PRIME MINISTER:
Ladies and gentlemen I will be leaving shortly to go to Kuala Lumpur for the inaugural meeting of the East Asia Summit. The meeting will take place tomorrow and I will return to Australia overnight. It's a very important meeting. It brings together for the first time, the 16 nations of the East Asia region. I expect that this meeting will take place annually. Although it's an important gathering it will not, of course, supplant APEC as the premier gathering of leaders of the Asian Pacific economies.
While in Kuala Lumpur I'll have the opportunity of separate bilateral meetings with the Prime Minister of Japan. Amongst other things we will talk about the Japanese Government's decision to maintain a presence in the Al-Muthanna Province of Iraq and the consequences of that for the Australian presence. I'll also meet the Prime Minister of China, or the Premier of China Wen Jiabao, who will be representing his country at the gathering. The bilateral relationship between Australia and China is very strong and has many facets and this will be an opportunity to further discuss aspects of that relationship. This is an important meeting and I very warmly welcome the opportunity that it gives to Australia to participate in the inaugural gathering. Are there any questions?
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister we've seen more violence in Sydney overnight. How serious do you think the problem is and are you as concerned as the police seem to be? They seem to think it's out of control and it could continue for days.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I share the concern of all Australians about continued violence. This is a matter that has to be dealt with in a law and order context. It's important that people who break the law be arrested and prosecuted. I want to give my full support to the police. They're doing a very good job in a very difficult situation. I haven't heard the police say the situation is out of control. I heard, was it Superintendent Goodwin on the radio this morning. I didn't hear him saying that at all. I heard him saying that the situation, although difficult, was being handled. I think the police have done a very good job in a very difficult situation. What we should do is calm everything down, stop these outbreaks and it's only after that has occurred, that we have the right atmosphere to be making pronouncements and statements about how to deal with the problem in the future. It should, in the first instance, be treated as a breach of the law, which it is. People have no right, no matter who they are or where they come from, to bash people or to smash car windows or to behave like hooligans. And if they behave like that, no matter who they are or where they come from or what they think they represent, they should be arrested and punished.
JOURNALIST:
There are some emails and SMS messages being sent around calling for this to escalate into a racial war. How concerning is that considering we live in such a multicultural...
PRIME MINISTER:
Well in a situation like that you will always get irresponsible people behaving in a very irresponsible fashion. Now clearly it's not in the country's interest or the city's interest for that type of thing to occur. And like every other person with any commonsense, I would earnestly encourage and ask people not to take any notice of that sort of nonsense. It's not going to help anybody, certainly not the young people of this beautiful city.
JOURNALIST:
Would you like to clarify your comments in relation to the racism behind this violence and these...
PRIME MINISTER:
Clarify? I have nothing to clarify. What I said yesterday I stand by to the last word and the last sentence.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, do you think it's harming our international reputation?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, I don't think in the long term no. Every country has incidents that don't play well overseas. I can't think of a country in the world that hasn't had an incident that hasn't played well overseas. You have outbreaks of domestic discord. That happens to every country. And when it occurs there's publicity, but people make a judgement about this country over a longer term. They don't make judgements about Australia based on incidents that occur over a period of a few days. Okay?
JOURNALIST:
Do you expect (inaudible) deal with this issue in Malaysia?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, I wouldn't think it will come up. But if it comes up, I'll obviously deal with it. But I can't imagine for a moment that it's going to be an issue of any kind in formal discussions.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, what would you actually say to people who might be considering taking part in more violence in the....
PRIME MINISTER:
Well my message is very simple. Violence is unlawful and anybody, irrespective of who they are, I don't care what their background is, if they break the law they should be arrested and punished. And that is the view of all Australians of any commonsense. I don't think we should over complicate this. Violence, thuggery, loutish behaviour, smashing people's property, intimidating people - all of those things are breaches of the law. And I don't think the actions should be given some kind of special status because they occur against the background of this or that. I think if we start treating this behaviour for what it is, we will far more readily settle things down and get back to a situation that we all want.
Thank you.
[ends]