STEPHANIE KENNEDY:
Prime Minister, welcome to the programme.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thanks Stephanie.
STEPHANIE KENNEDY:
What was the substance of your conversation with President Yudhoyono?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well we talked about two things, firstly the latest earthquake, which on the current estimates may have claimed several thousand lives. I not only offered the sympathy of the Australian people, and can I say these poor people, having suffered so much from the Boxing Day tsunami, to now be afflicted by this latest disaster, it really does beggar belief that such tragedy in a short period of time, could have again been visited upon the Indonesians. We have already announced some emergency aid of a million dollars, Mr Downer announced that. There had been a request for the provision of a field hospital and some aerial medical evacuation teams to assist on the island of Nias, and other affected areas. I indicated to the President that request had come through our military attach‚ in Jakarta, I indicated to the President that we would accede to those requests and that is now in hand, and the military, in their normally efficient and compassionate way, will be looking after that, and I indicated that if there was any further assistance that Australia could provide, we stand ready to do so. The President himself was on his way, I understood, to some of the devastated areas, naturally to make an assessment himself of what was needed to be done.
STEPHANIE KENNEDY:
How soon will the medical teams be leaving Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I can't tell you that, I think it could involve some rerouting of HMAS Kanimbla which is on its way home having provisioned in Singapore and also we may have to supply two of the C-130s, now more information about that can be obtained from Senator Hill but the arrangements are in hand and there has already been contact been the Australian military and the Indonesian military and it underlines the very close cooperation between the two countries that immediately there was this contact. That was the first thing we discussed, the second thing we discussed was the postponement of his visit to Australia. The President will now still come, I am looking forward to his visit, he will come on Sunday and he'll arrive late Sunday afternoon, and the programme will occupy Monday and Tuesday and it will still be the same sort of programme that was planned for later this week but very understandably, he must postpone it, but I do understand that, and I am sure everybody in Australia fully understands it and his first duty, his first call, is naturally to be on hand in his own country to assess what's happened and assess what needs to be done.
STEPHANIE KENNEDY:
The Australian Government's already offered a billion dollars in the aid package, might you have to re-think that or even increase it in the wake of the quake?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well let's wait and see the full extent of it, I fear that it could be perhaps a little worse than was indicated this morning but until we know the true scale of it, apart from offering the emergency aid of a million dollars announced by Mr Downer and responding to the particular requests for those individual assets, there's really nothing more at this stage but it will be fully assessed, we will be talking to our Embassy, we will be listening to what the non-government aid organisations have to say and if there is some further help needed, then we will make it available.
STEPHANIE KENNEDY:
Is there any indication whether Australians have been caught up in the quake, whether it's casualties, injured in the quake affected areas?
PRIME MINISTER:
I have not had any advice to that effect.
STEPHANIE KENNEDY:
Alright, thank you very much Prime Minister for joining us tonight.
[ends]