Hainan Island, People's Republic of China
PM: Well I am delighted to be back here in China and over the next two days I will be here attending the Bo'ao Forum with Ministers Emerson and Carr.
I will during the course of this forum have the opportunity to meet with President Xi of China.
I will also have the opportunity to address the Forum's opening session and will be able to hear first-hand from a number of leading Chinese business players as well as a number of leading Australian business people.
From here I will travel to Shanghai where I will be joined by Minister Shorten. I will be focusing on the growing financial services linkages between Australia and China and I will also have the opportunity to meet the Shanghai Party Secretary and address one of China's elite leadership academies.
Then I will go to Beijing where the centrepiece of my program will be a meeting withPremier Li.
I will also in Beijing be able to engage with members of the Australia China CEO Roundtable, focus on our education relationship and address a business lunch.
China, of course, is absolutely pivotal to Australia's political, strategic and economic interests.
Our relationship with China is a strong one and it's a diverse one.
Our trade links are of course huge with China itself taking one third of all of our exports - it's our largest trading partner in the exchange of goods and services.
China is also the largest source of overseas students coming to study in Australia, it is the second largest source of visitors to Australia, and it is growing in its investment relationship with Australia as well.
The pace of change is truly staggering, truly remarkable, the pace of change in China but also the pace of change in the relationship between our two countries.
Since I was last here in April 2011, for example, the Chinese economy has grown by 18 per cent.
More than 13 million Chinese people have graduated from higher education institutions and around 100 million more Chinese people have plugged into the internet.
So the rate of change is truly remarkable.
My visit accompanied by the most senior political delegation to ever come fromAustralia to China is therefore a timely one.
I am here at a time of important opportunity, to put a spotlight on the relationship between our two countries very early in the term of China's new leaders and to demonstrate our commitment, Australia's commitment, to strong and constructive ties with China.
With President Xi and Premier Li, I will be focusing on how we can improve this vital relationship for Australia.
I will be particularly focusing on four aspects: how we can strengthen the strategic oversight and leadership level of the relationship.
Number two, how we can continue to grow and diversify our trade and economic links.
Put simply, that means for Australia, more jobs and better jobs.
For Australia it means more prosperity, and for China it means the complementary things that Australia can do as China's economy continues to grow.
Then thirdly, how we can further other core elements of the relationship including defence ties, people to people links and of course our very important education linkages, the things that bring particularly young people together.
And fourth and finally, how we can strengthen our cooperation to combat climate change and on carbon pricing.
During this visit, I am looking forward to practical steps in these four areas and I'm also looking forward to helping build and develop the comprehensive relationship that is envisaged between Australia and China in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper.
What that means is a relationship that extends well beyond the economic and a relationship in which Australia and China work together, not just bilaterally, but where we have common interests regionally and globally.
So I will during the course of this visit be discussing a number of questions associated with regional security and stability including, of course, the issue of North Korea.
Australia has made very clear its condemnation of the belligerent and provocative statements we have heard from North Korea.
We have welcomed the fact that China has supported strong sanctions at the UN Security Council.
I will be urging the Chinese leadership to use its influence to help with this issue with North Korea and, most particularly, to help see an end to these provocative statements, to get North Korea to engage again with the Six Party Talks, and to get North Korea to accept the offer of the President of South Korea for trust building dialogue.
Before I came away last night, I did have the opportunity to speak to the President ofSouth Korea, to President Park, and to ensure her of the solidarity of Australia with South Korea at this time.
As I pursue these discussions on regional security issues, they will not only encompass security issues but broader issues in the region -we collaborate together in APEC, we collaborate together in the East Asia Summit, we work together globally through the G20 so there is much to do and much to talk about on this visit.
I am very much looking forward to it and I am looking forward to taking a few questions
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, on North Korea, there have been some concerns expressed in Seoul that there is the possibility of over reaction on the American side as well. Is that a danger that both sides could jump at shadows here. How serious is that risk?
PM: I think the United States is showing restraint and a calm approach here, a very calm and purposeful approach.
I think South Korea is showing remarkable restraint and I made that point to President Park when I spoke to her.
But of course amongst the many risks, and this shouldn't be taken in the context of your question, this is a more general remark - but one of the many risks here when we see this kind of provocative and belligerent set of statements from North Korea is the risk of miscalculation.
I have been to the zone between North Korea and South Korea. It is one of the most heavily militarised places in the world so there is always the risk of miscalculation when tensions are inflamed, which is why it is very important that we all do everything we can to get North Korea to step back from these provocative and belligerent statements.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what further steps can China take to deal with this situation, to ease the tension there and will Australia be backing any further moves in the UN Security Council?
PM: The UN Security Council has already dealt with a sanctions package, and we very much welcome China's support for that package of sanctions.
Of course Australia will put in to affect all of those sanctions, as is China, and we have our own autonomous sanctions as well against North Korea.
The aim here I think for everyone including China with its degree of influence over North Korea, is to put pressure on North Korea to cease the conduct that we have seen in recent days.
JOURNALIST: And you will be raising that directly in your formal meetings with the President and the Premier?
PM: Yes I will.
JOURNALIST: On defence matters, what will you be bringing in the form of suggestions to the Chinese about the ways in which we can find ways to engage with them more directly?
PM: We already have an ongoing engagement on defence matters - it's actually one of the unremarked features of the relationship generally - that at a high level we have had military-to-military dialogue over 16 years, one of only two nations in the world to do so, with the PLA.
So there has been a long pattern of discussion and dialogue between senior military leaders in China and in Australia but we are always prepared to keep working with the PLA for other measures that build cooperation and confidence between the two.
We think, for example, exchanges into academies and the like, training - showing what our training system is like, having a look at how training happens here. Those sorts of things are good measures.
JOURNALIST: Could it go as far as joint exercises or those sorts of engagements?
PM: Potentially over time and one of the things that is much talked about in the region is our ability to work together in the context of humanitarian assistance and disaster response and relief.
In the region in which we live, all too often we are urgently making calls to each other to see who can help out following things like the tsunami in Japan, the earthquake in New Zealand, even our own seasons of fire and floods others have made offers and come to our assistance.
And so the more you can get people working together on things like disaster relief and assistance, the better.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, will you be raising the issue of human rights, Chin's human rights record, and does the new leadership team give you an opportunity to press further than you have been able to in the past on that issue?
PM: Well I will raise human rights and I have raised human rights in the past.
We have an ongoing human rights dialogue with China.
We are very admiring of the efforts that China has made to lift literally hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and to give them better lives as a result.
But we have concerns about human rights and we are clear in saying so and in pursuing a human rights dialogue.
JOURNALIST: But the new leadership team - does that give you an opportunity to press that further, given they are-
PM: This, for us, is a continuing work and we will take the same approach that we have which is we raise our concerns.
We raise those concerns both at the level of meetings that I engage in, but we have a standing human rights dialogue as well.
JOURNALIST: When you say you raise your concerns, what does that specifically mean? When you raise a concern - give us the language you might use.
PM: Well, I have met with Chinese leaders in the past and of course we point to concerns we have about human rights, if there are contemporary issues that have come to public attention, then we raise those concerns.
I think Australia's concern about human rights is a well-known feature of our foreign policy suite, what we do internationally - and so there isn't a standard set of words, but there is a standard set of values that Australians bring to the table in our engagement with China and around the world.
JOURNALIST: But is there any particular issue this time though, in terms of human rights that you might specifically bring up?
PM: I think there has been some concern by us and we have raised concerns about issues in relation to Tibet and human rights matters there.
JOURNALIST: What about the five Australians who have been jailed in China over business related disputes? Is that something you would bring up?
PM: I do raise consular concerns; I have done so in the past.
Given the various spheres of responsibility, the appropriate meeting to do that in is the meeting with Premier Li.
JOURNALIST: Whilst you were in the air, Bill Shorten and the Treasurer announced some changes to superannuation.
This has been bubbling away with speculation for a number of weeks. The political pain that your Government and you have suffered personally - why wasn't this unveiled earlier and why didn't you wait until budget time?
PM: Well, as I've said consistently when answering questions about superannuation over a number of days now - I've said first and foremost that superannuation is a Labor creation.
It would not be available to working Australians if it was not for the work of earlier Labor Governments.
We are the political party of superannuation. It is safe in our hands.
When we look at superannuation, what drives us is getting a decent retirement for working people and questions of sustainability.
They are the answers I've given to the many questions I've been asked about superannuation, and what you can see from today's package is exactly as I have said over the last little period when people have been asking me about this.
Superannuation is well and truly safe in Labor's hands.
We will always put first and foremost getting working people a decent retirement, and we will work for the sustainability of the system, and that's what the package today was about.
JOURNALIST: Just back on North Korea, Prime Minister, having spoken to President Park last night, what sense do you have now of the motivation of North Korea and its leader in taking these steps at this time in this manner, why they are doing this?
PM: I am not in a position to say that I've got a new insight from my discussion with President Park.
My purpose of that discussion was to express solidarity with the people of South Korea, to indicate that Australians were thinking of them at this time, to indicate that we would continue to press and use our voice to see North Korea stop the conduct we've seen in recent days, accept her offer of trust building discussions and we have maintained a consistent call to re-enliven the Six Party Talks.
But to do that requires North Korea to take a different stance and a different outlook than it has demonstrated in recent days.
I am not going to theorise on the motivations of the leader in North Korea, but I will say this about the outcome, this is a regime that cannot feed and properly care for its people that engages in some of the worst human rights abuses that we see around the world.
It is not in the interests of North Korea's people for this kind of belligerence to be demonstrated by the leadership of North Korea.
It would be in the interest of the people of North Korea to see more stability, and certainly over time, better lives.
Thanks very much.
[ENDS]