Press Conference - Pretoria, South Africa
Transcript, E&OE
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pretoria, South Africa
26 January 2010
THE HON MAITE NKOANA-MASHABANE: Honourable Minister Smith, High Commissioner, other High Commissioners, senior government officials from both South Africa and from Australia and also from Namibia and let me take this opportunity of once again welcoming our guests from Australia.
We have had a very, very wonderful bilateral meeting a few minutes ago. We touched on key elements of our relationship but above all we celebrated congratulating Australia on Australia Day that the Minister will be celebrating in South Africa.
We think that’s a good omen to do a big catch up on the work that we’ve not been able to do over the past many, many years. I said to my colleague here don’t lose elections because when you do it takes a long time to do this kind of a catch up that we’ve done this time around.
We looked at strengthening our political relations, the type that binds us. The Labor Party in Australia always supported South Africans during the anti-apartheid struggle and they happen to be our very good friends of the African National Congress. There are still many legions of South Africans and Australians who follow the anti-apartheid movement who still live happily in Australia.
There is a need for us to strengthen relations we’ve agreed on the political side, to strengthen our relations between our two countries, to strengthen our ties with Australia and advance our relations with SADC and the African Union and to work together in other multilateral fora - the G20, the WTO, to work together as we reform the Bretton Woods institutions including the reform IMF under the G20 and we’ll also work together on the reform of the UN Security Council.
On the economic side, we’re doing very well. We have very strong economic ties with Australia. We would want to encourage more of the Australian potential investors to take advantage of the opportunity in South Africa as much as South African people take advantage of the opportunity that Australia offers them.
Our High Commission will be working together with us in the Federal Government. We’ll be sending a very strong delegation to Australia in September in our trade and investment promotion there. I will be visiting Australia soon as per my official plan. Friends and colleagues here, it will be a very good look excuse to visit that beautiful country and I will be very much looking forward to that.
We want to continue strengthening our good security, extending our traditional know how in the extension of our mineral wealth and continue to work together on the NPT and so on. And also on the cultural side, South Africa needs to improve urgently on the skills development side and we think Australia is ready to support us and work with us to expedite this. I say this with full mandate from my colleague Dr Blade Nzimande I talked to this morning who said that he will look for the next available opportunity to also work with Australia for us to [inaudible], to continue to encourage our instances of higher learning at schools and universities, to continue the collaboration going into also traditional learning at universities and so on.
We’ll continue to encourage the good work that Monash is doing here in assisting us in skills development and higher education and training in South Africa. We are also encouraged by the potentiality and the need for us to work together in peace making, peace keeping, conflict, and reconstruction and development in the continent of Africa in partnership with Australia. There’s just one other particular country where we’ve agreed to work together but I’d rather leave it to my good friend to talk about for now. Thank you and over to you.
MINISTER SMITH: Minister thank you very much for that warm welcome. Thank you for your best wishes to me and the Australian delegation and to Australia on Australia Day. I’m very happy to be celebrating Australia Day in South Africa and we’ll mark that occasion later this afternoon with a Citizenship Ceremony at the Australian High Commission.
But can I say how delighted I am to be here. We of course met before, we met at the Commonwealth meeting in Port of Spain and agreed that we should have an exchange of business.
I’m the first Australian Foreign Minister to visit South Africa in seven years and can I make this point that the Minister and I have agreed that this is a neglect which can’t occur again.
So we’ve agreed that the Minister will visit Australia at a time of her convenience. She has a standing invitation, we’re confident that will be this year. I also indicate that the Prime Minister has invited the President to visit Australia again at any time of his convenience, he has a standing invitation to come to Australia. So we’re very pleased that we’ve recharged the high level exchange of visits.
Of course Australia and South Africa have long standing friendship and the Minister referred to the party to party contact. Of course my party, the Australia Labor Party, has a proud record of working closely with the ANC in the anti-apartheid years and in the transition to free elections in South Africa. And early this morning I met with the ANC Treasurer, Mathews Phosa, and we hope that the long standing relationship between the ALP and the ANC can also be rekindled.
I of course, speaking on behalf of Australia, and we’re very pleased that the Minister and I have embarked upon a course of visiting strategies and some agreements to enhance the bilateral relationship. We’ve agreed that we should meet annually as Foreign Ministers. We’ve agreed that we should effect a Memorandum of Understanding between Australia and South Africa to reflect the wide ranging nature of our relationship, not just economic but also political and international, working together in the international and regional organizations, whether it’s United Nations, the G20 or the WTO.
On the economic front, South Africa is of course Australia’s largest economic partner in Africa but we believe we can do more to enhance that trade and that investment. It’s proposed that the South African High Commissioner to Australia lead a delegation of business and investors to Australia later this year. The economic strength of the relationship is reinforced by the fact that we’re both members of the G20 and we have been working closely in the G20. We’ll continue to work closely particularly on the issue of reform of international and financial institutions.
On the economic front of course, we have a very keen and shared interest in minerals resources industries and the recent successful Africa DownUnder Mining Conference in Perth in September last year which will be followed by the Indaba conference in Cape Town which my colleague Simon Crean, the Trade Minister, will attend. These are very significant conferences for the Australian and South African and African minerals resources industries.
More generally, we of course through a memorandum of understanding will underline the like-minded attitudes that we have for many of the international and regional issues. Australia has recently become a member of the United Nations Peace Building Commission and South Africa is also a member. We have a long standing shared interest in peace and security and peace keeping matters. I’m announcing today that Australia will make a $6 million contribution to the United Nations Peace Building Commission: $4 million of core funding to the Commission; and $2 million for peace keeping projects in Africa itself and we will work very closely with South Africa on that front.
On peace and security, a difficult peace and security issue over the years is Zimbabwe. The Minister and I spoke about Zimbabwe and two points I think are well worth making. Firstly we’ve agreed Australia and South Africa should be in a closer dialogue over Zimbabwe in terms of Zimbabwe’s future. We want to see Zimbabwe emerge. We know that there will be a need for the social and economic rebuilding of Zimbabwe, and Australia very much wants to play its part in that.
Of course we value very much South Africa’s key role in progressing Zimbabwe, both as a neighbor of Zimbabwe but also as a key member of SADC. Yesterday I was the first Australian Foreign Minister to visit SADC headquarters in Botswana. I’m told I’m also the first Minister to appear in a formal bilateral visit in this media centre so it’s a run of firsts.
But we also agreed on Zimbabwe that we will look to joint development assistance support in Zimbabwe, Australia and South Africa working together. There are two areas we are looking at, having agreed in principle to do that. One is in the area of taxation law, or taxation arrangements. Zimbabwe needs technical assistance and expertise on reforming and reshaping its taxation laws and we’re proposing a joint project between South Africa and Australia to assist on that.
Secondly and very importantly, water and water sanitation is a key issue and problem for Zimbabwe and we’ve agreed in principle to do a joint project to improve and enhance water sanitation in Zimbabwe. This is a very good development, working closely with South Africa both in terms of a view to enhancing Zimbabwe’s future but also on two specific development assistance projects.
In terms of other areas of Australia and South Africa working closely together, in recent times as part of Australia’s enhanced engagement to Africa, we’ve expanded the number of scholarships that we have made available to Africa and South Africa from an initial 100 scholarships to by 2011/2012 1,000 scholarships. So more scholarships will be available to South African students.
The Minister raised with me the question of better and greater collaboration on the technical education and skills development front. So we’ve agreed to try and put our further and technical education authorities into closer collaboration to see what more if any Australia can do on the skills development front in South Africa. We also have a small number of fellowships available, short term fellowships, which could be used in the technical area.
We covered a range of other subject matters which crossed the breadth of the bilateral relationship. I think the key essential point is that we’ve had traditionally a strong warm relationship. We’ve had a good bilateral relationship, a strong economic one. But we believe there is much more that can be done to advance that bilateral relationship and also to draw closely together through the regional organizations but also through the international institutions like the United Nations.
So there is much more that can be done and Minister, I very much look forward to working closely with you as we do that and we hope that the start of that will be on your visit to Australia. Thank you.
THE HON MAITE NKOANA-MASHABANE: Thank you.
QUESTIONS:
Peter Fabricius, Independent Newspapers: Minister, … I wonder if you can give me some idea of your impressions of where the Zuma administration’s mediation in Zimbabwe is going as you know there has been a change of tune since the new administration some people had quite high hopes for a tougher, more concentrated, focused approach but nothing really has materaliased and presumably you have asked some questions about what are your visions
MINISTER SMITH: We had a good discussion about Zimbabwe, about the current state of play, but also about the future. Australia’s long standing position, to put it bluntly, of course is that we would prefer, much prefer, that President Mugabe would walk off the stage. But given the aftermath of the election, given the agreement between President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai to effect a government of inclusion, a government of national inclusion, with that to be underpinned by a political agreement supervised by SADC and South Africa, we want to see progress in Zimbabwe. We have reflected that in the last 12 months by our change in our assistance to Zimbabwe going from, or moving from, purely humanitarian assistance and emergency assistance, like food aid, to capacity building and development assistance.
Progress in Zimbabwe is always difficult, but we very much welcome the fact that President Zuma and his new government have increased South Africa’s efforts to move Zimbabwe forward. We welcome very much that there is now agreement from Australia and South Africa that will mean closer dialogue and closer discussion about Zimbabwe’s future.
At some point in the cycle, President Mugabe will move off the stage, and, at some point in the cycle, there will be a full and free and fair election in Zimbabwe. At some point in the cycle, the international community, including South Africa, including Australia, will be asked to assist on the very difficult job of rebuilding Zimbabwe’s economic social and political fabric. We are very keen to play our role, just as we know South Africa will play its role, and in very many respects, as Zimbabwe’s neighbor, South Africa’s role is a primary role. We welcome very much the renewed efforts which President Zuma and his administrative colleagues have brought to progress in Zimbabwe.
Hopewell Radebe, Business Day: Minister on the point of United Nations Security Council infrastructure and cooperation, are there any moves to either have South Africa supporting Australia in 2013 and 2014, to have one of those temporary seats?
MINISTER SMITH: I think that there are really two separate issues so far as the Security Council is concerned, the Minister referred to one, which is reform of the Security Council. Both Australia and South Africa have a view that the Security Council needs to reflect the modern day - it currently reflects the 1940s and 1950, it must reflect the modern day. In that respect Australia believes the security Council should be reformed and there should be representation on the Security Council from Africa. In the first instance, Australia would leave it to Africa to make judgments about that representation.
Second there is the question of membership of the Security Council on a temporary basis. Australia is a candidate for a temporary term on the Security Council for 2013-2014. South Africa is a candidate for a term 2011-2012, immediately preceding the term, and both countries bring, in Australia’s view, very impressive credentials for temporary membership of the Security Council. And I made the point to the Minister, and we agreed on it, that if events were to transpire where South Africa was on the Security Council for 2011-2012, and Australia for 2013-2014, there would be very many areas of shared interest where we would essentially have a four year opportunity. Very much of that would go to peace and security and peacekeeping matters.
Another issue we spoke about, not just in the context of the United Nations, but more general, is our shared commitment to abolition of nuclear weapons and strong support for nuclear disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation. On both those issues, we bring very strong credentials as prospective members of the Security Council. Our shared interest in global financial reform, and the institutions that regulate the global economy, and also our shared commitment in making progress on climate change as our cooperation in the run up to Copenhagen made clear. So there are very many fundamental global issues which would mean, in Australia’s view, strong credentials to serve as temporary members on the Security Council.
Peter Fabricius, Independent Newspapers: Would that mean that you would be supportive of each others’ candidacy?
MINISTER SMITH: I wouldn’t put it in that way. I think in the first instance there is a need for Africa to determine in the first instance whom its candidate for the 2011-2012 term might be, and Australia would of course leave that to Africa to resolve.
Minister I have to make one apology to you. You welcomed the fact that this was Australia Day, and I’d be remiss in not taking this opportunity, this first opportunity, to warmly congratulate South Africa on the holding of the World Cup.
The gaining of the World Cup to South Africa is, of course, a triumph for South Africa, and Australia is very confident that the World Cup will be a tremendous success for South Africa and for Africa. We are very much looking forward to the Socceroos participating and being successful. You should also be aware that already we know that Australians have applied for over 30 000 tickets for the World Cup. So the Socceroos and Australian soccer fans will be here in force and we think that will be another great thing for Australia/South Africa relations.
But we are looking very much forward to the Cup. It was a great coup for South Africa to get it. Australia, of course, is a candidate for the world cup in 2018 or 2022 and, if we are successful in that, we have also agreed that South Africa would, of course, impart whatever experience, knowledge and learning from the running of the World Cup this year to Australians. That is a very significant major international sporting event and we congratulate South Africa on gaining it, and we are very confident that it will be a tremendous success.
[END]
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