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RUSSELL WOOLF: Now may I, and finally, move on to a much sadder story, if I may. It's been a tough week to be Australian, as a matter of fact, we've lost three soldiers in Afghanistan, seven injured, two of those seriously.

And of course, WA particularly, but Australia more generally has been very strongly affected by a plane that went missing over the weekend in West Africa. The news that came out on Tuesday morning was not good regarding that plane.

And Geoff Wedlock, Don Lewis, John Carr-Gregg, Ken Talbot, John Johns, Craig Oliver, Natasha Flason Brian as well, and four others, lost their lives. And trying to get to them, and repatriate them is proving a difficult situation. Can you update where we stand at the moment there?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, it has been a tough week for the country. In Afghanistan, for example, having not had a casualty for 11 months, we've lost five in two weeks. So that's been a big blow.

And then, particularly for Western Australia, we've lost a half a dozen members from our local community, very many of them very well known within the industry. And, for example, I've known Geoff Wedlock since he worked for BHP in their iron ore division.

So this is a tragedy, and, you know, we really feel for the families concerned. But I've said on a number of occasions, both publicly, and also in my conversations with the company itself, the repatriation task will be a painstaking and a difficult one. And it will not occur as quickly as the families would want or like, but the current position is that we're still working together with the Congo authorities, the company, and other officials of the nations where other people have been victims of the crash - France, the UK, the US - to get the bodies from the crash scene to Brazzaville, the capital of the Congo.

That hasn't yet occurred. We've been hampered in the last day by bad weather, but the essential difficulty is the roughness of the terrain, and the recovery group can only currently get to the crash scene by rappelling down ropes from helicopters.

So, once the bodies are recovered and taken to Brazzaville, the capital of the Congo, there they will have to be subject to victim identification. And again, that is potentially a painstaking process, and may well require transportation of the bodies to another country to finalise the victim identification.

We're indicating to the Congo that we're happy to provide assistance on the disaster-victim identification front, and we have moved our High Commissioner to Nigeria, who was in Cameroon, to the Congo and he's on the ground there with another official. So we're working very hard with the Congo authorities, and the company itself.

This is not going to be resolved quickly, but we are doing everything we can together with the company. And I have to say, as I said in the Parliament the other day, the officers of the company, Peter Canterbury, the Chief Financial Officer who is effectively the acting CEO, and George Jones, a former chairman, who's come in to help, you know, have conducted themselves exceptionally well in very difficult circumstances and acted really very well to protect the interests of the families, and to work on behalf of the families.

So, in very difficult circumstances, those company officers have done a great job, as have our consular officers, who have been working hand in glove with them.

RUSSELL WOOLF: Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, I appreciate you joining me on Drive this afternoon.

STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks Russell, thanks very much.

RUSSELL WOOLF: An incredible day, isn't it, in politics.

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