Doorstop interview - Dominica
Transcript, proof copy E&OE
6 May 2010
Subjects: Relationship with CARICOM, CHOGM, climate change .
Sean Douglas: Good morning to members of the Dominican media. It is a pleasure to welcome the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia. This is the first time we have an official from the government of Australia in Dominica. You are from the Labor party government and you are very welcomed as we have a Labor party in office here in Dominica. Basically, I also want to welcome members of the Australian delegation here, you have the Australian High Commissioner and other officials from Australia here. We are very pleased to have you.
At the White House you have what they call the press gaggle. The Australians have something called the door stop. Basically the press conference is what the Australians call the door stop. It is a pleasure to welcome The Honorable Stephen Smith to Dominica and I'll now invite him to say some remarks and afterwards he'll give you the opportunity to ask questions. Stephen Smith it is a pleasure to have you here.
Stephen Smith: Thank you very much for that. First thing, can I say how pleased I am to be in Dominica and I am told that I am the first Australian Foreign Minister to visit.
I had a very productive and enjoyable meeting last night with the Prime Minister where we discussed advancing not just Australia's relationship with Dominica but Australia's relationship with the Caribbean.
I'm here of course to speak with my Caribbean colleagues and to speak with the COFOCR meeting and I've just come from a very productive meeting with my ministerial colleagues meeting for the 13th occasion of the Council of Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR).
Australia very much wants to enhance its engagement with countries of the Caribbean through international organizations. And in the margins of the Commonwealth Government Heads of Meeting in Port of Spain last year, Australia and the Carribean Community (CARICOM) signed a memorandum of understanding to formalise our modern relationship. That Memorandum of Understanding sees for example over a four year period $60 million of
development assistance in partnership between Australia and CARICOM. It also enables a modern political relationship. It also enables us to deal with matters such as disaster relief and disaster management. And indeed the terrible aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, Australia through its Government and Australia through its people contributed A$50 million to Haiti - $24 million by the Government to the relief needed for Haiti including to the Caribbean Emergency Disaster Management Agency; but just over $25 million by the people of Australia responding to national and international appeals.
We're working very hard on climate change with CARICOM. The first act of the Australian Government was to ratify the Kyoto protocol and Australian Prime Minister Rudd was very active in the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Port of Spain also in Copenhagen putting forward issues of concern from small island nation states. We are very familiar of some of the difficulties which countries of Caribbean have because as a member of the Pacific Islands Forum and as a country in the Pacific we work very closely with our friends and neighbours in the Pacific. Currently we are the chair of the Pacific Islands Forum. Today, I've announced to the COFCOR meeting that Australia will open up to students from the Caribbean, our Australia Awards scholarships and fellowships program, over the next four years some $10 million worth of scholarships and fellowships will be made available. It is a very good thing from Australia's perspective to see young students from the Caribbean come to Australia.
We are also doubling our contribution to community sports, our sports program to the Caribbean and opening up the prospect for Caribbean diplomats to do part of their training in Australia. We also have a very successful Australian volunteers program where Australians volunteer to come to a country and engage in capacity building or in development assistance. And this year for the first time, we will open up our volunteers program to people too; to the Caribbean.
So we are moving forward with our relationship. We have for the first time tried to act to the warmth and friendship between the people of Australia and the people of the Caribbean some productive concrete steps to formalise the relationship between Australia and the Caribbean. We are of course a country and a region which has had good and warm and friendly relations for a long period of time. We share a love of cricket and a love of sport generally. One of the points I've made to the COFCOR meeting is , that has not been reflected by the government- to-government relationship, the nation-to-nation relationship and the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in the Port of Spain last year, and my attendance here reflects the fact that both of us want to very substantially enhance the engagement that we have, one with the Government, both in terms of the individual countries but also the regional organisation - CARICOM.
Thank you very much. When I return to Australia, I'll tell them in Australia that I experienced in Dominica a ‘press gaggle' and that the description ‘press gaggle' more appropriately fits the description of Australian media of doorstops so thank you very much for that piece of local information which I'll take back to Australia. Thank you.
Very well, I'm sure you're very eager to ask questions, please identify yourself and who you represent.
Journalist: The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting will be in Australia next year, how important are the Commonwealth links relationships to Australia?
Stephen Smith: Well, they're very important. It's one of the things that we, they can share. Of course there are a couple of countries who are members of CARICOM who aren't members of the Commonwealth; Haiti and Suriname for example, but very many of CARICOM member states and their leaders and Prime ministers will come to Australia next year for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, that will be held in October in Perth. Perth is my hometown, so I've indicated to my foreign ministerial colleagues that I am very much looking forward to them coming to Australia to not just pursue matters of mutual interest so far as the Commonwealth is concerned but also to hopefully enjoy some of the delights of Perth including the WACA where Chris Gayle played for Western Australia in our Twenty20 competition in the domestic season last year. We are very much looking forward to him returning.
The Commonwealth is one of the things that we share. One of the things that we spoke about this morning was to make sure that our contact is regular and not sporadic; that we can contemplate Australia and CARICOM or Australia and COFCOR meeting in the margins of meetings that we attend and Commonwealth is one very good example of that as is the United Nations General Assembly so it is possible for example that we could contemplate a meeting between Australia and CARICOM in the margins of the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Perth next year. I welcome that very much.
Journalist: ….coming out of the MoU…..business relations….is there anything you can tell us anything that you have done….
Stephen Smith: Well it is one of the areas that we want to look to develop. Our conversations this morning and the conversations I've had with my colleagues have tended to focus more on the difficulties that countries of the Caribbean and countries of the Pacific have experienced following the global financial crisis. Australia of course is a member of the G20 so one of the things we have discussed is, in its role as a member of the G20, Australia consults with our colleagues in the Pacific Islands Forum. We exchange ideas and views and impart information, and because some of the problems and difficulties are the same, we've indicated that we very happy also to play that role so far as CARICOM or the Caribbean is concerned but we do know that there are some significant economic difficulties in the aftermath of the global financial crisis not just the global downturn, the difficulty in the number of tourists, difficulties in foreign remittances so our conversations have been more along the lines of how do we now as a G20 nation make a positive contribution to countries both in the Pacific and the Caribbean working their way through those difficulties. But we do see the potential for greater trade and greater economic exchanges. One of the issues to confront the Caribbean for example is maritime transportation and a couple of Australian companies have already successfully engaged in selling fast ferries or patrol boats in the Caribbean so we do see some potential, for example, in the maritime industry for further economic exchanges between Australia and the Caribbean.
Journalist: You said you are working with CARICOM in the area of climate change but how does Australia play a part with Caribbean countries in combating climate change?
Stephen Smith: Well, the first act of the current Australian government was to, under Prime Minister Rudd, was to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. And Prime Minister Rudd and Australia from that moment have been very active in advancing climate change issues and at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Port of Spain Prime Minister Rudd was very active on those climate change issues and indeed in Copenhagen and in particular drawing to the attention of the international community, the particular difficulties suffered by small island states and we have this shared experience with our friends and neighbours in the Pacific.
And it is one of the terrible ironies of climate change for those countries who have made the least contribution to the difficulties, with their island states in the Pacific, in the Indian Ocean or in the Caribbean, now run the risk of facing the worst of the adverse consequences.
Copenhagen was, in Australia's view and CARICOM's view, not an unambiguous success but one area there was good forward progress was in the area of fast-start climate change financing and we have made a commitment that we will play our role and contribute our share to the fast-start climate change financing for adaptive purposes.
We've also made it clear that we see our fast -start climate change financing having a very clear focus on low income nation states or less well developed nations states and in particular on island states whether they're members of the Pacific Islands Forum, members of the CARICOM or generally members of the Alliance of Small Island Developing States (AOSIS).
The difficulties that our friends and neighbours in the Pacific in the Indian Ocean share so far as climate change is concerned are very comparable to the difficulties faced by nations of the Caribbean. So we're looking forward to making our contribution on climate change financing, we're looking forward to continuing to make our contribution to getting good outcomes on climate change to the run up to the meeting in Mexico in November of this year and given our commitment we are working very closely with CARICOM countries in that respect.
Journalist: You mentioned Haiti and Australia's contribution in the reconstruction process, how do you see your country's continuing role in Haiti?
Stephen Smith: We'll continue to have a role and an involvement. Our officials have been represented at the various Haiti disaster relief meetings. There are further meetings scheduled in the course of this year and we are always willing to give consideration whether there is further or more financial contribution that we can make.
As I say, the Australian people, through the Government and their own generousity have contributed A$50 million. This is much more significant than any previous contribution by Australians to a natural disaster in the Caribbean.
I think that reflects three things: one the scale of the tragedy, secondly Australia wanting to reflect its formal arrangement with CARICOM through assisting Haiti, and thirdly these days we all see the aftermath of these terrible natural disasters on our TV screens very quickly after the event and that does encourage international community and the people of the world to be generous and make their contribution. We are open to a further financial contribution should that be necessary or of assistance. We also played a role in providing services of half a dozen air traffic coordinators, air traffic controllers, because in the first instance it was very difficult managing the arrival of military aircraft bringing much needed supplies but also the civilian and commercial traffic. And I am told there was more than one time where there was most surprise to hear the voice of an Australian as he or she was approaching Haiti for approval to land.
Alright thanks very much, thank you.
ENDS
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