E&OE................................................................................................
Well, ladies and gentlemen since we last met I've had some further
bi-lateral discussions. I had a meeting with the President of China,
Jiang Zemin, and also a meeting with the Prime Minister of Singapore,
Goh Chok Tong. Both of those meetings were very productive.
I renewed my invitation for President Jiang Zemin to visit Australia
and from his response I'm hopeful that he will visit Australia
around the time of the APEC meeting next year. Which as you know is
to be held in New Zealand.
It's fair to say that the bi-lateral relationship between China
and Australia is very good. It has steadily improved over the last
two years. I reminded the President of our meeting in similar circumstances
in the surrounds of the APEC meeting in Manila in 1996 and that commenced
a process of improving the relationship between the two countries
which has continued. And I'm very happy to say that I regard
the improvement in that relationship and the way in which it has broadened
and been put on a very pragmatic, sensible basis, has a very significant
foreign policy achievement during the time that I've been in
government, because it is a very important relationship. We do have
differences, we don't pretend that there aren't differences,
we don't play act about it being a special relationship or a
unique relationship. We simply treat it in a very pragmatic fashion
and to the benefit of both countries we do have a lot in common. We
have a lot of dissimilarities; obviously. But it's a very good
relationship.
Of course the relationship between Australia and Singapore is very
close and it's always valuable to renew my association with Goh
Chok Tong. We have a lot in common in our attitude towards trade issues
and also of course regional issues and it was an opportunity to exchange
opinions on the situation in Indonesia which is of great importance
to both of us in different ways, but nonetheless of great importance
to both of us. So I'm very pleased to report that both of those
meetings went extremely well from our point of view and I can report
the very positive state of the bi-lateral relationship in each case.
I don't have an enormous amount of time the Canadian Prime Minister
and I and our wives are having dinner together tonight, but if there
are any questions you wanted to ask me I'll try and respond.
JOURNALIST:
(Inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
Well both of them want the momentum to be maintained. They don't
regard the second best outcome in relation to the voluntary sectoral
liberalisation as being the sort of end of all that is good and it's
really a question of putting it in context and going on to other things.
JOURNALIST:
How confident are you Prime Minister based on these talks that when
the leaders get together they can actually produce something very
substantial in terms of addressing the financial crisis?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'm encouraged Paul. I don't want to put it any more strongly
than that because there are different interests and different pressures
coming to bear and of course, a number of the countries that will
be represented by their leaders at this meeting would argue that they
have already undertaken very significant reform measures. A country
like Thailand would argue that it's already accepted an enormous
amount of discipline. Kim Dae-Jung would argue that his country has
already undertaken major reform and it's true. In both the cases
I've mentioned, Thailand and Korea, they've already gone
a long way down the path and they've taken some very severe medicine,
and they are to be congratulated for that. So that's one of the
things you've got to bear in mind. Some people will say well
look we're quite happy to look at further changes, and further
reforms, but please understand we've submitted ourselves to an
IMF discipline and we are complying with the request of the IMF. So
I'm cautiously optimistic. I don't want to put it any more
strongly than that.
JOURNALIST:
With APEC ... what would you expect to emerge on the question of
re growth of the region........(inaudible)...?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, well different countries will give different reports. I mean
in my discussion with Dr Mahathir today for example, he was predicting
that Malaysia would enjoy growth of 1 per cent next year.
JOURNALIST:
Would you discuss any concerns about the situation in Indonesia with
President Habibie tomorrow?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I don't want to foreshadow in advance the detail of what
I'll discuss with him but obviously it's not realistic for
the Prime Minister of Australia and the President of Indonesia to
have a meeting at this time without the domestic situation in Indonesia
being discussed. Of course, we'll discuss it. I am sympathetic
to Indonesia's difficulties and Australians should be sympathetic
to Indonesia's difficulty. That country is going through an enormous
social and political transformation. There's no doubt about that.
There are forces that work there which will not be changed and the
country is going through a very big transformation and it's very
difficult and without in any way walking away from things that we
regard as important we should be understanding of that and we should
be sympathetic to the Government of Indonesia.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister will you be inviting President Habibie to visit Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes I will.
JOURNALIST:
His predecessor felt that the Timor issue was one that would make
it very difficult. Do you share any concerns that you invite President
Habibie along the same lines?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, there was never a concern on the Australian part. As far as
Australia was concerned the former President Soeharto was always welcome.
It was a reluctance on his part to come because of perceptions about
demonstrations within Australia. And our position would be the same.
We support the right of people to lawfully register their point of
view and lawfully demonstrate in accordance with proper courteous
practice and it's not a phenomenon that it unknown in our country
Paul, as you know. Even in election campaigns.
JOURNALIST:
Are they any ...(inaudible)... that President Habibie maybe
get a little more confident about visiting Australia than his predecessor?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I've not discussed it with him Jim. Tomorrow will be my
first meeting with him in his capacity as President. I have met him
on a number of other occasions, but this will be our first head of
government encounter, so I don't know.
JOURNALIST:
Do you believe that Indonesia's interest is moving fast enough
to address the economic situation in its country. Will you be asking
President Habibie to make more room to do so?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well I certainly won't be, in my discussions with the President,
I won't be uncomprehending of the enormous strain that's
being imposed on Indonesian society by the economic adjustment it
has to make. I mean you're talking about a country where tens
of millions of people have now been plunged into absolute poverty
and we have to have an understanding of that and we have to be very
careful that we don't sound so out of touch with the reality
of life in Indonesia for the average person, that we are not taken
any notice of it. It's always important in these situations to
sure sound consistent and firm, if I can use that word, but equally
you've got to sound in touch and understanding and comprehending
and a country with a high living standard such as Australia loses
its capacity to influence if it behaves in a way which shows an insensitivity
to the problems.
JOURNALIST:
Back on China. Do you detect that there's an increasing role
from China or increasing influence from China within the APEC forum?
PRIME MINISTER:
I thought China would have an increasing role for a long time. But
I don't want to overestimate it. I mean China is still very strongly
committed to liberalisation and opening up its economy. Jiang Zemin
told me today that China remained very committed to an open attitude
to foreign investment and would maintain its process of economic liberalisation,
so inevitably China will become more and more important as time goes
by, but of course, it is coming off a low growth base. It's coming
off a low level of economic activity and although the growth is in
nominal terms very high, it is still in GDP terms a long way behind
many other countries, but it is a very big country and it's potential
is unlimited.
JOURNALIST:
Have you discussed with the Singapore Prime Minister recent financial
tensions in Malaysia and also Malaysia's (inaudible) five power
defence agreement and do you see the future of that five power defence
agreement...particular lame duck out of .....(inaudible)?
PRIME MINISTER:
No it's not a lame duck and something I mentioned at the press
conference earlier today was that one of the very positive things
to come out of my discussion with Dr Mahathir is that he reaffirmed
his commitment to the fire power defence agreement. I touched briefly,
or the tensions between the two countries were touched upon briefly
in both the bi-lateral discussions I had. I got the impression that
neither leader saw the problems as being insurmountable and the Prime
Minister of Singapore made it clear to me that he would not allow
those tensions to get in the way of the working through of the five
power defence agreement. I actually came away from my discussion with
both of them with very positive words from each on the future of that
agreement.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard when you were speaking today at the Business Summit you
said it was important, very important for people to explain the benefits
to people of trade liberalisation.
PRIME MINISTER:
Yes.
JOURNALIST:
Is that something that you had at the back of your mind recent experience
in Australia?
PRIME MINISTER:
I'd always have at the back of mind experiences in Australia
in relation to political explanations. Indeed, it's in front
of my mind.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard do you have any fresh ideas about how to make trade liberalisations
benefits real .... It's very hard to explain.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think you need anecdotes, you need stories, examples of how things
have been achieved, that's what you need and I think we, all
of us, as political leaders need to remind ourselves that you have
to provide real live flesh and blood examples of how market access
has been achieved and it's always so much easier to dramatise
a closure because of import penetration. It's often harder to
talk about a new market found because of trade liberalisations.
JOURNALIST:
What's been the reaction to reform assistance package you announced
today?
PRIME MINISTER:
With those of whom I've discussed are very positive. The Chinese
President liked it. The Singaporean Prime Minister liked it and I
indicated the broad outlines of it to Dr Mahathir and it had a good
reaction amongst the business people to whom I spoke and I'll
of course talk about it later again tomorrow.
JOURNALIST:
What assurances have you got from China in relation to economic growth
and currency?
PRIME MINISTER:
It would be wrong to say that the word assurance was given in relation
to the currency, but there was obvious pleasure taken in the fact
that they held the line on the currency and the very distinct impression
I got was that there was not going to be any change in that respect.
Economic growth? There were no figures mentioned Paul, but except
in what had been achieved up to date but the tenor of the discussion
was that they remain very strongly committed to economic growth.
JOURNALIST:
Aside from reaching (inaudible) is there an outcome that you regard
more important than any other at the Summit?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well that is a very important goal. I think it's always dangerous
with these things to have a hierarchy of goals because then people
start looking at things.
Thank you.
[ends]