a device to put the election off.

Christie: You don’t think heart of hearts, that we are going to see a March election in Fiji, a free and fair election?

Smith: Well, I’ve got to be optimistic about it but I’ve also got to be sceptical which is also why we’re trying to hold them to account. In the end it is very hard at the moment I think to make a judgment about whether there is a genuine commitment to have an election or whether they are trying to slide away from a faithful undertaking. And that’s why our response is two-fold.

Firstly we say, you have to be held to account, but secondly we’re here ready, willing and able to assist you, particularly when it comes to the conduct and holding of the election, expertise, observers, whatever; but also to say generally if we see some signs of progress, if we see some genuine and real commitment in working towards the election, we are happy to have a positive and constructive dialogue. But as I’ve put it more generally we’re not in the business of rewarding bad behaviour.

Christie: Kevin Rudd last year spoke of a less interventionist role and more of a partnership role. Is that what you see happening?

Smith: Well, absolutely. I think to start with the Australian – New Zealand relationship, it’s very important in our view that Australia and NZ are working as partners in the Pacific.

Christie: Yet you describe Fiji as the pariah, the outcast?

Smith: Well, they are not a duly elected Government; it’s a military installed arrangement. We want to see not just a genuine partnership with Australia and New Zealand but with all the forum countries, including Fiji. But until they have an election where there’s full and free participation and they respect the outcome of that election, they can’t regard themselves as full-participants, which is why in the forum itself they made a presentation and then were politely asked to leave. That’s why they’re one of two countries given their marching orders from the Commonwealth.

Christie: How concerned are you about the building relationship between Fiji and China?

Smith: Well, I thought that Bainimarama’s comment effectively congratulating China on what had occurred in Tibet was just another reflection of the sorry state that Fiji is currently in. We, Australia, has made its view about what’s occurred in Tibet crystal clear and there’s no doubt that China has noticed what we’ve had to say publicly and what we’ve had to say to them privately.

Christie: It seems to me that this creates a further divide between Australia’s role in the region and Fiji?

Smith: Well, the great divide is curing the deficiency. The object we want is an election no later than March next year. That’s the central achievement that we need to get Fiji back onto a better long term position.

Christie: Australia’s made it clear of what they think of the Tibet issue. But where do you see Australia’s position with China?

Smith: Well, we’ve got a very good economic relationship with China. Historically, we were one of the first countries to recognise China with the ‘One-China’ policy back in the early seventies with the Whitlam Labor Government and China remembers that.

Christie: Doesn’t China feel slightly threatened potentially by Australia’s relationship with the US?

Smith: Well, China knows that Australia has a fundamental alliance with the United States. It is the indispensable, enduring bedrock of our security, strategic and defence arrangements. We have a different relationship with China.

Our relationship with China is early recognition, an emerging economic relationship, which started with minerals and petroleum resources and now is much more broadly based. So we have an economic relationship with China and we’re happy for that to develop further. But we think the fundamentals are there, as in the case of Tibet and other human rights issues, the relationship is such that we can make these points publicly and privately and see the relationship endure.

But we also think, whether it’s a relationship with the United States, or a relationship with China or a relationship with Japan, or a relationship with India, Australia can have these relationships in a bilateral sense and it can be win-win all round. Just because you’ve got a good relationship with the United States doesn’t mean you can’t have a good relationship with China, Japan or India.

Christie: But the deputy sheriff tag did indicate where the alliance more heavily lay?

Smith: Well, we were very clear about our analysis of the previous Government’s performance in the alliance area. And when we for example said that we were proposing if we were elected to withdraw our troops from Iraq, which we’re in the process of doing in consultation with the United States and the United Kingdom, and the Government of Iraq, our political opponents in Australia they said that this would tear up the alliance. Well, of course that was always a nonsense and it’s been proven to be a nonsense.

Christie: So the deputy sheriff tag is something that you’ve removed yourselves from?

Smith: Well, that was a label attached to the previous Government, we’re a new Government. We’ve got a different approach.

Christie: The approach now being, to quote Mr. Rudd: “Promising to restore Australia as an activist middle-power”.

Smith: Absolutely.

Christie: Which sounds like a deputy sheriff role to me?

Smith: Well, it doesn’t sound like a deputy sheriff role to me.

Christie: What do you mean by “activist middle power”?

Smith: Well, Australia is a well developed robust parliamentary democracy. We’re in the top twenty economies in the world. We want to be a good international citizen. We want to be responsible nation in our own region and in the world generally and as a well developed prosperous nation, we’re entitled to regard ourselves as a middle-power.

I mean, I’ve often heard this phrase, “Australia punches above its weight”. It’s an expression that I hate. You know we are one of the top twenty economies in the world, we are a robust parliamentary democracy, we’ve got prosperity, and we want to take those things to the world.

To be a good international citizen means working in a bilateral sense with individual nation states. Treating them equally, as we do in the Pacific. But also engaged in the multi-lateral forums, particularly in the United Nations. We were very critical of the previous Government in not pursuing the United Nations as an institution in international affairs and not pursuing Australia’s role in the United Nations, which we want to do and do in a determined and sensible way.

Christie: Minister, what happens if Fiji doesn’t meet its requirements by March?

Smith: Well, we’ll just have to cross that bridge if and when we come to it. The key thing here is we want Fiji, we want the interim Government to meet the commitment they faithfully gave to Pacific leaders in Tonga in 2007. We are giving them every opportunity. We are trying to hold them to account. We are trying to be helpful if they show positive signs of moving towards that ultimate objective. If they don’t we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

Christie: There’s wide spread scepticism about their ability to do that. Assuming they don’t what happens then?

Smith: Well, we can only cross that bridge when we get to it. There’s no point dealing with the hypothetical. They have 12 months to go. They still have more than enough time if they have the will to put themselves in the position to be able to hold a full and free and fair election. And we will give them whatever assistance they want. As will other Pacific Forum nations, as will other members of the international community. If the will is there it is do-able.

Christie: Stephen Smith, Foreign Minister of Australia, thank you very much.

Smith: Thank you.

Ends

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