TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINISTER
THE HON JOHN HOWARD MP
PRESS CONFERENCE, MELBOURNE
3 September 2001
PRIME MINISTER:
Ladies and Gentlemen I think you are aware of what occurred in the Federal Court this morning. As a result of that I can inform you that the transfer of the people from the Tampa to HMAS Manoora can begin in about 30-45 minutes. It’s anticipated that the transfer will take 6 hours and if that proves to be the case I’m informed that the Manoora will sail tonight for Port Moresby. I welcome the fact that progress is at last being made in providing what I hope will be a proper solution to this very difficult issue. Conditions on the Manoora are much better than conditions on the Tampa. It is a very large amphibious troop-carrying vessel. It has 2-3 operating theatres. It’s frequently at sea for weeks on end with hundreds of troops so the conditions on it are much better than the conditions on the Tampa.
I thank again the Government of Papua New Guinea as well as the governments of Nauru and New Zealand for their cooperation in finding a solution which is both consistent with Australia’s humanitarian attitude to this very difficult issue as well as our desire to maintain our border integrity by not allowing the processing of the refugees, the people claiming to be refugees, on Australian land territory. That has been our consistent position all along. It continues to be our position and it will be maintained as vigorously as the legal circumstances allow. That there is no legal obligation on Australia to bring these people onto Australian territory or to have their status claimed under the Migration Act in any way dealt with in Australia.
They are on our advice, and we maintain this position, foreign nationals who do not have a legal right to be in Australia. We have sought to find a fair and decent humanitarian way of dealing with this problem. We have found that and I hope it proves possible in the final result for that plan to be fully executed.
Last night I had a discussion on the telephone with the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. I outlined to him the arrangement that had been concluded with the Government of Papua New Guinea. He expressed satisfaction with that arrangement and I would expect amongst other things that officials of the International Organisation for Migration, the IOM, will go on board the Manoora and travel to Papua New Guinea with the people who have been taken off the Tampa.
I confirm that on Wednesday Mr Ruddock and Mr Reith will travel to Jakarta. There they will join Mr Downer who is currently in London attending a meeting of CMAC Which is dealing with the problem of Zimbabwe and the upcoming CHOGM meeting and the three of them will conduct intensive discussions with the Indonesian Government regarding possible closer bilateral cooperation on the issue of people smuggling and the general problem of illegal migration through Indonesia. This will not be the first contact between the Australian Government and the Indonesian Government on this issue. We have for some time now been putting to the Indonesian Government that there needs to be greater cooperation. We stand ready to fund through the IOM the cost of constructing a holding and assessing centre in Indonesia to enable that country to deal more effectively and more appropriately with people who come to Indonesia with a view to getting on boats and coming to Australia.
The final thing I want to say at this news conference is to remark upon the extraordinary behaviour of the Opposition on this issue. The Opposition has had four positions in less than a week. When I first announced what the government was doing in relation to the Tampa, Mr Beazley said the last thing the Government wanted was a negative carping Opposition and offered bipartisan support. Within a few hours that bipartisan support had been withdrawn and he was accusing me and the Government of all manner of political things such as Hansonism and wedge politics. A few days later, namely on Saturday when I announced that we had reached an agreement with Nauru and New Zealand he welcomed that as being a humanitarian way of solving the problem and then began to talk about the medium to longer term. A day later Mr McMullan and others were saying that the arrangement I had reached was humiliating to Australia. I don’t know how something that is humanitarian on Saturday can then be humiliating on Sunday. And this morning we had the Shadow Attorney General coming back into the middle again, perhaps with a fifth position, suggesting that one way of handling this would be for the people to be transferred to the Manoora. The reality is that the Opposition has chopped and changed on this issue virtually daily. It would have been in Australia’s national interest if the Opposition had supported the Government. It certainly would have been helpful if the Opposition had supported the Border Protection Bill in the Senate. That would have become law and it would have made absolutely certain that what we have in mind was given effect to. Even if it had have been on the basis of the sunset clause that I offered to the Leader of the Opposition. I find their behaviour extraordinary. It is contradictory. It’s flip-flopped from one side to the other and it deserves to be condemned.
Any questions?
JOURNALIST:
Do you expect to talk to President Megawati before this week’s ministerial talks and secondly on your American trip are you now factoring in discussions at the UN level…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the question of President Megawati talking to me is a matter for her. The ministerial visit goes ahead irrespective of whether we have spoken. But Michael, Indonesia made it very plain at the beginning that she was not going to take these people back. It’s also important to bear in mind that Australia has been talking to Indonesia for some time now about the need to get a memorandum of understanding and to establish with Indonesia the sort of arrangements that we have with countries like China. And it has not proved easy thus far to achieve that, not proved possible. We’ll continue to pursue it but there seems to be this curious notion that all one has to do is establish telephone contact and the problem is solved. You know, would that it were that easy.
As far as the American trip is concerned at this stage I haven’t given any thought to the relevance of this to my trip to the United States. I will if he is in New York at the time, I will in any event be seeing the Secretary General, and if I do I will naturally talk about this matter to him. But I had planned before this issue blew up I had planned to talk to Kofi Annan in New York. So if that is still possible, if he’s there, I will certainly see him and talk about this and other matters when that meeting takes place.
JOURNALIST:
You said he was satisfied with the arrangements…
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
JOURNALIST:
Did he also indicate his preferred option was to bring them here?
PRIME MINISTER:
He didn’t mention that last night. He accepts that we are not agreeable to that as I have made it clear to him in the three conversations that I’ve had with him that that is not acceptable to Australia.
JOURNALIST:
What do you think of the job ads figures?
PRIME MINISTER:
The job ad figures look encouraging, very encouraging. You can have a degree of unpredicability but I’m encouraged by it, the Australian economy is performing very strongly, we’ve had some very good statistics over the last week, they have tended to be overshadowed by the issue of which I have just been speaking. But the trade figures are very good, the foreign debt figures were lower, the Current Account Deficit, 2% Current Account Deficit is a stunning figure, a stunning figure and the job ads indications today are also encouraging.
JOURNALIST:
If the Federal Court decision goes against the Government, what arrangements do you have in mind…[inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t want to hypothesise. We maintain that the application has no legal basis and we continue to oppose it vigourously and will continue to do so vigourously as the legal circumstances allow. But we have legal counsel doing that in the Federal Court, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to do a double act here as far as the legal case is concerned except to make the obvious point that if the Border Protection Bill had been passed things would have been quite different from the start.
JOURNALIST:
How much money is the government giving to Nauru to take these people?
PRIME MINISTER:
We have undertaken to bear the full cost.
JOURNALIST:
Beyond that though [inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh look the question of whether individual pacific island states might in the future receive assistance from Australia is a matter we’re always prepared to be open minded about. And that includes Nauru obviously.
JOURNALIST:
On Saturday you said rather than be disadvantaged they would actually benefit from this arrangement…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they could benefit.
JOURNALIST:
How so?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think in many ways a small country like that being seen to make a timely contribution to resolving it, it generates a great deal of good will and I think both in terms of respect and positive feelings and perhaps otherwise. But look I’m not canvassing anything specific, I’m just making the obvious point that it’s open to Australia to continue to be generous to pacific island states with aid and assistance and we have been in the past and there’s no reason why we can’t be even more so in the future.
JOURNALIST:
…naval boats and military aircraft of the waters between Australia and Indonesia actually stop any more people smuggler boats coming here, if you’re not going to shoot at them what will it actually do?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they will act in a surveillance patrol and deterrent capacity. I’m not going to go into the detail of what they might specifically do, there’s no point in doing that except to say they will act legally and decently. We believe that the increased surveillance, increased presence will have a greater deterrent effect. I’m not promising, I’m not guaranteeing that no further boats will get through, I can’t do that, that’s not possible. But it will make, in our view, a difference.
JOURNALIST:
What will happen when those three weeks are up?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we’re going to review it at the end of that period. And make a decision as to what we’re going to do.
JOURNALIST:
The flag anniversary that you’ve just attended…
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
JOURNALIST:
What are your current thoughts on changing the Australian flag and should it be addressed as an election issue?
PRIME MINISTER:
My current thoughts? I’m totally opposed to it, the Australian flag being changed.
JOURNALIST:
And should it be an election issue?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I won’t be bringing it up, a change, if the Labor Party wants to bring it up it can, that’s a matter for the Labor Party. As far as the Coalition is concerned we are quite happy with the present flag and therefore won’t be raising it as an election issue…
JOURNALIST:
…Steve Bracks about you taking control (inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
I haven’t seen the details of that, it sounds like a little bit of sort of a flick pass to me. I mean we, it’s very interesting, we’ve just established a financial regime that gives the states a growth in revenue over the years ahead and they want to get rid of some responsibilities. It doesn’t seem to me to make much sense.
JOURNALIST:
Would you be prepared to sit down and….
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, if he makes a proposition to me I’ll react to it but I haven’t had any proposition made to me so I’m not going to speculate on how I might respond.
JOURNALIST:
Do you have an idea of the total cost of the arrangements you’ve put in place to get the people to Nauru and…
PRIME MINISTER:
No I don’t, it will obviously cost some money, Michael, but so would receiving the people into Australia. An estimated $50,000 a head, that’s $22 million for 460 people. But I’m not raising the issue of cost, you are, I don’t regard that as the prime consideration, it’s important but it’s not the only issue and it’s certainly not the prime issue.
JOURNALIST:
Will it cost more or less to send them elsewhere?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well it depends on how long they stay there. It depends on how quickly the processing is and it depends on what ultimately comes out. I mean New Zealand is not seeking any reimbursement of the cost, Nauru clearly must be fully reimbursed and supported in relation to the processing of people but I can’t at this stage give a precise estimate of that but I can say to you that taking them in is not costless, it’s very expensive running detention centres, it’s very expensive processing them so you’ve got to weigh that against the cost of them being looked after even for a number of months in Nauru.
JOURNALIST:
Will Australian personnel be involved in detention on Nauru…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that’s a matter we need to discuss with the Nauruan authorities. There is a group of people who’ve already arrived there including some immigration department officials and others and there are some officials from the IOM. We obviously will want the operation there superintended by the IOM and potentially other international organisations so that the assessment process is carried out according to the international modalities which is the appropriate thing because it’s not on Australian Territory. We could well be involved, obviously, if we are wanted we will help in every way we can because we’re keen to see the thing done expeditiously and fairly and appropriately.
JOURNALIST:
How long do you expect the processing to take in the two countries?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t know. Well in the case of New Zealand, that’s a matter for New Zealand and in cooperation with the IOM and in the case of Nauru it’s a matter for essentially the agencies and the authorities there. We would hope that it would be done fairly quickly but we’re certainly not going to presume to tell either country how quickly it should take place, that will be a matter for them.
JOURNALIST:
If they prove to be genuine refugees, how many is Australia willing to take?
PRIME MINISTER:
We have said that…. in relation to New Zealand, New Zealand has said that any of them assessed as refugees New Zealand will take. In the case of the people on Nauru, Nauru does not have the capacity to do that and we have said that we will take our fair share.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it’s too early to say because I don’t know how many are going to assessed, except to make it plain we will take our fair share but we will expect other countries to do likewise. We will expect Norway for example to take some and I have to say again that Australia takes more refugees per capita than any country in the world except Canada.
JOURNALIST:
Do we accept any liability to pay damages to the Tampa?
PRIME MINISTER:
No.
JOURNALIST:
How would you describe our relations with Norway now?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I don’t think they’ll suffer any long term damage. I mean obviously there’s a difference of view on this, but we don’t retreat any way from the position that we’ve taken. And our refugee record is just as good as Norway’s. We don’t really, easily accept criticism based on lack of burden sharing by this country. And some of the criticism that has been made of Australia by other countries, some of it has been quite ludicrous given the long and very meritorious humanitarian record this country has and we’ve taken enormous number of refugees per capita, far more than a country like Norway.
JOURNALIST:
You don’t believe it has damaged our humanitarian record?
PRIME MINISTER:
No I don’t because our humanitarian record is judged by what we do not what we say. I mean it is what you do as a country, it’s not the sermons you deliver and the lectures you give others that matter. What really matters is how many people you take and we take more per capita than other country except Canada, far more than Norway does.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Ah well the idea is that if the legal position is fully resolved and there are no constraints then they will be taken off the ship at Port Moresby and put on aircraft and can I just say that I do appreciate Mr Branson’s offer in relation to flying them but that’s never been the problem, it’s resolving some of the legal proceedings that has been potentially the impediment.
JOURNALIST:
But you’d have to anticipate an appeal…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t know, I mean I don’t know what the other side is going to do. I mean our position is we don’t think the claim made in the Federal Court has a proper legal basis, we are opposed to it, we are vigorously opposed to it, we will continue to vigorously oppose it as vigorously as the legal circumstances allow. I don’t want to get into the detail of that now, there’s nothing to be achieved by that but we remain very strongly of the view that there is no legal basis for it and I repeat that if the Border Protection Bill had not been blocked by the Labor Party and the Democrats then this issue would be academic.
JOURNALIST:
The refusal of Megawati to return your call…[inaudible] future co-operation on this issue?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don’t think there’s anything I could add, I mean the facts speak for themselves, she hasn’t responded. But look you know we just move on.
JOURNALIST:
Will the extra surveillance be of Australian waters or …..
PRIME MINISTER:
No they’re in international waters, they’re not in Australian waters, they’re in international waters between the Indonesian archipelago and Australia.
JOURNALIST:
[inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon?
JOURNALIST:
A situation like the Tampa could occur again…[inaudible].
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we’ll have a bit of experience if it does. I certainly don’t, I would not hope that is the case but you just don’t know. Look our position in relation to the increased surveillance is that it will, we hope act as an additional deterrent but I’m not promising or guaranteeing or holding out the likelihood that it’s going to completely eliminate boats coming to this country, that’s obviously expecting too much but we hope that we can make a difference. The long term solution is of course agreement with other countries to stop the flow at source and that requires political will from Indonesia and we’ll continue to urge that on Indonesia, we’ll continue to help, we’ll continue to offer but it takes both parties to get that agreement.
Thank you.
END
