Interview with Gary Hardgrave, 4BC Radio

Transcript, E&OE, proof only

Subjects: Egypt, Libya

1 March 2011

GARY HARDGRAVE: Let me tell you I've been as critical of this bloke as anybody has. I've called him all sorts of names under the sun, but I've got to have - I've got to put it pretty bluntly on the record that right now I've got a great regard today for our Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd because he is actually, as far as I can work out, the first representative of a country like ours who's actually flown into Egypt, and he joins us on the line from that region.

G'day, Mr Rudd.

KEVIN RUDD: Hi Gary how are you?

GARY HARDGRAVE: I'm all right. More importantly how are you and how was Egypt?

KEVIN RUDD: Well I spent two days in Egypt.

The interest we in Australia have in Egypt are pretty basic. The political change there has got to go in the right direction and if it all goes belly up the implications for the rest of the world are huge.

It's a massive country, 85 million people, and if it doesn't work then the implications for terrorism in the Middle East and beyond are large. The implication for people movements out of the region finding safe refuge elsewhere are large, not to mention the impact on the oil price.

So that's why I'm here in partnership with a whole bunch of other governments, and I've moved on to the UN meeting in Geneva where I've been speaking with Foreign Ministers here about not only the future of Egypt but also the future of Libya.

GARY HARDGRAVE: But I've got to say it's a pretty gutsy performance given that it was only two or three weeks ago we were trying to get people out on mercy missions out of Egypt, for a Foreign Minister to go to Egypt.

KEVIN RUDD: Oh no there have been one or two other colleagues from around the world who've been into Egypt as well.

I went into Tahrir Square, it's relatively calm. There are still demonstrations of course, but the Government, the interim Government's on a - it's on a program of political transformation. They're going to get a new constitution. They're going to vote on that through a referendum, then they're going to vote in parliamentary elections, then they're going to vote in presidential elections, and all that in the next six months.

So our job, together with others in the international community, is to make sure that this place remains as stable as possible. Given what we are seeing next door in Libya where we have a fight to the death it seems by the Libyan leader Qaddafi…

GARY HARDGRAVE: Yeah well I was going to talk about Libya next. I mean obviously that's the hot topic for you and other Foreign Ministers in Geneva. We've heard of reports of comments from Hillary Clinton about it. It really is up to countries like ours as a middle ranking country that stands for something to show some leadership on this.

KEVIN RUDD: Well I addressed the United Nations Council here on Human Rights in Geneva yesterday and Clinton did and a range of other ministers did as well. The bottom line is to get a clear message from the entire world; the Arab world; the Islamic world; the entire world that Qaddafi has got to go, and to back that up with some concrete measures.

That's why it's been pretty important to get the UN Security Council to agree at last to refer the Libyan regime to the International Criminal Court. What does that mean? It means that it's not just those who issue the command to open fire on your civilian population, it's also those who pull the trigger, and they would be subject to being indicted before the International Criminal Court if they continue with that sort of course of action. That's what we're working on together with other measures.

GARY HARDGRAVE: Yeah and I've heard reports that the British flight taking people out may have been fired upon, that, in fact we have a check a bit more about that at the bottom of the hour, but the British flight taking people out the other day may have been fired upon, and there was some theory that maybe some of the Libyans on the ground thought it was Qaddafi fleeing the country.

KEVIN RUDD: Well the place is awash with rumours, but the bottom line is this, opposition forces seem to have control of most of the country except for the capital Tripoli and one centre to the south of that, where Qaddafi was born.

But Qaddafi is well entrenched in Tripoli itself. We're in the middle of a civil war here, our focus has been also to do whatever we can to any last remaining Australians out of there, and that's what we've been doing with a whole bunch of other friendly governments to make sure that the last of our people can be got out.

We had to evacuate our diplomatic and consular staff about three or four days ago. Our Consulate-General in Tripoli had done a fantastic job basically by himself to get out nearly 100 Australians.

GARY HARDGRAVE: Wow.

KEVIN RUDD: We've still got a few more we're trying to track down.

GARY HARDGRAVE: And you get the feeling of course Australia's relationship with the area through Tobruk, through what we did during the First and Second World War means that a lot of Australians do want to travel into this region, so if we can get a stable government environment in both Libya and Egypt in place soon a lot of Australians would welcome that.

KEVIN RUDD: Well I think that's true. There's a lot of historical connection between Australians and this part of the world through the First World War, the Second World War, but also now I think we have something like 100,000 or so Egyptian Australians in Australia.

GARY HARDGRAVE: Yes.

KEVIN RUDD: Full citizens of our multicultural county, and both Copts and Muslims and they've been in our midst for the last 40 or 50 years, so the connections are deep.

I think what Australians want to see is the region stable. They want to see it democratic, they want to see it open again to tourism, they want to see it open for foreign investment. We have many Australians companies for example that have been trying to invest in the mining industry both in Egypt and in Libya. The key thing is to make sure those investments are stable into the future. But politics at the moment is the key factor in Libya and that's where the international community continue has to speak as one.

And one of the reasons we in Australia have also been arguing for the imposition of the no fly zone over Libya is that we fear that the remaining elements of the Libyan Air Force could well be deployed against civilians on the ground. That would lead to mass casualties.

GARY HARDGRAVE: It's just hard to stomach…

KEVIN RUDD: [Indistinct]

GARY HARDGRAVE: It's hard to stomach, Kevin Rudd I've got to tell you that you've got to get Libya right given all that Qaddafi stands for, I mean you've got people like Mugabe who is still snubbing the world and if you don't get the Libya thing nailed down God knows what will happen in places like Zimbabwe for instance.

KEVIN RUDD: Well in North Africa Libya is a very large country with huge resources, its population is relatively small, 6 million but the regime is brutal, it's autocratic and its abuses of its own people are long standing.

The key question is to get Qaddafi to go; and that is where the focus of the international community’s efforts are at the moment.

In Egypt the conclusion there across analysts within Egypt who watch closely what happens in their neighbour next door, and where there have been something like a million Egyptians working in Libya, is that they believe, by and large, that when it comes to Qaddafi he will go. What is uncertain is the time frame, whether it's days, whether it's weeks, whether it's months, that it's highly volatile, very dangerous and we still have some work to do there.

GARY HARDGRAVE: All right. Kevin Rudd we appreciate the fact that it's first up in the morning and what I'd like to think is one of your first items of business was talking to 4BC.

We appreciate your time.

KEVIN RUDD: No, it's always - remember Gary, as you did when you were in Parliament yourself, home is Brisbane, that's where your community is.

GARY HARDGRAVE: No doubt about it and I think you and I both had that in common all the way through. Good on you, Kevin Rudd, thanks for your time.

KEVIN RUDD: Thanks for having me on the programme.

END

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