• Home
• News feed
• Media releases
• Transcripts
• Speeches
• Articles
• Photo gallery
• Videos
• Current Minister
• Department
• AusAID

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Now, as we've just mentioned, the federal government's plan to send asylum seekers to Malaysia is going to be challenged in the High Court.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: For more, we're joined now by the Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, who's been sleeping rough overnight on the streets of Melbourne, as part of the annual CEO Winter Sleepout.

Kevin Rudd, good morning. Did you get any sleep?

KEVIN RUDD: Oh, not much.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: [Laughs]

KEVIN RUDD: But, then again, I don't think I'm Robinson Crusoe there. There're about 170 chief executives from a whole bunch of companies here, and I think everyone's snoring kept each other awake. So, there you go. But right across Australia…

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: I was just imagining…

KEVIN RUDD: Right across Australia, good thing to do for homelessness.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Indeed. And something's happening right around the country. I imagine you just sat up all night networking the lot of you, is that right?

KEVIN RUDD: Oh yeah, right, yeah.

[Laughter]… a good effort around the country for Vinnies and raising some important cash for homelessness. So, an excellent cause.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Now, I don't mean to be rude here, but you're actually not CEO anymore, so it does strike me as a little odd that you became involved in the CEO Sleepout.

Do we intuit from this that you'd like to be CEO of the Australian Government again?

KEVIN RUDD: Nice try. I'm here at a Vinnies sleepout for folks who get invited by Vinnies.

So, happy to do it. I've got a longstanding passion for homelessness. In fact, as Prime Minister, it was the first white paper I commissioned.

And the Government continues to roll out an extra 20,000 units of social housing, large investment in homeless services.

In fact, later this morning here in Melbourne I'm visiting Common Ground, which is newly built. Accommodates a large number of people in inner Melbourne with support services, psychological and otherwise, for people with mental illness.

So, we're making progress. There's still a long way to go and that's why I'm here.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: I do, nonetheless, want to ask you about that story that seems to have really caught some currency in a lot of the papers today, what's been described as possibly two screaming matches between you and Julia Gillard yesterday. Did they take place?

KEVIN RUDD: Of course not. That's just — you know, that's just fabrication.

The bottom line is, as anyone around the House would know, we engage in conversations all the time about what's going on in the policy debate and what the Prime Minister and I were discussing yesterday, at some length, was the challenges we face with Indonesia over live cattle and how we move that forward, and that's what the conversations were about.

So, I think people are just in a bit of frenetic overdrive at the moment, and I think they should all just calm.

We've got some real work to do and the challenges with our friends in Indonesia is one of them on the question of live cattle, but there's a bunch of others in the foreign policy domain which I'm engaged in as well and which I'm in regular contact with the Prime Minister.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Are there people suggesting to you at the moment that you should not let go of an ambition to return to the leadership to become Prime Minister again?

KEVIN RUDD: Sorry, I missed the question because I've got a lot of background noise here.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: I understand. Are there people still suggesting to you in the parliamentary party that you should not let go of the ambition of being Prime Minister, of being leader again and being Prime Minister again?

KEVIN RUDD: Look, I just think everyone needs to pop a Mogadon here.

The answer to your question is, no.

And on top of that, can I say I enjoy my work as Foreign Minister. It's important for the country. There's a whole bunch of challenges we're engaged in right across the region, right across the world. I'm into all that up to my armpits.

That's what I'm doing, that's what I'm enjoying doing. And I think it's time everyone just calm down and got behind the Prime Minister at a time when the country faces real challenges. And that's what I think everyone should be in the business of doing.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Well, let me return then to one of those key conversations you would have had yesterday, and you said it was about the relationship with Indonesia.

In your view, has that very important relationship with Indonesia been seriously compromised by the way that the live cattle export issue has been handled?

It would seem — I mean, up until now, no senior member of the Australian Government has even gone to Indonesia and spoken to them directly about this.

KEVIN RUDD: Well, I think there's a real problem in the premise to your question, which is that when we engage with our Indonesian counterparts it necessarily has to be on the ground in Jakarta. First of all, I had long…

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Maybe for this one it does.

KEVIN RUDD: No, hang on, hang on, let me answer your question.

When this decision was taken by the Cabinet, I was immediately engaged in discussions with my Indonesian counterpart Minister, Marty Natalegawa, at a conference we were both attending in Europe and we discussed this matter thoroughly.

Also, on top of that, other ministers of the government — the Trade Minister, the Agriculture Minister — have been in direct contact with their counterparts.

On top of that, our embassy in Jakarta, through our Ambassador, is directly engaged on the issue as well.

So, I think the premise of your question about flying backwards and forwards to Jakarta is not well placed.

We do business with each other all the time on the phone and that's as we've always done it. And we'll manage this one through, although there'll be some challenges on the way.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Now, the premise of the question really was about whether this had been well handled at the beginning.

If you'd been back in Australia during the time of that Caucus discussion about ceasing the live export trade, would you have voted for it?

KEVIN RUDD: Well, your question about Caucus or Cabinet, I'm not quite sure, but the Caucus had a discussion about this a few weeks ago, and I was a participant in that discussion.

When it comes to handling the decision on the suspension of the trade with Indonesia, my job as Foreign Minister is to be out there into the business of working this through with my Indonesian counterpart, and that formed a large slice of our conversations with the Indonesians, as I said, which we, Australia, and the Indonesians were attending a conference together in Europe and that's what we spent our time on. That's how foreign ministers conduct business wherever we are in the world.

We'll find our way through this. It's hard. I'm acutely conscious, as a Queenslander, of the challenges this represents for the cattle industry in Queensland, the Territory and the West.

I'm acutely conscious of some of the diplomatic challenges with our friends in Indonesia, I'm acutely conscious of the impacts within Indonesia itself, within the meat industry, and I'm acutely conscious of animal welfare standards. And our challenge is to bring these things together and to get it right. It'll be a challenging process, but we'll come through in the end.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You've got a number of bushfires yourself, it seems, as Foreign Minister right now though, and I note that you said yesterday that your ambition was to be seen as one of Australia's better foreign ministers.

But with the tensions now with Indonesia; you had them existing with East Timor with the failed attempt to set up the regional processing centre there, how do you rate yourself so far?

I mean, you have more bushfires than I would imagine you'd want to have right now as a well-functioning foreign minister.

KEVIN RUDD: Well [laughs], the business of foreign policy and the business of all foreign ministers is to deal with the challenges of the day as they arise, as well as setting long term foreign policy directions for the country. We're…

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Yes, but some of these challenges are self-created, have been created by the Australian Government itself.

KEVIN RUDD: Well, I think — let's just step back a bit again from the premise of your question. You talk about unauthorised people movements across our region, but the assumption is that we're somehow Robinson Crusoe here.

There are 13 regions in the world at the moment conducting regional discussions and negotiations about regional agreements for the proper processing of asylum seekers worldwide.

We're the first region to have reached an agreement with our partners in the region, through what's called the regional framework which we adopted in Bali about three months ago.

The ongoing discussions which the Immigration Minister is having with his counterparts in the region, they'll work their way through.

They're complex, they're hard. But let's not assume that the asylum seekers challenge is unique to this challenge. Every foreign minister I meet in the world is dealing with these challenges.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: All right, can I just very quickly because I've kept you for a long time and your time is short. Your response to the High Court action being launched on behalf of one refugee family. Does removing them to a third country breach Australian and international law, as the lawyers will be arguing before the High Court?

KEVIN RUDD: Well, if these matters go to the courts, I don't make comment on that, because there are legal processes in this country which ensue. The thing about this country is that we are…

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: You're perfectly entitled to make a comment on that. It's heard before judges. You can't scandalise the judges, there's no jury. It's absolutely perfectly appropriate for you to make a comment on that, Kevin Rudd.

KEVIN RUDD: Your question was, what do I think of the matter going before the courts.

My answer to your question is, if it goes before the courts, it is a matter for the courts to determine. The government, through the Immigration Minister, is confident of the government's legal position.

If it's to be tested before the courts, it'll be tested by the judges as they work their way through the law.

That is the way in which this country works because it is a country of laws. We've responded to High Court determinations in the past in relation to a number of matters on asylum seekers policy going back a decade. That will happen again.

As I said, the Immigration Minister, advised by the Commonwealth legal officers, is confident of the Government's position.

There's one other thing, which is actually why you asked me onto this program, which you haven't asked me about, and that's about the conviction of Abu Bakar Bashir in Indonesia. I don't know whether you want to talk about it or not.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Of course, if you want to make a comment on that, please, go ahead.

KEVIN RUDD: Well, thank you, that is why I was asked to come on this program.

On the question of Abu Bakar Bashir, which is of deep interest to many, many Australians, he has been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

I think this may bring some comfort and some relief to Australians who have suffered the terrible loss of friends and loved ones to terrorism in Southeast Asia and in Indonesia.

The bottom line is that Abu Bakar Bashir at 72 years old, this represents a significant sentence.

There'll be some controversy about the length of the sentence — I understand that — but we respect Indonesia's legal system.

But the other thing I'd say is this, in our bilateral cooperation with the Indonesians on counterterrorism since Bali, we've now had something like more than 600 arrests of terror suspects in Indonesia, and something in excess of 550, I'm advised, convictions [inaudible] progress on these questions and this is an important determination by the Indonesian courts.

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Good to talk to you this morning, Kevin Rudd; thanks for your time.

KEVIN RUDD: Thanks very much.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Doing remarkably well for…

VIRGINIA TRIOLI: Someone who got very little sleep.

MICHAEL ROWLAND: Did very well.

END

Media enquiries

• Minister's office: (02) 6277 7500
• DFAT Media Liaison: (02) 6261 1555