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STEPHEN SMITH: I’m very pleased to be in Vanuatu representing the Prime Minister and representing Australia at the Pacific Island Leaders’ Forum.

Of course it’s during an election campaign and we’re here in caretaker period so I won’t propose to be drawn too extensively on matters occurring back at home. I’ll leave my colleagues to do that. But I’m very happy to speak about matters here.

Firstly, we have been very pleased with the successful year that Australia has had as Chair of the Pacific Islands Forum. Particularly with the Cairns Compact on development assistance, better coordination, better effectiveness. We’re very pleased with the work the Pacific Islands Forum has done together on climate change, and very pleased to hand over the Chair to Vanuatu.

In the course of today and tomorrow, I will have a number of formal bilateral meetings. I’ve already had a bilateral meeting with the New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key and Murray McCully, who is the New Zealand Foreign Minister. Firstly indicate publicly what I said to him in private which is that we of course extend our commiserations and our condolences on the loss of a New Zealand serviceman overnight in Afghanistan.

In addition to speaking formally with Prime Minister Key, I’ve also spoken with Prime Minister Natapei, the Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum, Secretary General Slade, and my Nauruan counterpart, Kieren Keke, and I’ll obviously see other leaders and Ministers in the course of the day and tomorrow.

I’ve just come from a signing ceremony where we have signed up Pacific Partnerships for Development with the Federated States of Micronesia, with the Marshall Islands and with Palau. Later today will sign the first of our Pacific Security Partnerships with Kiribati and Samoa. All of these, of course, flow from our enhanced engagement with the Pacific, starting with our Port Moresby Declaration.

We now have some eleven Pacific Partnerships for Development signed up which formalise our development assistance partnership with the countries and the islands of the Pacific Island Forum.

Can I just, in conclusion, note that today we have seen a record monthly trade surplus for Australia. A 3.5 billion dollar trade surplus, a very encouraging monthly figure, both increases in volumes and increases in prices. So that’s a significant economic indicator and we welcome that very much. I’m happy to respond to any questions.

STEPHEN SMITH:

QUESTION: Minister, what message does it send to Pacific Islanders here, Pacific leaders here, that Julia Gillard could not spare one day of her election campaign to come to speak to them?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, other than Fiji, of course, Pacific Island leaders are all democratic and they understand the nature of elections. There’s no surprise, and they perfectly understand it. This of course has occurred in the past. On the last occasion, Foreign Minister Downer represented the Prime Minister Howard, so it’s neither a surprise nor a difficulty for the Leaders. They welcomed me very warmly. I was very pleased to be able to formally hand over to Prime Minister Natapei and it’s a very good participation in the Forum, so far as Australia is concerned.

QUESTION: On the issue of Fiji, do you have any comments to make on what Commodore Bainimarama said to the ABC along the lines of Australia and New Zealand wield too much influence in the Forum?

STEPHEN SMITH: I have to confess that I haven’t seen his remarks on the ABC. But in the past, of course, he has been critical of Australia, he’s been critical of New Zealand, and he’s been critical of Australia and New Zealand because Australia and New Zealand, together with the other countries of the Pacific Islands Forum, have been at the forefront of seeking to persuade Fiji to return to democracy.

The Pacific Islands Forum unanimously suspended Fiji from the Councils of the Forum. The Commonwealth has also suspended Fiji from the Councils of the Commonwealth. So it’s no surprise that Commodore Bainimarama is critical of Australia. It’s no surprise that he’s critical of New Zealand. It’s no surprise he’s critical of the Pacific Islands Forum because until Fiji returns to democracy, there is unanimity of view that Fiji cannot sit at Ministerial level around the Forum Councils.

QUESTION: How do respond, then, to the communiqué that they issued with Commodore Bainimarama about four of the leaders who seemed to show Fiji quite a bit of support and said Fiji should be fully engaged in the region?

STEPHEN SMITH: Australia has made the point consistently that we want to have a dialogue with Fiji. Indeed, as a member of the Pacific Islands Forum Ministerial Contact Group, a few weeks ago, I was in Auckland. We met with the Fijian Foreign Minister. We were invited as a Ministerial Contact Group to go to Fiji to have discussions, and within 24 hours that was withdrawn by Commodore Bainimarama.

So, we’d like very much to have a dialogue with Commodore Bainimarama, but it’s very hard to have a one-way dialogue. That’s the first point. Secondly, we’ve always made it clear that Australia has no difficulty with Fiji meeting with other countries. Indeed, that dialogue is a good thing. For example, we had no difficulty with Fiji, as a member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, meeting as a Melanesian Spearhead Group. We did have concerns, and expressed those concerns, when Commodore Bainimarama sought to go further and try and use the so-called Melanesian Spearhead Group Plus to propose meetings to seek to undermine the Pacific Forum itself.

QUESTION: Do you think Prime Minister Somare’s no-show is related somehow to Fiji?

STEPHEN SMITH: You have to ask Prime Minister Somare. There are a number of absences and none of them cause me any concern. As I say, you will have to ask Papua New Guinea, but we know that there has been an uncertain political time in Papua New Guinea recently.

Secondly, Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands, Derek Sikua is not here because the Solomons are actually having an election today. As I said in my handover remarks, citizens of the Pacific value that very much and we want to see it exercised in a full and free and timely way for all citizens of the Pacific, including Fijians. So, there are a number of absences at leadership level. They are all understandable, but you’d need to ask Prime Minister Somare the reasons for his absence. But he’s well represented.

QUESTION: Are you worried by the Engaging Fiji summit’s communiqué which found that Fiji’s path to democracy as they call it is credible? Are you worried that there might be some leaders here who might be pushing for Fiji…?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well in the discussion that I have had, both with officials and with leaders and Ministers, I detect no inkling, no support, no suggestion that the Pacific Island Forum would do anything other than that which it has been done in the past, which is to unanimously adopt the position that Fiji is suspended from the Forum, pending a return to democracy.

Of course there are discussions about how we can encourage Fiji to have a dialogue, whether it’s through the Ministerial Contact Group or through other mechanisms. So I think there are two shared sentiments, and I think Australia shares both sentiments strongly; that it is not appropriate for Fiji to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum whilst it is under military rule, but it is appropriate for all of us to make our ongoing efforts to seek to engage the Commodore, and the interim government in Fiji in a dialogue, to get it back on a path to democracy.

QUESTION: Do you there is an opportunity for Australia and New Zealand then to engage with Fiji when they were invited to the Engaging Fiji meeting last month, but didn’t we decline that invitation?

STEPHEN SMITH: We were invited at officials’ level and we declined the invitation. We believe that the most important mechanism, for Australian efforts, to engage Fiji, is through the Pacific Islands Forum and through the Ministerial Contact Group. But we will also pursue what we regard as other appropriate advances, other appropriate efforts, at dialogue. But for the present, we’d like to pursue those efforts through the Forum itself and through the Ministerial Contact Group, of which, of course, I’ve been a member of for some time.

QUESTION: But if they’re suspended from the Forum, how are they meant to engage in that dialogue?

STEPHEN SMITH: Through the Ministerial Contact Group which is what I say, having gone to Auckland, having invited interim Foreign Minister Ratu Kubuobola to meet with us; that having occurred, the Foreign Minister having invited the Ministerial Contact Group to go again to Fiji for the third occasion, we were disappointed that within 12 to 24 hours, Commodore Bainimarama had withdrawn that invitation.

QUESTION: Prime Minister Gillard had phoned quite a number of foreign leaders, but it seems that she ignores the most important trading partner, China, so what do you think of that?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, that analysis is wrong. When she came to office, she made a number of calls and received a number of calls. Very quickly, as you’d appreciate, the election intervened, and it’s not appropriate for her to make calls during that period. When the election is concluded, on the basis of a successful outcome for the Government, if the Government is re-elected, then of course the usual congratulatory calls, the usual courtesy calls and the full exchanges will occur with all of our key trading partners, with all of our key bilateral partners, including China.

QUESTION: The detention centre issue, have there been any discussions about that here today?

STEPHEN SMITH: I will be a bit careful in what I say, because I know that it is a controversial issue in the context of the campaign. But I’m very happy to indicate part of that conversation I had with Foreign Minister Keke from Nauru because I’ve said it publicly in Australia. I indicated to him that if Nauru wanted to sign up for the Refugee Convention, that if they came to that conclusion or decision, then Australia would be very happy to offer it whatever technical assistance it could to facilitate the technical detail of signing up for the Convention.

We have a significant development assistance partnership with Nauru, we work very closely with them, so in my discussions with Foreign Minister Keke, we of course spoke about our general bilateral relationship, our development assistance partnership, the things that Australia is doing and can do to assist Nauru. We touched upon that issue. I indicated as is on public record that we are in discussions with East Timor about a regional processing centre in East Timor, and those discussions are effectively underway. But will of course take up again, in earnest, at the conclusion of the election campaign.

I expect to see East Timorese Foreign Minister Zacharias De Costa later tonight. He of course is here as part of the Pacific Island Forum Post-Forum Dialogue, so I’ll no doubt have a conversation with him as well.

QUESTION: Minister, can I just return to my earlier question. There are no undercurrents of support for Fiji that you are detecting on this visit?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, as I say, there are two sentiments. Firstly there is the very strong sentiment that it is not appropriate for Fiji to return to the Forum until it returns to democracy.

Secondly, there is also a very strong sentiment that somehow we have to get Fiji back into a dialogue. And that is not just a sentiment that I have detected in the course of my conversations today, it’s the very strong view that Australia takes and a very strong view that I have put on the record on any number of occasions.

QUESTION: One more question about Nauru. Why did you feel that it was necessary to warn Nauru or counsel Nauru about their dealings with the Russians?

STEPHEN SMITH: Firstly, I don’t warn other countries. That’s the first point. Secondly, I was happy to put on the record part of my conversation with Kieran Keke because I relayed to him privately and person-to-person that which I’d said publicly and I wanted to do it face-to-face because I’d done it courtesy of one of your television cameras. But I’m not proposing to go uphill and down dale on all of the aspects of our conversation. That would not be appropriate.

QUESTION: Minister, on Palau, have you been approached by the Palau government to take Uighurs who were recently in Guantanamo and have now...

STEPHEN SMITH:It hasn’t been raised with me. My contact with Palau to date has been to sign with Palau a Pacific Partnership for Development which I just did with the President.

That matter has not been raised with me. I would need to check to indicate to you whether it’s been raised as officials’ level but it hasn’t been raised with me.

QUESTION: And would Australia take them?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well any applicant for migration status to Australia is of course always subject to our exhaustive migrant and security assessments. We’ve made that clear in respect of anyone who comes to my country, including suggestions of Uighurs from Palau or from other countries.

Thanks very much

END

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