E&OE
14 April 2009
Interview with Fran Kelly, ABC Radio National
Subjects: Protests in Bangkok and situation in Fiji
FRAN KELLY: If you're planning a trip to Bangkok, hold your horses. The Federal Government is warning Australians to reconsider any travel to Thailand; and for those already in the capital, to stay indoors.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith joins us now from Perth.
Minister, thanks very much for your time.
STEPHEN SMITH: Yeah, good morning Fran.
FRAN KELLY: Now, have you been briefed on the latest in Bangkok? What are you hearing?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well I spoke to our Ambassador in Bangkok late last night, of course it's early in the morning in Bangkok now, and the report overnight is that circumstances hadn't changed significantly from what they were yesterday afternoon, which was potentially a continuing very volatile situation.
And so we continue to urge Australians, if they're not in Bangkok, to consider or reconsider their need to travel to Bangkok. If Australians are in Bangkok, then they should minimise their travel around Bangkok. Effectively as I've been putting it, anecdotally staying within house and home. But certainly avoiding demonstrations, certainly avoiding locations where the military have positioned themselves and certainly avoiding large gatherings, as the state of emergency effectively outlaws gatherings of more than five people.
FRAN KELLY: How worried is the ambassador that this could turn very very ugly? I mean, there's about 55,000 Australians there - either living there or holidaying there. Are you at the point where you are talking about an evacuation plan?
STEPHEN SMITH: No. Currently the volatility or the points of conflict are in quite discreet areas in Bangkok itself.
And you're quite right, we have anywhere between 20 to 30,000 Australians who will be living or working in Bangkok, in Thailand sorry, and that's additional, up on anywhere up to 20 to 25,000 tourists.
So we're talking about large number of Australians. Which is why, as occurred at the end of last year, we have been monitoring this situation and paying very careful attention to this situation and looking out for the welfare of Australians.
Again to date, we've got no evidence that any Australian has been caught up with it, and certainly foreigners aren't, on the evidence we have, being targeted.
Those people who do want to leave Bangkok, there's no indication at this stage that there's been any disruption to the airport or any difficulty in terms of scheduled flights leaving.
But we are saying to people who are thinking of leaving Bangkok, to be careful how they travel to the airport and to give themselves plenty of time and to check with their travel agents and with the airport before they leave their hotel.
FRAN KELLY: Minister, is there a foreign policy issue here? I mean, what is the danger to Australia and the region of an unstable Thailand
STEPHEN SMITH: Well it doesn't help ASEAN. It doesn't help South East Asia. It doesn't help Australia and it doesn't help our region if there is instability and volatility in Thailand.
We've of course welcomed very much the fact that over the last few years Thailand has returned to democracy. And we certainly very strongly want to see this particular difficulty resolved in a peaceful and lawful way, consistent with Thailand's constitution.
The last thing we want to see is Thailand again revert to military rule or move away from democracy. But, it certainly doesn't help Thailand and it doesn't help the region.
And Thailand for example not being in a position to successfully hold an East Asia Summit Leaders meeting is a big blow to Thailand, its standing and its reputation. But also it'll have adverse consequences in terms of tourism, but also in terms of trade and investment.
FRAN KELLY: Closer to home - in Fiji Minister you've called the country a military dictatorship. Now, I recall you sat down with the Commodore last year; he promised elections. Were you conned?
STEPHEN SMITH: I've been to Fiji twice and seen Commodore Bainimarama as part of the Pacific Island Forum Ministerial Contact Group. I think you'll find that when you look at what the Ministerial Action Group said, we said that there was nothing standing in the way of an election in Fiji provided the political will was there. I don't think we ever asserted, in public, that we were convinced the political will was there.
We always wanted Commodore Bainimarama to hold himself to the faithful undertaking he gave to the Pacific Island Forum Leaders that he'd have an election by the end of March this year. Obviously, that hasn't been held.
Both the Pacific Island Leaders, meeting in New Guinea in January this year, and the Commonwealth have passed resolutions in the course of this year urging a process to democracy on Fiji. And it's quite clear that the events of the last couple of days have seen the regime take Fiji, you know, a million miles away from that.
FRAN KELLY: Is there anything you can do about it? I mean, Australia's already placed a range of sanctions on Fiji, there are travel sanctions, restrictions on development assistance, restriction on Australia's contact with the Fiji military.
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, we are…
FRAN KELLY: Will we go further?
STEPHEN SMITH: We've been at the forefront of those, as has New Zealand. Other countries haven't gone down that road. We're certainly talking to our international community partners, members of the Pacific Island Forum, members of the Commonwealth and the United Nations itself, to see what more pressure we can bring to bear on Commodore Bainimarama. We are at the forefront of sanctions, so we're not necessarily contemplating additional sanctions of our own.
There's also this fundamental point, which is one of the things that we've always wanted to do is to try and get the regime to go back to democracy. We don't want to do things which have an adverse impact on the people of Fiji themselves. And one thing we have seen since Fiji moved away from democracy under Commodore Bainimarama has been a very serious deleterious impact on Fiji's economic and social circumstances.
And what's occurred in the last couple of days, the abrogation of the Constitution, the turning over of the judiciary, the intimidation of media, this just takes Fiji further away from the international community and will have further adverse effects so far as Fiji's economic and social circumstances are concerned.
FRAN KELLY: Should Fiji be suspended from the Pacific Islands Forum and the Commonwealth?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, the resolutions of the Pacific Island Forum Leaders Meeting in Papua New Guinea, in Port Moresby earlier this year and the resolution of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, which met in London in February/March of this year, both have the effect that unless Fiji puts itself on a process back to democracy on a pretty tight timetable in the first half of this year that it runs the risk of being suspended from both.
FRAN KELLY: Well, that certainly hasn't happened.
STEPHEN SMITH: Exactly. And I think that unless there is some dramatic turnaround, which we haven't seen, from Commodore Bainimarama, in my view it is almost inevitable that Fiji will be suspended from the forums of both the Pacific Island Forum and the Commonwealth itself.
FRAN KELLY: And what about, just briefly on Fiji, it's always been a popular holiday spot for Australians. Should sanctions go as far as telling Australians not to travel to Fiji?
STEPHEN SMITH: Currently our travel advice is that people should exercise caution, particularly in Suva. But it's not at a level which is for people to reconsider their need to travel. And one of the reasons that we have in mind for that is that whilst people do need to exercise a high degree of caution, again we don't want to do things which have an adverse impact on the people of Fiji themselves.
Fiji should be a premier economy in our region. It's not. And one of its strengths, of course, is as a tourist destination. We're, of course, monitoring very carefully developments and people do need to be wary of the political events, and they can be volatile and turn at short notice.
But people should exercise a high degree of caution if they're contemplating travel in or around Fiji.
FRAN KELLY: Okay. [Time check] Our guest this morning is Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith.
Minister, you're heading to Bali later today to co-chair a meeting on people smuggling. Now, in this country, 12 boats have arrived since the Rudd Government took office, 379 asylum seekers aboard. Do we have a renewed problem here?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, we certainly have a very strong renewed difficulties so far as the so called push factors are concerned. We know that displaced people are pushed, rather than being attracted to particular locations. There are a number of new emerging difficulties and Sri Lanka, for example, is one. And also, we have discovered that the people smugglers, the criminals themselves, have become much more sophisticated and better at people smuggling.
So, Senator Evans, the Minister for Immigration, Bob Debus, the Home Affairs Minister responsible for the Australian Federal Police, and I are leaving Australia today to go to Bali to attend the third Ministerial Conference on the so called Bali Process, which is the regional process aimed at people smuggling and people trafficking. It's chaired by Australia and Indonesia.
One of the very important things we have to do in this area is to get the regional cooperation, not just nation to nation, government to government, but also agency to agency, whether it's police or customs or intelligence.
FRAN KELLY: An important part here is intelligence. Do you have any intelligence to suggest that this renewed arrival of these boats is linked to the Rudd Government softening the laws on detention?
STEPHEN SMITH: I never talk about intelligence publicly of whatever description. But what I can say to you is that there are a number of dangers, which is why we are very focused on this. One of the dangers is the additional push factors. Another danger is increasing sophistication of the efforts at people smuggling.
And it's one of the reasons that our approach is not just to ensure we don't have unauthorised boat arrivals come to our mainland, but that we also work very closely with our neighbours. In particular, Indonesia, but also include Malaysia and Sri Lanka and other countries where there are difficulties in that respect. I particularly mention Sri Lanka.
FRAN KELLY: And, Minister, just briefly, we've only got 30 seconds or so before the news. But are you concerned, for instance, that the surveillance here isn't good enough? I mean, one boat arrived last week, right up to the docks at Christmas Island without being detected.
STEPHEN SMITH: And the effect was exactly the same. If it had been intercepted in international waters it would have been taken to Christmas Island. Our focus is ensuring that unauthorised arrivals don't touch the Australian mainland. When they're intercepted they're taken to Christmas Island and the immigration consequences are precisely the same as occurred last week.
FRAN KELLY: All right. Stephen Smith, thank you very much for joining us.
STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks, Fran. Thanks very much.
FRAN KELLY: Foreign Minister Stephen Smith joining us from his home in Perth.
And he's off to Bali later today for that people smuggling - it's called the Bali Process, the summit, and it's a regional conference on people smuggling.
[ENDS]
Media inquiries
Foreign Minister's office (02) 6277 7500