Transcript of Interview with ABC America, Bahrain

Subjects: Australia’s regional engagement; North Korea; WikiLeaks and Julian Assange; World Cup; Growth of Asian economies; Domestic economic reform; Middle East security and development

Transcript, E&OE, proof only

4 December 2010

REPORTER: So today Australia’s engagement with the Middle East seems to be much more pragmatic. You speak to more people. You are thinking kind of across the board. Tell us, what is on your agenda? What is Australia’s objective, with its engagement, with its policy in the region?

MR RUDD: Well of course number one in the region is the broad question of security. We’re allies of the United States. We are active in the institutions in the region, and we are active with most of the governments of the region and have been for a long, long, long time. There are healthy economic relationships. We have tens of thousands of students from the Gulf studying in Australia at any given time. We probably have, if you included Indonesia, more than one hundred thousand Muslim students travelling to Australia each year to study this that and the other. So at all those sorts of levels it all works fairly well. I think it is important also in the midst of the security debate however to focus on the economic opportunities for everybody and that alters the way in which we view the region, not just as a bunch of security problems but also, frankly, a rich array of economic opportunities. Add that to the people-to-people contact then I think there are grounds for moderate optimism.

REPORTER: And where do you look to grow Australia’s engagement, especially on the commercial side? Where do you see opportunity for Australian companies to do better?

MR RUDD: Well, let’s look at the Gulf itself. In the Gulf Cooperation Council, with all six members, we have long-standing relations. I think we were the first, one of the first, countries in the world to establish diplomatic missions here in Bahrain for example. So we have been on the ground for a long time. Therefore in the Gulf Cooperation Council we have virtually concluded a Free Trade Agreement with the GCC. Hopefully that will reach its conclusion in 2011 but that matter lies in the in-tray of the Saudis and others at the moment, but that will be important. Currently our bilateral trade with the Gulf is around about 10 billion. It’ll grow, and it’s an interesting and diverse trade as well. So that’s number one. If you look elsewhere in the wider region, what we’re doing with Afghanistan, obviously we’re committed to security. We’re the largest non-NATO provider of troops in Afghanistan. We are also active in the economic development of the province of Oruzgan, where we’re also training the local military and police. But at the same time, we are attentive to the opportunities for investment and private sector activity in Afghanistan as well. It’s a country rich in mineral resources: the Chinese have recently invested in a first class copper resource. There were tentative reports about the nature of the iron ore reserves in Afghanistan. These are good things because they provide a basis for long-term economic opportunity in the country.

REPORTER: When your agenda fills up the way it did after the clashes on the Korean Peninsula, how does that change the game for you in Asia, how does that change your outlook on what lies ahead in terms of integration?

MR RUDD: Australia is a middle power with global interests. We’re very mindful of what happens in East Asia and the West Pacific. I’ve just been doing interviews now with Phoenix Television in China about this subject, but that doesn’t mean that the Middle East simply stops because the Korean Peninsula is active. It’s important to be active everywhere. Certainly in the Korean Peninsula there is a big challenge. China will need to do more and more heavy lifting with the North Koreans. North Korean behaviour is erratic. I’m genuinely concerned, having watched this debate over many decades now, as to what happens if the North Koreans do something else seriously dumb in the weeks and months ahead. There’s a limit to the tolerance levels within a South Korean democracy. So this exercises a lot of our thinking and attention and diplomacy at present.

REPORTER: Did the disclosures in the WikiLeaks cables change the calculus at all, or make it harder tactically to do what needs to be done to calm that situation?

MR RUDD: Not at all. WikiLeaks is what you’d describe as a problem for the craft of diplomacy, but in terms of the substantive agenda right now it doesn’t get in the road of it one bit, and I know that, dealing with several of these problems right now that we confront including the Korean Peninsula.

REPORTER: Does it change Chinese behaviour? Does it change North Korean behaviour, now that they’re, that the perspectives have been made more open?

MR RUDD: Not that I’m aware of. These nation states, in the case of China, are nation states of long-standing political sophistication, acutely conscious of their national interests, acutely conscious of how to prosecute them. A few leaks here and there add to some colour, movement and general excitement – I’m sure there will be lots of colour, movement and general excitement when the leaked documents pop out in Australia as well concerning our own engagement with America, but that’s just life. You get on with it and get on with the business of real diplomacy, dealing with real problems, because the agenda hasn’t changed, despite the colour and movement and somewhat three-ring circus atmosphere surrounding the WikiLeaks phenomenon.

REPORTER: Relatedly, is your government going to look to have Julian Assange extradited back to Australia if he’s held by any government?

MR RUDD: In our system of government, we, like the United States, are a country of laws. Therefore the first step in Australia is for the Australian Federal Police to investigate whether any offence against the Australian criminal code has been committed by this individual, and if so, whether the matter should be referred to the Department of Public Prosecutions. That process is underway. Equally underway is our collaboration through Interpol and the other international agencies on any crimes with which this individual may be charged under jurisdictions. But this is at political arms length. We do not politically interfere with processes under Australian criminal law. I’m sure that’s the case in Western countries across the board.

REPORTER: But they also do seek the extradition of their nationals in certain cases when apprehended abroad. Do you expect that there would be a push for that with this individual?

MR RUDD: My job is not to speculate. My job is simply to make sure that the laws of the country are properly adhered to, and the processes underpinning that now lie with the Australian Federal Police. Once their deliberations are concluded in an unemotional environment, looking clinically at what’s occurred and what hasn’t occurred both at home and abroad any necessary actions will be taken, and I’d be obliged under Australian law to act, as would other ministers of the Australian Government.

REPORTER: So no indication from their investigations to date or from the way the law is now structured in Australia as to whether that would be the right course of action?

MR RUDD: Well their investigations as I’m advised are not complete, and if they were and they hadn’t been concluded, I wouldn’t tell you. We’re a nation of laws.

REPORTER: When it comes to the World Cup, and the news that came out, where do you think Australia lost it?

MR RUDD: Oh look, you win some you lose some in this business. It’s, without being trite, it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game, and so we congratulate the good people of Qatar. I’m sure they’ll host a first-class event. I think it’s good for the Arab world; it’s good for the Islamic world, but of course Australia like many countries including the United States is somewhat sports mad, so we like to win, like anyone else, but when you lose, it’s important to be gracious - so well done Qatar.

REPORTER: 2011

MR RUDD: Yes

REPORTER: The Asian economies now increasingly dominating growth. How does that look for Australia? Where do you look to engage that?

MR RUDD: Well the bulk of our trade and investment relationship lies with the economies of East Asia and the West Pacific, including of course India. That’s been the case for some time. Of course we have significant economic relationships with the rest of the world, but where the rubber hits the road for all of us is maintaining the stability of the global financial system. Whether I’ve been Prime Minister or Foreign Minister, observing the gyrations of the global economy and financial markets and institutions within it for the last several years has been a pretty nail-biting experience - how close we all got to the abyss. And in the London Summit of the G20 in March-April of 2009, that abyss was very, very close indeed. So I think making sure through the agencies of the G20, through the agencies of the Financial Stability Board, the agencies of cooperation between the central banks of the principal economies, we always have to keep a weather eye on those fundamentals.

If that is right and being properly managed, then the secondary task, which is really important as well, as to making sure we are bringing budgets back to balance over time; putting all of our respective fiscal houses in order; of the major advanced economies we have the lowest debt and the lowest deficit of the lot of them, but collectively we need to be acting so that the global macro-economic balance is maintained but also, that currencies are also adjusted for the market valuations as well.

REPORTER: A question from our Asia colleagues on the print side. Any perspectives on the question of reform in Australia, what needs to happen next to move negotiations forward?

MR RUDD: Domestic economic reform in Australia? Well the number one thing we are seeking to do at the moment is to introduce a carbon price, and this was twice rejected by the Australian Senate in the course of 2009 even though the Government sought to pass it through the Parliament and it was passed through the House of Representatives, 2010 we’ll be having our third attempt at this and I’m confident that we’ll make progress in 2010, sorry 2011. Why do I emphasise this so much? It’s because, we need a carbon price in place to dictate the investment signals for future investments in the energy generation sector; price signals for future activity in the renewable energy sector etc, and in terms of energy efficiency measure as well, so this is actually quite a fundamental economic reform. That is big.

Secondly what’s big for us is the continued productivity reform of the Australian economy. Investing in human capital through what we call an Education Revolution in Australia; investing in infrastructure, we’re about to roll out a national broadband network with fibre optic to the premises for practically the entire nation – a very large scale investment, the biggest infrastructure investment in Australia’s history, but also thirdly a de-regulatory agenda too, to bring down the regulatory burden of Australian business, given they operate in a federation made up of six states and two territories with a multiplicity of laws. It’s something our American friends would be familiar with.

REPORTER: What is your message to this region on how it needs to move forward to achieve security and development?

MR RUDD: I think there are two important messages, and probably three. One is, time does start to drift by on the question of a fundamental and comprehensive settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The two state solution stares us in the face. We need to land it. I applaud our American friends and Hilary Clinton for the work she’s doing and President Obama. That’s number one. But that door is not going to be permanently ajar, so we actually have to seize some opportunities.

The second is the Iranians now face an opportunity, the P5+1, to actually respond to what will be put before them. I believe Secretary Clinton was here in Bahrain extending an open hand to the Iranians and it’s important that the Iranians seize the opportunity to accept that hand because there are real things to discuss and agree upon now. Once again, the door is not permanently ajar on these questions as the Iranian nuclear programme continues.

And the third point is this: in the Middle East but specifically in the Gulf, I think there is something to reflect upon in terms of some of the institutional successes in East Asia and South-East Asia. If we look at the Association of South-East Asian Nations - roll the clock back 35 years, most of these nations had pretty troublesome relationships with each other: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, then non-communist South-East Asia versus communist Indochina, frankly it was a bit of a regional wreck. 35 years later ASEAN has achieved a lot. Basically there’s a sense of common regional security. Not perfect, but you know something, infinitely better than what it was, so I think there’s a concept of regional institution building and encouraging the habits of security cooperation that may be applicable to the deliberations of the Gulf on its future, and I know our friends in Bahrain have specifically embraced that concept in their remarks at this dialogue today.

REPORTER: Thank you so much for joining us. It’s great to have your perspectives. Hope to speak again.

MR RUDD: Thank you very much.

END

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