PRIME MINISTER:
It’s a real honour to be here to say thank you to our Air Force and other military personnel who are here protecting our interests at home and abroad.
Our military commitment to the Middle East is not just about saving lives in Iraq and elsewhere; it’s also about savings lives at home.
We are not in the Middle East because as a nation we go abroad looking for a fight; we are here in the Middle East to stop a fight coming to Australia, because the ISIL, or Daesh, death cult has declared war on the world, including in Australia.
So, yesterday I was in Baghdad. Amongst other things, I was able to visit our Special Forces that are operating at Baghdad International Airport and also further west in Anbar Province. I was able to meet with the Prime Minister of Iraq, Haider al-Abadi. I was also able to meet with American military personnel today as well as visiting our military personnel here.
I’ve also been able to talk to senior members of the UAE Government, because we not only have a very strong security relationship with the UAE, we also have a strong economic relationship and one of our next important free trade negotiations will be with the Gulf Cooperation Council.
So, this is an important visit. It’s important to be able to say thank you on behalf of the Australian nation to our military personnel.
This is a Government which strongly believes in national security and economic security and both national security and economic security are advanced by this trip.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, why were the Australian media excluded from your trip to Iraq and how do you respond to accusations that you’ve been overly secretive?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the last thing any politician wants to do is to prevent media coverage of a visit to our troops. It’s profoundly implausible that any Australian prime minister would want to have a secret visit to Australian troops and, plainly, there was footage released of everything that I did yesterday, but for understandable security reasons it is difficult to get people into Iraq at the moment and it was for security reasons that I was unable to take local media in.
But as you know, Australian media have followed me around at every step today and I understand that Australian media will follow me around tomorrow and, obviously, it’s good to have Australian media here to cover the work of Australian military personnel here in the Middle East.
QUESTION:
When you say Australia will do what it reasonably can to help in the fight against ISIS, what do you have in mind?
PRIME MINISTER:
The kinds of things that we are already doing – and let’s not underestimate the contribution that we are already making. We have some 400 personnel supporting our air operations. We are a very significant component of the air operations against the ISIL, or Daesh, death cult. You’ve seen some of the work that our people are doing today; you’ve seen the contribution that we’re making. The fact that this is one of the very few self-contained air task groups in the region and of course we’ve also got our Special Forces already operating with the Iraqi counter-terrorist service on advise and assist missions and also in training operations as well. Because of what we’re doing on the land and in the skies, the Iraqi security forces are being more effective, the Iraqi people are somewhat safer than they were and Australians back home are safer because all of this is designed to defeat the Daesh death cult which has declared war on the world, including us in Australia.
QUESTION:
Did the Iraqi Prime Minister make any specific request for more Special Forces or any other military assistance? Can you rule out sending more in?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I certainly don’t rule out doing what we reasonably can to make the world a safer place, because our military forces here in the Middle East are protecting our interests at home as much as they’re protecting our interests and our values abroad. So, I look forward to continuing to talk to the Iraqis, to the Americans, to our partners here in the Gulf about what we can usefully do as a nation and as a coalition partner to make the world a safer place and to make Australia a safer country.
QUESTION:
Just a couple from back home, while you’ve been here one of your backbenchers, Dan Tehan, has called for the GST to be broadened to possibly include food, health and education. How is that consistent with your pre-election promise that there will be no change to the GST in the first term of the Coalition Government?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there will be no changes to the GST in the first term of the Coalition Government. We have no plans to change the GST. I don’t mind people debating the GST and I certainly don’t mind members of Parliament discussing the GST, but the GST simply can’t change unless all of the states and territories agree and there is a political consensus in the Parliament. So, I know that lots of people hyperventilate whenever the GST is mentioned, but it’s important to remind people that it simply cannot change unless all of the states and territories, including the Labor states and territories, agree and there is a consensus in the Parliament and it won’t change in this term of Parliament.
QUESTION:
And just finally, on the SA bushfires, will there be any assistance package for the people affected?
PRIME MINISTER:
The standard national disaster relief and recovery arrangements are already in place. We will shortly have a little bit more to say on the Centrelink payments which are often made in circumstances like these. I have been talking regularly to the relevant minister, Michael Keenan, to Minister Jamie Briggs who has the electorate which has been most impacted by these fires.
Obviously, Australian summers are prone to fire and flood. It is tragic that we’ve seen, yet again, the ferocity of Mother Nature, but the thing about Australians is that the worst in nature tends to bring out the best in us and that’s what we always see when our emergency services rush to help people in trouble and when communities rally around those people who have lost a very great deal.
Thank you.
[ends]