Interview with Radio Australia

Subjects: Visit to Vietnam, women in combat in Afghanistan

Transcript, E&OE, proof only

13 April 2011

KEVIN RUDD: Well firstly, just in terms of the service in Vietnam, yes, at Long Tan I went with the Australian ambassador this morning, which is in the old Phuoc Tuy Province in Vietnam, where a battle was fought back in 1966, in which a significant number of Australians lost their lives, and even more Vietnamese lost their lives.

It was a small service in the morning, with a small number of veterans, and we simply paid our respects to those who had paid the ultimate sacrifice of losing their lives in war.

You asked a question about war time service and military service in general for women, the Australian Government has long had a longstanding policy of encouraging women into our armed forces, to serve in a whole range of different roles, the Defence Minister has been providing appropriate leadership on this question, and will continue to do so.

The women of the Australian Defence Force do a first class job, I've worked with many of them over the years, in one capacity or another, and they are of the highest professional calibre.

QUESTION: Do you believe that women should be in places in the military, in places like Afghanistan, where it seems to be quite a debatable thing as to whether they will be a target for the Taliban, and yet you've got Afghan MPs, or at least one MP saying that it would be a really good idea to have them there, because the men would be better behaved?

KEVIN RUDD: Well, we have many women in the Australian Defence Force currently on deployment in Afghanistan, I've been to Afghanistan four or five times in recent years, and met many of them, they're doing a first class job for Australia in a range of different roles, I salute their service to Australia.

And also, they make a direct contribution to the wellbeing of the Afghan people as well.

QUESTION: You have a meeting planned today, I'm not sure whether it's already happened, with Vietnam's Foreign Minister, what were some of the things that were being looked at, being on the discussion table?

KEVIN RUDD: Well, I've been in Ho Chi Minh City this morning, and I've had an opportunity after the Long Tan service to formally open the extensions of the RMIT campus in Ho Chi Minh City.

RMIT is a 128-year-old Australian university based in Melbourne, it's had a campus in Vietnam for the better part of the last 10 years, thousands of Vietnamese students are being educated there.

I was with those students this morning, and it's a big expansion of Australian education opportunities in Vietnam.

Add to that the tens of thousands of Vietnamese who study in Australian schools, Australian university schools, I should say, as fee-paying students, we are playing a large part in Vietnam's future skills development, and Australia is proud to be the largest provider of scholarships for Vietnamese students anywhere in the world.

As for the rest of my program, I've been this morning announcing further funding for a Red Cross project, to provide prosthetics to those who have lost limbs, either through mine accidents, or other accidents here in Ho Chi Minh City. We'll continue to do that, it's the right thing to do, and later today I'm looking forward to discussions bilaterally with our good friends in Hanoi, the Prime Minister, the President and the Foreign Minister, and once those discussions are concluded, I'm happy to brief you all on this further.

ENDS

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