MIDDLETON: Prime Minister, thanks very much for joining us.
PM: Thank you for the opportunity.
MIDDLETON: Now you had a brief one on one meeting with Hillary Clinton while you were here, what did you tell her?
PM: Well the main impression that I had from my short discussion with Hillary is that she's very much looking forward to coming to Melbourne. We have AUSMIN, our regular discussion on defence matters between the United States and Australia, happening next weekend in Melbourne and she seems very enthusiastic to get to Melbourne and spend a little bit of time.
MIDDLETON: Just how important is it to have the United States onboard as one of the members of the East Asia Summit, along with China, India, Korea, Japan? What does it say about the development of the institution?
PM: It certainly is important and it's something that Australia very much supported and indeed fought for. We wanted there to be a place where the US, China, the major countries of our region, would sit around a table and talk about strategic questions, defence questions and economic questions.
So this East Asia Summit has authorised the US and Russia joining as parts of the East Asia Summit from next year on and that does equip that vision of having a table that brings together these major players in our region, with the rest of the region.
MIDDLETON: Well, let's take one key issue which is in the news at the moment, which is China is increasingly, increasing stridency about its claims, territorial claims in the South China Sea. Speaking of Hillary Clinton she made some pretty solid remarks to the Summit, saying that the United States has a national interest in the freedom of navigation and unimpeded lawful commerce, speaking of this dispute. Did you say anything similar to Wen Jiabao when you met him in your bilateral meeting?
PM: The Australian view of this issue is well known, so I didn't need to particularly go to it today, it is well known that we believe that these issues should be resolved peacefully and through dialogue. Of course there are ways of resolving such disputes, bringing the parties together and that's what we want to see.
MIDDLETON: How concerned then too is Australia about the bitter row now going on between China and Japan over the East China Sea. This is very serious, when you consider the importance of secure trade routes to an exporting nation like Australia and indeed to the prosperity of the whole region.
PM: Our view is the same, of course we've seen these matters and seen them with concern and our view is that these disputes need to be resolved amicably, peacefully, through dialogue.
MIDDLETON: Economic integration is one of the issues which is right within the remit of this organisation. The proposed merger of the Australian and Singaporean stock exchanges, did you discuss that at all in your meeting with the Singaporean Prime Minister?
PM: It was raised by the Singaporean Prime Minister and we both very much agreed that, whilst there is going to be media interest in these matters and community interest in these matters and we both understood that. We also both understood that there is a clear process to be gone through here, a clear process from the Australian point of view, with our Foreign Investment Review Board and that that process would be gone through.
MIDDLETON: Did you get advance warning from either of the participants about what they were planning? I'd have thought you needed this issue like a hole in the head, quite frankly, especially given your view that economic hansonism is on the rise in Australia. Doesn't something like this just give ammunition to those who would reregulate the economy, take it back down the time tunnel, as Paul Keating might have said?
PM: Well, I certainly hope that no one would seek to criticise or disturb what have been long standing and bipartisan arrangements to assessing foreign investment and assessing it through the prism of our national interest. It's what the foreign investment review board does, ask the question is this in Australia's national interest.
MIDDLETON: But you've really got no hope, have you, of getting it through the Parliament as it currently stands: The Greens have already indicated they're opposed to it and some of the Independents too and they've got the balance of power, you can't get the ownership (inaudible.
PM: It would be improper of me to speculate about what the foreign investment review board may or may not decide, so we'll have the process go through.
MIDDLETON: You spoke about Burma to the East Asia Summit, did you say about the question of human rights and did you back Hillary Clinton's very public reiteration of support for a UN Commission of Inquiry into human rights abuses?
PM: My contribution was about the forthcoming elections, which literally are only days away and I said about those elections that they needed to be fair and transparent. That Burma needed to release all political prisoners, obviously including Aung San Suu Kyi and that there needed to be reconciliation within Burma, so that was the perspective I put about the forthcoming elections.
They should be ones in which political parties can participate freely, otherwise they are not going to meet the test of being free and fair elections and we're obviously concerned that, you know, international media is being excluded and the like.
We will continue to provide aid to the Burmese people, but we will continue to be very clear about the need for proper processes, proper elections, political prisoners being released and political reconciliation in Burma.
MIDDLETON: Did you raise this question of a UN Commission of Inquiry with either Wen Jiabao, because the Chinese are doing their best to stifle it, or indeed with India's Manmohan Singh, whose government has indicated it's got reservations about the idea too?
PM: No I didn't raise that question. My contribution on Burma was made in the room at the Summit and focussed on the elections which will be very shortly upon us.
MIDDLETON: Prime Minister, thank you very much.
PM: Thank you.