E&OE
30 October 2008
Interview - Radio National Breakfast with Fran Kelly
Subjects: EU Partnership Framework, Bali bombers execution, the global credit crisis
FRAN KELLY: As I mentioned, Australia's Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, joins us now. He's in Paris, where he's been meeting with his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, talking about closer Australian ties with the EU, and perhaps a rejuvenated combined effort in some of the world's multilateral forums. France currently holds the Presidency of the EU.
Minister, welcome to Breakfast.
STEPHEN SMITH: Good morning, Fran.
KELLY: Stephen Smith, you've announced a new framework deal with the EU. What does this agreement with the European Union mean for Australia?
SMITH: Well, we think it's a very important agreement, we think it's frankly historic, and we think it really sets Australia's relationship for the future with the European Union, sets it right up.
In the past I think it's true to say that for the last 30-odd years, when we thought of the European Union, our only thought has been a negative one, which is common agricultural policy.
The Prime Minister, when he came to Brussels earlier this year, and met with European Commission President, Barroso, indicated that we wanted to take our relationship with the European Union to the front line of our international relationships, and that's what this partnership agreement does.
Today when I dealt with the partnership agreement with Foreign Minister, Kouchner, and European External Affairs Commissioner, Ferrero-Waldner, we traversed the whole range of regional and global security strategic issues, relevant to Australia and the EU, in addition to economic and trade investment issues, and also climate change, so we traversed the whole breadth of our relationship.
One under-appreciated point with our relationship with the European Union is that Australia has survived and enhanced itself economically, by being an attractive place for overseas capital investment, and the European Union is our largest single capital overseas investor in Australia. So it's very important to us economically, in addition to the future, which holds a much more broadly based strategic relationship with the European Union.
KELLY: As you mentioned though, trade is an historic tension point between Australia and the EU, with the whole argument over common agricultural policy, the collapse of the Doha trade talks, Europe was a factor in that failure, any - how did the discussion go on this? Any signs that France will move to try and get these talks going again?
SMITH: Well certainly in the trilateral conversation that I had with EU Commissioner Waldner, and the French, wearing the French Presidency EU cap, the Doha round came up. I think there is a commitment both on the part of the European Union and on France to want to breathe life back into the Doha round talks, that's certainly the Australian Government's position, and we both urged flexibility upon each other, particularly now at a time of difficult international financial and economic circumstances.
It's not the time to retreat to protectionism, now more than ever is the time to again move forward on openness and access, that can only enhance economic growth and economic activity internationally, so I think there is a realisation that we got very close on the Doha round previously, it scuppered, now we need to make a renewed effort on that front, and that was certainly a sentiment expressed as part of the tripartisan meeting I had with the European Union and France today.
KELLY: And just following up on that climate change issue, the sense that you didn't get the sense from Europe that European governments are more interested in slowing down a little, or limiting their response to climate change, given the impact of the global financial crisis?
SMITH: No, on the contrary, I made the point in two separate areas, one in the climate change area, that Australia certainly does not have the view that difficult short term economic circumstances should stand in the way of a long term structural change, which is absolutely necessary. I made the point that we don't see the need to deviate from addressing dangerous climate change with emissions trading and greenhouse gas abatement, we certainly see that as being a long term structural issue that we have to address.
We also in a different context, made the point that we don't see the need for short term financial economic, the international economic difficulties, to prevent us from continuing to try and accelerate the advance of developing countries, particularly through the Millennium Development Goals, but on climate change itself, we had a brief discussion about Australia's position.
We of course ratified the Kyoto Protocol as one of our first acts of Government. That is very warmly and widely appreciated in the international community, including, and in today's context in particular, in Europe. And I made the point that we expect shortly to see the release of the Treasury detail which you and Michelle were speaking about earlier, and in due course, perhaps in the course of this year, we'll come to final conclusions about the scope of the scheme, but certainly there's a long term commitment to work in partnership with the Commission on these points.
KELLY: Minister, can I bring you to the issue of the execution of the Bali bombers, it seems it's imminent, has the Australian Government been given a date for that execution?
SMITH: We have the understanding, from what the Indonesians have said publicly, that it's effectively imminent, we've made the point consistently that that's a matter for the...
KELLY: Have you heard Saturday is a possible date?
SMITH: I've seen that referred to publicly, we continue to respond in the following terms, which is it's entirely a matter for the Indonesian authorities; it's a matter for their judicial and legal processes.
In some respect, I very much regret the ongoing speculation, because I think that every time the matter is referred to, the families of the victims from the bombing will just relive the agony of the loss of loved ones.
If I can just take up a point which you and Michelle were talking about, the Australian Government has made it clear that we don't support capital punishment, and we raise in international forums our view that those countries who continue to apply capital punishment should move away from that and we support that view in the United Nations and other forums.
And where an Australian is subject to capital punishment overseas, we make representations on the Australian citizen's part, either publicly or privately, or both, depending upon the effectiveness of those representations. We don't make representations on behalf of nationals of other countries and we certainly don't make representation on behalf of terrorism.
We don't see that in any way as being contradictory, there's a two-stage process here, one is our public policy position, which is the position in Australia, that we don't support capital punishment, and we urge that upon other nation states. But when it comes to individual representations about individuals, we reserve our capacity and our arguing capacity for Australian citizens who are subject to capital punishment, and we've had some failures in that respect, we've also had some successes.
KELLY: Minister, we've only got 30 seconds left, but can you tell us how the news of this execution will be delivered to the families of the victims, will DFAT take responsibility for that?
SMITH: Well as soon as we know what has occurred, and I'm expecting the advice to be after the event, we'll do our best to let families know, but I think reality is, Fran, that that will pretty much be contemporaneous and simultaneous with media outlets finding out, so I think it'll be a matter of families finding out through the media, just as quickly as they find out through consular officers in DFAT.
KELLY: All right, Minister, we must leave it there. Thank you very much for joining us.
SMITH: Thanks very much, Fran, thank you.
KELLY: Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, in Paris.
[Ends]
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