PRIME MINISTER:
Well ladies and gentlemen the APEC meeting in Bangkok has concluded, it was an excellent meeting, it's a tribute to the Prime Minister of Thailand, Mr Thaksin, that the arrangements were excellent, the hospitality was terrific, the chairmanship was of the highest order and I thought the outcomes were as good as I have experienced at any APEC meeting, in some respects better than most.
I therefore on behalf of Australia thank the Prime Minister for his hospitality, I'm particularly pleased that the occasion of the APEC meeting was one that brought to consummation the negotiations on the Australia-Thailand Free Trade Agreement, I look forward to the Prime Minister bringing a number of his senior Ministers to Canberra before a joint Cabinet meeting and the formal signing of the agreement some time during the first half of next year.
The communiqu‚ issued by the Leaders met all of the expectations of Australia, there's a strong commitment to the removal of agricultural export subsidies, there's a very strong emphasis on counter-terrorism. Australia's two proposals regarding the adoption of advance passenger information systems and the development of a regional movement alert system, both of which will make a contribution to anti-terrorism, they've both been adopted. In addition to that Australia will contribute US$1 million to a new regional trade and financial security fund to be administered by the Asian Development Bank.
I thought the meeting matched the imperatives of continuing to focus very much on trade and economic development whilst recognising that in the world of terrorism in which we live you can't divorce terrorism from trade and economic development. It's been said before that for example the Indonesian economy suffered very badly as a result of the terrorist attack on Bali and therefore all people agreed at the meeting that there was a link between the two and it was very important that that be the focus.
One of the great advantages of this particular gathering is that it does enable a lot of useful bilateral discussion to take place, it is in many respects, and I made this point over lunch a body whose origins are entirely about the present and the future rather than the past. I think of so many of the other bodies of which Australia is a member and conferences we attend, worthy though they are all, they're rooted in some way in the disagreements of the past or in our country's history or the history of the relations of other states. This body is entirely a product of the post Cold War era, it's entirely, it's completely indiscriminate as far as ethnicity or race or political system, all that brings it together is a shared desire for greater prosperity and partnership in the Asian-Pacific region and in that way it does have a special character and it therefore has a potential over time which is worth working to bring about and to fully realise, I certainly found it a very valuable meeting and I look forward to having the opportunity to represent Australia at the next meeting which will be held in South America, in Chile in November of next year, subject perhaps to the wishes of the Australian people.
JOURNALIST:
Before or after the election?
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't know.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister this agreement (inaudible) how does it set the scene for the meetings that are coming up in Australia this week with President Bush and President Hu, is this the sort of permanent backdrop...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think it certainly is the backdrop that I would have wanted, it is certainly consistent, or the coverage of it is consistent with the sort of issues that will be discussed by myself and President Bush and President Hu Jintao, it says quite a lot about terrorism, it says a lot about economic growth and development, it says a great deal about North Korea as well, I had an opportunity last night, an again this morning, to talk to President Hu Jintao about the importance of continued patience and application and effort in relation to North Korea, I thanked him again for the constructive role that China has played and we both agreed that a continuation of discussions within the framework of the six party group was very desirable.
JOURNALIST:
Did Hu give any communication about whether he'd support a multi-lateral or multi-national security guarantee in terms...
PRIME MINISTER:
No he didn't but I expect that we will talk further about that issue when we are in Australia.
JOURNALIST:
Is it something Australia supports?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I think I'll wait until we have our discussions.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, the Thai Government's announced today that it's got a proposal to convene talks on Burma national reconciliation but they've secured the support both of Burma and of China and would like like-minded countries to be involved, what's Australia's attitude to those kind of talks?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, subject to knowing a bit more about them we would want to be positive.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, this is the last APEC that Dr Mahathir of Malaysia, he's retiring...
PRIME MINISTER:
Where are you from?
JOURNALIST:
Sorry, I'm Richard Lloyd-Parry from the Times, you've overlapped with Dr Mahathir over a number of years...
PRIME MINISTER:
That's a way of describing it I suppose, yes.
JOURNALIST:
Well you can describe it as you like, could you give us your assessment of his contribution to the Asia Pacific?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I don't intend to, I think it's better that I let him recede gently into retirement.
JOURNALIST:
You were standing behind him in the photograph, you didn't speak to him?
PRIME MINISTER:
I extended to him formal cordiality.
JOURNALIST:
You didn't poke him in the ribs or anything?
PRIME MINISTER:
There's nothing formal or cordial about that.
JOURNALIST:
You shook hands at the end, did you say anything to him, wishing him well for the future?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I shook hands with him, look formal cordiality is what I extended to him at the beginning of the meeting, I don't think we had any exchange subsequent to that.
JOURNALIST:
I mean even his critics would accept that he's achieved quite a lot...
PRIME MINISTER:
I don't intend to give any kind of political valedictory about him, I don't intend to talk about him full stop.
JOURNALIST:
How do you expect the DOHA round to unfold now against the backdrop of this, will you be empowering ambassadors to take more decisions (inaudible)?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well they don't really need from us that kind of encouragement, what has happened in Bangkok is a reinforcement of our views about DOHA. This will help but no one thing is going to get DOHA back on track, we need to shift the European obstinacy on DOHA before we're going to achieve anything.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, CNN's reporting that America would have liked to have seen a ban on MANPADS as they're called, is the counter terrorism outcome less than it should have been?
PRIME MINISTER:
There was nothing that I picked up at the meeting to suggest that the Americans were unhappy with the outcome on MANPADS, nothing at all.
JOURNALIST:
How much, we're contributing US$1 million...
PRIME MINISTER:
And the Americans are contributing US$5.4, I don't know what, if anything, other people are contributing, this is to a capacity building exercise to be run by the Asian Development Bank, we of course have contributed different amounts on a bilateral basis, for example with Indonesia, for capacity building but this is something that's going to be done through the ADB. My understanding is that the United States and Australia at this stage are the only contributors, now there may be others, I hope there are, but at this stage they're the only two I know of.
JOURNALIST:
1939 and the jacket, please explain?
PRIME MINISTER:
Please explain?
JOURNALIST:
What can you tell us about...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I've got to tell you I haven't checked, can somebody help me, what year is it?
JOURNALIST:
It's the Year of the Rabbit.
PRIME MINISTER:
The rabbit is it?
JOURNALIST:
But there's no rabbit on your jacket.
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm told that the rabbit was not meant to be on the jacket, it was meant to be somewhere else, but I haven't found it yet. Anything else?
JOURNALIST:
Is there any intention for North Korea to be formally in the declaration or that was...
PRIME MINISTER:
It was always going to be there, well there was always a view which we shared that it should be there.
JOURNALIST:
Foreign exchange and...
PRIME MINISTER:
The foreign exchange?
JOURNALIST:
Was there any...
PRIME MINISTER:
There was no discussion at any of the plenary sessions about the exchange rate practices of member countries, if you're talking about the Chinese currency's rate of exchange with other currencies, no that was not discussed no, either generally or specifically, it may have been discussed in bilateral exchanges, I don't know, but it certainly wasn't discussed in any of the bilateral exchanges that I had.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, just a bit of clarification, my copy of this final declaration doesn't have any reference to North Korea.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I thought there was a reference. Yes, in the Chairman's oral statement.
JOURNALIST:
What is its status if it's not in the declaration?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well my understanding was that he was going to make a statement about it, I thought he did.
JOURNALIST:
I think he made a statement that it's going to be discussed.
PRIME MINISTER:
That's right, yes, yes, he mentioned it in his oral statement, yes.
JOURNALIST:
But it's not in the document?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well no it's not.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, on that North Korea (inaudible) you've now had three APECs where terrorism really has been very central to the discussions as you said today going back to New Zealand in '99 when (inaudible) really did, it was very much a part of that. How are you seeing APEC evolving from this voluntary economic process to one that really has a lot to say now about the security architecture?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't know that it's a body that of itself has a lot to say about these things, but because of the spread of countries involved it does provide a great forum and a great opportunity for business to be done, views to be coalesced and outcomes to arrive because of the spread of the countries involved.
JOURNALIST:
Can you talk a little about the cultural display you witnessed last night and what impact that had on you?
PRIME MINISTER:
I thought it was very spectacular, it was certainly about as spectacular a cultural display as I've seen at one of these but every country has its own distinctive culture and I thought this was very different from anything I've seen before, and one can see the origin of the motif on the APEC badge after having witnessed that and I thought the arrangement of the lights and all the lanterns very attractive.
JOURNALIST:
What about the atmospherics of the final two sessions, can you give us a general idea...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I thought one of the advantages of it was that because we were around a table it worked better, I think the dynamics of these group gatherings is very important, it's determined a lot by the physical arrangements, if you're too far apart, even though the room may be grand the atmosphere's pretty deadly and remote and you tend to talk at each other rather than with each other. I'm a great believer in getting people around a table, you can actually get some interactivity and we had quite a useful discussion over lunch and we had, I thought it was a better meeting in that way than the several that I've attended.
Thank you.
[ends]