Transcript, E&OE
16 December 2009
Interview - Jim Middleton, Newshour
Subjects: Copenhagen, climate change, whaling, DPRK, Six Party Talks, Republic of Korea, Asia Pacific community.
Jim Middleton: Foreign Minister, welcome to the program.
Stephen Smith: Pleasure, Jim.
Jim Middleton: Seoul today, the other side of the world in Cuba and the Caribbean a couple of weeks ago… you seem to be in constant motion these days. Two years into the job, how are you bearing up?
Stephen Smith: Well, I have the best job in the Australian government, so I'm bearing up very well. But the Prime Minister and I are also very pleased with the progress we're making.
We came to office with three central planks to our foreign policy approach: engagement with the Asia-Pacific; engagement multilaterally, particularly with the United Nations; and also our ongoing alliance with the United States. On every front, we think not only have we made progress, we've enhanced considerably Australia's standing, both within the region and internationally. So we're pleased with the progress, but Australia, just like the rest of the international community, faces a range of very difficult challenges and a number of those challenges will come into the spotlight in the course of the next year. So we're not resting on our laurels or resting on our oars, but we are pleased with the progress we're making and from a personal point of view, I'm very happy in the work that I do on behalf of Australia.
Jim Middleton: We'll get to some regional issues in a moment, but first to climate change, which has taken up much of the international year, probably the biggest challenge of 2009 if not the decade. Australia's been getting some bad press in Copenhagen at the moment. How does it feel to be accused by India of being the "Ayatollah" running the case to benefit the rich nations at the expense of the poor?
Stephen Smith: Well, I certainly won't respond to that particular label. What I will do is make this point: we saw a series of difficult and tortuous negotiations in Bali two years ago; we'll see a series of tortuous and difficult negotiations in Copenhagen for the next few days. Australia, like the rest of the international community, will be judged not on the rhetoric that comes from a particular commentator or even a particular minister or a particular country in the course of the process; we'll be judged on the outcome. And to-date, the outcome, so far as
Australia is concerned, on climate change - the first act of our government was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol; we've been adhering to the Bali Roadmap ever since; our Prime Minister has been making a substantial contribution to the discussions, helping to build the political momentum and political will for a good outcome; our Climate Change Minister, Penny Wong, has been very actively engaged in negotiations including now. There's an old adage which is that the only people who ever get criticised are the people who do something and we're very active on climate change. I'm happy for the process to be criticised. Australia, India, China, the United States, the European Union, we will all be judged on the outcome, not on the process, and we continue to want very much a positive outcome from Copenhagen.
Jim Middleton: Coming to the region, Japanese whaling's back in the news as it is every southern summer. Why is Australia giving Japan another six months to show "substantial progress" as the government puts it? You went to the last election on a platform of international legal action against Japan. Why give them more time, when they've simply become even more [inaudible] than they were a couple of years ago?
Stephen Smith: Well, I don't know whether that last pejorative comment accurately reflects the position of the new Japanese government. There are a couple of reasons: firstly, we don't believe that our diplomatic efforts have exhausted themselves. They're both bilateral - directly with and to Japan - but also multilaterally through the International Whaling Commission. So we don't believe those diplomatic efforts have exhausted themselves.
Secondly, we do have a new government in place in Japan - we want to give them the opportunity of making a considered and deliberative judgment after a period of time has elapsed. And so, we want to get a positive, long-term, enduring outcome. We've made it clear to Japan, both in the past and recently; the Prime Minister made it clear when he was in Japan in the last couple of days; I've made it clear to my new counterpart, Foreign Minister Okada, that if Australia doesn't get a diplomatic outcome, then we reserve what we regard as our right to pursue international legal action, either before the International Court of Justice or before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
We continue to apply ourselves and at this time of year, I do as I have done in the past, which is to make the point that we've now got Japanese whalers and other boats on the high seas in the Great Southern Ocean and whilst we defend anyone's right to protest, we do want people, when they are on the high seas, to make sure that nothing occurs which puts people's lives at risk. So we're prepared to keep on talking, both bilaterally and multilaterally, but we do need to secure a good outcome so far as Australia is concerned. But we're working hard and actively at that.
Jim Middleton: You're in Seoul. The Korean Peninsula is possibly the most precarious security environment in the world. Just how worried did you gather from your talks with your Korean counterpart in Seoul about the lack of progress in getting North Korea to abandon nuclear weapons?
Stephen Smith: Well, the Republic of Korea of course has been living with a difficult security issue on the Peninsula for a long period of time. The modern Australia-Korea relationship started with Australia's contribution in the Korean War in the 1950s and
Australia has been very supportive of Korea on those security issues and an ongoing contributor through the United Nations mission here, but also bilaterally, a strong supporter of the Six Party Talks, strong supporter of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and we've also effected our own autonomous action against the DPRK, against North Korea.
I think, whilst I had extensive discussions with my counterpart, Foreign Minister Yu, and also with the Minister for National Defence and the Prime Minister, I won't go into such detail as to speak in an inappropriate fashion, but I think it is true to say that the Republic of Korea is being patient. Australia and Korea want the DPRK - North Korea - to return to the Six Party Talks. Ambassador Bosworth recently finished his trip to North Korea and then went on a series of briefings, not just to Seoul, but to Beijing and to Tokyo, and we are hopeful - I wouldn't say we're optimistic - but we're hopeful in the course of the first part of next year that North Korea sees sense and returns to the Six Party Talks. That would certainly be in North Korea's interests and obviously it would be consistent with the wishes and the interests of the Six Party Talks.
Jim Middleton: How can Pyongyang be trusted when we've just had, for example, this recent incident where something like fourteen tonnes of North Korean weaponry has been intercepted in Bangkok. They aren't to be trusted, are they?
Stephen Smith: Well, it is a matter for the international community to continue to place pressure on North Korea for North Korea to comply with the United Nations Security Council resolutions and to cease its nuclearisation program. I actually view the confiscation of small arms and other weapons in Bangkok as a good sign because it showed the effective enforcement of the most recent Security Council resolution.
It's a credit to Thailand for acting in the way in which they did and it's also a credit to the international community - it required cooperation from a range of countries but it fully implemented the most recent Security Council resolution which effectively seeks to place an embargo on the shipment of small arms out of North Korea. So I actually regard that as a successful implementation of a Security Council resolution aimed at putting pressure on North Korea. The international community, led by the members of the Six Party Talks, needs to continue to do that.
We have seen in the course of this year worrying signs from North Korea: their underground nuclear test, their ballistic missile test - whilst was a failure, it was substantially an improvement from earlier efforts - so these are very considerable and significant concerns. The international community needs to continue to put pressure on them and that's done currently through what we call the two-track, or parallel track. One, continuing to have the sanctions in place, but secondly, trying to engage them in a dialogue to get them back to the table. We welcome Ambassador Bosworth's efforts and we hope that in the course of the first part of next year they'll be successful in re-engaging North Korea.
Jim Middleton: Thanks Stephen, I'm having a bit of trouble hearing you, but we'll battle on. One last question: as I understand it you talked regional architecture with your Korean counterpart. Twenty years ago then-Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke first raised the idea of APEC in South Korea. Are you giving any consideration to enlisting him to intensify
Australia's lobbying among its friends in the region for its plans for an Asia Pacific economic and security community?
Stephen Smith: Well, South Korea - the Republic of Korea - has been very supportive of Prime Minister Rudd's Asia Pacific community initiative from the first moment. It was supportive of a dialogue occurring. It sent a significant delegation to our recent track-and-a- half conference in Sydney, led by a former Prime Minister. So we've been very pleased with South Korea's support.
And the rationale or the argument for an Asia Pacific Community is essentially that as economic, strategic, security, military significance and influence moves to our part of the world - moves to the Asia Pacific - we don't have any one piece of regional architecture where all of the key players are in the same room at the same time, able to have a conversation both about prosperity and investment, but also peace and security.
APEC, for example, has no India; the East Asia Summit there's no United States. The fact that this year was the twentieth year of APEC's existence did see at the APEC meeting in Singapore a reflection on how APEC had come into existence and the value that it had shown and I think that plus the combination of the emergence of the G20 as a new seminal international institution has assisted the argument that we do need to have a conversation about the regional architecture.
The APEC illustration is a good one. The Prime Minister and I in Sydney recently both said that we believe that the problem that we identified would be solved by an adaptation or an adoption of one of the existing pieces of architecture rather than the creation of a new piece of architecture. But we're thinking now about the discussions that were held in Sydney, about the best mechanism of taking the idea forward.
The Republic of Korea delegation made the suggestion that we might want to think about an eminent persons group to now take the issue forward - that's certainly an attractive proposition and one of the things we're looking at but we'll spend some time over the new year thinking about the best way forward and we'll obviously do that in discussion with the Republic of Korea and other friends and partners.
Certainly we've been very pleased by the support we've had from the Republic of Korea and its just one of the things that reflects the fact that the relationship between Australia and Korea has never been in a better state. We've signed recently a joint declaration on security matters; our economic and social and people-to-people engagement has never been higher and the relationship between the two countries is first class. That small example of support for our idea on an Asia Pacific community is just one aspect of the very many things that Australia and the Republic of Korea are doing together, not just bilaterally but also in the region. And we welcome that support very much.
Jim Middleton: Foreign Minister, thanks very much and hopefully we'll talk to you on the program next year
Stephen Smith: Thanks very much Jim, and my year would not be right if I didn't speak to you on any number of occasions next year, so I look forward to it.
ENDS
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