24 November 1997
E&OE................................................................................................................................
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s have a fairly brief conference tonight. I have a dinner to go to shortly. Could I just report that today I had a series of bilateral meetings, one with President Soeharto in which I informed him - and I announce tonight - that Australia will be contributing a further $1 million of drought relief to the Irian Jaya area of Indonesia. It continues to be a major problem not only for Indonesia but also for Papua New Guinea.
We discussed the financial and economic situation in Indonesia and he expressed confidence that the arrangements made with the International Monetary Fund would be of tremendous benefit in terms of stabilising Indonesia’s position in the eyes of the rest of the world and he again expressed gratitude for Australia’s participation in that arrangement.
I also met the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mr Bolger. We discussed at length our joint participation in the Truce Monitoring Group in Bougainville. I congratulated him in the leadership that had been shown by New Zealand and assured him of the continued Australian cooperation. We will, of course, be contributing quite substantially to the Truce monitoring group and we are jointly hopeful that the situation in Bougainville will continue to improve. There does appear to have been signs of an outbreak of peace in that very troubled area.
I also met President Zedillo of Mexico who has presided over a remarkable turnaround in the Mexican economy. He was a very strong advocate of continued transparency in economic management, having himself had to work within the strictures of the disciplines laid down by the International Monetary Fund. He felt that the realities involved in that kind of stricture had to be faced by others and that is understandable.
I also had a brief meeting with the host, the Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien. I must say on the basis of those bilateral discussions and other discussions I’ve had with leaders this afternoon before the APEC dialogue that I am encouraged by the strong support which continues to be expressed, despite the difficulties of recent months, the strong support that continues to be expressed for adherence to the Bogor declaration and the Bogor principles. There does seem to be not only a privately stated but at the ABAC dialogue this afternoon a publicly stated commitment by a number of leaders to the maintenance of commitment to those principles.
Any questions?
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister you’ve been unequivocal in your pronouncements during this summit about the need for free market solutions to the Asian currency crisis. Dr Mahathir seems to have a decidedly different view. What do you say of the ideas that Dr Mahathir is putting up, mainly reregulation of the currency markets?
PRIME MINISTER:
Everybody’s entitled to express their own views. I’ll express mine and I remain unequivocally of the view that the broad free market approach is right. The broad free market approach is more likely than the alternatives being offered to lead to higher living standards, to lead to higher employment prospects, to ensure that there is a wider spread of the bounty of economic growth and the bounty of economic development. I haven’t come here to talk about the views of other colleagues but when asked about my own, they remain my own. I am, of course, somebody who believes in the broad free market view. That doesn’t mean that I think markets are always perfect, that there aren’t market failures, there aren’t market gaps, there isn’t a need, for example, for government to strategically intervene where the market isn’t doing the job to ensure, for example, well the market can’t do the job, to ensure that there is prudent supervision and regulation of a nation’s banking system. But as a general principle I remain an undiminished supporter of the broad free market approach.
JOURNALIST:
Is Dr Mahathir out of step with other APEC Leaders here given the Bogor declaration?
PRIME MINISTER:
I’m not going to talk about individual colleagues. I’m very happy to express my own views. I have a right to do so and every other person who comes to this meeting has a right to express his or her views. I think unfortunately at the moment they’re all his but that will no doubt change at some stage. It will change very soon in the case of one member country of APEC.
JOURNALIST:
Is it your view that the majority opinion here at APEC would be in line with your view?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well you ought to ask the 18 of them Paul.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, let me, I’ve given a clear indication of the results of my discussions but I’m not going to get into a situation of my views being expressly matched off against the views of another leader. You’ve asked me my views, I’ve given them very fulsomely and generously as I always do but I’m not going to get into a comment about somebody else’s views. Yes.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, the draft communique has called for softer IMF conditions for any Asian bailout. Does Australia support that?
PRIME MINISTER:
You call it a draft communique.
JOURNALIST:
A draft yes.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that what it is.
JOURNALIST:
Could you outline what you said to President Soeharto about human rights?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I raised the human rights issue with Presidents Soeharto in relation to East Timor when I last met him, which was only four week ago. I didn’t raise it with him today because the meeting was focussed exclusively on economic issues. It was not a meeting that embraced other than the economic relations between our two countries and the difficult problems they’re having. But I should remind you that when I last saw President Soeharto in Jakarta I specifically raised the question of East Timor with him which, of course, is the major area of contention in the generic area of human rights between Australia and Indonesia. Yes Mr Middleton.
JOURNALIST:
Sorry Prime Minister
PRIME MINISTER:
That’s all right.
JOURNALIST:
Do I take from what you’re saying in answer to the question about the draft communique that you think that the IMF should be imposing very rigorous conditions?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there’s to be a discussion about these matters tomorrow and I just simply made the comment that that was a draft communique.
JOURNALIST:
What’s your position on it?
PRIME MINISTER:
I beg your pardon?
JOURNALIST:
What’s your position on it?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I’ll contribute my position first, with no disrespect to meeting, when we have it tomorrow and then I’ll be very happy to answer questions on it.
JOURNALIST:
But you have made it quite clear in talks about it. There was a discussion...
PRIME MINISTER:
Jim, I will make a contribution on it tomorrow and I will then be very happy to answer questions. I think you are aware from what I have said what views I have about the IMF but I’m simply not going to comment on a communique that is still, as the question correctly described, a draft.
JOURNALIST:
There’s a report in Australia today that in July you received advice from the Chief General Counsel that your Wik legislation may breach the Racial Discrimination Act and an international convention on the elimination of racial discrimination. What’s your response to that and where does that leave your claim that your legislation’s not racist?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, the detail of that issue is being dealt with in Australia at the present time by Senator Minchin and for reasons you’ll understand I’m not going to get into the particularity of it, except to repeat what I’ve said before, that the Government is strongly of the belief that this legislation is not racially discriminatory and it is, of course, strongly of the belief that it’s legislation is quite constitutional. Beyond that I’m not going to get into the detail because it is a moving scene back home and it’s always unwise not to take account of that.
JOURNALIST:
Is that the...
PRIME MINISTER:
No, well I’ve indicated the answer and I’m not going to go into any further detail. Senator Minchin has dealt with the matter, so I’m told, quite comprehensively today and he will be dealing with it further on today and it’s just not sensible when that’s happening because their might be inadvertent conflicts.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, in the Newspoll released this morning, which showed that the gap between the Labor Party and the Coalition is now 8 points and the Coalition’s rating in the Newspoll is at its lowest level since Newspoll started in 1985, so how does it feel to be the man who has taken the Coalition to its lowest level in 12 years, even lower than that of John Hewson when he lost the 1993 election? Given the fact that this latest poll was taken over the wrangle with the churches over Wik, do you think that the latest Newspoll is showing that the divisions in the general community over Wik are damaging your Government?
PRIME MINISTER:
I think what it demonstrates is that politics today are a lot more volatile than they were some time ago. I think the other observation I would make is that it’s not valid to compare what happens to a party or a person in opposition as opposed to what happens to a party or a person in government. You have to actually take decisions in government. You have the luxury of ignoring the taking of decisions in opposition. John, I thought you would ask me that. Of course I follow the polls, but it’s a long way to the next election and I would expect the polls to bounce around quite a lot and I’m not going to. Having given that one answer, I’m not going to give a whole lot of detailed answers on polls.
JOURNALIST:
But don’t you think your fight with the churches is proving that Wik (inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
I stand by everything that I said in relation to the role of the churches in this debate, including the largely unreported observation of mine, largely unreported, that I think the churches have a perfect right to express their views on any social issue, any non-religious issue, provided they get their facts right. But if you’re saying that, asking me whether I have any different view from the one I expressed last week, I don’t.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister, on the topic of (inaudible) your speech yesterday, you said you were looking, hoping that APEC would come out with some kind of definite push (inaudible). One day on, and after discussion with the leaders, do you still want them (inaudible) and what would you say the chances are?
PRIME MINISTER:
I wouldn’t say they are fading. I don’t think they have changed.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister can I just go back to your meeting with President Soeharto that on that basis of (inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don’t know that the situation in Indonesia has significantly changed except perhaps towards greater stability between my meeting in Jakarta and my meeting this morning.
JOURNALIST:
My question was going to go to this, do you detect that this crisis is taking a toll on him and his family?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, he was, in both the discussions I had with him. He was unaccompanied by any family members but I didn’t notice any change in his demeanour. I must say that I haven’t noticed any enormous change in his demeanour over the period of what 20 months and the four or five times that I’ve met him in the time that I’ve been Prime Minister. I think, he looks for me, for a person of his age, he looks to be in excellent health.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, the Canadians want to broaden APEC into other areas such as human rights and more broadly to deal with environmental issues. Given the possible impacts of the smoke haze in Indonesia, is it really the case now to broaden APEC’s agenda for the human rights and environmental movement?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I will wait and see how serious the Canadians are about doing that. That’s not something that I can recall Mr Chretien raising in any discussions he has had with me. There may be some people in the Canadian system that are arguing that. I would keep those issues out of APEC. If you want APEC to work...once you start to lose focus with something like APEC it will start going off in different directions. It’s not that I don’t regard these things as important, and obviously we will have a bit of a discussion about climate change. If you start to have a sort of, whole lot of things in relation to APEC, I think it will lose some of its momentum and some of its thrust. I can only really take one more question.
JOURNALIST:
If it is important for APEC to retain its focus, what’s your feeling about the push for Russia (inaudible). Is there a danger that if this happens, APEC will change quite substantially as an organisation?
PRIME MINISTER:
There’s always a delicate balance to be struck in something like this between the understandable arguments in support of membership applications by those who aren’t there with the desirability of ensuring that what is a very workable number is kept.
I am, on balance, against too rapid an expansion of the organisation. I think it touches all the points: it’s North American, Central American, South American, Antipodean, Asian, all parts of Asia. I think it’s a remarkable mix. There is, as you all know, you’re all APEC watchers, there’s support for Vietnam and Peru. The question, of course, arises is that if you let in those countries - and I’m not saying they shouldn’t or should - but for the sake of discussion, you let them in, then there is pressure at the edges for further admissions and I think it will be an interesting discussion.
My own personal preference is not to move too quickly towards expansion. That is a view that some members have. There’s a contrary point of view held by one or two fairly significant members, but that is my view. But it’s not the most important thing we have on the agenda. The most important thing we have on the agenda is to reaffirm the global goals; reaffirm the cause of liberalisation; assert appropriately the importance of transparency in the financial systems of nations; and also the importance of nations domestically ensuring that their economic foundations are strong. That, of course, is very important in relation to Australia. Thank you.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, the Pauline Hanson video, is that just a political stunt by the MP?
PRIME MINISTER:
Seems very weird to me.
[Ends]