PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM:
Welcome. It is great to be here and to welcome you here to Number 10.
We’ve obviously just had a very moving visit to Borough Market and seen the terrible firsthand that sadly two Australians lost their lives and Australians were injured. I hope you’ve seen the fantastic response of our police and our emergency services.
And that security issues were of course ones in which we work very well with Australia and that there are many of those that we will be discussing today. I am looking forward to building our relationship.
As we discussed previously, particularly in areas like trade, I think there is much more we can do. Our links go way back and we have, as we saw today, with some of those first responders many Australians here in the UK, and many from the UK who have chosen Australia as their home. But we have those historical links but also work very well together as two countries and I think who are facing similar challenges but with great understanding between us.
I look forward to our talks.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes, thank you Theresa.
It was a very moving visit to the Borough Markets and I’d like to say how much we admire the outstanding response of the police arriving on the scene so quickly, heeding to the terrorists so effectively and decisively. And the way in which they responded with the other first responders in the Metropolitan Police of London, the London Police and those from the ambulance service. They responded so quickly to look after those who’d been injured. They ran towards the danger while others were fleeing. Courageous people.
Outside the church we met two police officers, Clint Wallace and Richard Norton, Metropolitan Police Officers, unarmed police officers who had rushed to the scene and that started giving CPR to Sara Zelenak, one of the Australian women that was killed not far from where Kirsty Boden was murdered. It was very moving to meet them. The three of us did our best not to burst into tears. They are very brave men, very brave men and women.
I just want to you on behalf of all Australians for the way your first responders and the way the owners of the businesses in the market, how they talked about throwing bottles at the terrorists, barricading their restaurants, protecting their customers, protecting passers by and the resilience, Theresa, the resilience of that community who like ours in the face of terror when we say to these killers, to these terrorists that seek to change the way we live we will not be cowed. We won’t change the way we live. We won’t stop going out at night. We won’t stop enjoying ourselves. We will defy you and defeat you.
And I was very pleased to stand with you and your Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick and her team at the spot where your officers killed those terrorists. They acted so effectively and so decisively. It was a great effort, a magnificent effort to deal with that terrorist attack and I know that as we work so closely together, as close as any two nations could be, we will continue to defeat them in the field, at home, around the world, here in London, in Sydney, in Melbourne, in Manchester and in cyber-space itself.
We have a lot to talk about.
PRIME MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM:
We do have a lot to talk about.
Can I also welcome, because you talk about bravery of those who were there enjoying the night out and that includes Kirsty who of course, a nurse who rushed to the scene to help others when she saw people who had been attacked and sadly lost her life as a result.
We should thank her and the others who as you say didn’t think of themselves but went to help those who they saw in need. It was an amazing response and I think as we’ve just seen, as you say the resilience of Borough Market is fantastic and the resilience of the British people but all those people who are here in the UK who recognized that we are going to stand up against these terrorists and we are as you say going to defeat them and they will not destroy our way of life and our values will prevail.
PRIME MINISTER:
They will because they are right.
Thank you.
[ENDS]