• Home
• Media releases
• Transcripts
• Speeches
• Statements
• Current Minister
• Department

KIERAN GILBERT: Stephen Smith, thanks for your time.

STEPHEN SMITH: Pleasure.

KIERAN GILBERT: There's been an announcement, additional aid, you've made this morning. Can you talk us through exactly what the Government's going to provide?

STEPHEN SMITH: Last week I announced five million dollars for emergency assistance and five million dollars for longer term reconstruction. Today I've announced a doubling of the emergency assistance, for food, for water, for shelter, for medicines, doing that through the World Food Programme, through Australian and international non-government organisations and also through the UN coordinating body and through the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Authority.

The key priority now, other than search and rescue, is the lifesaving materials: water, food, and shelter. So we've doubled our contribution today.

KIERAN GILBERT: Okay, is it frustrating to look at from a distance obviously but we're seeing the images that there are bottlenecks in terms of the aid getting through, given there have been large announcements - not just Australia but many other world leaders making commitments - but it doesn't seem to be getting to where it's needed?

STEPHEN SMITH: In the initial phases coordination is always a problem. Despite our best efforts to have better disaster and emergency management and relief coordination, in the initial stages they're always difficulty.

The reports overnight from the United Nations, the Haiti Government itself, the United States and other important countries like Brazil, which is responsible for leading the UN peacekeeping mission, are that the coordination is now better and we seem to be making much more substantial progress. We're confident that our contribution will be delivered on the ground and it targets the things that are needed most at this stage.

KIERAN GILBERT: There are suggestions the UN wants a bigger peacekeeping force, more boots on the ground. What is Australia looking at on that front?

STEPHEN SMITH: There's been for half a dozen years a large United Nations peacekeeping contingent, nearly 9000 military and a couple of thousand police, some 20 countries contributing militarily and some 40 countries contributing police. We're not proposing to make a contribution to that effort.

The Security Council, in the next 12 to 24 hours everyone expects, will approve an increased contribution. But there are plenty of countries from the region who'll make that contribution.

One thing we are looking at is whether, and we're in discussions with the United Nations about this, we have particular individuals with relevant technical and specialist expertise that may be required at the moment: logistics, communications, and engineering. If we can provide some technical experts then we'll do that but we're not proposing to contribute to any peacekeeping force either through military personnel or through police personnel.

KIERAN GILBERT: On another matter now, the Taliban has made an attack right in the heart of Kabul, near the presidential palace, a brazen attack by anyone's estimation. This has got to be a big concern.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, Afghanistan continues to be very difficult and very dangerous and the strategic intent of the attack is clear, to go right to the heart of the new Karzai Government in Kabul.

Obviously security remains a very essential aspect of Kabul and Afghanistan. Fortunately no Australians were caught up in it. There were a small number of casualties in this terrible terrorist attack. But this issue and the wider security issues will no doubt be the subject of discussion at the Afghanistan conference in London next week which I'll be attending, as will very many of my foreign ministerial colleagues, where we look at the security situation. But also what more we need to do on the non-military side to put the Afghan nation and people in a position to be able to manage their own affairs, both on a security front but also in terms of providing economic and social benefits to their people.

KIERAN GILBERT: This obviously would have been one of the issues on the table for the AUSMIN talks which had been scheduled for this week. Have you got any better sense of when they might be rescheduled?

STEPHEN SMITH: I've obviously been leaving Secretary of State Clinton alone while she's dealing with the coordination of the humanitarian assistance to Haiti. There's a prospect I may be able to speak to her in London at the Afghanistan conference if in the event she is able to attend. But we agreed when I spoke to her early Thursday morning of last week that once the dust had settled on her return to Washington for the Haiti effort that our officials would look at reconvening AUSMIN in Australia at the soonest mutually convenient time.

So we would want to and hope to do it sooner rather than later but certainly both Australia and the United States are committed to doing AUSMIN in Australia this year and we want to do it as soon as we can.

KIERAN GILBERT: It seems, on another matter now, that the asylum-seekers on board the Oceanic Viking have been resettled in large part. Questions by the Opposition and others as to whether there were inducements by the Government to other countries to take these people on board. Initially they seemed reticent but then they agreed to take them. Were there inducements offered?

STEPHEN SMITH: There were obviously discussions between Australia and other countries who form part of the regular resettlement program out of Indonesia, and other countries who have longstanding records so far as resettlement is concerned.

So I spoke to a number of my counterparts, the Minister of Immigration spoke to a number of his but this was all done in conjunction with the United States High Commissioner for Refugees as part of a resettlement program out of Indonesia.

There are some, I think - and I'm very happy for Senator Evans to deal with the precise detail - there are some 16 asylum-seekers remaining in Indonesia. My understanding is that in the next couple of days it's expected they will leave Indonesia for resettlement in other countries but this was done in accordance with UNHCR procedures and in accordance with the normal sort of operating arrangements that go into resettlement out of Indonesia and generally.

KIERAN GILBERT: Does that include offers to do something in return?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, no inducements that I'm aware of were made other than saying to individual countries this is resettlement out of Indonesia, you play a role in that, as we do. And also approaches to other countries, particularly some European countries with longstanding records of humanitarian assistance and resettlement.

We've all got problems so far as asylum-seekers, human-traffickers and people-smugglers and people movements are concerned. Not just Australia but throughout our region generally but also European countries also have these difficulties.

So everyone now understands that these are issues you can only deal with regionally and internationally and that's what occurred in this case.

KIERAN GILBERT: Okay, just one final issue, on a brighter note. Prince William has arrived in Australia. Do you think that this is going to rekindle an affection for the Monarchy?

STEPHEN SMITH: I think there's an affection for the Queen herself and there's clearly an affection for Prince William. It's quite clearly the case that he's going to be welcomed very enthusiastically in Australia, as he was in New Zealand, and as he should be. So we welcome his visit. I'm sure he'll have a most enjoyable time and I'm sure Australians will welcome him warmly, as they have other members of the Royal Family in the past.

KIERAN GILBERT: Stephen Smith, as always, appreciate your time.

STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks very much.

[END]

Media inquiries

• Minister's Office: (02) 6277 7500
• Departmental Media Liaison: (02) 6261 1555