PRIME MINISTER ABBOTT:
Ladies and gentlemen, it is a real thrill for me to be here with you this morning. It’s a real thrill to be here with my friend and colleague, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte.
Many of you were involved in an extraordinary mobilisation of Australian personnel in response to the MH17 atrocity. Last time I was in this room it was crowded with people on the phone to the families of the victims. Within hours of the downing of that aircraft Australian officialdom, the Australian Government and nation, leapt into dynamic action to respond with strength and decency to what had happened. And this was one of the focal points of that response. Still, some of you in this room are working with the families of those people who were lost and I thank you and I congratulate you for the work that you've done.
It was, throughout the Australian Government, a very intense time and it's not yet finished because we have yet to see the perpetrators of this crime brought to justice. Nevertheless, we are now in the resolution stages rather than the active response stages, but at its height, almost 600 Australian personnel were deployed overseas to the Netherlands and to the Ukraine, almost 300 ADF personnel, almost 200 AFP personnel, upwards of 50 DFAT personnel, and of course, there were hundreds more involved in the response back here in Canberra.
It was a textbook case of how Australia can respond at every level and it was a textbook case of how the Australian Government can effectively and efficiently leap into action at our country's need and call.
So, I do thank and congratulate all of you. Above all else, I salute your professionalism. I particularly want to thank the leaders of the organisations that were at the heart of the response, my own secretary, Dr Ian Watt, the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Peter Varghese, the leadership of the Australian Federal Police, which did magnificently, the Australian Defence Force, led by Air Chief Marshal Mark Binskin and of course, Air Chief Marshal retired Angus Houston who was our Special Envoy, our man on the spot and was as he has so often been the voice and face of Australia in times of crisis.
So, it was our country at its best. Even in the worst of times.
Thank you for all you've done. I had the chance to thank some of you in the Netherlands in the weeks immediately after the atrocity. I'm really thrilled that Mark Rutte is here in Australia at this time to thank you on behalf of the people and the government of the Netherlands.
PRIME MINISTER RUTTE:
Thanks, Tony.
First of all, I also would like to thank you, a heartfelt thank you for everything you have done with high professionalism, in close cooperation with the Malaysians and the Dutch. I was impressed when I visited Eindhoven Airport when we had to stop the mission because of the deteriorating situation in Ukraine. When you came back flying through Eindhoven, I met a couple of you over there and I had the opportunity to say thank you at that particular moment at Eindhoven Airport.
I was absolutely impressed, the fact that the two chiefs of defence were in contact immediately after the disaster. And it felt – they had never met before – like they had worked together for years. This I heard back at every level; at a ground level, the professionals working together, the leaders working together, the military people working together, and we, as politicians, working together, so far apart physically and at the same time being able to co-ordinate the follow up on this terrible crash, this terrible disaster in Ukraine as two nations, together with the Malaysians in a very effective manner.
We are still not yet there. We are still trying to get all the remaining remains back. We want to reunite, if possible, everybody with their loved ones. We are not absolutely sure that we will be able to do that but we will do everything in our power to do the maximum possible in that respect. The same goes for getting home all the personal belongings. Then we are working on the independent inquiry of what exactly happened and then we are working on the public prosecution side. In all this we are working closely together.
So, again I would like to close by saying, like I started, thank you. Indeed, I salute your professionalism. I hope that this terrible tragedy has at least one silver lining, which is that Australia and the Netherlands, we were already friends, we were already working closely together, but from this moment on, this will be at a higher pace, on more issues and an even closer friendship and that could be the silver lining coming out of this terrible tragedy on the 17th of July.
Thank you so much.
SPECIAL ENVOY ANGUS HOUSTON AC AFC:
Prime Minister, it falls to me on behalf of everybody in the room to thank both of you for your incredibly strong and decisive leadership in a very difficult time for both of our countries. I think we were never in any doubt about the direction we were headed in. It was very clear what needed to be done.
So, thank you for that and thank you also for taking the time out of your busy schedules to be here today to thank all of the people that worked here in the Australia, in the Netherlands and also in Ukraine.
Thank you very much.
[ends]