E&OE
6 November 2008
Interview - Ali Moore, ABC Melbourne
Subjects: US election; Bali bombers
ALI MOORE: Well, where were you when Barack Obama gave his victory speech? Were you glued to a TV screen, were you huddled around a radio? Did you feel a sense of history and what do you think it will mean for Australia?
Well, to answer that last question, what will it mean for Australia, Stephen Smith is the federal Foreign Affairs Minister. Of course he's federal, we don't have state ones. Stephen Smith, good morning.
STEPHEN SMITH: Good morning, Ali, how are you?
MOORE: I am well thank you. Barack Obama has never been to this country. He makes little or no reference to it in his policy writings, will we need very, very sharp elbows to get to the front of the queue and get a look in in Washington?
SMITH: No. The relationship between Australia and the United States is rested upon the alliance that we have. That alliance has served both Australia and the United States well for more than 50 years and it transcends governments here, Labor or Liberal and administrations in the United States, Republican or Democrat.
So after a brief settling down period where we see and make contact with the key new members of the administration whether that's the Secretary of State or Secretary for Defence or the Special Trade Representative or the Treasury Secretary. Once that has occurred it will effectively be business as usual.
President-elect Obama of course does have connections in the Asia Pacific, sort of personal historical connections, and that's very important because the two things that we will have on the top of our list in terms of our contact with the new administration will be the ongoing nature of the alliance, but secondly the need for active engagement, ongoing active engagement by the United States in the Asia Pacific which is very important to us but also very important to our region as in this century economic and political and strategic influence inexorably shifts to the Asia-Pacific.
MOORE: And in fact I should correct myself because when I think back to reading his book Dreams from my Father, of course Barack Obama, I think he did come to Australia as a very small child. He literally stopped en route to Indonesia from Hawaii didn't he?
SMITH: Transit...
MOORE: Transit lounge if that counts. Do you think though that the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, do you think he will ever have the sort of relationship with Barack Obama that was shared between John Howard and George Bush?
SMITH: Well, in terms of the personal chemistry, you know, you never quite know until the first meeting but the Prime Minister has previously spoken to Senator Obama on the phone. Our officials have put out the usual courtesy call and at some stage the Prime Minister will personally congratulate, over the telephone the President-elect.
MOORE: He's not spoken to him yet?
SMITH: He hadn't spoken to him yesterday but the usual sort of calls had gone out. That will depend upon the personal chemistry but we know for example there's very good personal chemistry between Prime Minister Rudd and President Sarkozy so it depends on the individuals but what we'll endure irrespective of the personal chemistry is the strength and the firmness of the alliance.
I mean, in the run-up to our election people were saying, will this put the alliance in jeopardy, is there going to be difficulty here? And very quickly you get down to business as usual. Whilst we had a strong disagreement on Iraq for example with the Bush administration, we progressed our election commitment in terms of withdrawing troops from Iraq in a very professional way in consultation with the Bush administration and with the Iraqi government and the UK government and others.
So our relationship for example with the Bush administration has been very professional and very positive and that will continue until the 20 January. I mean, we are expecting that we'll have a good personal relationship, Prime Minister to President and the Treasurer Wayne Swan to the new Treasury of Secretary and the like...
MOORE: Hey, have you or the Prime Minister actually met face-to-face Barack Obama?
SMITH: I haven't - I've neither met him nor spoken to him. I've met Joe Biden, the Vice-President-elect. The Prime Minister has spoken to Senator Obama but he hasn't met him personally.
MOORE: Now I wonder if he's now regretting that decision to have a personal meeting with Hillary Clinton rather than Barack Obama.
SMITH: Oh, well, the Prime Minister has known Hillary Clinton for a period of time so that was as much a personal contact as, you know searching out for contact with a candidate. I mean, we - in this election campaign, we've conducted ourselves, in our view, in the entirely appropriate manner which is we indicated publicly that it was a matter for the American people to determine.
We would deal positively and constructively with whoever the American people elected, whether it was a McCain Administration or an Obama Administration and the Prime Minister spoke to Hillary Clinton, saw her personally and spoke to Senator Obama over the phone, just made contact with the two candidates, as he did with the Republican candidate, that's entirely appropriate.
And after the transitional arrangements bed themselves down, then obviously sometime in the course of the first half of next year, there'll be those personal contacts that I've referred to.
MOORE: Stephen Smith, of course he is not inaugurated until 20 January and that will be day one. But I wonder whether you expect a less unilateral foreign policy. He'll be - Stephen - sorry, that Barack Obama will be more interested in, I guess, global institutions, more interested in allies, do you think that's a fair tip?
SMITH: I think it is worth dwelling, as you did in your introduction on the historical significance of his election, the first African American, the first black American elected as President. And while, for example, over the last eight years, we've had an African American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and before her Colin Powell, it's a deeply significant event and I think that of itself has brought a wave of enthusiasm and optimism and hope that a series of problems, some of them seemingly intracticable might now be able to be dealt with in a positive way.
The election of any new government and new government here and new administration in the United States, a new government anywhere does bring the opportunity for fresh enthusiasm or fresh approach to ongoing issues and I think that dynamic has been magnified by the deep, historical significance of it and I think there is a real opportunity in that context for, if you like, for brand America to be seen in the world as modern, as relevant and attractive to a range of areas of the world where previously there wasn't necessarily such an attraction and the fact that he's African American, you know, will just, will add to that.
MOORE: Couple of very specific issues. He is committed to withdrawing from Iraq but that's only to put resources towards Afghanistan, what's that going to mean for Australia?
SMITH: Well, we welcome that. We withdrew our troops from Iraq, as you know, but we've got a longstanding commitment to Afghanistan. We've got about 1100 - about 1000 to 1100 troops in Orzugan Province. But our very strong view in Afghanistan is that there needs to be an international community commitment to combat the terrorism that is there. But that requires not just a military contribution which we're making and which we've been urging NATO and other countries to be making as well.
But it also requires a civilian contribution in the sense of a contribution to build the capacity of the Afghan government and the Afghan people to build their state institutions to nation-build to give them the chance to manage their own affairs and govern for their own people. And thirdly, it also means the Karzai government, the Afghan government also needs to sit down and work through a political settlement with other political players in Afghanistan. And that's if you like the emerging international view, that's certainly the Australian view.
And that's the view which President-elect Obama expressed in the course of the election campaign.
SMITH: So we welcome that renewed commitment, or enhanced commitment, to Afghanistan, because we very much see that as being the current hot bed of terrorism, which poses dangers, not just to Europe, but also to South-East Asia.
MOORE: What about Iran? Certainly, you've identified Iran's nuclear ambitions as one of the biggest issues that the international community is going to have to deal with, and Barack Obama made it very clear that Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear power. Could Australia get drawn into any, well, dare I say, battle. I don't know how one would describe it, but…
SMITH: Well, the last thing we'd want is battle over that issue. But, certainly, I've identified Iran as one of real potential difficulties for the international community at about this time next year. We very strongly supported the United Nations Security Council resolutions trying to bring Iran to book on its nuclear program.
We're not concerned about a nuclear program which is there for civil purposes, but the problem is, we're very concerned that that's not what Iran is on about, and they refuse to essentially open themselves up for international verification. So we're very concerned. As a consequence, we enhanced our sanctions, financial and other sanctions, against Iran recently.
I was in Israel last week, and with the Israeli leadership, this is an issue of great concern. And in Israel, both on Middle East and Palestinian issues, but also on Iran, there was, essentially, a wait until there's a new US Administration to see whether progress could be made.
But Iran will be one of the very difficult issues that President Obama and the international community will have to deal with. And we continue to urge all diplomatic means and all international community pressure on Iran to bring them to book on their nuclear program. The last thing we want to see is any military action arising as a consequence of that issue.
MOORE: Stephen Smith, we've been down this particular road before, and that is that we are awaiting the execution of the Bali bombers, and we've been told that it's imminent for some days now. Have you heard from Indonesia some sense of a timetable?
SMITH: Well, we're proceeding on the same basis as has been indicated publicly, which…
MOORE: But you know no more? You don't know when it's going to happen?
SMITH: Well, the Attorney-General indicated towards the end of October that the executions would take place some time in early November. I have assiduously avoided a running commentary on this, because I think all a running commentary does is just continue to remind the families of the victims of a terrible event.
So I'll wait until the Indonesian legal processes take their course, but we're expecting it to occur in early November. And, as a consequence of that, we are expecting, or worried, or alive to the possibility that there may be a need for enhanced security arrangements as a consequence of that. We've taken those precautions so far as our diplomatic missions in Indonesia are concerned.
You would have also seen the Indonesians themselves taking additional security precautions in case there are attempts at reprisals, and we continue to urge Australians to carefully look at our travel advice for Indonesia and Bali before…
ALI MOORE: Are they heeding that advice? Are they heeding that warning not to travel?
SMITH: Well, in the end, Australians will make their own judgement, and all we do is to say to them, you should please consider the travel advice before you contemplate travel to Indonesia or Bali. For a long time now - indeed, since … effectively since the first Bali bombing in 2002, our travel advisory has been to reconsider the need to travel to Bali and Indonesia.
What Australians do in the end is a matter for them, but we do urge them to take that into account. And we have - also, whilst the travel advisory has been at the same level for a particular … for a very long period … for a long period of time, we have been updating that as events unfold in Indonesia.
MOORE: Stephen Smith, thank you very much for talking to us.
SMITH: Thank you, Ali, thanks very much.
[Ends]
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