KATHRYN ROBINSON: Have you taken a vow of silence? What s going on?

Transcription

1 MEET THE PRESS 9 JUNE 2013 INTERVIEW WITH BOB CARR KATHRYN ROBINSON, PRESENTER: The leaders of China and the United States have held talks in California, in a bid to shore up relations, amid allegations of cyberattacks and surveillance. A Pentagon report has pinned recent cyber security breaches on the Chinese government and military, but there are also concerns about China s actions in Australia in recent weeks, with reports ASIO was targeted in an online attack something the Government has refused to confirm. Joining us now is Foreign Minister Bob Carr. Minister, thank you for your time this morning. BOB CARR: Pleasure to be with you. KATHRYN ROBINSON: Now, can we address the elephant in the room? You agreed to coming on this program today if we didn t speak about the Labor leadership? BOB CARR: Yes. KATHRYN ROBINSON: Have you taken a vow of silence? What s going on? BOB CARR: Look, anything I say, in this atmosphere, with the sort of stuff you read in the Sunday papers, is going to be elevated on the news tonight. I want it to be I want the focus to be in this interview on the Australian position on foreign affairs. I try to steer away from talking about domestic politics. If I so much as nod in the direction of any suggestion you give me on domestic politics, that s a headline not only on Ten, but all the other stations tonight. KATHRYN ROBINSON: Okay, so we probably won t go any further with that one. Let s talk about the US-China talks which are happening at the moment. Just how important are these for Australia, and what do you expect to come out of them? BOB CARR: Well, that s a good starting point, because Australia has got a deep interest in good relations between the United States and China. And we re not unique in that so do the other countries of the region. Indeed, it could be said that a nightmare for Australia, for nations of ASEAN, would be to have a breakdown in what is the most important bilateral relationship in the world today that between China and the United States. So, when we say we re pleased that these great powers are meeting, we re really saying the same thing that someone in Singapore or Indonesia would be saying someone anywhere in the ASEAN world, the 10 nations to our north. STEFANIE BALOGH: We ve obviously worked on our relationship with China. In April, the Prime Minister signed a historic pact to have direct talks with Beijing. Has a date yet been set for the first sort of historic meeting that will come out of that?

2 BOB CARR: No, but the agreement was to have that guaranteed meeting, at the highest levels of our respective leaderships, once a year. It d be a little premature to settle on that. But the point about it is that that is a recognition by China of how serious the relationship with Australia is. They have this understanding with very few other countries, and I think it reflects I mean, there was one view I had from a think tank once that the Chinese regard us as no more important as little more important than New Zealand, a good deal less important than Canada. And when I read that, I thought, This couldn t be the case. So, what the Prime Minister put to the Chinese leadership, over the last six or nine months, was going to be a test of it whether the Chinese would concede that Australia s more important than some of us advised we were being regarded as. And so we were very pleased the Prime Minister and I were very, very pleased to have the Australia-China relationship elevated to strategic partnership. DENNIS ATKINS: Will the Australian people see real benefits from that? Will there be things that we can point to and say, This is the product of this kind of increased importance in the relationship? BOB CARR: I think you will see an enhancement of the relationship across the board. I rang our ambassador, Frances Adamson, only two days after I returned from China, and she told me there was a vice-chancellor of an Australian university up there, and he said that, even within that week of the Prime Minister s meeting with the Chinese leadership, he noticed he was being treated very differently. The Chinese bureaucracy takes its cue from the stance of its leaders. And with its leaders saying, with its President and its Prime Minister saying we regard the relationship with Australia as this important, right across the bureaucracy you get a difference response. I think business will notice it, universities will notice it, the whole service sector, which is growing more important, and without a doubt, Australian companies that are embedded in the Chinese economy, meeting their need for resource security, will notice it. STEFANIE BALOGH: Foreign Minister, one of the talking points for the US and China talks is cyber security. If I could just move to the revelations out of the US on the data mining should Australians be concerned? BOB CARR: We ve got to have cyber security as high on our list of concerns. Our white paper on Australian security earlier this year spelt that out. For the first time in a white paper on security threats to Australia, we were designating cyber as a matter of real and present concern. STEFANIE BALOGH: Would Australians information obviously they use the big technology companies that have been handing over data to the National Security in America should Australians be concerned that their data could have been spied on? BOB CARR: I wouldn t think so. We ve all got to assess this controversy out of America for what it is. I think America is striving to meet the balance between the demands of security in the wake of September 11, and the demands of privacy. There s no country that takes the rights of its citizens more seriously than with America, with that focus, through its Bill of Rights and its Supreme Court, on where individuals stand in relationship to government. I think Americans will always

3 struggle to get this balance right. But in the end it s a lively political system in America. And a Congressman or Senator standing up, saying, The rights of my constituents have been violated here, is a very strong voice. DENNIS ATKINS: But the US President has said that American citizens have nothing to fear from the National Security Agency going through the material from the internet companies. He says it s only foreigners. Now, wouldn t that include Australians? Wouldn t BOB CARR: Dennis, I d need to get advice on that I don t want to make a snap judgment. I sense this controversy has got a long way to go in America, and it would give us an opportunity to thoroughly examine that. DENNIS ATKINS: Well in Britain, just overnight, there have been questions raised about the role of the GCHQ, the British intelligence centre. The joint facilities at Pine Gap in Australia one of the major tenants there is the National Security Agency will you be seeking advice on whether the NSA is using Pine Gap in any of these Patriot Act-related activities. BOB CARR: Just to repeat what I said a moment ago, this controversy has got a long way to go. We ll examine carefully any implications in what has emerged for the security and privacy of Australians. STEFANIE BALOGH: Foreign Minister, can I ask you about Syria? You have a proposal where you could reach a peace deal, leaving the Assad regime in place. Have you received any support for this? How are the Americans? BOB CARR: Yeah, I think it s being absorbed. In the lead-up to what s called Geneva II, the important thing is to get Russia and America comfortable with negotiating, therefore in a position to bring the domestic parties to this shocking civil war together for negotiations. If it is necessity to accept that Assad will be there for the start of the process, as opposed to being entrenched in government at the end of the process, then I would think this is something that the west ought to be conceding, to get Russia there. And with Russia, the Assad government. I ve been in refugee camps in Jordan I was there last year al-zaatari refugee camp, it must have grown by 100 times since I was there. I spoke to refugees in Lebanon, and I think the Lebanese people deserve to be praised to the skies for the burden they are carrying. If Australia were carrying the refugee burden that Lebanon has got, we d have 5.5 million refugees on our soil. And the Lebanese looking after these people, getting them food, giving them emergency accommodation, even taking them into their homes. The Lebanese deserve to be praised to the skies for what they re doing. But it is a my conversations with these refugees just confirm that this is an unparalleled humanitarian catastrophe. These people don t know whether their homes are standing, their homes are probably not standing. We saw the photos out of Qasr the other day street after street of ruined, collapsed housing. They say that by the end of this year, the homes of 9 million people, out of a population of 22 million, will have been demolished. And you ve got a huge displaced population in the country, as well as a population streaming over the borders of Jordan and Lebanon and Turkey every night. KATHRYN ROBINSON: It s a terrible situation there at the moment. Senator

4 BOB CARR: I think the world has been I ll just share with you my impatience with the way the world views it. I ve gone hoarse in the last six months saying to world leaders, given that there s still a deadlock over a political solution, let s agree on a bare minimum agreement to get medicine into the country. Because people someone in Aleppo or Damascus who s got an ordinary medical condition, quite apart from a wound or a trauma, is not able to get the medicine for the heart disease or an inoculation for their youngsters. 90% of the medicine used to come inside the country. But now that s been destroyed, and doctors and nurses are being shot dead in the foyers of hospitals, because they re alleged to have treated someone from the other side the day before. This is they re simply not getting medicines, doctors and nurses are being slaughtered. They re forced to flee the country there used to be thousands of doctors in Aleppo, there are now 35 left. I want the world to arrive at a pact that says before we agree on a ceasefire, or a democratic political transition in the country, let s at least agree that medical convoys can get in, that doctors and nurses won t be slaughtered, and that hospitals won t be used as bases or targeted. KATHRYN ROBINSON, PRESENTER: You re watching Meet the Press. A rescue mission is still underway off the coast of Christmas Island, where an asylum seeker boat has capsized with 70 people onboard. Nine bodies have already been recovered. The vessel was first reported missing almost two days before authorities began the search, prompting fresh criticism of the way Australia responds to boats in distress. Our guest today is Foreign Minister Bob Carr. Senator, you ve have said that under a Tony Abbott-led Government, the policy of turning back the boats that would create a foreign policy disaster. Don t we already have a foreign policy disaster on our hands with these lives being lost at sea? BOB CARR: Well, first of all, the information about this is just coming in. Let s express the hope that people are rescued, and we haven t got this tragedy that s being described to us now as a possibility. Let s hope the number of lives lost can at least be minimised. Let s analyse what s going on here, and that is we ve got a people smuggling racket that s entrenched. And people are coming here, not now as a result of persecution, but because they re economic refugees who ve have paid money to people smugglers. There s been a spike in people coming from Iran, for example none of them are claiming persecution. It s the economic pressure of the sanctions in Iran, and the squeeze on living standards. People in these circumstances think if we give $10,000 to a people smuggler in a port in Indonesia, he will get us into Australian waters. That is the essence of this. It s the essence of it. STEFANIE BALOGH: Given that, given the push factors have changed slightly, isn t Laurie Ferguson correct in saying that Labor s dead in Western Sydney unless this issue s addressed? BOB CARR: The people want this resolved. There s no argument about it, they want it resolved. They don t like the idea of Australia having a big and generous immigration program, something that s served this country well, and it being disrupted by people smugglers that is, by people who are saying, Don t worry about the regular process of immigration, we ll get you into Australian waters if you give us the money. I mean, they re the in all of this, the wretchedness is being

5 caused, is being delivered, by people who are running, now, sophisticated businesses. This is not amateur-land. This is people who ve got a business model of recruiting economic migrants who want to come into Australian waters. DENNIS ATKINS: It s been now over six months since the Government began implementing the recommendations of the Houston Panel on this issue, but we haven t seen any slowing down in the rate of the boats arriving, and the numbers on the boats there are now regularly boats with more than 200 people on them. When will we start to see some results from those recommendations that Angus Houston and his panel put forward? BOB CARR: Well Dennis, you ve got about 4 million people on the loose in Asia, 4 million people who are displaced, or in the hands of people traffickers. The pressures are great, and they re not going to go away. The Government could be changed tomorrow Tony Abbott could be made Prime Minister tomorrow and the problem of people smugglers bringing desperate people into our waters will continue. Now, without I got to say without those recommendations of Angus Houston s panel, that we put into place, the message we sent through the offshore processing, this would be worse than it is. There d be more people risking their lives on boats. We sent a powerful message, but of course, the pressures at the other end the push factors continue to be strong. DENNIS ATKINS: And with Tony Abbott s approach, Kevin Rudd said on Friday that his message, that he will turn back the boats, was just a lie. Is Kevin Rudd right there? BOB CARR: He is right, it is a lie. The idea that a boat with 200 people on it, delivered into Australian waters by a people smuggler, can simply be told to turn around and go back to Indonesia or that Australian Border Security forces are going to be able to cart it to an Indonesian port is a fantasy. Now, the key is whether Tony Abbott has pressed on with this. I ve seen him beat a retreat, to say they d do it only when it s safe, they d do it only in some circumstances, they d give it a try. Now, that s a whole lot weaker than that simple slogan that he s trying to gull the Australian people with I ll turn back the boats. STEFANIE BALOGH: Does that slogan come up with your discussions that you or DFAT have with the Indonesians? Do they discuss Tony Abbott s plans, and tell you anything? BOB CARR: Well no, they ve said publicly, they ve said publicly, Stefanie, what their position is namely that they won t accept that. They see themselves the Indonesian position is that they see themselves as a transit nation. You ve got Iranians, increasingly, people from Afghanistan, people from elsewhere, coming through Indonesia to reach Australia. And they think it unfair to them if Australia, by some mechanism, I don t know how Tony Abbott pretends he s going to do it, simply directs it back to Indonesian ports. DENNIS ATKINS: Another issue which is reportedly causing some concern in the region is the Australian Government s crackdown on 457 visas. Is that ever raised with you in your talks?

6 BOB CARR: I ve never had it raised with me, no. I think all countries have got their own immigration procedures, and they know they ve got to recognise that Australia s got a high humanitarian intake, higher than anyone any other nation except the United States. I think they recognise as well that Australia s got a non-discriminatory immigration program. Australia gets good marks for being a multicultural society, and for running a strong immigration program over the years. We ve got nothing to be defensive about, and no, it hasn t been raised with me. KATHRYN ROBINSON: Senator, before we go this morning, we d like to get your comments on Nelson Mandela I would imagine that your thoughts are with his family, with the news that he s been readmitted to hospital overnight and I guess his contribution to South Africa and the global community? BOB CARR: The thing that stands out about Nelson Mandela is his commitment to reconciliation. People put him in jail where he was cruelly treated, especially in the early years on Robin Island and yet he was able to walk out of that experience, and not direct thoughts of hatred or vengeance at the representatives of a white supremacist regime. And I think that s a beacon of hope to those of us who d like to get peace in the Middle East. If it could happen there, after the decades of government based on racial discrimination, then surely there s hope on the West Bank, on the Gaza Strip, and, to be very ambitious, hope for a reconciliation in Syria. KATHRYN ROBINSON: Foreign Minister Bob Carr, thank you for joining us today on Meet the Press. BOB CARR: My pleasure. Thank you.