Subject:
APEC; Liberal preselections; broadband; terror legislation.
E&OE...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well ladies and gentlemen welcome to this news conference which the Premier and I have called after a discussion about the arrangements for APEC which are being released in a great deal more detail today. You will have seen the advertisements in the newspapers this morning and there will be a lot more material released at the end of this news conference. But essentially we want to say something about the detail of the road and public transport arrangements that are going to be in place.
The first thing I want to say; and we're both very happy to say, is Sydney will not be locked down during the APEC Meeting. There will be a significant security presence in part of the city but any suggestion that the city is going to be locked down is completely false. The Sydney Harbour Bridge will remain open. And I say that again, there will be no closure of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Cahill Expressway, the Harbour Tunnel, the Western Distributor and the Eastern Distributor will also remain open. And it will be possible to catch ferries to and from Circular Quay and walk through the city centre. During APEC it will also be possible to visit, shop or dine at East Circular Quay, Darling Harbour or in The Rocks.
There will only be two areas which will be totally locked down, and they are the two principal venues, mainly the Opera House and Government House for the conference and areas immediately preceding them. The hotels at which the leaders will be staying, although there will be a very heavy security presence, they will be open to other people and naturally residents of the area will be able to come and go but they will be contacted in advance about the arrangements. From about the 2nd of September people will notice an increased security presence and although people will be able to come and go to and from the precinct area; which is essentially the area bounded by King, George, Macquarie and Alfred Streets to Circular Quay, and although there will be very significant security activity, including frequent motorcades, people will still be able to come and go subject to vehicle and personal searches if circumstances warrant it.
Now that is really just a brief conspectus. It's important there be security arrangements, people understand that, but both of us are approaching this event with a great sense of optimism. Sydney in my view is the most beautiful big city in the world and I think it will be a wonderful opportunity to place the city of Sydney on display to the rest of the world. I am looking forward to it, and as somebody who grew up in this city, I see this as a great moment for the city of Sydney. This will be the most important international meeting that Australia has ever hosted. I mean, never before will you have in one part of Australia, the Presidents of the United States, Russia, China, the Prime Minister of Japan, the President of Indonesia. I mean it's a very interesting gathering. And we will in fact be hosting the first ever visit to Australia of a head of government or a head of state from either the Russian Federation or the former Soviet Union. Now it's an interesting historic moment that the President of Russia will be coming.
So I just say all of those things. Now sure there will be a heavy security presence. I don't want to play that down and there will be barricades and all that sort of thing, but the place is not going to be shut down and totally locked up. There will be a heavy security presence, there should be, and we won't make any apology for that. The alternative to that is for us to say to the world