Interview with ABC Radio, Perth
TOPICS: Chile, visit to India
Transcript, Proof copy E&OE
1 March 2010
EOIN CAMERON: We've been watching over the weekend with great interest the tragedy unfolding in Chile, with the massive earthquake. Australia's Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, joins us in the studio this morning. Good morning, Minister.
STEPHEN SMITH: Good morning, Eoin.
EOIN CAMERON: Chile has a particularly close relationship with Australia, don't they, and they have had, there's a long history. I believe that at the turn of the century, in 1900, they were our major trading partner?
STEPHEN SMITH: Yes, we have a longstanding, close and warm relationship with them, and we're working very hard to enhance that. A couple of years ago, we signed a Free Trade Agreement with them. I was there last year, and my counterpart, the then Foreign Minister, Foreign Minister Foxley also visited Australia. So we've been working hard to enhance those engagements, and from a, if you like, a West Australian point of view, minerals and petroleum resources is very important.
EOIN CAMERON: We've so much in common.
STEPHEN SMITH: And they're keenly interested in terms of things in common, agriculture, our education, and scholarships. A growing number of Chilean students here, so they're a warm and strong and growing relation, so we feel very much the tragedy that's befallen them.
EOIN CAMERON: What can you tell us? What's the latest you've heard?
STEPHEN SMITH: The reason I was a little bit late for you, and I'm sorry about that, was I just off the phone to our Ambassador in Chile. Communications are the main problem in Santiago, but in terms of the good news, there's no information that any of the Australians who are in Chile, have been adversely affected.
EOIN CAMERON: There's quite a number of them.
STEPHEN SMITH: We've got 400 registered, but we always know there are more than that, and despite the communications difficulties our people have been going through, contacting people.
EOIN CAMERON: Right.
STEPHEN SMITH: They tell me they've got through over 100, but it's painstaking work, given the communications difficulty, but there's no evidence that any Australians have so far been caught up. And all of our officials we know, and their families, are well. The terrible news of course is now the death toll is over 700. We expect that to grow, and we've made it clear to the Chilean authorities that we stand ready, willing and able to provide whatever assistance they might want. But for the present, they're essentially trying to make a judgement about what is required...
EOIN CAMERON: And what they do need.
STEPHEN SMITH: ...and what they do need.
EOIN CAMERON: They are a fairly organised society, aren't they? I think a lot of people have a perception that South America is sort of Third World, whereas Chile has a very solid infrastructure, and perhaps that's the reason why the tragedy's not greater?
STEPHEN SMITH: That's absolutely right, and already there've been comparisons made between the scale of the damage done, versus the scale of the damage done in Haiti, because the buildings are more solid, you know, much more rigorous infrastructure. When I was there, I said to some of the Australian business people, that when you're walking down the street, the street of Santiago, after a while you'd be forgiven for thinking that you were in an Australian city.
EOIN CAMERON: I reckon it's like Melbourne, only they've kept more of the beautiful old buildings.
STEPHEN SMITH: There's a bit of that. The Australians who are there for a while, say to you it's a very familiar place, it feels very comfortable, very familiar, and that's why I think there's this like-minded attitude and approach.
EOIN CAMERON: Yes.
STEPHEN SMITH: So they are you know a sophisticated, well-developed, organised society. There's a more general point as well which is, what we've discovered regrettably, over the last couple of decades, is that we've got to get the disaster management relief coordination right.
EOIN CAMERON: Yes.
STEPHEN SMITH: Often you compound the difficulty by everyone rushing in with what they think might be of assistance.
EOIN CAMERON: And create a log jam.
STEPHEN SMITH: That's right, so given where we are, given the distance between Australia and Chile, our instinct is that search and rescue assistance will come from South America, from the region, rather than from afar. That we may be asked to provide emergency assistance, whether that's food, whether that's medicines and the like. But more likely it'll be the longer term reconstruction effort, where we can do something of enduring support...
EOIN CAMERON: Down the track.
STEPHEN SMITH: ...down the track.
EOIN CAMERON: You're off to India?
STEPHEN SMITH: Yes, I'm going to the airport twice today. From you I'm heading off to greet the President of Botswana, who's on a state visit to Australia, President Khama.
EOIN CAMERON: So you can say welcome...
STEPHEN SMITH: I'll be on the tarmac to meet him, and then he flies off to see the Prime Minister in Sydney. And a bit later this afternoon, I'm off to India. It's my third visit to India as Foreign Minister, and there are a number of reasons why I'm going. We're working very hard to enhance our relationship with India, we've signed up to what's called a Strategic Partnership with them, so I want to advance that. Secondly of course, there is a repair job to do.
EOIN CAMERON: Of course.
STEPHEN SMITH: There's a big effort to do in the aftermath of the difficulty the Indian students have had in Melbourne in particular. I want to just go through all of the efforts we're making on that, together with the State Governments, including the Victorian Government.
EOIN CAMERON: You're not playing any hockey while you're there?
STEPHEN SMITH: I am going to watch. There's an Australia versus India game on tomorrow, and we've turned that into a friendship game. They'll now play for a cup, the Ajit Pal - Charlesworth Cup, Ric Charlesworth of course, my predecessor...
EOIN CAMERON: Yes, of course.
STEPHEN SMITH: ...and the Australian coach. Ajit Pal, was the captain of the 1975 Indian World Cup winning team. They won the world in Kuala Lumpur, when I was much younger then, I actually was in KL, and saw it.
EOIN CAMERON: Right.
STEPHEN SMITH: But the real point is to look at security aspects. The Hockey World Cup we're looking at, very much as a dry run for the Commonwealth Games.
EOIN CAMERON: To see what's going on, yeah.
STEPHEN SMITH: So I'll be inspecting some of the Commonwealth Games facilities, but also speaking with my counterpart, S M Krishna, about the detailed arrangements for Commonwealth Games security.
EOIN CAMERON: I won't keep you for much longer, but just a couple of other things, because we've got the opportunity whilst we have you in the studio, we were just checking through some Hebrew news stories this morning concerning Australia not backing Israel, is that a pay-back over the past affair?
STEPHEN SMITH: No, the first thing people always need to do with General Assembly resolutions is to read the resolution. There's a report called the Goldstone Report, that came out last year, and Australia and a number of other countries, including the United States, including Canada, including The Netherlands, including Italy, including Germany, all refused to endorse the Goldstone Report, because we believed that it wasn't even-handed, that it laid all the blame at Israel's feet, and was an unfair report.
EOIN CAMERON: Right.
STEPHEN SMITH: The resolution that passed the General Assembly on Friday night, we abstained. The reason we abstained was because it doesn't endorse the so-called Goldstone Report, it encourages both Israel and the Palestinian authorities to undertake objective, exhaustive investigations about any of the human rights breaches that occurred in the terrible conflict in the Gaza.
EOIN CAMERON: So the passport affair didn't come into it?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, I've made clear to all concerned, that was neither a factor which influenced us, nor a factor which determined the outcome. We always do these general assembly resolutions objectively, case by case, on their merits. And if you look at who voted where, a number of the countries that we have been with, in terms of the so-called Goldstone Report, also changed their position, because it's a qualitatively different matter.
EOIN CAMERON: Sure, I did notice that. And just finally, there's a report that some Ministers are saying privately that the Prime Minister went a bit over the top, talking about how the government has performed fairly badly, do you reckon the government's as bad as he said?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, as a Minister I never get involved in a running commentary on what the Prime Minister says, I just take it as read.
EOIN CAMERON: Right.
STEPHEN SMITH: Look, I think people just need to look carefully at where we are in the system. We spent 12 months in our first year in office, essentially finding our feet, 12 months governing, and then, one of the regrettable features of Australian public life is that we have a three-year term, so already now, after just over two years, we're back into we're back into an election cycle.
EOIN CAMERON: Into the end game, yeah.
STEPHEN SMITH: So we've got to make the transition from governing, to getting ourselves re-elected, and you always have transitional difficulties along the way. But the Prime Minister's made the point, we believe we've been a competent and assured government, but we haven't been perfect. And in the end, we'll let the community make the judgement in October, November, December this year.
EOIN CAMERON: So you didn't sit in front of the television saying, what?
STEPHEN SMITH: Well, I was actually sitting in front of an ABC camera, preparing to do Offsiders while the Prime Minister was doing Insiders.
EOIN CAMERON: Oh, so you didn't know?
STEPHEN SMITH: I watched it in passing, but look, I think the most important thing is, in the end, the community have got to make a choice. They'll make a judgement about our contribution over the last two-and-a-half, three years, when we get to the election, they'll make a judgement about what Mr Abbott, if anything, has to offer. We will essentially say we believe that we've been a calm, assured, competent Government. Yes, we've made mistakes, yes, there's been some expectations that haven't been met, that's always the case. On the other hand, we think that Mr Abbott and the Liberals hold out a whole range of risks if you give them the power to run the country. That'll be the essential argument, and in the usual way, the Australian people will determine it.
EOIN CAMERON: Minister, thanks for coming in this morning, and safe travelling.
STEPHEN SMITH: A pleasure, Eoin. Thanks very much.
EOIN CAMERON: Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, here on 720, ABC Perth
END
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