PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Ladies and gentlemen, the New Zealand Prime Minister and I have called this news conference to announce that a joint Australian-New Zealand force of both military personnel and police will in response to a request from the Government of Tonga go to Tonga tomorrow morning. The Australian component will be comprised of some 50 ADF personnel, 30 of whom will be infantry and 20 logisticians, and some 35 Australian Federal Police, including forensic experts. They will leave Australia tomorrow morning. The will joint a detachment of New Zealand police and army personnel. The request from the Government of Tonga has come as a result of some serious rioting, which has left some 80 per cent of the central business district of the capital destroyed. Already some six bodies have been discovered as local police have combed through the wreckage of the buildings and there have been lengthy discussions between the Prime Minister and my office today, and there has already been elaborate coordination planning carried out between the military of our two countries, given the very close connections between Polynesia and New Zealand, it is appropriate on this occasion that a New Zealand Lieutenant Colonel command the overall operation.
We hope that we can see just a short presence, by both Australia and New Zealand. Tonga has until now been a very peaceful country and it's rather sad that it has come to this. It is seen as a rather idyllic place, a haven of calm, regrettably that has been disturbed on this occasion and we wish the people of Tonga who have very close links, particularly with New Zealand, but also some very close links with Australia as well. We do hope that it's only a temporary disturbance. The Prime Minister of the country is known to both of us and we wish him well and we do hope that the presence of our two forces, both military and police, will assist and make a contribution to a restoration of the conditions that we normally associate with Tonga. Helen.
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
Well thank you John. Events have been moving very fast today since I met New Zealand media on the way into the hotel this morning. The Tongan Government did make a formal request for support and New Zealand will be sending a plane up to Tonga tomorrow. We are sending 60 New Zealand Defence Force personnel and they will be focussed at the airport on Tongatapu. At the present time commercial planes are not prepared to fly in and out of Tonga because of concerns about security. So by providing security at the airport, for those commercial flights, we can ensure that the air travel begins in and out of Tonga again, which is a pretty important function. So our defence force personnel will be working with the aviation security section of Tonga's Ministry of Civil Aviation, working with Tonga Defence services there and the Tonga Police Force to secure the international flights, the aircraft, the crew and the passengers. Now we're also sending up tomorrow a small contingent of police, they will focus on security at the High Commission, but there will also be among the small number, of up to 10 people who can make a specialist assessment as to what further policing needs Tonga may have - it may be mentoring and support for people in the leadership of the force in the light of what has happened, it may be other practical assistance - but the key thing is get people who can make that assessment up there as quickly as possible. I'm also extremely concerned, as John is, about the turn that things have taken in Tonga, to have deaths result from serious disturbances, an appalling and terrible thing. We have both waited for the Tongan Government itself to come to say, look, we need a little more help. Up until this afternoon, Vietnam time, Tonga was saying that it could handle the issue itself. But things have changed in the course of the day and that's the reason for this response that we're making now.
JOURNALIST:
So are they expecting more trouble in the light of what's happened today?
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
I think they've found that their forces have been stretched to the limit of their capacity. When we raised the issue about the airport and said that Air Zealand was not prepared to fly back in unless there was security provided, we were told that Tonga could not provide that itself, it simply was too stretched trying to maintain a level of law and order elsewhere to provide security for the airport. Now it's absolutely critical for any return to normality that people can come and go from Tonga.
JOURNALIST:
What sort of security risk do the troops face going in?
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
Well, we understand that Tonga has been relatively quiet today, so hopefully low, and as John has said, hopefully it won't be for very long. But clearly the Tongan Government is very shocked by what's happened, Tongan people are shocked and it's really, I think a preventive measure now to give some assurance that things won't go out of control again.
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
The response is, I'm sure, to be seen as precautionary. We are reasonably hopeful that the situation has calmed down but they have very small police numbers, they have very small defence force, the damage done in the central business district is quite massive, given the nature of the, the size of the country and the economy. The infrastructure damage is very extensive, when you have 80 per cent of the CBD burnt, it's pretty big and one has the sense that the local population has been rather shocked at what has occurred. But it's too important to the stability of the whole region to ignore or be less than willing to respond to a request from a country that does look particularly to New Zealand and also to Australia for protection and help in an hour of need.
JOURNALIST:
Are we seeing some kind of domino-effect of instability across some of these small Pacific nations? Or are these isolated and completely separate events?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well I wouldn't use the word domino. But what I would say is that we do face, for a combination of reasons, we do face instability in this part of the world and I've talked about this before in Australia and it's one of the reasons why we have invested a lot more in defence, it's one of the reasons why we're buying and taking delivery of, in December, the first of four C-17 transport aircraft, because I expect that this will be something both our countries will face, periodically in our part of the world, over a period of time. It's just a consequence of difficult governance issues and the assertion in this instance of a greater degree of democracy.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard is there any plan to evacuate any Australians or New Zealanders...
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well speaking for Australia, no. I mean we've amended the travel advice but we don't think any of our citizens are in danger. I don't think the people of Tonga bear and malice towards Australians or New Zealanders, except, you know, perhaps on the football field.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister if it's not the domino-effect, is there a common theme here? Why are we seeing such instability across the Pacific?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well I think one of the problems you have is that you have a lot of countries that have political independence without being able really to sustain the governance and other infrastructure that's needed and that's just...it's a product of history and there's nothing we can do about that except assist them. You can't turn back the clock and I'm not arguing you should. But clearly one of the problems in the Pacific is that many of these countries are too small to be sustainable on their own and that's just a brutal reality. I mean you're dealing here with a country with what, 100,000 people, and it's quite large by the standards of the Pacific. That is one of the difficulties. Now there's no simple answer to that Steve.
JOURNALIST:
It's not a recent (inaudible) is it, this political (inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
Can I say with respect to Tonga, that political change is happening and must happen, the key thing is to get it back on to a peaceful track. Last year when there was the major strikes with the public service, New Zealand did send people up with an offer to mediate, and that was welcomed by the Tongan Government at the time. Now when things settle we will be very happy to make an offer again to see of someone who could be trusted by both sides might be able to support brokering a political solution because essentially these are political issues about where power should lie in Tonga, what role the people's representatives, what residual role the nobles and the system of government and the parliament, and that needs to be talked through, not fought over to the point that deaths are caused in a riot.
JOURNALIST:
How much do you think this was precipitated by the recent death of the monarch there, is there a direct connection between these two things?
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
No, because there was severe disturbances around the time of the major industrial dispute which took on, clearly, hugely political overtones last year and we endeavoured to help at that point. But everyone knows change is coming. One of the tragedies is that the Prince who was responsible for leading part of the reform movement was tragically killed in Los Angles, so that has taken away a critical leadership element. But I would think that out of what's happened today, the opposition itself will be very shocked by how things got out of control and hopefully there'll be goodwill to get people back into a process of thrashing the issues out politically.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister Howard, where are the Australian troops coming from, Townsville or Sydney? And some will suggest that we're overstretched, can you respond to that?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well we're not overstretched, I mean this is easily accommodated and we're reasonably hopeful that they won't be there for very well, but even if they are that will not be a difficulty. I mean we're talking here about a group of some 50 and so we're not talking about a large number and it's readily accommodated.
JOURNALIST:
What gives you reason for optimism, these are chronic problems of longstanding, you acknowledge the governments' problems have been there for a long time? That the countries in there are so too small to sustain themselves, this is something that Australia and New Zealand are going to have to deal with seriously for a long time to come, surely?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
The reason why I'm reasonably hopeful they won't be there for very long is that it's not been the, the habit or the custom of the people of this country to resort to violence. We haven't had something like this before; they're not by nature a violent people, quite the reverse.
JOURNALIST:
Helen Clark, John Howard was asked about the capacity of the Australian military to handle this deployment, can you give the same assurance about New Zealand, are we overstretched in that capacity?
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
I can assure you we haven't had any difficulty finding 60 people to get on a plane tomorrow. We have a lot of experience in dealing with these kinds of situations and I don't believe this kind of deployment causes us any trouble at all.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard when you say not very long, are we talking weeks...
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
No, no, look, I'm not getting into that game, now come on, come on, good try Karen, good try.
JOURNALIST:
Will it be our role to continue playing...providing a security umbrella for these tiny states for some time?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Look part of our responsibility, Australian obviously and also to a significant degree New Zealand, being the largest and wealthiest countries in the region, part of our responsibility is to help. I mean these are our friends, our neighbours, our Pacific partners and of course we want, and need to, and should help them, it's an act of brotherly generosity and I think it ought to be something that we are willing to do and the rest of the world would expect us to do it. And okay it's difficult, but it's something that we should be willing to do, and we will do it, but in return we expect, and you've heard me on this before particularly in relation to aid, we expect higher standards of governance. Now that's not been an issue in....I mean Tonga's different and to say the Solomon Islands and other countries, but let's just stay with the Solomon Islands, it's different from that country but nothing, you know, is uncomplicated in life, is it?
JOURANALIST:
Mr Downer mentioned today the possibility of Australia, at least being involved in restoring facilities, like electricity, is that the sort of function we'll be performing or is that a separate function from the military?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well I think what we are doing essentially is, in relation to the military, I think the both, the forces from both countries will be...Helen's talked about securing the airport and just providing a military presence which reinforces the desirability of things returning to normal. The police will have some difficult and grizzly work to do, there could well be more bodies found and the forensic work is unpleasant, unfortunately our police have had quite a lot of experience at that, both in Bali and as a result of the tsunami in Thailand, so that's one of the reasons why there is a significant forensic component in the Australian Federal Police force. But look, it's a very necessary response and it's in our interests and it's also an important gesture of friendship on our part to a people who are very close to both countries - particularly to New Zealand.
JOURNALIST:
What sort of message do you think this (inaudible) across the Pacific is sending to the international community and others in our part of the world?
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
Well I think that it is focusing people's attention on the choices for the Pacific. And when New Zealand had the chair of the Pacific Islands Forum in 2003-04 and with the full support of Australia and the PI Forum in general initiated the review that lead to the development of the 'Pacific Plan', we are very conscious that there's two futures on offer, one is poverty and conflict, the other is peace and development. Now peace and development cannot flourish in circumstances like we've just seen in Tonga, or we've seen in Solomon Islands or with the rumblings in Fiji, which threatened to undermine confidence in their economy again which had been painstakingly restored. So the international community is certainly interested. I've just come from a tour of four European capitals where I've been briefing people on the Pacific and encouraging the European Union and the big member nations to keep a close interest and funding and supporting work in the South Pacific because of the vulnerability and fragility. Everyone is aware of what fragile and failed states mean in today's world, it can mean penetration of financial systems, lax borders, drug trade financing terrorism or other activities, no-one wants that in the Pacific.
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Thank you.
[ends]