Transcript E&OE
27 October 2009
Interview - 2UE Radio
Subjects: Oceanic Viking; Asylum seekers; cooperation with Indonesia
SANDY ALOISI: You've only got to open the newspaper, or have a listen to a program like ours, to know that asylum seekers have been in the news for the past couple of weeks on almost a daily basis, and today 78 Sri Lankans are going to be handed to Indonesian authorities, they've spent more than a week at sea on the Australian ship, the Oceanic Viking.
The Prime Minister has accused the Opposition of playing politics on the issue of asylum seekers, he says the Indonesian solution for asylum seekers is humane, but now we hear that the United Nations, and a leading human rights group, have launched an investigation into our own Government's Indonesian solution.
JOHN STANLEY: And the Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, joins us from our Canberra studio, Mr Smith, good morning to you.
STEPHEN SMITH: Good morning, John.
JOHN STANLEY: Are you concerned about this? What capacity do they have to investigate what we have been doing, and particularly what's been happening in Indonesia?
STEPHEN SMITH: We've changed the system to enable the United Nations to come to Australia whenever it wants to, and inspect matters relating to human rights. So as I understand it, the UN Special Rapporteur on Health is coming to Australia, he's going to inspect our own detention facilities, and make a report. We changed the system from the previous Government's arrangement, where that couldn't occur on a regular or an automatic basis...
JOHN STANLEY: Well, will they be investigating our interception of these boats, and sending of those boats to Indonesia, and will they investigate the circumstances in Indonesia?
STEPHEN SMITH: There are two aspects. There's Human Rights Watch, which is an NGO, a non-government organisation, that's said that it wants to have a look at detention centre conditions in Indonesia. That's a matter for an independent, non-government organisation.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Health is coming to Australia and he's going to have a look at conditions in our immigration facilities, such as Villawood and the like.
But generally, so far as conditions in Indonesia are concerned, we of course want people, asylum seekers, to be held in appropriate conditions. That's why we support the fact that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has access to the detention facilities in Indonesia, and why the International Organisation for Migration has access to the facilities. That is why the current Government and the previous Government have both contributed to Indonesia, and to these two international organisations, to assist them with detention and detention facilities. We want those conditions to be appropriate, and we want people to be held in suitable conditions.
SANDY ALOISI: Minister, I see that Anthony Albanese, your Transport Minister, has said overnight that our Government can't be held responsible for what happens overseas, but isn't that the point, if you push the asylum seekers into Indonesia, you no longer have to be responsible for how they're treated?
STEPHEN SMITH: Let's just understand very clearly what's occurred here. We're not pushing the asylum seekers into Indonesia. The 78 people on board the Oceanic Viking were rescued at sea, and they were rescued at sea because Australia, at the request of Indonesia, discharged humanitarian and a safety at sea obligation, to help people at risk on the high seas.
Indonesia then agreed - they were under no compulsion - that they would take them to Indonesia. Overnight bad weather stopped the processing, or the transportation or the embarkation from occurring. We hope that occurs today, but that'll be an operational matter for the Oceanic Viking, and Indonesian officials.
The second thing we're doing, is saying to Indonesia, and we've made this very clear, because we've got a significant asylum seeker problem for our whole region, not just Australia, is we want to give Indonesia as much assistance as we can, so that Indonesia can deal with the problem, jointly with us.
We're not seeking to leave them in the lurch. But we want to give them as much assistance as we can. They have been intercepting and disrupting asylum seekers and people smuggling, over the last four or five years, on more than 80 occasions, including one which has been in the news recently, which of course is a group of Sri Lankans at Merak Harbour.
So the 78 on board the Oceanic Viking, were as a result of a rescue on the high seas, and we're now, through the Oceanic Viking, taking them back to Indonesia, which is what Indonesia agreed to do.
JOHN STANLEY: But those people didn't want to go to Indonesia, they want to come to Australia, don't they?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, they have made it clear that they want to come to Australia, but that is not a matter of their choosing.
JOHN STANLEY: But isn't that the point though, that if they go to Indonesia, and the conditions and they - and it's broadcast around the region the conditions there aren't all that flash, that that is going to achieve the end of stopping them getting in the boats, and trying to come to Australia, isn't that the purpose of the policy?
STEPHEN SMITH: There are a number of things, John. Firstly, we want to do everything we can, together with countries like Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Indonesia, to stop the boats coming. That's very important because we want to make sure that both our borders and our immigration system have integrity.
At the same time, we know that if people come to Australia, either by boat or by plane, and they claim asylum, then we want to, and we do, deal with them in accordance with our international humanitarian and refugee obligations.
But, we run a very tight border protection system, and we want to run a tight immigration system with integrity. That includes the way in which we process people who claim asylum. People come to Australia in one of two ways, so far as refugee status is concerned: what's called the offshore program, where in conjunction with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Australia agrees to take refugees who are in displaced peoples' camps across the world. We've been doing that for decades, since the end of World War II.
But secondly, people come, not as part of that program, they either try and come on boats, or they come by plane, and they claim asylum. We then, quite correctly, discharge our obligation to deal with them, in accordance with the Refugee Convention.
But it's not open season on Australia, and that is why we work very closely with our neighbours, to do our best to stop these boats from coming. But we know, given what's occurred with the civil war in Sri Lanka, given what's occurring in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, that this is a very difficult problem for us and also for our neighbours, which is why we're working very closely, in particular, with Indonesia.
SANDY ALOISI: You say you want to stop the boats coming, and you've just mentioned the civil war in Sri Lanka, is what's going on now, say with the Oceanic Viking, and the boat people who've been detained in Indonesia until this point, is that going forward, what we're going to be doing, to try and stop these boats coming?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well firstly, on the Oceanic Viking I again make the point, you really have to deal with that one as a special or a particular case. It wasn't a disruption of a people smuggling activity within Indonesian waters. It wasn't Australian Border Protection and Customs Control picking up a boat in Australian waters. It was a boat in distress, in Indonesia's search and sea rescue area. They didn't have any boats in the area to assist, so they asked Australia to assist and that's what we're doing.
So I regard that one essentially as a separate category, where we have, together with Indonesia, discharged a very important obligation, which is rescuing people on the high seas, when they're in difficulty.
So far as other boats are concerned, we've been working very closely with Indonesia, to assist Indonesia, to help Indonesia, and to co-operate with Indonesia so they can...
JOHN STANLEY: Sorry, Minister, you keep...
STEPHEN SMITH: ...disrupt people smuggling, which is occurring in Indonesia itself.
JOHN STANLEY: Sorry, you keep mentioning Indonesia, how much pressure have you put on Sri Lanka? What efforts have been made to talk to Sri Lanka, which is the Government which is presiding over these camps in the north of Sri Lanka, from which these people are fleeing, getting in the boats?
STEPHEN SMITH: I keep talking about Indonesia, because that is the current focus. But at the same time, we've been talking, the Prime Minister and I, when we were in Indonesia last week for the President's inauguration, spoke with the Malaysian Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, and the Singaporean Prime Minister. We've also had discussions with the Sri Lankans. I've had discussions with my Foreign Ministerial counterpart...
JOHN STANLEY: Well, what do they say?
STEPHEN SMITH: They don't want Sri Lanka to be a country which gets a reputation where people are fleeing, so we've been saying two things to Sri Lanka. Firstly, you've got a quarter of a million people in displaced peoples' camps, you've got to settle those, and resettle them, and we've given them humanitarian assistance to seek to do that.
The second thing we've said very strongly to the Sri Lankan Government is, you've now got to, having won a military battle in Sri Lanka, now win the peace. You've got to sit down with the Tamil community and all of the political players in Sri Lanka, and effect a political outcome where everyone in Sri Lanka believes that they have a future in a peaceful and a peaceable society. So you've got to win the peace, as well as having won a military battle.
So we've been working very closely with the Sri Lankan Government, both on that very important aspect, but also at an agency, an operational, a police and immigration and border protection level. Working closely with their agencies, just as we are with Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, and other countries in our region, because this is a problem which is affecting all of us in our region.
SANDY ALOISI: It is, and Minister, thank you for your time this morning.
STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks, Sandy, thanks, John.
[ENDS]
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