PM NAJIB:Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Honourable Ministers. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and I and members of his delegation, we had a very productive and very useful meeting in which we discussed a number of important areas of common concern.
First and foremost, we touched on how Malaysia can cooperate in terms of combating human trafficking to Australia. And I gave a categorical assurance to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that we will do all that we can to prevent the flow of illegal immigrants to Australia. And certainly we do not want Malaysia to be known as a transit point for human trafficking.
Both our security agencies will be working very closely together as they are today and in the future, and we stressed the importance of preemptive intelligence, more effective surveillance and more regular exchanges of information between our security agencies.
I informed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that Malaysia is very keen on the development of Green Technology. A new Ministry of Green Technology has been established, and in this regard next year we will have an exhibition to showcase green technologies worldwide here in Malaysia.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd informed me that Australia has done a lot of work in terms of carbon emission reduction, and in view of the fact that Malaysia is in the process of establishing a coal-fired station on the east coast of Sabah, we would be very keen to know more about the technology that Australia has developed in this regard.
Similarly, in terms of alternative renewable energy, Australia has developed quite significant R&D and technology in terms of solar energy and that is something that we would be very interested to know more about.
We exchanged our views on the current situation, both our economies of Australia and Malaysia, and I briefed Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on the current situation in Malaysia. We touched on some of the other developments, the forthcoming G20 meeting and the role that Australia can play.
And we've also agreed that we should broaden and strengthen our bilateral cooperation, taking into account the goodwill and the many, many years of outstanding collaboration, in fact since the days of the Second World War, the time when we fought against the communists, and so forth, relations between Australia has always been on a strong footing in the fundamental areas.
Another feature of our discussion was on education. We took note of the excellent progress of the three tertiary level institutions that have been established in Malaysia, namely Monash, Curtin and Swinburne, and also the fact that there are something like 20,000 Malaysian students studying in Australia.
So all in all, it's been a very useful discussion and I hope that I would have the opportunity to meet again with Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in the near future so that we can continue the good start that we have established between both of us. Thank you.
PM RUDD: Thank you Prime Minister and it's good to be back in Malaysia and thank you for the warm and friendly reception myself and my delegation have received here.
It's also today that I'm here with the Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith who's had bilateral discussions with his Malaysian counterpart. And from our point of view this underpins and underlines the importance which we in Australia attach to this relationship.
As the Prime Minister has just indicated, we are long-standing partners in areas of security and economic cooperation. We're among each other's top 10 trading partners in both directions and therefore for us at all levels this is an important relationship.
I would like to publicly take the opportunity on this as our first meeting as Prime Ministers to congratulate the Prime Minister on his appointment to this high office within his country. I would also publicly acknowledge and congratulate him for the economic reform program which he is outlining for the Malaysian economy. This is an important and strategic decision for this great country.
Also I congratulate the Prime Minister on his decision to establish a Ministry responsible tor Green Technology. This is an important area for the future. One of the matters we will discuss soon at the G8+ meeting in Italy will be the progress to be made between now and the Copenhagen conference at the end of the year on climate change. The importance of green technologies within that is fundamental.
The Prime Minister in particular made reference to plans in Malaysia to establish a new coal-fired power station and because Australia is an active proponent of carbon capture and storage technologies through our proposed Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute, which began operations on the first of July, and also through our own local efforts within Australia through the measures we announced in our recent Budget, we look forward to working with our friends in Malaysia on how we can assist with CCS technologies here.
Given the importance of coal-fired power generation now and into the future, as an energy source and as an impact on greenhouse gas emissions, carbon capture and storage technologies are critical for the future of greenhouse gas emissions but also our long term energy security.
Bilaterally, the areas of cooperation between us are increasing in scope and the Prime Minister has already referred to a number of spheres. In education for example, the three Australian universities which operate here are operating here because of wise decisions taken by the Prime Minister in his earlier life as education minister. Some 15,500 Malaysians at home here in Malaysia are studying at those institutions and we are grateful for their participation in the work of our education institutions. And the 20,000 or so Malaysians who are students in Australia itself are genuinely welcome guests in our country and we welcome their continued presence among us. They are great contributors to our Australian way of life.
Clean technology we have just referred to as well is a new area of bilateral cooperation.
The Foreign Ministers today also I believe spent time with the first group of Afghan teachers who are being trained here in Malaysia through an Australian Development Assistance Cooperation Program, working three ways - Australia, Malaysia, assisting with the future education development of Afghanistan. This is good. It reflects further on the ways in which we can partner together on projects beyond our immediate bilateral relationship.
And further underlining that point, we've agreed also to hold for the first time in our history as a relationship, regular foreign ministerial meetings, the first of which occurred today between our two colleagues.
Regionally, Malaysia and Australia cooperate closely through APEC, we also cooperate closely with the emerging EAS and we also discussed today continued future discussion on the possibilities in the long term of an Asia Pacific community.
The Prime Minister and I also discussed the great challenges we now confront with the global economic recession, buffeting the Malaysian economy, buffeting the Australian economy, buffeting all the economies around the world, underlining the absolute importance of continued work together to reduce the impact of this global economic recession on our peoples, on our economies, and on our futures. Hence underlining the importance of global collaboration through mechanisms such as the G20 and also through the G8+ meeting, which I'll be attending soon in Italy.
One of the items on the agenda of the G8+ meeting will deal with how we restart and conclude the Doha Round of free trade negotiations. This is important given the critical significance of trade to the long term health of our respective economies.
The Prime Minister also in his remarks made particular emphasis of our common challenge with the evil trade of people smuggling. This is an evil trade, people smuggling. It is bad for the individuals concerned, it is bad for the countries concerned. And I would like to publicly thank the Malaysian government and the Prime Minister for their active energetic cooperation with Australia in dealing with this challenge. I know for a fact that several or a number of groups have been prevented from travelling further through the active intervention of the Malaysian authorities and I would publicly place on record our appreciation for the strong efforts taken here in Malaysia on that.
We look forward to working even more closely with our Malaysian counterparts through bilateral, security, migration, border control measures as well as our wider regional cooperation through the Bali process. So Prime Minister I thank you strongly for the efforts you have taken in this particular respect.
Finally, I indicated today that I look forward to receiving the Prime Minister on an official visit to Australia at his earliest opportunity and his earliest convenience. I said to the Prime Minister, who I've met in other capacities over the years, that he would be a welcome guest in our country. And as soon as his commitments here enable him to do so, then we would look forward to the opportunity of receiving him in Australia as one of Australia's close friends in our region together. I thank you.
JOURNALIST: Paul Gates, ABC Australia, for Mr Rudd, getting back to people smuggling if we can very quickly. What practical effects will flow on [inaudible]?
PM RUDD: Already the fabric of police, intelligence, security, border control, migration cooperation is strong. The lines of communication are operating effectively. I believe if we look to the future, one of the areas where we wish to expand our cooperation further is through greater mutual sharing of all relevant areas of intelligence concerning these movements across our wider region, and we intend to do that.
Our agencies cooperate well together. As the Prime Minister indicated before, our security agencies have been working well with each other for many, many decades and the Prime Minister, having previously worked in the area of defence, knows this better than I. We are perfectly relaxed working with each other and I would commend him and his agencies for the excellent cooperation we have received so far. I think we both agree that we can always do more in the future and we look forward to doing that.
PM NAJIB: We've also agreed that our defence chiefs should sit down and discuss if there are other ways in which we can step up our operational effectiveness in combating human trafficking.
PM RUDD: This, as the Prime Minister and I have both indicated, this is an evil trade. It requires all of our common efforts to reduce it and, if we can, stamp it out. And I am pleased that we have seen such high level political resolve here in Malaysia to work with us on that.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible] Asia-Pacific community [inaudible]. May I know what is the Malaysia viewpoint?
PM NAJIB: We talked about it and we've agreed that we should spend a bit of time to further understand the whole concept. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has said this is a long-term initiative. There is no great urgency in terms of datelines. It's important that we build this understanding and consensus before we move on. So we are quite pleased with that kind of position and Malaysia will engage in understanding the whole concept that he has propounded.
PM RUDD: As I said also in the Shangri-La speech, Australia will later this year or early next, host a one-and-a-half track conference on this question. We think this is the right way to take the proposal forward, tease it out further and build a regional consensus over time. As I said at the very beginning of this, we set ourselves targets of 2020 and that is a ways away, but it is important that the region begins discussing among itself where we wish to be in our long term future.
JOURNALIST: Tom Allard from The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper for the Australian Prime Minister. [inaudible] Can you give an assurance to the Australian people, or any type of guarantee to the Australian people -
PM RUDD: Probably not to you Tom, but go on.
JOURNALIST: - that the number of unauthorised arrivals in Australia will ease in the next 12 months. Is there any prospect of that at all?
PM RUDD: Tom, every country in the region is facing excessive push factors from elsewhere in the wider region, you know that as well as I. Look at the recent civil strife in Sri Lanka, look at continued instability in Afghanistan, look at still some of the exit factors operating elsewhere within the wider Middle East. These are pressures being felt right across our wider region. These pressures exist, therefore our challenge as heads of government is to work together to deal with these pressures at source where we can, in transit where we can, and upon arrival when we can.
That is the challenges we face. Can I say, our Navy is doing an excellent job in the interdictions it has undertaken, our cooperation with our Malaysian friends has been first class as well. But this is going to be a challenge which will be around for quite a while to come because the push factors are derived from security and economic forces which lie beyond the individual control of national governments.
In my recent discussions with the President of Indonesia, President Yudhoyono was quite emphatic about the point that the security factors which I've just referred to, combined with the economic factors which are now alive through the global economic recession, combine to create more push factors in terms of people moving illegally and unlawfully across our wider region. Then you have the added overlay of people smugglers at work.
This will be a challenge around for a long time yet. We the Australian government will take every practical hard-line measure to deal with this. And we are dealing with it with our friends and partners in the region, including Malaysia.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible]
PM RUDD: You are getting a double bunger mate. That's Australian slang for two goes, by the way.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible] contingencies for where we are going to put [inaudible] Christmas Island [inaudible]
PM RUDD: All these matters, all these matters will be dealt with appropriately, based on cases as they present themselves. The Immigration Minister has all these matters well in hand and will respond to challenges as they arise.
Can I say that the methodical, calm, effective way in which our respective authorities are dealing with this challenge is good, both in Malaysia, Indonesia and Australia. We can always do more, we've all agreed that. The fabric for that cooperation to make a difference to this evil trade is already a strong fabric and we intend to make it stronger.
JOURNALIST: [inaudible]
PM NAJIB: New initiative? Well I think we stress on the importance of pre-emptive intelligence report. So we will step up exchange of intelligence information. And as I have alluded earlier that the defence chiefs will be sitting down and looking at ways and means in which we can strengthen our operational capabilities.