Transcript E&OE
29 October 2009
Interview - Sky TV - News Hour
Subjects: Pakistan; Afghanistan; asylum seekers.REPORTER: Stephen Smith, welcome. If I can start with Pakistan first. The latest bombing in Peshawar, what's the latest information you have there and were there any Australians caught up in this?
STEPHEN SMITH: Firstly, I've literally just got off the phone to Pakistan's High Commissioner to Australia to relay Australia's condolences. It's a terrible and outrageous attack. Ninety confirmed dead at this stage, but every expectation it'll go beyond 100.
And a terrible attack on women and children in a marketplace aimed at women and children. So I've relayed our condolences and our condemnation. We stand shoulder to shoulder with them. But no indication or expectation that any Australians have been caught up in this terrible attack.
REPORTER: Well meanwhile nearby in Kabul, there's been an attack on a UN guest house there. What does this mean about the vulnerability of the United Nations?
STEPHEN SMITH: It is again a savage attack on a United Nations' guest house. It's a residential site. Any attack upon the United Nations, or its people, is absolutely contemptible. And we join with the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his condemnation of the attack.
It underlines, I think, two things. Firstly, that Afghanistan of course is a United Nations mandated mission. It has the support of the United Nations and United Nations presence. Secondly, it continues to show just how difficult and dangerous circumstances are in Afghanistan and continues to be a very difficult security situation.
REPORTER: Let's turn to the asylum seeker stand-off. When do you expect the 78 asylum seekers on board the Oceanic Viking to be offloaded?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, just like my Indonesian counterpart, I'm not proposing to put a timetable or a deadline on that. I think it's very important that we just calmly, methodically, and patiently work our way through this issue, in consultation and cooperation with Indonesian officials. Which of course we're getting, but also in cooperation with the asylum seekers themselves.
I've made it clear all along, we want this to be cooperative, we want this to be civilised, we want it to be dignified, and we're using every effort to try and make that the outcome.
REPORTER: Just to be clear, there's no problem now with the local Indonesian officials?
STEPHEN SMITH: A point I've made earlier and a point again that the Indonesian Foreign Minister made last night, in the end this is a decision made by the President that is now being implemented by Indonesian officials. Sometimes it takes a bit of time for the word to trickle down.
But also, we shouldn't be under any illusions. These issues are difficult and complex and complicated. They always take time. They always take more time than one would expect or want, but we think it's very important to be calm and patient about it.
Indonesia has made it very clear that of course they want to continue to cooperate on this and more general matters, but we've just got to be calm and sensible about it.
REPORTER: Well, what about the Sri Lankans? That seems to be where the problem, really, is now. They're refusing to leave the boat. Is there a ringleader amongst the 78 who is making decisions on behalf of the group? Is that who's being consulted?
STEPHEN SMITH: I wouldn't propose to go into that sort of detail, other than to say this is, in very many respects, if not indeed in most respects, an operational matter. We have our professional officers on board from Customs and Border Protection. We have the master of the vessel. They're working very closely with the people on board.
My advice is that they're all calm, they are all eating and drinking. They're…
REPORTER: No hunger strikes?
STEPHEN SMITH: No, there was a short hunger strike by adult males. That's now over. So their physical needs are being attended to, their welfare is being looked after…
REPORTER: But how do you encourage them to get off the boat? Are there incentives, financial or otherwise, that Australia can offer?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, the essential encouragement is that the sooner they get off the boat, the sooner they can be processed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
REPORTER: But you can understand their reluctance to end up in an Indonesian detention centre?
STEPHEN SMITH: The point, again, that my Indonesian counterpart made last night, when an asylum seeker claims asylum in Indonesia, they are assessed in accordance with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' procedures. That's been the case since 2002.
And just as Australia would want, so Indonesia wants, people who are kept in detention to be kept in appropriate conditions. He also made it very clear, a point we've made previously, that they want to ensure that women and children, children in particular, are kept in appropriate circumstances.
REPORTER: That's separate housing is it?
STEPHEN SMITH: That's right.
REPORTER: Well, surely this patience, this waiting game has a limit. At some point will force have to be used if they don't voluntarily leave?
STEPHEN SMITH: Firstly, we're not proposing to put a timetable or a deadline on it. It's very important in these matters to take it step by step. And our first step is to calmly seek to persuade the Sri Lankans on board that the best approach for them is in a civilised and dignified and peaceful way to go off the Oceanic Viking.
REPORTER: And if that doesn't work?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, as I say, we'll take it step by step. You know, it's very important not to get ahead of oneself.
Our starting point and our preference all along has been to complete a rescue at sea operation in a civilised and dignified way, and that's where our every effort is going to.
REPORTER: Back in 2001, Australian Defence Force personnel had to use force to get some of the asylum seekers off the Tampa. They were Australia Defence personnel.
Here we're talking about Customs and Border Protection personnel, but also, almost half the crew are private contractors. Do they have the training and the preparation to deal with a forcible removal of asylum seekers from a vessel like this?
STEPHEN SMITH: I'm not talking in terms of a forcible removal.
REPORTER: But do you know if they have that training and preparation to undertake that task?
STEPHEN SMITH: As I say, we're taking this step by step.
Our starting point, our very strong preference, is to resolve this matter in a cooperative and sensible and sensitive way, and that's what the officers on board, the people on board are doing.
REPORTER: Wilson Tuckey says Defence could be sent in to deal with this.
STEPHEN SMITH: I haven't seen those remarks, but that is not a suggestion that I would take up for all of the obvious reasons. Can I make a point which my colleague, the Immigration Minister Senator Evans makes on a regular basis.
The regrettable history in these matters, always difficult, always complicated, always complex, shows that the extent to which avenues like that are resorted to, they invariably lead to bad outcomes.
What we're trying to do is to be sensible and cooperative, to avoid incidences that we've seen in the past - self harm and the like.
REPORTER: Would it be a bad outcome to simply cut your losses and bring them to Christmas Island. Is that a possibility at all?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well we're not contemplating that. We just want to be very calm and careful and sensible about the ultimate outcome. What we want the ultimate outcome to be is a successful end to what started as a search and rescue mission at sea.
We received the request from Indonesia to render assistance in their search and rescue area. We were very happy to do that. Of course we would do that.
REPORTER: But union leader Paul Howes says they should have been bought to Australia, and I'm just wondering why it is not being considered at all?
STEPHEN SMITH: When we had our discussions with Indonesia as to where the people should go after they were rescued, the discussion was essentially, there was no compulsion for Indonesia to take it, there was no compulsion for Australia to take it.
Australia and Indonesia agreed, initially through the relevant agencies, but subsequently, through Prime Minister Rudd and President Yudhoyono, that the appropriate course of action was to take the asylum seekers to Indonesia for them to be processed there by the UNHCR.
REPORTER: But you described this yourself as a unique case, so why not give some consideration at least to bringing them to Christmas Island? That would end the situation.
STEPHEN SMITH: Because in the uniqueness of the situation, the agreement between Australia and Indonesia was that the most appropriate course of action was to take them to Indonesia, to have them processed there by the UNHCR and for their detention to be subject, in the usual way, to involvement of the UNHCR but also the International Organization for Migration.
REPORTER: Do you worry though that this would be politically damaging for the Government to bring them to Australia?
STEPHEN SMITH: I think when it comes to things that are politically damaging, what is always politically damaging for a government is not doing the right thing. It was the right thing for us to rescue those people in distress. It was always going to be the case that refugee immigration implications would follow.
We didn't know when we effected the rescue what those implications would or might be, but if we had our time again, would we have rescued those people? Of course we would.
This has not been an easy situation for the Government, for the Oceanic Viking, or for the officers dealing with it. But it was the right thing to rescue them and we calmly and methodically and sensibly follow the consequences of that.
And what we want to see is a successful outcome whereby the Sri Lankans on board peacefully get off the boat and their claims for asylum are then assessed by the UNHCR in Indonesia.
REPORTER: A final question Minister. There have been some suggestions that Tamil Tigers could be amongst the Sri Lankans. Not just on this boat, but generally - that are trying to come to Australia, fleeing Sri Lanka. The general view has been that they don't pose any threat outside Sri Lanka because their fight is in Sri Lanka.
But is that your view as well? Do members or former members of the Tamil Tigers pose any sort of security threat in Australia?
STEPHEN SMITH: My very strong view is that the current procedure which we have ought to continue and will. Which is anyone who makes an application for entry to Australia as an asylum seeker, as a refugee, is exhaustively and thoroughly assessed for health and security matters.
That's been the practice in the past. It's the practice now.
It will be ongoing. Every individual is assessed in that way. And again, my Indonesian counterpart made the point last night that the same process occurs in Indonesia, that when refugee applications are considered, security matters are taken into account.
So this is always taken into account in each and every individual case and it's not appropriate for me to be drawing attention to particular categories or to particular countries in that way.
REPORTER: All right, Stephen Smith thank you.
STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks very much.
[ENDS]
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