Samantha Armytage, Host: Michael Keats, a 37-year-old hiker from the NSW town of Mollymook, has become the first Australian declared dead in the Nepal disaster. To discuss, Foreign Minister Penny Wong joins me now live from Canberra. Senator, good morning to you.
Penny Wong, Foreign Minister: Good morning.
Armytage: What more do you know about the tragic death of Michael Keats?
Foreign Minister: Well, first can I say our thoughts are with Mr Keats' family and the families of all Australians who remain unaccounted for. We respect the right of families to make public statements and to deal with this as they see fit. The Australian Government has not yet received official confirmation of Mr Keats’ passing. He does remain unaccounted for in terms of the information we have. But as I said, we respect the rights of the families to make the statements they have. And our thoughts go out to his family and to every Australian family who is hoping that the many who are missing can be located.
Armytage: Is there any update on exactly how many Australians remain missing? I mean, this is such a tough situation when you look at the devastation over there and we just don't know, do we?
Foreign Minister: Well, what we have is 43 who are unaccounted for, nine who were on the Chinese side of the border and the remainder in Nepal. There were three tour groups, and a number of travellers who we don't believe were associated with those three tour groups. We are working around the clock to get information to provide support to the response, to provide assistance, and most importantly to see if we can gain information about where Australians were and where they may be. We obviously, we are all hoping. We do hold grave concerns for the Australians who remain unaccounted for.
Armytage: Have you had any conversations with the Chinese authorities? As you say, nine Australians on the Chinese side of that Tibetan border missing.
Foreign Minister: We have. I spoke to our Ambassador in China, I think on the Friday, the same day I spoke to the Nepali Foreign Minister. Sorry, our Ambassador in Nepal and then subsequently to the Nepali Foreign Minister. So, we are engaging with them. We have sent additional Australian personnel to Nepal. So, we have some 18 additional staff there. And today, we will have a RAAF aircraft airlifting additional supplies into Nepal, as per the requests from Nepal. Can I just say, Sam, the generosity of Australians has been outstanding and extraordinary, and I thank your viewers who've contributed to that. We've had an Emergency Action Alliance appeal. Australians have contributed over $2 million to that and the government in total is providing some $8 million. People have really dug deep to respond to what is a horrific tragedy.
Armytage: Absolutely. I mean, Australians are extraordinary in these circumstances and so many Aussie families in absolute agony right now waiting for answers. And we spoke to Arnold Dix from Melbourne earlier this morning, who's a tunnel rescue expert, worked in the Thai cave rescues, in the September 11 attacks. And he is doing the most extraordinary work for Nepal, from Melbourne from his office in helping in these tunnels. As you say, we've got the RAAF helping there. Are we going to provide any more support or do we just sort of see how this develops and what Nepal asks for?
Foreign Minister: I think that's the primary issue, is what does Nepal want? I offered search and rescue assistance. They said their preference was for the sort of assistance we are providing, which is things like sanitation kits, shelter kits, solar lights. You can imagine the devastation. People have no shelter and little access to energy, to electricity, to communications. So, that's what we focused on.
Nepal have deployed some 20,000 people on search and rescue and obviously we've seen what has occurred in the tunnels. The advice to me is the personnel who would be in that location would have been workers who were involved in those infrastructure projects, not travellers. Certainly, it's fantastic that the Australian engineer is assisting and this is an example of working together in the face of this disaster.
Armytage: Penny Wong, we appreciate your time. Thank you and keep us updated.
Foreign Minister: Thanks very much.