Transcript
2 October 2009
Interview - ABC2 Breakfast, Virginia Trioli
Subjects: Indonesia and Samoa
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: For more on the disasters across the Pacific, we're joined now by the Foreign Affairs Minister, Stephen Smith. He's in our ABC's Perth newsroom.
Minister, good morning and thank you for joining us.
STEPHEN SMITH: Good morning, Virginia.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: First of all, can you update us on Australian deaths, either in the Pacific or, indeed, in Indonesia?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, if I could start firstly with Samoa. Overnight six injured Australians were transported back to Australia in a Defence plane. We've now got one injured Australian woman hospitalised in Samoa. All of the Australians in Samoa who we knew were there, we've now accounted for. We just want to proceed with caution, just to make sure that there weren't Australians there, whose whereabouts we didn't know and just let a couple of days go by to make sure that no Australians have been caught up in Samoa.
But four confirmed dead in Samoa, also a permanent resident - a New Zealand citizen, and one injured Australian woman, but we'll just have to wait and make sure that there's no one else.
So far as Indonesia is concerned - as far as Sumatra is concerned, we had 13 Australians registered in the area. Overnight there are four whom we haven't been able to make contact with but, of course, there are always Australians who don't register and what we've done in the course of the last 24 to 36 hours — our officials have worked very hard and we think there could be as many as 250 Australians in the general area. We've made contact with nearly 140, so at this stage we've potentially got 100 - just over 100 Australians who may be in the area, with whom we haven't been able to make contact, so, we obviously want to be working very hard during the day and the following days to try and track those Australians down.
But at this stage, we've got no evidence which would indicate that we've got any Australians who are killed or injured, but we're just worried to ensure that we track down all the Australians who may have been in the area.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: So, no evidence, no serious concerns about the state of these 100 Australians.
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, I'm always concerned when we've got potentially 100 Australians whose whereabouts we can't vouchsafe for. And so, if Australians have got friends or loved ones who they believe were in the area, they should try and contact them direct. If they can't contact them direct, they should then contact the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade emergency number: 1300 555 135. That'll actually help us try and ascertain where people are.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: So just to clarify then, Minister. That emergency number that we've been giving out for a couple of days now, in relation to the Pacific and tsunami there, that number can also be used if you're trying to find the whereabouts of people in Indonesia.
STEPHEN SMITH: Yes. Absolutely. They can use that number which you've been advertising or 1300 555 135.
VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Okay, now when it comes to Australia's response to Indonesia, of course, Indonesia, in the end, did ask for our assistance. What more will we be doing?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, last night and overnight, we've agreed with Indonesia that we will provide urgent assistance. When President Yudhoyono came back from the General Assembly in New York he made it clear that Indonesia would require assistance.
What's been agreed, effectively overnight, is that, in addition to humanitarian stores that we have pre-positioned in Indonesia - blankets, tarpaulins, nets, water contamination tablets and the like, effectively everything except food and water - we'll now start making that available.
But, importantly, today from Australia an urban search and rescue team will leave Australia to assist on the search and rescue mission in Padang. And, as well as an urban search and rescue team, we're also sending a defence force engineering assessment team, which will be able to give assistance on the difficult - some of the difficult engineering aspects of searching buildings that have been damaged by the earthquake.
So, they'll be leaving Australia in the course of the day and that's - we regard that as a significant contribution to the immediate rescue effort, and we're very please to be able to assist Indonesia in this way because the scale of this disaster is only now becoming apparent. We're worried that we'll see deaths not in the hundreds, but over a thousand.
VIRGINIA TROLI: What's the total number of the personnel of those two teams that you mentioned Minister?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well the urban search and rescue team will be a team of over 40 and the engineering assessment team - the defence assessment team will be a team of 10. That will also be accompanied by an AusAid team to enable AusAid to be on the ground to be looking at assessments for medium to longer term assistance for rebuilding and reconstruction and both those teams are in addition to a team we already have on the ground in Padang made up of Foreign Affairs and AusAid officials and also an Australian Federal Police officer and a Defence official. Their task is essentially to be on the ground to try and assist in tracking down the Australians who we believe may be in the area.
VIRGINIA TROLI: Minister can I just return to Samoa for a moment? It was intriguing to hear Andrew Macintyre from the Australian National University this morning describe Samoa as the great hidden secret really of the Pacific. That it was a country that was doing very well; it was well organised; well run. And that the GDP per capita there is Samoa is actually higher than in Indonesia. The consequences, economically as well as personally for this country, are going to be enormous.
Australia long term is probably going to be - going to have to be involved in a lot more than just rebuilding aren't we?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well I was in Samoa myself in April-May of this year. It's a terrific country. Samoa - great people. Very warm and friendly relations with Australia and lots of people-to-people contacts but your assessment is essentially right. Samoa can be a premier economy in the region and it had withstood the global financial economic crisis really quite well - better than most. So both on the economic front and on the human front you know this is terrible tragedy.
But we have worked very closely with Samoa in the past. We have a development assistance program with them and we will be not just dealing with the emergency situation that we find on our hands now but we'll be working very closely with them - together with New Zealand - in the rebuilding and reconstruction phase and our attitude is whatever we need to do together with other donor countries, other donor partners, whether it's New Zeeland or the United Nations, we will do. This is a terrible tragedy and yes you're quite right, it will take some time before there's a recovery from it.
VIRGINIA TROLI: Does it necessarily follow that people will want to leave - but if their lives have been so devastated that they could become refugees, will we be opening our doors to them as well?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well refugees of course conjures up the notion of persecution under the refugee convention. We don't accept economic refugees. So we will be doing our best to assist the economic and social reconstruction of Samoa. Our starting point of course would be that we want Samoans to stay there and help rebuild their country.
Any Samoan - any person who's a resident in Samoa who has an entitlement to - an immigration entitlement to come to Australia, they may wish to exercise that. That's a matter for them. But in the first instance our commitment is to render the emergency relief - the humanitarian relief; make sure that Australian citizens who have been adversely affected are assisted which we've been doing and then look at the medium and longer term reconstruction but we will apply ourselves very diligently to that with our friends and partners in Samoa.
VIRGINIA TROLI: Stephen Smith thank you for your time this morning.
STEPHEN SMITH: Thank you Virginia. Thanks very much.
[END]
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