PRIME MINISTER:
It’s good to be here in Singapore. I am here because coming up is the 50th anniversary of Singaporean independence. Australia was actually the first country in the world to recognise the new independent state of Singapore and we have been very, very firm friends ever since.
We are a strong trade partner, we are a strong defence partner and we are building all the time on what is a very, very strong relationship.
One of the things that you have noticed about my trips overseas is that they all have a strong economic focus and this trip is no different.
I am delighted to be accompanied by Andrew Robb the Minister for Trade and Investment and also a senior business delegation. I have just been in a trade round table, which has been focussed very much on investment in Northern Australia.
Northern Australia is an extraordinary frontier. The northern 40 per cent of our country is certainly more developed than it was. It is, after all, the source of some 50 per cent of our export income but nevertheless only about a million people live there. There is an abundance of land, of water, of resources and this is a great frontier for our country and indeed for the people of our region.
The proximity of Northern Australia to the booming middle classes of Asia does offer enormous potential for us; it does offer enormous potential for even more productive partnerships between Australia and the countries of Asia in the years and decades to come.
Obviously, Singapore and investment is a very important part of that.
Why am I so keen on trade? Because trade means jobs. Why am I so keen on investment? Because investment means jobs. In the end everything that we do abroad is about the safety and the prosperity of the Australian community.
I do want to thank Andrew for the extraordinary work that he has done. Along with our Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Andrew, has been an absolutely indefatigable traveller for our country and we would not have secured the China Free Trade Agreement, the Japan Free Trade Agreement and the Korean Free Trade Agreement without Andrew’s extraordinary diligence.
Obviously, we are working on the India Free Trade Agreement and hope we have got good news there within the next six months or so.
TRADE MINISTER:
Thanks Prime Minister. This is again another very exciting, in many ways, trip and to see the opportunities just emerging before your eyes between major investors from Singapore and very major CEOs across many different areas.
We have made a practice, the Prime Minister has and I certainly have and many of my colleagues now, are starting to take delegations, no matter where they go for whatever purpose in the world, they are taking delegations of relevant CEOs. I bought a delegation here just three or four months ago for the aerospace industry and I was told a couple of weeks ago of a $250 million deal that has now been done out of that trip with one company.
These are the opportunities. The reason we are taking these delegations – I'm the first Minister, Trade Minister, in our history actually, which seems a bit odd, but I'm the first Trade Minister that has got an investment responsibility. I'm the first Investment Minister. It has meant that there has been a far greater logic as I go around the world. Trade is often government to government. So much of what I do, like the free trade agreements etc, but the investment responsibility is government to business. I've now done 65 investment seminars or round tables, usually with groups of eight to 10 senior investors – about 65 in 26 countries in the last 12 months. It has made a big difference so that when we come to this weekend, to Singapore, and we get some of the biggest investors in the country, they are people I've met four or five times some of them.
So, we have got great opportunities in Australia but we need informed capital to make them happen. The north of Australia is in the tropics. Singapore is in the tropics. They have got a lot of experience, not just in agriculture and mining, but in tropical health and medical research and all of those related areas.
There are big investment opportunities for Australia; tropical architecture, all of these things that we can give to the tropical region around the world which is 40per cent of the world's population and the most growing area in the world is that tropical zone.
It's been a very important couple of days here. They are such long-term friends. They have been very significant investment partners for Australia, and as we build new areas in Australia, especially the north, relying on or having part of that significant long-term partners and friends is a very good start to making a successful outcome.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you. Do we have any questions?
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, the 2003 trade agreement with Singapore really centred around financial markets. I understand that will be now updated after this trip. Can you give us a sense of what an expanded free trade agreement with Singapore will mean? Is it what Minister Robb is talking about – focusing on the tropics for example?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think what we have been talking about today has been about the potential for Singapore and Australia to work together in a whole range of areas because along with Taiwan, we are the only economically advanced countries with a substantial tropical presence. Given that almost 50 per cent of the world's people live in the tropics, if those people are to develop and prosper as they should, countries like Australia and Singapore have an enormous role to play.
As for the upgraded and expanded free trade agreement between Australia and Singapore; yes, we do want to boost it. I will have quite a bit more to say about this tomorrow but we certainly have a very strong foundation on which to build. Singapore is our fifth largest two-way trading partner. There is an enormous amount of two-way investment between our countries now. I think there is a lot of complementarity between Singapore and Australia. We have space, we have resources. They have services, they have capital. I think the complementarities between our two countries are as strong as between any two countries in the world and let's build on those.
QUESTION:
Mr Abbott, what did you learn today visiting the religious rehabilitation programme?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, that's a good question. Obviously, Singapore has a significant Muslim population. Singapore is an island state poised between two large Muslim neighbours, Indonesia to the south, Malaysia to the north. I suppose both Malaysia and Indonesia and to a lesser extent Singapore have, over the years, wrestled with this whole issue of Islamist extremism.
Given the state of the world right now, it's more important than ever that all of us, who stand for decency and justice, should work with each other and learn from each other. Singapore has had quite a sustained long-term effort now to de-radicalise people who have succumbed to the false lure of religious extremism. They believe that there are appropriate ways of detoxing, if you like, people who have succumbed to the lure of the death cult and earlier forms of Islamist extremism. I was very pleased to see their confidence that it was possible to turn people back from this dreadful, dreadful abyss because the more people succumb to that, the worse the abyss that all of us will face in the years and decades to come.
QUESTION:
Do you share that confidence? Could you see a religious centre like this being set up at home?
PRIME MINISTER:
Obviously we have put about $40 million forward over the forward estimates to do what we can to counter violent extremism. This is pretty early days for us to be honest because the challenge in our country is escalating in a way that, let’s be honest, a few years ago we would never have expected. Other countries have lived with this challenge for longer and I’m only too happy to learn from their experiences and where possible from their successes.
QUESTION:
Singapore has a much more closely regulated system when it comes to religious groups, what is said in mosques, is that something that you would like to take from Singapore and bring as a lesson to Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s not something that was explicitly discussed today. I am conscious of the fact that because of its history Singapore has been more disciplined, if you like, in a whole lot of areas than we traditionally have been in Australia. Obviously we’ll do what we think is best in accordance with our own traditions to deal with the whole range of terror threats and extremist individuals that we come across.
Right now, obviously we’re moving to strip citizenship from terrorists who are dual nationals. We’ve got a national conversation underway about the responsibilities of citizenship and part of that may well be further actions that are open to government to take against people who have left our country, have betrayed our country to fight with terrorists who hate us and want to damage and destroy us, but who only have Australian citizenship.
QUESTION:
Prime Minister, in regard to the recent attacks in Tunisia and elsewhere, have you taken any further steps as far as security in Australia is concerned and are you looking at changing in any way the rating of terror threat in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
No, obviously I was briefed by the National Security Committee officials yesterday. The National Security Committee met early yesterday afternoon to consider the latest terrorist atrocities around the globe, to consider whether there did appear to be any coordination to them, to consider what the implications for Australia might be of these. While it’s pretty clear that at least some of them have been inspired by the Daesh death cult, it’s far from clear that they were actually directed by the death cult, although obviously we’re keeping this matter under review.
At this point in time we don’t see any reason to raise the Australian domestic terror threat level, although it has been for many months now at high and that means that an attack is likely because there are people with the intention and the capability to attack us.
QUESTION:
What do you think of Singapore’s homosexuality laws given that you can still be thrown in jail for indecent acts?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look, I haven’t really given it a whole lot of thought if the truth be known, I don’t normally offer gratuitous advice to other countries and I normally expect other countries not to offer gratuitous advice to us.
QUESTION:
With moves we’ve seen internationally on gay marriage, are you personally feeling any pressure to see this debate progress in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Plainly there is a debate taking place in Australia but let’s not forget that this is not a new debate, it is a debate which has now been going on for quite some years. The debate found its way into the national parliament in the last term and there was a fairly decisive reaffirmation of the existing position. I know not everyone shares that position but my own views on this subject are very well known and I’d like to assure you that they haven’t changed.
Thank you.
[ends]