E&OE
12 September 2008
Interview - Newshour, Australia Network
Middleton: Minister, thanks once again for your time.
Smith: Thanks, Jim.
Middleton: While you’ve been in India, Washington’s top military man has admitted the war in Afghanistan can’t be won unless the allies take the fight to the Taliban across the border into Pakistan. Is that a policy that Australia would support?
Smith: Well the approach we adopt, Jim, we certainly say as we have for some time that that border area, the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area, is a hotbed of international terrorism. It’s more than just a bilateral issue between Afghanistan and Pakistan, it has regional and international community implications. It also has serious implications for the nearly 1100 troops that we have in Afghanistan. So that’s an issue that the international community needs to come to grips with.
Certainly as far as we’re concerned we’ve been speaking directly to the Pakistan Government. I fully intend to go to Pakistan in the first half of next year to talk about these issues and also Australia’s general relationship with Pakistan. So this is a serious issue and it’s one that Afghanistan, Pakistan and the international community has to address itself to.
Middleton: It’s a pessimistic outlook on the part of Admiral Mike Mullins isn’t it; if the Pakistanis won’t allow cross-border operations, that you hold the Taliban, but you can’t win?
Smith: Well it’s quite clear that what’s been occurring is that the extremists, the terrorists, the Taliban move across that border for respite and then return. And so clearly then Pakistan, Afghanistan and the international community have to come to grips with that. Certainly it needs to be done in conjunction with Pakistan and Afghanistan.
One of the things that encouraged me during the week is that the new Pakistani President as his first effective action sat down with President Karzai from Afghanistan and made the point that he regarded this as his highest priority. And that’s certainly welcome news for Australia. We do want to address this very serious and difficult issue. Now there have been difficulties in that area, in the so-called FATA areas for a considerable period of time and border disputes and border difficulties in that area have been around for hundreds of years not just in the last half dozen. But it is absolutely essential for Pakistan to come to grips with this difficulty and from what the new President has been saying, and the rhetoric is there, and we hope it’s met with concerted action and activity.
Middleton: You’re meeting the Indian Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. Do you expect you’ll be lobbied again on Australian sales of uranium to India, especially now that the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group has approved India’s deal with the United States?
Smith: Well I certainly expect that in the normal course of events that we’d have a conversation about the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group decision. Australia adopted a positive and constructive approach in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group as we did in the International Atomic Energy Agency International Board of Governors meeting the month before. We supported a consensus and we welcomed the decision and Indian officials have already made it clear to me and to the Government of Australia that India very much appreciates the role that Australia played in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.
So far as uranium is concerned, the Indian Government understands the Australian Government’s long-standing policy decision which is that we do not export uranium to a country that’s not party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, just as I and the Australian Government understand India’s long-standing public policy position that it’s not proposing to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. So these are things well known to both sides. In any relationship there are things that you agree to disagree about or where there’s a graduation of view. But I am not expecting either Australia or India to extensively revisit what are long-standing party policy and political policy decisions to the respective governments.
Middleton:
You
mentioned party policy a number of times there. Isn’t
Australia’s refusal to sell uranium to countries that
haven’t signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
simply holding government policy hostage to opposition within
the Australian Labor Party to change?
Smith: Well it’s government policy because the Australian Labor Party won the last election and we formed a government and we are true to that party platform which has been of long standing. Anyone who has followed that issue over a very long period of time in Australian domestic politics knows that it’s been a difficult policy and political issue not just for my party but for Australians generally.
I think Jim there’s a broader and wider point. This is just one commodity in one particular industry. Its one issue in a vast array of issues in a relationship which is primed to go to a new level. The first formal remarks I made as Foreign Minister I said I wanted to take the relationship with India to a new level and that reflects the rise of India this century as a great power and the NSG’s consensus to approve the civil nuclear arrangements for India also reflect that – the rise of India as a great power.
So it’s absolutely essential to take India to the front line of its international relationships and there’s a vast array of complementary policy issues that we have in common; food and food security is one, energy and energy security is another, but also the vast array now of investment, economic and trading relations between our two countries, not just in commodities or resources, but in information technology, in scientific and technical areas and also an explosion of interest in education.
Australia’s now the second largest single destination for Indian students studying overseas so that the people-to-people, and the exchanges between our two countries now are primed to go to the next level of what’s been historically a good relationship. We want to take it to the frontline of our partnerships and that’s an objective that India also agrees with.
Middleton: On the key issue of education, in India there are thousands of Indian students in Australia. How disturbed are you that the Australian Ombudsman has found that international students are being exploited and underpaid?
Smith: Well Jim we’ve got about now 70 to 75,000 Indian students in Australia. That’s increased from about 60,000 over the last couple of years and that continues to grow and that’s an unambiguously good thing. We have seen some sporadic incidences where they haven’t been treated well and I’ve raised that for example with some of my State ministerial colleagues who have responsibility for law and order and policing matters.
Middleton: It’s hardly good public relations is it?
Smith: Which is why when a couple of bad incidents were drawn to my attention I immediately wrote to the relevant State ministerial colleagues drawing it to their attention. We don’t want anyone who comes to Australia, whether they’re Indian students or anyone else to be treated badly or unfairly.
We welcome very much Indian students coming to Australia. We hope that they are productive in their studies and they enjoy very much their time in Australia because when they return to India the great advantage that it brings to Australia is that we have people in India. Whether they’re operating in the public service, in business, in public life, or whatever, they have had part of their education in Australia and they are effectively ambassadors for Australia for the rest of their lives. So we certainly don’t condone bad treatment of any student in Australia whether they’re Indian students or from any other country.
We warmly welcome and encourage Indians to study in Australia. We think that education is, in very many respects, the best vehicle for people-to-people exchanges and just today for example I was with the University of Wollongong who were going around India at the moment encouraging Indians to think about studying at Wollongong University and NSW and at other universities; Deakin University from Victoria is another. They are doing exactly the same thing and we certainly encourage that as well. It’s unambiguously a good thing and the vast bulk of Indian experiences have been good ones and we want that to continue.
Middleton: Minister thanks very joining us on Newshour.
Smith: It’s my pleasure Jim. Thank you.
[Ends]
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