Phnom Penh, Cambodia
PM: Well it's good to be here in Cambodia for what is my last overseas visit this year and I‘m here to attend the East Asia Summit.
We make the point very clearly in the Asian Century White Paper that the East Asia Summit is an important piece of regional architecture. This is an important meeting.
As economic and strategic weight moves to our region then of course the landscape is becoming more crowded and more complicated, which is why it is important that there is a body, the East Asia Summit, which brings around the table the right people to talk across a broad mandate of issues; political, economic, and security issues.
My predecessor Kevin Rudd worked hard to ensure that the East Asia Summit extended its membership to the United States of America and to Russia. And so I am delighted that President Obama will be here in Cambodia so early in the second term of his presidency, so early after the election.
It will be the second East Asia Summit that he attends and I think that sends a sign about how important this meeting is to the United States of America and to our region.
We will be working at this East Asia Summit to keep broadening and deepening the purpose of this meeting. It's important that it gets on with practical work. It's important that at the East Asia Summit we are building habits of trust and cooperation.
Australia has played a continuing role about suggesting practical initiatives that the East Asia Summit can take forward. So for example, at the last East Asia Swe focused on disaster management in our region.
At this East Asia Summit we will be bringing to the table a very practical initiative on malaria, which of course is such a scourge in the region in which we live.
In addition to the direct work of the summit, Australia has long been a supporter of further economic integration in our region, of better trade links, of better investment links, of ways of trading in our region so people do not encounter behind-the-border barriers.
I think it's a very important part of our vision for this century, as laid out in our white paper, that we see further and deeper economic integration in our region.
I'm therefore delighted that in the company of the Minister for Trade, Dr Emerson, I will attend two important meetings on trade here in Cambodia during the period of the East Asia Summit.
We will participate in the launch of negotiations for a new trade agreement, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, known for better or worse as RCEP. RCEP has ASEAN at its centre and brings together 16 nations.
Australia will be supporting a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership that is comprehensive, covering trade in goods and services as well as investment, which is ambitious and which has the door open to new entrants, to new countries to join should they wish to do so.
In addition I will be attending the meeting convened by President Obama on the Trans-Pacific Partnership. These two initiatives we believe are complementary and Australia will participate in both.
Finally, whilst I'm here at the East Asia Summit, I will also be participating in a range of bilateral discussions. I will be meeting with Premier Wen of China. This is a good opportunity to have a formal bilateral discussion as we approach the fortieth anniversary of diplomatic relations between our two countries.
And of course there will be some events when I'm back in Canberra to mark that very special anniversary of diplomatic relations.
I will also be meeting with Prime Minister Noda of Japan, the Sultan of Brunei who will chair the East Asia Summit next year, and the Prime Minister of Thailand.
I will shortly go to pay my respects and to convey the condolences of the Australian people on the loss of the King-Father of Cambodia. I did express Australia's condolences by way of letter shortly following his death. But I will have the opportunity to convey those condolences in person very shortly.
I'm happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: Some trade officials are talking about 2015 as a possible date for the trade agreement to be done. Are you confident about that date?
PM: Well, we will be doing everything we can to press forward with both sets of discussions as expeditiously as possible. As Dr Emerson can tell you in painstaking detail from his engagement in trade negotiations, they can be very complex matters. But of course we are approaching this with a spirit of wanting to get it done.
JOURNALIST: What do you expect to discuss in relation to security? There is obviously some tension involving with ASEANs and China on the South China Sea. How do you expect those discussions to unfold?
PM: Well, our vision of the East Asia Summit is that it does bring the right people around the table to talk broadly across political, economic, and security matters and those discussions need to be frank discussions.
So we don't believe any issue should be off the table. We do know that ASEAN and China have done some good work on questions involving the South China Sea. But no issue should be off the table.
JOURNALIST: RCEP could include other countries down the track. What possible other countries? US and Russia?
PM: Look, I'm not nominating new members at this stage; we are at the commencement of this process of sixteen countries.
But clearly if you are negotiating an agreement then to have the door open to further entrants makes sense because the more participants the freer the trade, the freer the investment, the more jobs we see in Australia. That's the equation.
JOURNALIST: How important is economic and trade liberalisation to the process of democratisation in political reform of the region?
PM: I think our focus on trade liberalisation is just driven by a fundamental belief that freer trade drives greater economic prosperity and growth. It means more jobs. For us it means more jobs.
We are a great trading nation and we've got nothing to be afraid of. When it comes to economic integration in our region we can seize a high skill, high wage future if we make the right decisions now.
On democratisation, of course there's a set of issues that play into calls for democratisation in nations around the world. I don't think that you can say there's only one trigger and that is freer trade; I don't think that it's as simple as that.
But we believe freer trade, freer investment, the creation of more prosperity and more jobs is good for everyone; it's good for our region.
JOURNALIST: There's been some serious concern about human rights in Cambodia, particularly in relation of forced evictions and the jailing of people who've been standing up against that. The EU has come out and said trade and aid will be wound back unless those evictions stop. Will Australia be pressing that directly?
PM: On Cambodia, we believe a great deal of progress has been made since the days of the Khmer Rouge and all the civil upheaval, associated with that, but we do raise with Cambodia our concerns about human rights in our bilateral relationship. We also raise them through the UN Human Rights Council.
We believe that more needs to be done. We believe particularly more needs to be done with a focus on extrajudicial killings, land disputes, electoral reform and freedom of speech. So we do raise and will continue to raise human rights issues with Cambodia.
JOURNALIST: Is that something that will be raised at this forum though?
PM: We raise them in the context of our bilateral discussions. The East Asia Summit is not a place for bilateral exchanges. Obviously this is a multilateral forum focused on multilateral issues.
JOURNALIST: Are you confident that RCEP and TPP can co-exist?
PM: Yes I am.
JOURNALIST: Do you see there's a possibility of those two partnerships merging at some point on the road to free trade in the Asia Pacific?
PM: We think that there is a vision here at the end, which is a region in the Asia Pacific, which is a free trade region, which is an integrated economic region. It's the region in which we live and that would be in Australia's interest.
It would mean more jobs for Australians. We think that there are various ways that can get us to that broader vision. And we're prepared to be in all starters that can get us there to that broader vision, which is why we will be there for the RCEP, it's why we'll be there for the TPP.
Now how these negotiations for each will roll out, how they will ultimately relate to each other is something that will develop during the course of the discussions. But we're clear on where we would like to get to and we're prepared to be in all potential starting discussions that help us get there.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, on a domestic matter, your Government's issued a discussion paper today ahead of setting terms of reference for the Royal Commission into Child Abuse. But it only allows one week for responses to come back. Why have you only allowed one week and is that really long enough for people to respond, for individuals as well as institutions that wanted to respond before you set those terms of reference?
JOURNALIST: The paper that we've put out is about consultation on the terms of reference on the structure of the Royal Commission and a number of issues associated with it.
We're balancing here, wanting to get on with the job and giving people an appropriate time to respond. So we have asked people to try and respond in that timeframe.
Certainly if there was a body and they really wanted to have their voice heard and they were not able to provide their feedback in that timeframe then we would receive it beyond that timeframe.
But in order to keep the process moving of establishing the Royal Commission we did think it was appropriate to set a target time for people to fold back their views. We're out there in the market for consultation, but to set a target time for them to fold back their views to us.
JOURNALIST: Should the federal government fund the whole thing?
PM: Well, we are prepared to do what is necessary to get the Royal Commission up and functioning. One of the issues raised in the consultation paper, and it's been the subject of discussion between the Attorney General and her counterparts in the states, is whether or not there would be a joint endeavour; Commonwealth-State. Those discussions are continuing.
I don't think any of this should bog down on questions of financing or money; I haven't got that in my mind at all. What I've got in my mind is how we can best make this work. So we will continue to have those discussions with the states.
JOURNALIST: There's a poll today Prime Minister that suggests you've got 95 per cent support for this Royal Commission. Are you concerned that expectations may be raised too high and that people may feel that it's going to be able to do more than, physically, it can?
PM: The Royal Commission was the right decision and so I think it is being received well by the nation because it's the decision the nation needed. People do want to see these tragic instances of child abuse addressed and they do want to see our institutions in the future not repeat these mistakes of the past.
Now, people will come to this process with a variety of expectations. The best thing we can do is be consultative and clear as we move through this journey, which I've indicated in a very forthright way will take some time.
The best thing we can do is be consultative and clear about what we're trying to do, what we're trying to achieve and how people can engage in it.
JOURNALIST: Other than the TPP meeting tomorrow morning, are you hoping to have a meeting with Barack Obama?
PM: I will see President Obama at the TPP meeting. We do not have a formal bilateral discussion with President Obama but I expect to see him in and around the course of the next day and a bit.
JOURNALIST: What's your response to Obama's tour of Southeast Asia? Is it a positive thing for the region and what does it mean for Australia?
PM: I think it's a great thing for the region that the first international trip President Obama has taken since his re-election is to our region and that he is here attending in person his second East Asia Summit.
JOURNALIST: What's the key point from the white paper that you want to get across to regional leaders?
PM: We've been briefing regional leaders on the breadth of the white paper. So we've been talking to them about our vision for our nation's future, and our understanding of these challenges and opportunities of the era in which we live and the region in which we live.
So we've been talking right through it. Our strategic outlook on the region as outlined in the white paper, the economic opportunities of this age, the people-to-people links which matter so much in nations having an understanding of each other, the cultural exchanges which help with understanding, our language program which we want to see in Australian schools which has been well received by leaders in the region.
You would have heard, for example, President Yudhoyono when I met with him say very forthrightly that he was, I'm going to use the expression, ‘tickled pink'. He didn't use the expression ‘tickled pink' but he was very, very pleased to see that Bahasa was one of those languages.
So, we are briefing comprehensively on the white paper.
JOURNALIST: Are you concerned with your meeting with Premier Wen following the meeting of AUSMIN in regards to more troops in Darwin?
PM: Not at all, and I've had the opportunity to speak formally and informally to Chinese leaders well and truly since the announcement of that decision. Indeed, I had the opportunity to brief President Hu that we were making a decision of that nature before it was announced publically, so it's been very well known to China for a very long period of time now.
Okay, thank you very much.