Transcript, E&OE
30 November 2009
Press Conference, Parliament House
Subjects: Australia hosting the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2011, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Asia Pacific community, regional architecture, climate change, Emissions Trading Scheme, Liberal Party leadership, Fiji.
STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks very much for coming. Sorry I'm a bit late. I'm very pleased to announce that Australia will host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, CHOGM, in 2011, and very pleased to announce that Perth will be the host city.
As you'd be aware, last week the Prime Minister and I attended the Port of Spain in Trinidad and Tobago for the 2009 Commonwealth Foreign Ministers' Meeting and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. And overnight, the Commonwealth Heads of Government, in their final retreat session resolved that Australia would host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2011, that Sri Lanka would host in 2013, and Mauritius would host in 2015.
So this is a very good outcome for Australia. It's very good news for Australia and it's great news for Perth and Western Australia. It is a tremendous opportunity to showcase both Australia's values and virtues and also to showcase Perth and Western Australia.
It's not of course the first time that Australia has hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. We've done so previously in Melbourne back in the 1980s and Coolum in 2002. And of course Australia has also in the past hosted the Commonwealth Games. And in that context, Perth of course hosted what was then known as the Commonwealth and Empire Games in 1962.
The Commonwealth of course is a most important international institution. After the General Assembly and the Non-Aligned Movement Summit and the African Union Summit, the Commonwealth is the largest gathering of leaders. So it is a most important international institution.
This year was the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth and part of the meetings, both foreign ministerial meetings and the leaders' meeting in Port of Spain reaffirmed the longstanding Commonwealth attachment to democracy, the rule of law and human rights. In that context, I was very pleased to see as part of the communiqué, the leaders reaffirming the decision by the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group to suspend Fiji from the
Commonwealth and also to make the point that suspension brings with it suspension effectively from participation in the Commonwealth Games. On other Commonwealth matters, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group is that group of ministers which, between Heads of Government sessions, deals with the important Commonwealth matters under the Harare Declaration and the Harare Principles. Australia has also been elected as a member of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group.
Most importantly, the focus of the Port of Spain, the focus of the Commonwealth, both the Foreign Ministerial Meeting and Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, was on climate change, and here we had a good outcome building political momentum for Copenhagen.
The Prime Minister indicated of course that Australia would take part in the proposed $10 billion fund, so-called Fast Start initiative, to help developing nations deal with climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation. And to a very large extent, the focus of that will be on developing nations, but also on the low-lying small ocean states. The Commonwealth has very many of those, from the Pacific - our own region - but also from the Indian Ocean and from the Caribbean. And the Prime Minister was very heavily involved in the drafting of the Commonwealth communiqué so far as climate change was concerned.
So a very good outcome from the Port of Spain over the weekend. We welcome very much that the Commonwealth has chosen Australia to host the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 2011. I'm very pleased to announce that Perth will be the host city.
I've had the opportunity today to speak to Premier of Western Australia Colin Barnett. He very much welcomes the decision and the Commonwealth looks forward very much to working closely with the Government of Western Australia on these matters.
I've also had the opportunity over the weekend to speak to the Lord Mayor of Perth, who also welcomes the decision very much.
Given that this was in prospect before the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, I took the opportunity before I left for CHOGM to have a conversation with Premier Barnett to alert him to the possibility, and I am very pleased that he has been so welcoming of the decision. As I say, looking very much forward to the Commonwealth working cooperatively with Western Australia and also with the Lord Mayor of Perth for a significant international meeting in Perth in 2011.
I'm happy to respond to questions on those matters or other matters.
QUESTION: Mr Smith, [inaudible] any discussions that you and the Prime Minister might have had with the Sri Lankans on people smuggling on the sidelines of the conference?
STEPHEN SMITH: Yes, I spoke to my counterpart Foreign Minister Bogollagama and we discussed a number of issues, including Sri Lanka's interest and Australia's interest in hosting a CHOGM meeting. We also spoke about people-smuggling matters and I welcomed the fact that we've seen in recent weeks some successful disruption of people-smuggling activity by
the Sri Lankan authorities consistent with the discussions that we had when I was in Colombo recently. But I also again spoke to my counterpart about the need for resettlement of people in the displaced people's camps. I note that the US Under-Secretary John Holmes was there last week. He also welcomed the fact that people had been moved out of the camps.
But as I indicated to Foreign Minister Bogollagama, there's a big job still ahead of Sri Lanka. And I announced when I was in Sri Lanka further assistance from Australia to assist in that process.
I also again made the point that Sri Lanka needs to win the peace, not just win the military battle. Australia and the international community continues to look to Sri Lanka to effect a political reconciliation and healing.
And those four aspects really were the subject matters of conversation that I had with my counterpart. President Rajapaksa did not attend CHOGM.
QUESTION: Just on those recent interceptions coming out of Sri Lanka, boats have been coming out of Sri Lanka for months without being intercepted. Suddenly they are being intercepted. What's changed?
STEPHEN SMITH: We've been pleased with the cooperation that we've received from the Sri Lankan Government and the Sri Lankan authorities on this matter.
You might recall that when I was in Colombo a few weeks ago, we signed, through officials, a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation on people-smuggling matters, particularly giving Sri Lanka greater assistance in the legal area.
In the course of our discussions, Sri Lankan authorities - including and in particular their naval authorities - made it clear that they were proposing to continue their work so far as disruption was concerned.
So we welcome very much their cooperation and we welcome very much the fact that they have been successful.
We continue, as the Immigration Minister, as the Prime Minister and I have made clear, we continue to face very serious challenges so far as movement of displaced peoples are concerned, not just from Sri Lanka but also from the Afghanistan Pakistan border area.
QUESTION: Minister, just on CHOGM being held in Perth, would that likely see sections of the city shut down for security precautions as we saw with APEC?
STEPHEN SMITH: I think we're a long way from that sort of detail. But obviously, these days, regrettably, any major conference of this nature does bring with it security arrangements. If you look at the arrangements for Coolum, then very significant attention was paid to security arrangements and that was done cooperatively between the Government of Queensland at the time and the Commonwealth at the time.
So yes, all of these matters, security and other, will fall for consideration and they'll be done cooperatively between the City of Perth, the Government of Western Australia and the Commonwealth.
But with any of these large and major meetings, from time to time, there are disruptions. We will deal with those in the normal way.
The Commonwealth of course is now 54 members, or 54 countries large. Rwanda was admitted to the membership of the Commonwealth over the weekend. We welcome that. We've been supportive, Australia has been supportive of Rwanda's membership. We believe this will help Rwanda to solidify its attachment to democracy and respect for the rule of law and human rights.
So any gathering of over 50 Foreign Ministers, but more importantly, any gathering of over 50 Prime Ministers and Presidents does bring with it in the modern day, regrettable but very necessary security arrangements.
QUESTION: How much do you think it will cost to host CHOGM?
STEPHEN SMITH: Again, we haven't put a figure on that. What I have discussed with Premier Barnett is that we will do it in a cooperative way. Because we've had two previous Commonwealth Heads of Government Meetings in Australia; Melbourne in the 1980s, now some time ago, but Coolum in 2002, there's a pretty well worn path in terms of responsibilities and obligations. My memory is, and this will be in the published accounts, my memory is that Coolum was at a cost of between $65 million and $70 million shared between the Commonwealth and the Government of Queensland with the Commonwealth taking a major share of that.
But importantly, we'll work sensibly and cooperatively with the Government of Western Australia and also with the city of Perth to effect these arrangements.
QUESTION: How relevant do you think CHOGM is today and do you think its relevance is declining?
STEPHEN SMITH: One of the discussions that we had in the Port of Spain was to mark the 60th anniversary of the Commonwealth and to start a conversation about the ongoing importance and relevance of the Commonwealth.
My own very strong view is the Commonwealth continues to be a very important international institution and not just because Australia is in it. The Commonwealth now has membership which goes across the globe, represents two billion people from the most developed to the least developed, spans all the areas of interest so far as Australia is concerned - the Pacific, Asia, India, Africa, the Caribbean. So representing two billion people as it does, it's an important institution.
It's also, as I remarked earlier, when you look at gatherings of international leaders, the fourth largest, or third or fourth largest gathering of international leaders, after the General Assembly
and the Non-Aligned Movement Summit. The African Union with over 50 members and the Commonwealth with over 50 members are the next largest, so it is a significant gathering of international leaders. The Commonwealth itself is having a discussion about relevance and how it can be effective or more effective and I do see that very much as being part and parcel of the conversation in Perth.
But we are now I think going through generally a period where internationally, both on a regional basis but also globally, we are now contemplating the utility and the effectiveness and the cross over of some of our institutions. For example, in APEC recently there was a much different conversation - is APEC about regional architecture and regional institutions - than in previous APECs?
I think that was very much because half of APEC members are G20 members. A quarter of G20 members are in the Commonwealth - Australia, South Africa, India, United Kingdom and one other which currently escapes me. So five, or a quarter of the G20 members are in the Commonwealth.
REPORTER: Canada.
STEPHEN SMITH: Canada, well done. You win the Foreign Minister's prize. So the cross over now with institutions is becoming an important part of the conversation to see what can be done to build consensus for international outcomes.
A very important feature of the Commonwealth meeting on this occasion was climate change and building political momentum for a positive outcome at Copenhagen. It was seen very much as the last major meeting of leaders in advance of Copenhagen. As a consequence, the host nation with Australia's support invited the Secretary General of the United Nations and also Prime Minister Rasmussen and President Sarkozy.
So that was seen as an international institution seeking to build momentum for a good outcome in Copenhagen. In that context everyone would say of course the Commonwealth meeting had relevance because it was seeking to get a positive outcome on climate change, just as today and I expect tomorrow the Government is seeking very much to get a positive outcome on its emissions trading scheme and carbon pollution reduction scheme out of this Parliament to take to Copenhagen.
QUESTION: At the end of the week Australia will be hosting this meeting of the officials from countries that you want - hope one day will be involved in the Asia Pacific community group. Going into that meeting how much support do you think there is for the idea?
STEPHEN SMITH: Certainly there is a very, in my view, a very strong consensus now to have the discussion. You'll recall when the Prime Minister launched or announced the initiative last year he made the point that we needed to look at regional architecture in the Asia Pacific to the year 2020 or 2025. It was very much a long term project.
What I discovered in both the ASEAN and in the APEC conversations this year is that partly as a result of the G20 influence which I've just detailed, partly as a result of the new Japanese Prime Minister's launch of his initiative and East Asia community, there's very much now in the consciousness of the countries in the Asia Pacific the need to have this regional architecture conversation.
We see this century as a century of the Asia Pacific where economic, political, strategic influence is moving to our part of the world. The ongoing importance of the United States, the rise of China, the rise of India, the rise of the ASEAN economies combined sees that influence move to our part of the world and when you look at the regional architecture, is it fit for that purpose? India; not in APEC. United States; not in the East Asia Summit.
So there are significant gaps in the existing architecture and I'm looking very much forward to the track-and-a-half dialogue conference in Sydney at the end of this week. That will add to the conversations that have been occurring and I think it's very much the case now that there is a view which has crystallised that this is a conversation which is well worth having.
QUESTION: You wouldn't have Canada in the East Asia Community, why should we have America in the new forum, whatever that happens to be?
STEPHEN SMITH: We're not counting in or counting out any particular nation. We've made it quite clear we want to have the conversation. We don't have a predetermined view about inverted commas who might be in or who might be out. Indeed I've made the point very often, as has the Prime Minister, it's more likely than not that the new architecture will be an adaptation or an evolution of one of the existing pieces of architecture.
Often when people speak about the rise of China, they under-appreciate two things: the rise of China does not mean that the United States is going away. Indeed as an American might say, you know the United States ain't going anywhere.
So whilst in relative terms the United States’ overall significance might be diminished slightly because of the rise of China, it's not going away as a super power or a large power.
At the same time, what is also under-appreciated in my view is the rise of India. So we don't currently have one forum in the Asia Pacific architecture where India, the United States, and China are all in the same room at the same time able to have a conversation, both about economic and prosperity issues but also about security and peace issues.
QUESTION: Minister, can you absolutely rule out sending more Australian troops to Afghanistan if President Barack Obama asks for more?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well as I've made clear and as the Minister for Defence has made clear, we haven't received a request for an additional contribution of troops by the United States and we're not expecting one. We're not expecting one and that's because we very much believe that our increase of contribution from 1100 to 1550 in the last few months is an appropriate contribution for Australia to make.
When we made that decision, there was a significant enhancement of our contribution. We are in the top 10 contributors to the United Nations-sponsored International Security Assistance Force and we're the largest non-NATO contributor.
What I have made clear and what we continue to give consideration to is what more, if anything, we can do on the civil capacity building, civil training, or civil reconstruction front. We continue to give that serious consideration but we haven't received and I'm not expecting to receive a request from the United States for an additional troop contribution. QUESTION: Minister, have you seen the audit of AusAID which raised some fairly serious issues about whether it could cope with the extra money you're going to put into aid between now and 2016? Do you have a response or is the Government looking at it with a view to making some changes?
STEPHEN SMITH: Obviously I'm aware of the report. I have to confess I have not had the opportunity of looking at it closely. But one of the things that we have deliberately dealt with both AusAID and Parliamentary Secretary McMullen and myself, and also as we've made our budget decisions in the two budgets we've presented, we've been very conscious about what we describe as a scaling up.
We remain absolutely committed to our election commitment to enhance our development assistance to 0.5 per cent of GNI by 2015/16. But we've been very deliberative about a scaling up process. It's inadvisable - and this is reflected by the two budgets that we have presided over - it's inadvisable to leave that scaling up all to the last minute, which is why we've been endeavouring to get there on a graduated mechanism.
So we're very conscious of that, but we've also been very conscious, often one of the agencies in Australian development assistance which is not given enough prominence is ACIAR, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. I want to give more resources to ACIAR, but we've also been very conscious, as ACIAR has, of doing that in a staged and managed way so the organisation itself can deal and cope with the scaling up.
QUESTION: Mr Smith, do you think that if Australia doesn't reach, if the Government doesn't get a deal on emissions trading through the Parliament this week, that it will diminish Australia's ability to help broker a deal at Copenhagen?
STEPHEN SMITH: At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, it was very much about building political momentum for a good outcome in Copenhagen.
I made the point to my colleagues that Australia was committed to an international binding legal obligation so far as climate change was concerned, that in our own case we had before our own Parliament legislation to seek to implement an emissions trading scheme, a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, so that we could go to Copenhagen and say, we have legislated to impose these obligations to reduce carbon emissions in Australia.
At the same time, we also made it clear that we fully support and were very active in getting Commonwealth and international community support for a large fund to assist the developing nations unable to cope with adaptation and mitigation. We also see that what's been agreed is a $10 billion fund. Australia will certainly make a fair share contribution to that, or a contribution to that proportionate to the burden that we share so far as emissions are concerned.
But I did make the point to my colleagues that it's very important that Australia continues to add to the political momentum. The passage of emissions trading legislation here would be a significant, in our view, a significant contribution to continuing to build political momentum.
I know the Liberal Party are having their difficulties on this issue at the moment and I'm not proposing to be drawn on that, but it's quite clearly the case that Malcolm Turnbull is in some difficulty within his party because Malcolm Turnbull, quite sensibly, wants to see emissions trading legislation passed in advance of Copenhagen.
Tony Abbott may well emerge as the Leader of the Liberal Party, and if he does emerge as Leader of the Liberal Party, then it's quite clear there'll be no consideration under his view of these matters in advance of Copenhagen.
If Joe Hockey is elected Leader of the Liberal Party, then I'm not sure, but if Joe Hockey is elected Leader of the Liberal Party and the Senate defers consideration of the emissions trading legislation, of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, then this will be Joe Hockey's first sell-out to the climate change sceptics and the climate change deniers in the Liberal Party.
So we are very keen as a Government to see this legislation dealt with by the Parliament. The legislation has been in the Senate for a considerable period of time. We have an agreement, a political agreement with the Liberal Party that the matter would be resolved and dealt with by the end of last week, so there are a couple of issues in play. One is an agreement by the Liberal Party, which it now seems to be intent on breaking, but secondly and more importantly, we want to have a good climate change outcome to take to Copenhagen.
We hope that the legislation emerges from the Senate. If it doesn't emerge from the Senate and Joe Hockey emerges as the Leader of the Liberal Party, then this will be Joe Hockey's first sell-out to the climate change deniers and the climate change sceptics who now very much seem to be running the Liberal Party.
QUESTION: If there is no bill, do you think it's embarrassing for Australia at Copenhagen?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, it certainly embarrassing to the Liberal Party, it's certainly embarrassing to the Liberal Party. It'll certainly be embarrassing to Malcolm Turnbull, but more importantly to Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey. And there'll be a very simple reason why Australia can't go to Copenhagen with a good outcome on emissions trading, and that will be because the Liberal Party refuse to support it.
QUESTION: Other countries at Copenhagen aren't going to look at the sort of intricacies of domestic politics in Australia, they're going to look at Australia and say, well, you don't have a scheme, so why are you trying to foist one on us.
STEPHEN SMITH: And the correct answer will be, the Australian Government is absolutely committed to effecting that, and the only difficulty we have is we couldn't get support from the Liberal Party in Australia.
QUESTION: Have you got any approximate dates for CHOGM?
STEPHEN SMITH: No. Obviously we need to have discussions with our Commonwealth colleagues and also with the state of Western Australia. In the normal course of events, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is done in the second half of the year, so I would expect in the second half of 2011 and probably about this time, but we'll get to that detail down the track.
QUESTION: Do you like the idea of inviting other heads of government or UN representatives?
STEPHEN SMITH: For special events or special circumstances, and the coincidence of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and Copenhagen made it very appropriate to see those other leaders invited, but time will tell whether in two years' time in Perth it's appropriate that something is done along those lines either in the climate change area or in another policy area.
QUESTION: Is there a danger that excluding Fiji from the Commonwealth, which is the one institution that it's really been quite a part of, just simply pushes it further into the margins?
STEPHEN SMITH: I've made the point, the most recent conduct that we've seen from Fiji, the expulsion of Australia's High Commissioner and the New Zealand Acting High Commissioner, does run the risk of Fiji further isolating itself from the international community.
But Fiji can't have it both ways. It can't effect a military intervention, abrogate the constitution and throw out the rule of law and respect for human rights and expect to take the benefit which the Commonwealth brings, including the benefit of the Commonwealth Games.
There's one very quick way for Fiji to get itself back into the Commonwealth and to go, for example, to the Commonwealth Games, and that's to have an election and return democracy, respect for human rights and respect for the rule of law to Fiji.
I remain open at an appropriate stage to trying to have a dialogue with Fiji to effect that.
QUESTION: Does that include different ways of doing, if the ethnic Fijian majority there decided to impose some sort of different method of voting, would you be in favour of that, whereby if, you know…
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, it's a matter for Fiji to determine its constitutional and electoral arrangements, but there's only one way that that can be effected, and that is with the full, free and fair participation of all parts of the Fijian community and all parts of the Fijian political process.
What we currently have is a military regime. The military regime's leader, Commodore Bainimarama, gave a faithful undertaking to the Pacific Island Forum leaders in 2007 that there would be an election in Fiji by the end of the first quarter of this year.
Not only was that not effected, earlier this year the constitution was abrogated and Commodore Bainimarama said that if its fancy took him at the time, he'd have an election by 2014. Last time I looked, we could have two or three elections in Australia on that timetable.
The very quick way for Fiji to return itself to the international community is to start a fully fledged political dialogue with all the political players in Fiji and to have an election and return to democracy.
Thanks, thank you. Cheers.
ENDS
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