PRIME MINISTER:
Yesterday we had great discussions with Prime Minister Modi, very productive meetings but also I was thrilled to go on the Delhi Metro. What an achievement. It started in 2002 and they have over 200 kilometres of lines and 159 stations, 27 million passengers. It is a huge achievement and they are still building it. And it was wonderful to join with him in a very relaxed way, getting the train and as you know, I was very impressed by the enthusiastic welcome he received from fellow commuters. I don’t get quite the same reception from the commuters on the Sydney train network but it was phenomenal. He’s clearly very, very, very, very beloved of the people here.
And you know, his pride in India’s achievements and its history is really inspiring. We went to the Akshardham Temple which is a new temple, a new temple complex and Prime Minister Modi’s pride in India’s ancient histories and culture was just so, you could feel it, you could feel he was bursting with pride as he explained the history and the cultures and the development of India from the Vedic times right up to the present day.
And so you feel with Prime Minister Modi that whether it is on the Metro or at that temple, he is taking India into the 21st century. Innovation, technology, science – all of which offer great opportunities for Australia of course. He’s taking India forward but at the same time so proud of and so connected to the ancient cultures of thousands of years that are the foundation of Indian civilization.
We had a very practical discussion also about the CECA, the free trade agreement.
Now, as you know there hasn’t been enough progress on that. There is a long tradition, as I have said, of protectionism in India and the Indian governmental system I would say hasn’t been as enthusiastic about it as perhaps we in Australia would’ve liked, but Prime Minister Modi and I had a very good frank discussion about that and we both agreed that progress hadn’t been good enough. We’ve both directed our chief negotiators to reconvene as soon as possible and we’ve directed them to set out, to tabulate exactly what the asks are, what the ambitions are in respect of each side so that they can then report back to us and we can see how close, or our far apart the two negotiating teams are and what can be done to bridge those gaps.
This has been a very productive outcome and it came out of the private meeting I had with Prime Minister Modi. We discussed it in the private meeting and we went into the bilateral and we gave those instructions to the relevant ministers and negotiators.
I think that is a very important outcome of this visit.
As you know we have entered into a new MoU to enhance our cooperation on counter-terrorism, on human trafficking, on security generally.
I’ll be going to the National Defence College in a little while to talk to the cadets and other officials there. We’ve got a long tradition of exchanging cadets between our various defence colleges and we are going to increase that. Again that is something that Prime Minister Modi and I have agreed to do - that there will be more Australian cadets coming this way and Australian and Indian cadets and officers going the other way.
The better we understand each other, the better we are able to work together and that is clearly a very valuable initiative.
I might say, our Governor-General trained here in India as one of the exchange students in years past. So it is a long tradition but we’d like to see more of it.
Finally, I’d say we’re going to have a very important energy roundtable in Mumbai later on today.
Again, Prime Minister Modi and I have a very similar perspective on India, although with very different contexts. Obviously, India has got, hundreds of millions of Indians don’t have access to electricity at all so they have a big need to increase their energy production. They have an all of the above approach – coal, nuclear, solar, wind, everything, hydro. We have an all of the above approach, obviously nuclear is not part of our equation in Australia but the rest of it, again, like Prime Minister Modi, we focus on economics and engineering as being the guides to good energy policy.
So this has been a very successful visit. We’ve really, I think the Prime Minister and I have achieved a higher level of rapport. We got on very well when we first met but to spend this much time together and to be with him when he is so proud of modern India, ancient India and that thread of continuity of extraordinary progress – it’s been quite inspiring.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Turnbull, you also met with Mr Adani and his executives yesterday. Barnaby Joyce said this morning that the issue of a loan for the railway line is a tipping point issue. Did Mr Adani make that case to you last night?
PRIME MINISTER:
Mr Adani in our discussions simply noted that his company expects to make an application to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund on the basis that we’ve described several times. That’s got an independent board, it will assess the application on its merits and it is obviously going to be dependent on there being other funding as well from the private sector, from external sources to support the railway line. There is no new news on Adani and the railway project. They are entitled to make an application to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, they expect to do so and it will be assessed scrupulously and independently.
JOURNALIST:
There is a bit of a storm back home about Native Title because Mr Adani has asked for those Native Title changes to be made. I think that you are trying to get those changes made. But is that trashing Eddie Mabo’s legacy to change Native Title law to help Mr Adani?
PRIME MINISTER:
That is not a fair description, David, with respect.
As you know, the Federal Court had made a decision in the McGlade case which gave an interpretation to the Native Title Act that no-one had anticipated, or outside of the litigators perhaps. It’s caused us a lot of problems with many, many agreements right around the country, not least of all in Western Australia where the case arose.
So there is a need to deal with the legislation - that is broadly accepted across the Parliament - and I expect that legislative changes will be made when Parliament gets back.
But the recognition that the McGlade decision would make so many Native Title, so many agreements with Aboriginal Land Corporations and so forth and Native Title owners invalid - it’s a decision that can’t be allowed in practical terms to let stand and there is very strong support for rectifying it.
JOURNALIST:
Did Mr Adani seek assurance from you that that would be done?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, Mr Adani noted that this is an issue for his development but, frankly, it’s an issue for just about every development in Australia where Native Title issues are involved.
It’s an issue for the Native Title owners as well because plainly you’ve got to be able to reach agreements to get the development to ensure that Native Title owners, First Australians get the economic returns and the advancement that they deserve and we all aspire for them to have.
JOURNALIST:
You say that this legislation will pass when Parliament comes back. I understand Mr Shorten has written to you saying that Labor supports the changes but only as applied to the agreements -
PRIME MINISTER:
Yeah, that’s right.
JOURNALIST:
And they’re saying that the legislation goes beyond that.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, Labor raised a concern that the some of the amendments that have been proposed went beyond simply rectifying the decision in McGlade. And without getting into an argument about the legal drafting, we will ensure that the amendments that are voted on in the Senate when Parliament gets back deal with the McGlade decision and then any further amendments if, you know, interested parties want to advance them can be considered at a future date but the important, the priority in terms of both Native Title owners and development generally is to get the McGlade issue dealt with and I believe that will done as, in line with what Mr Shorten has said.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister notwithstanding the independence of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, do you agree with your Deputy Prime Minister that the rail, the loan for the rail line is a tipping point for the project?
PRIME MINISTER:
Look I’d simply say - I’m not sure that fairly characterises what the Deputy Prime Minister as Acting Prime Minister has said today in Australia - but all I can say is that I know that Adani is going to make, is making an application. They’re entitled to make the application. It’s well known that they’re going to do that and they have got, this a very big project and the NAIF funding were it to be made for part of the, for the railways only a part, in fact a relatively small part of the total capital that’s required for the big, for this coal mine and associated infrastructure.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister Natasha Exelby has apparently been allowed to read on the ABC now notwithstanding a quite extraordinary outcry from some very prominent people. Were they right to say that a blooper should not disqualify her from reading or should the ABC simply be allowed to make those decisions unimpeded?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as you know I’ve been here in India with you and I haven’t been watching bloopers on the ABC or indeed on any other network, not on yours of course, they don’t, they’d never occur.
So I’ll leave the commentary on that to those that have been better informed on it.
JOURNALIST:
As you’ve seen though some of the commentary on the Sydney University academic or indeed academics who are apparently pro Bashar al-Assad and have suggested he’s been setup over this chemical attack. Is that a concern to you about what’s going on in the university?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well as you know we’ve been travelling for the last few days, I’m not briefed on the circumstances surrounding this academic but my views on Bashar al-Assad’s regime, my views and the Government’s views on his horrendous, criminal conduct are very well known and well stated. And as you know we’ve strongly supported the United States swift and just response to prevent further chemical attacks by that regime.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister Turnbull, are you conscious of the fact that a positive outcome for the Adani project would likely have positive effects for future deals involving Indian companies? And trade as a whole?
PRIME MINISTER:
We want to see more trade and more investment between Australia and India and so does Prime Minister Modi so that’s why we’re taking, that’s why we’ve taken the initiative yesterday to say to the negotiators get back to the table, work out exactly what each side is asking for so PM Modi and I can see where we are apart.
Now look, neither of us is going to do a trade deal that isn’t a good trade deal, Okay? So this is not a deal at any price. But what is not acceptable to either Prime Minister Modi or myself is people not getting together and getting down to tin tacks. So that’s what’s going, so that’s the initiative we took yesterday, it arose out of our private discussion and then we dealt with it in the bilateral meeting. That doesn’t guarantee that a deal will be concluded, of course, but what it means is we will get on, we’ve got to get on with it.
There’s a difference between talking about doing a deal and doing a deal and we’ve got to move into the second part of the equation.
JOURNALIST:
Are you conscious of positive outcome for Adani -
PRIME MINISTER:
Well look, Adani, the challenges that Adani faces are, now that all the environmental approvals have been given, the challenges they face are essentially commercial ones. And they are for Mr Adani and his company to deal with. So it is a, it’s gone through many environmental hearings and appeals and considerations at both federal and state level so they’ve got the governmental green light to go ahead. What they now have to do is secure financing. The company is very confident of that, but that’s a matter for them. It is a commercial project.
JOURNALIST:
It shouldn’t be dependent on this money for the rail?
PRIME MINISTER:
I’m sorry -
JOURNALIST:
It shouldn’t be, the mine shouldn’t be dependent on this money for the rail link?
PRIME MINISTER:
You’re asking me is the mine dependent on the money for the rail link?
JOURNALIST:
Yep.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well only Mr Adani could give you that answer for sure because he knows what his sources of financing are. They are conducting discussions, they will be conducting discussions with both third party financiers and the National Australia Infrastructure Fund with respect to the rail link, they’ll be doing that because it has got to be part of the package. You see under the charter, if you like, of the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund it can’t lend more than 50 per cent of the finance for any project. It has to be a commercial project. It has to have an economic return. It’s being judged by an independent board who have got considerable commercial experience.
So this is all, so, it’s a long time since I’ve financed a project myself but I have no doubt that Mr Adani will have a range of options, financing options and a range or alternatives, you know, if one funder doesn’t turn up on the terms that he wants he’ll have another one to go to.
Look he’s a very experienced businessman and his company has an all of the above approach to energy. They have solar investments in Australia and as I said yesterday they have here in India the second largest solar farm in the world, over 2.5 million panels and its around nearly 500 megawatts of capacity, so it’s a very, very big solar investment.
The key thing to understand about India and energy is they have got enormous demand for growing provision of energy and Australia by contrast, demand has been relatively flat so our economic growth has decoupled, not entirely, but in large part from growth in energy demand and you are seeing a lot of very significant changes in the energy market. We’ve talked about solar, we’ve talked about renewables, more variable demand, more variable supply. These effect India as well but the big difference here is they’ve got to ramp up supply and that’s why they’re ticking all of the boxes - whether its nuclear, coal, gas, renewables of every kind.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Adani is a billionaire PM, so what’s in it for Australian tax payers to help him out? Why can’t he fund it himself?
PRIME MINISTER:
The project, if it is built will create tens of thousands of jobs. It will generate over the course of its life an enormous amount in taxes and in royalties, revenues for federal and state governments, so plainly there is a huge economic benefit from a big project of this kind, assuming its built and it proceeds.
As to the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, I just repeat its mission is to support infrastructure which is commercial, it can’t be the sole provider, its limited to 50 per cent, no more than 50 per cent of any one project, the projects have to be commercial, they have to assessed on their merits by an independent board and they will be.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister what’s the point of it, if it’s supposed to be commercial why have a fund at all? Why not leave it to the market?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I hear the point you’re making but the reality is that very often a degree of government support albeit limited to a concessional loan, this is still a loan.
What we’re talking about here is an approach analogise to that of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The Clean Energy Finance Corporation makes a return; it’s been profitable for the government but it does provide that bit of extra support that can sometimes make a project happen as opposed to not happen.
So it is an important part. The Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund is an important part of our commitment to development of Australia’s north which is, that is our big economic frontier, a huge opportunity with far too little development and far too little infrastructure and so the NAIF is a way of supporting that.
JOURNALIST:
So coming out of that meeting – can you tell us – are you more confident as a result of your talks with Mr Adani that this will go ahead? Or hasn’t he changed your confidence levels?
PRIME MINISTER:
The obstacles or the challenges for Adani in this project are commercial ones. He is very confident, basically because he is building a vertically integrated project so he is going to be producing coal most of which he will be buying himself to fuel his own power stations in India. He is very confident about it commercially but then again time will tell.
It’s a long time since I gave commercial appraisals on projects for a living and as Prime Minister, I’m sure you’d like me to, I will leave that to the Mr Adani and as to the NAIF’s approach that will be assessed by its independent board. Now I have one more question then I must go.
JOURNALIST:
On North Korea PM, there’s a palpable sort of build-up of tensions around that area at the moment. Is that something that is concerning your Government and is it something that came up in discussions with Mr Modi?
PRIME MINISTER:
We discussed the full range of regional security issues. I won’t go, naturally into areas of this kind, I won’t go into any more detail than we have already provided publicly but can I say to you that the reckless and dangerous conduct of the North Korean regime is threatening peace and stability, not just of the region but of the whole world. We continue to apply, as have other members of the United Nations, sanctions against the North Korea regime and we continue to call on China to exercise the undoubted influence it has over the North Korean regime to pull it back from further reckless conduct.
Thank you all very much.
[ENDS]