PRIME MINISTER:
I look forward to the security and intelligence briefings that I’ll be receiving this morning, and I am looking forward very much to meeting with the Foreign Secretary and with the Secretary of State for Defence later on today.
This is a difficult and dangerous world and it’s important that Australia stays in the closest possible touch with our friends and partners, particularly with this developing situation in the Middle East.
So I am pleased to be here and I look forward to having more to say about the discussions later on.
QUESTION:
How far are you willing to go on Iraq?
PRIME MINISTER:
As is already the case, we are preparing to involve ourselves in the humanitarian airdrop. We’ll continue talking to our friends and partners about other issues, but at this stage I want to stress that this is very much a humanitarian mission to try to ensure that tens of thousands of people are not exposed to the murderous zealotry of the Islamic State.
[ends]