Transcript, E&OE
1 August 2009
Interview - Sky News
Subjects: Recognition of Bob Hawke's contribution to ALP; gay marriage; Chinese official at the ALP conference as an observer; Burma; climate change and; missing Australian off Lombok in Indonesia.
DAVID SPEERS: Stephen Smith thanks for your time. Bob Hawke's big day at the ALP conference today, what do you remember about his time as Prime Minister?
STEPHEN SMITH: I think the sweep of the reforms, the sweep of history. It's a terrific, if you like, recognition for Bob's grand career, and it's still going because I'm sure he'll stump up at the next Federal election as well. But I think the economic reforms and also he did make the point about the foreign policy and international reforms that Labor and his Government were associated with.
DAVID SPEERS: You were of course working for Paul Keating at the time that he tore down Bob Hawke as leader, as Prime Minister, was that a difficult thing to do?
STEPHEN SMITH: First thing I should say is Hawkey's forgiven me for my role in that, that's the most important thing...
DAVID SPEERS: What was your role in that?
STEPHEN SMITH: I was on Mr Keating's staff, so guilt by association. But look it's always difficult when a party's got to make a judgement about whether the time's come for a leader to go or not. And when you're dealing with the most successful Labor leader, the most successful Labor Prime Minister, it's doubly difficult. It was a difficult decision for the Party, but we dealt with it, worked our way through it. Mr Keating won the 1993 election and in his own right a series of substantial reforms that we're proud of from his time as well.
DAVID SPEERS: But obviously some wounds are pretty hard to, difficult to heal. Paul Keating not here today, not surprisingly but it's obviously still a fairly raw issue isn't it?
STEPHEN SMITH: No I think a lot of the rawness is gone, certainly between Bob and Paul, and as I say, sort of half tongue and cheek, you know, Hawkey's forgiven me but he's forgiven a lot of people.
DAVID SPEERS: Would it have been nice to see Paul Keating here today for this special moment?
STEPHEN SMITH: That's a matter for Paul and in the past we've given special recognition to Paul, and in the future we certainly don't rule that out. But in terms of national life memberships, we've now got three, Gough and Margaret Whitlam and Hawkey, and of course they're all richly deserved. But I think one of the spirits, or the sentiments today was just a great tribute from the conference for a remarkable career and a remarkable contribution. But I think you'd find a number of delegates, some of the older ones, even older than me, who in earlier years when Bob was chair of the ACTU trying to get into Parliament and then Leader of the Opposition and Prime Minister who weren't necessarily unambiguously lacking in criticism of his time. So in politics this always occurs, where as you go through people are critical of what you've done or haven't done...
DAVID SPEERS: ….and then the rose coloured glasses go on...
STEPHEN SMITH: …a policy decision here, or a policy decision there. But at the end of a career people make a judgement about what was the nature and substance of your contribution and in Hawkey's case of course a substantial contribution and on that basis is correctly described as not just a great Labor politician or a great Labor Prime Minister, he's truly a great Australian.
DAVID SPEERS: Now the other big issue at the conference today has been gay marriage. It doesn't seem like there's been much change at all in Labor's position. A big protest has taken place out the front of the conference; do you think there's been any change at all in Labor's opposition to gay marriage?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well there's certainly no change in the Government's approach, which is we proceed on the basis of marriage being an act between a man and a woman, recognised under the Marriage Act. But the conference resolution does say that we should have a look at whether there's some prospect of national consistency in recognition of long term committed relationships.
DAVID SPEERS: What is the argument against allowing same-sex couples to marry?
STEPHEN SMITH: Our view is that marriage is between a man and a woman reflected by the provisions of the Marriage Act.
DAVID SPEERS: But why? I mean as Anthony Albanese said in the conference, it doesn't undermine his heterosexual marriage and relationship to allow a homosexual couple to also marry. It doesn't worry him, it doesn't...
STEPHEN SMITH: Which is one of the arguments, which is seen as a response, which is we do think certainly in the first instance, and the Attorney-General, Robert McClelland has been very strong on this, that just because you have a same-sex couple they should in any way be discriminated against. We're absolutely very strong on that and he's made a range of changes reflecting that...
DAVID SPEERS: The question is why shouldn't they be allowed to marry?
STEPHEN SMITH: The starting point is no discrimination. Secondly, the argument that Mr Albanese has made I think has been in part why the conference has said lets have a look to see whether some nationally consistent recognition is appropriate. But...
DAVID SPEERS: But do you think it does undermine a heterosexual marriage to allow a homosexual marriage?
STEPHEN SMITH: The Government's view of marriage is it's between a man and a woman. That's reflected by the long-standing provisions of the Commonwealth Marriage Act and we're not proposing to disturb that.
DAVID SPEERS: Ok let's move on. The conference, as I understand it, there's also been a senior Chinese Communist Party official here as an observer. Have you met with him at all?
STEPHEN SMITH: Yes, Vice Minister Liu was here. He now heads up what's called the International Department or the International Division of the Political Department in Beijing.
DAVID SPEERS: And did you talk about Stern Hu, the Rio-Tinto executive?
STEPHEN SMITH: We had a wide ranging conversation. His predecessor, because he's just started, his predecessor traditionally came to ALP National Conferences, so it's not a novel or a new thing. It's essentially the Party to Party contact.
DAVID SPEERS: Ok did you talk about Stern Hu?
STEPHEN SMITH: Talked about the relationship, talked about Stern Hu...
DAVID SPEERS: No further development there?
STEPHEN SMITH: No, I just made the same points that I made to my counterpart last week, Foreign Minister Yang, we believe the matter should be dealt with as a consular matter, should be dealt with expeditiously. And it needs to be dealt with expeditiously and managed carefully so that it doesn't detract from the relationship.
DAVID SPEERS: There's also reports today that Burma is developing a nuclear weapon. Do you have, this is reported in the Sydney Morning Herald today, do you have evidence yourself, does the Government have any knowledge of this development?
STEPHEN SMITH: I've certainly seen the report. We don't have any evidence to confirm it one way or the other. But this is an issue which is growing in terms of the international community's concern. A couple of weeks ago I was on Phuket, Thailand for the ASEAN related meetings, one of which was the ASEAN regional forum where we have twenty-five countries from the region sitting around as the premier regional security forum, and the question of North Korea's nuclear role was raised. But in the margins of the conference also the possible relationship between North Korea and Burma was raised. I've previously expressed my concern about that possible development, as have other colleagues including the Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Were not in the position to confirm it, but obviously we are very concerned if there was nuclear proliferation from North Korea to Burma. That would be in breach, for example, of United Nations Security Council Resolution eighteen seventy-four, which is the most Security Council resolution, following on from North Korea's recent underground tests.
DAVID SPEERS: A couple of other issues. Yvo de Boer, the Head of the UN's Climate Change Office, has said that it matters little whether Australia has an emissions trading scheme of its own in place before the Copenhagen Summit at the end of the year, why then is the Government rushing to get one in place?
STEPHEN SMITH: Because we think it's important. We don't share that view, we've said consistently that for reasons of certainty...
DAVID SPEERS: But surely he should know, he's the head of the UN Climate Change office?
STEPHEN SMITH: Yes but he's not the Government of Australia, and we have a different view. And our very strong view, which we've articulated from day one, the Prime Minister and Minister Wong, is that for reasons of certainty to business, to give industry certainty so they know what our own legislation will be. But also importantly to give us a good bargaining position. We want to try and get a very good outcome from Copenhagen and our view, strategically and tactically, is that if we have a settled position reflected by legislation, we can argue to other countries this is what we've done, you need to match and if we can all do better, we'll do better.
DAVID SPEERS: And just finally Minister, a young Australian has been missing for a few days off Lombok. What's the latest on that?
STEPHEN SMITH: It's very concerning. I'm not in a position to identify the person concerned. But it's a young man in his mid-twenties from my own state of Western Australia. He went scuba diving or snorkelling off Lombok, hasn't been seen for a couple of days. So we're very worried about that. We're in close consultation with the local authorities. Our officials are giving assistance to the party, he was travelling with some close friends. So it is very concerning, but we're doing everything we can, together with the local authorities to try and find him, but also giving assistance to the people, the friends he was travelling with.
DAVID SPEERS: OK Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith thank you.
STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks. Thanks very much.
[ENDS]
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