Interview with Joanna McCarthy, Connect Asia, Radio Australia

Subjects: Australia’s aid program; Regional asylum-seeker processing framework; Scott Rush; Australia’s engagement with Asia

Transcript, E&OE, proof only

11 May 2011

KEVIN RUDD: I think the first thing to say is that Australia delivers international development assistance to underpin Australia's national interests, which are about our national security interest, particularly in our own region, in South East Asia and the south west Pacific.

It's also in our national interest because if we have stronger economies in our region through development assistance cooperation, it helps Australia's national economic development itself.

And thirdly, we have an interest, together with countries around the world enhancing what we call the global order, which means that when you have real poverty around the world, together with other countries you can make a difference and in recent decades hundreds-of-millions of people have been lifted out of poverty.

So we see this as consistent with Australia's national interests.

Furthermore, we made a commitment that we'd increase our overseas development assistance cooperation to 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2015-16.

It is sensible to bring this about step-by-step between now and then, rather than some mad rush towards the end. We think therefore this is the reasonable, responsible approach.

JOANNA McCARTHY Joe Hockey told Radio National this morning that families who are earning $45,000 a year will be worse off with the freezing of the family tax benefit supplements and then on the other hand, the government is increasing the foreign aid budget. He said that's a contradiction. Do you think it is?

KEVIN RUDD: I think it's pretty important that we frame the debate about our overseas development assistance in terms of the government's longstanding budget strategy and what has that been? For the government to intervene in the last several years in the Australian economy, to cushion the impact of the global financial crisis, to prevent the Australian economy from going into recession and throwing a-half-a-million people into unemployment, who otherwise, because of the measures we've taken have stayed in jobs.

Let's think about it a bit more. Had we simply not acted through our fiscal strategy in the last several years, then we'd be looking at the sorts of unemployment numbers that you have in Europe and in the United States, which is bubbling around the 10 per cent mark and if we look at Australia by comparison, we have unemployment with a four in front of it.

So when you put it into context, the reason that we have gone for a budget deficit the last couple of years is to make a huge impact to the Australian real economy, the only developed economy in the world not to have gone into recession.

JOANNA McCARTHY As Prime Minister, you closed the Manus Island Processing Centre. We now understand you've held talks with Sir Michael Somare about reopening it. Why was Manus Island bad policy then, but good policy now?

KEVIN RUDD: The first thing to say is that the critical agreement that we have reached and I've participated in these negotiations as Foreign Minister has been the regional framework agreement concluded in Bali about six weeks ago.

Why is that critical to any discussion of an individual processing centre within the region? First and foremost, because the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Office of Migration are now fully engaged and fully supportive of that regional framework agreement - that was not the case before when the Howard Government acted unilaterally, rather than multilaterally.

Secondly, the Bali regional framework agreement also has a mechanism for the buy in of all regional states. It was a statement made by the chairman of that conference, myself and the Foreign Minister of Indonesia, which has application to regional countries, should they choose to engage in processing arrangements.

And thirdly, that agreement itself specifically, specifically made reference to the possibility of processing centres by states if they agreed with one another to have such centres.

So ask what is different? That Bali regional processing framework, that Bali regional framework agreement is something we only put together six weeks ago, after many, many years of negotiation.

JOANNA McCARTHY Scott Rush has had his death sentence commuted to life by the Indonesian courts. Will you be seeking a prison transfer arrangement with Indonesia?

KEVIN RUDD: The negotiations with our friends in Indonesia on prison transfer arrangements have been underway for some time. Some progress has been made.

Let's put it into context. Indonesia has no such arrangement with any other country in the world, so this would be a first. But we've made significant progress.

But I'd also like to record again our Australian government appreciation for the decision of the Indonesian courts on this matter.

Australia as bipartisan policy opposes the death penalty, and for those reasons, we have had a long and consistent and strong position on this, but we still have our challenges ahead of course with those who remain with capital sentences against them as part of the Bali Nine.

Again, a very, very sober warning to all those out there in the region about the perilous circumstances into which they can put themselves should they engage in the narcotics trade.

JOANNA McCARTHY One final question. You would have seen Michael Wesley's latest book. He suggests that Australians are ignorant and complacent and incurious about Asia. Now if this is the Asian century, does that concern you that there are seemingly such low levels of Asia literacy among Australians?

KEVIN RUDD: Well, Michael Wesley and academic contributors such as him will always enliven the national debate.

What's my experience? We've got about a million Australians out of the country at the moment and a large slab of them are in various countries in Asia - rock through Beijing; Shanghai any day of the week; Jakarta; elsewhere in South East Asia. I see young Australians out there learning languages, studying the cultures, engaged in businesses.

I think there is always more that we can do, but the reason why a decade or so ago, I was in a different capacity, deeply involved in the development of the National Asian Languages and Study Strategy for Australian Schools, NALSSAS is to broaden the base of this for the future across the Australian education system.

Last numbers I saw is we had something close to a million Australian kids studying one or other languages of Asia in the school system. Not all of them will end up as bilingual interpreters and translators, but let me tell you, I think the base for the future is strong, but given our unique circumstances, we can always do better and I suppose that's what Michael is encouraging us to do.

END

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