Subject:
Status of Forces Agreement; APEC; Balibo inquest
E&OE...
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. It's with very great pleasure that I welcome the President of the Republic of the Philippines to Canberra. Madam, this is the first visit to our capital and to Australia by a President of your country since 1995. You and I, of course, have met on numerous occasions at various international meetings and I remember very fondly the great hospitality of your Government, of you personally, and of the people of the Philippines at the East Asia Summit meeting in Cebu in January of this year. Australia and the Philippines have a long-standing and very valued bilateral relationship. About 140,000 Australians or permanent residents of this country have a Filipino heritage and they all make a wonderful, energetic and well-respected contribution to our society. You and I have witnessed the signing of two very important agreements, the Status of Forces Agreement which will pave the way for very important counter-terrorism exercises, and also an agreement relating to aid strategy and the Foreign Minister today is announcing $250,000 towards certain human rights projects in the Philippines. We are both APEC partners and the upcoming meeting of APEC leaders in Sydney in September will focus amongst other things on the important issue of climate change and both of us agreed in our discussions that climate change was a subject that would be contributed to mightily and perhaps from a slightly different and more pragmatic perspective by the countries of the Asia-Pacific region; and both of us agreed that that was a subject that would be very prominent in our discussions. Madam, you are very, very welcome in Australia. We like and admire your country and your countrymen and women and you come to Canberra with our very, very good wishes and we hope you enjoy your stay in our country.
PRESIDENT ARROYO:
Thank you very much Mr Prime Minister. We're very happy to be here. Australia is a major ally and a strong economic partner of the Philippines. Our friendship has been forged on the anvil of history, from the battles of World War the second and now the war against terror. We're honoured to be here to forge even deeper economic, security and cultural ties that bring our nations together. Even before 9/11 and the terrible Bali bombings, the Philippines has been on the frontline of fighting terrorism in southern Philippines. We're making great strides to wipe out this scourge with the help of allies like Australia. We're vigilant to the terrorist threat, we welcome the power and resources of our allies like Australia. Our allies help us root out and destroy these vicious killers who apply their dislocated and evil ideology on the innocent. As current chair of ASEAN we're also deeply grateful for the leadership role that Australia plays to advance the interest of the entire region. At a time of uncertainty in the world it's now more important than every to build new alliances on a multilateral and bilateral basis to ensure greater political, economic and military security. And there is no more reliable friend and ally that Australia to anchor of peace and stability in the region. We're optimistic about the unity of our region and our prospects for peace, stability and economic growth. Let me take this opportunity to say a little something about the Philippines of today. The Philippines is on a roll. We have just received the report of our first quarter performance and we're happy to say that the Philippines grew 6.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2007. This is the fastest pace in almost two decades, 9.1 per cent growth in services, 5.3 per cent in industry, 4.2 per cent in agriculture. We have also gained from the tripling of investments in economic zones and priority sectors. We will boost our economy further with $40 billion investment in world class infrastructure during the medium term. I'd like to say to our Australian friends who are building Asia's next success story, we invite you, our friends in Australia, to be a profitable part of it. Mr Prime Minister, if I may speak in Filipino to our countrymen watching us live both here in Australia and in the Philippines.
Thank you Mr Prime Minister for allowing me to speak to the Filipinos.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you very much Madam President. A couple of questions from each media group, we'll start with the Philippines.
JOURNALIST:
I have a question for both the PM and the President. Madam President, how have our lessons learnt from our experience with the United States changed the way that our SOFA with Australia was crafted, in particular with respect to the issue of criminal jurisdiction?
PRESIDENT ARROYO:
We will ask, where's Secretary Ebdane? That particular detail I will ask him to answer, but let me say that this is, this is an agreement that will help us to modernise and professionalise our armed forces. It will help us to have inter-operability among our forces in the fight against terrorism and it will help us with intelligence fusion. Overall it will be good for the battle against terrorism. About the criminal jurisdictions.
SECRETARY EBDANE:
One of the concerns which (inaudible) is on the criminal jurisdiction and one of these main, one of the main issue is on the death penalty and since both countries no longer implement such penalty then that had been quashed and we have a specific and defined the jurisdiction. The basic consideration is that the criminal jurisdiction would be based on the rules of court practised by the receiving country and, of course, taking into consideration the governing rules of (inaudible) organisation. So, that's it.
JOURNALIST:
Madam President...
PRIME MINISTER:
Just one I'm sorry, that's, if you don't mind. Can we have one from the Australian media now?
JOURNALIST:
Do you expect there to be a significant agreement out of the APEC forum in Sydney to cut global emissions or regional emissions, carbon emissions when the leaders meet?
PRESIDENT ARROYO:
We laud the leadership of Australia on the issue of climate change and I understand that in a few days time Mr Prime Minister you will be coming up with the recommendations of your taskforce on climate change...
PRIME MINISTER:
Today.
PRESIDENT ARROYO:
Oh today, today.
PRIME MINISTER:
We get the report.
PRESIDENT ARROYO:
So we will be following the leadership of Australia there. Let me say on the part of the Philippines, our emission is similar to the emissions of very clean countries like New Zealand, so our own contribution to our self and to the world is to reforest the Philippines. We just want to go by what he learnt from grade school biology, we breathe in oxygen, we breathe out carbon dioxide. We need the trees to breathe in the carbon dioxide and breathe out the oxygen for us and we're very thankful for Australia's initiative of $200 million support for various reforestation projects of developing countries.
JOURNALIST:
Do you think there will be an agreement out of APEC though?
PRESIDENT ARROYO:
It will be up to the chairman of APEC which is Australia.
PRIME MINISTER:
Filipino?
JOURNALIST:
Mr Prime Minister, I have a question for the President Arroyo if that's ok.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
JOURNALIST:
For the President, can you give assurances that there'll be no repeat of what happened under the BFA in the...
PRESIDENT ARROYO:
Well what they can say is that we will respect the rights of the plaintiff, we will respect the rights of the accused and we will follow the due process of the law. When it comes to any criminal case it is not really the Executive that has the final say, it is the judge, it is the judiciary and they are constitutionally independent.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Prime Minister, how does this treaty help raise your government's perception that the Philippines is, especially Mindanao, is safe haven for terrorist?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh I think there have been significantly successful steps taken against terrorism by the Philippines, working very closely with Australia and other countries. We think real, measured progress has been made. It's not easy, but the numbers have been contained and in many areas reduced, and my general impression is that the Philippines has been quite successful in recent times in the fight against terrorism. But I know the President is not complacent and none of us can afford to be. And the greater cooperation, particularly training exercises involving counter-terrorism that will come out of the Status of Forces Agreement is to be widely welcomed. One more from Australia.
JOURNALIST:
Are you happy about the way the New South Wales Police and coroners conducted themselves with the Governor of Jakarta and are you planning to become involved with the Indonesian Government to try and smooth the current situation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I understand that the New South Wales Premier will be making a statement to the New South Wales Parliament about this issue this afternoon and that is to be welcomed. This request to the Governor of Jakarta came entirely at the initiative of the New South Wales Deputy Coroner. I don't want to comment on the inquest. Coroners are independent within our system. The general observation I would make is that whatever may be the interests and demands of coroners or deputy coroners, proper courtesy should be extended. The man in question was a guest of the New South Wales Government. He wasn't a guest of the Commonwealth Government. He is a person well known to Australia. He is very warm in his feelings towards Australia and he is a significant figure in the Indonesian system. But let me make it clear that I respect the role of coroners in the Australian legal system and they are entitled to act independently, observing as they should, proper processes and courtesies. Now whether the appropriate process was observed on this occasion, that is a matter for the New South Wales Government to explain. Obviously the Commonwealth Government has to handle the overall diplomatic impact, but as to the particulars of what happened, that is a matter for Mr Iemma to explain. And my understanding is...
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, will Australia (inaudible) ties, Prime Minister, with Indonesia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well the relationship with Indonesia is very strong, it's very robust and it's very close. That does not alter the fact that this matter does need to be explained. I am not making any criticism; I am not passing any judgements because I respect the role of coroners in our system to get to the bottom of what happened when lives have been lost, even though those lives may have been lost more than a quarter of a century ago, or more than 30 years ago, but that does not alter the fact that they were Australian lives lost and coroners are entitled to inquire, and they're entitled to seek evidence. Now I am not passing any judgements, but as to whether the correct protocols were observed and all courtesies were observed, that is a matter for the New South Wales Government to explain because the man was in Sydney as a guest of the New South Wales Government and action was taken by New South Wales Police and it is really a matter for the New South Wales Government to explain. But we are following events closely, we have a keen interest because we're very much committed to a close relationship between Australia and Indonesia. Thank you very much. See you at lunch.
[ends]