PM: Here in Thailand at the East Asia Summit one of the matters which will be subject to discussion today will be the challenge of counter-disaster management. This is a core challenge for the people of the region, core challenge for countries like Australia where we've dealt with extraordinary bushfires in Victoria, core challenge for our friends in Indonesia who've been through the extraordinary tragedy of earthquakes and, of course, core challenges for countries in the region including the Philippines and others who are suffering from intense and repeated typhoons resulting in a great loss of life, resulting in a great loss of property.
Our friends and partners in the region have been engaged in discussions on this and we will have a further deliberation on how to do this better as a region during the course of today.
Australia has in the past invested in the aftermath of the Indonesian tsunami. At the initiative of this government a major centre in Jakarta can begin to unfold the research and the underpinnings of long-term counter-disaster management with Indonesia and then ultimately more broadly in the region. I discussed this the other day in Jakarta at length with president Yudhoyono and we went through, in particular, the sort of work which is now about to be underway within that centre. This is the largest centre of this type, in Indonesia, and it is an investment on the part of the Australian Government because natural disasters will be with us in greater intensity over a longer period of time, regrettably, with greater loss of life into the future for a range of reasons.
The big challenge is this - how do we best prepare? How do we best deploy our capabilities across the region? And again, that'll be the subject of deliberations in this EAS meeting again here in Thailand.
For Australia's part, we are providing $52 million to enable the rapid deployment of Australian civilians into overseas disasters or conflict zones. This new civilian corps to assist in disaster and conflict zones is going to be an important part of our contribution to the region in the future.
What's this mean in practice? It means the Government being able to deploy rapidly civilians with expert knowledge and abilities to disaster-struck regions or conflict zones with the urgency required in these often terrible and traumatic circumstances. This new initiative is expected to have interim capability by mid-2010 and is expected to be fully operational by early 2011.
Civilian specialists will be deployed across a wide range of roles. For example, they could be used to help restore the delivery of essential service like health services infrastructure where these disasters have hit, restore essential infrastructure like utility services - for example, electricity and water - and rebuild core government institutions to deliver good governance to support economic and social stability.
The Government will create a register of up to 500 Australian specialists who will be able to be deployed overseas at rapid notice. This will be drawn from both the public and private sectors. They may work alongside, for example, foreign military, UN peace keepers, as well as police and civilian experts from the country concerned. Once again this is about Australia providing a practical form of direct engagement into the region when disasters hit, in a practical and effective way. Of course, Australia will continue to work with our friends and partners on how to better coordinate overall cross-regional counter-disaster preparedness and response when natural disasters hit.
Second point I'd raise with you this morning concerns the Australian free trade agreement with the ASEAN countries to begin in 2010. Let's put all this into its context. This will be largest free trade agreement Australia has ever concluded, which will come into force on 1 January 2010, following discussion between ASEAN leaders in this East Asian Summit.
The agreement establishing the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement will span 12 economies, over 600 million people, and a combined GDP of $3.1 trillion. The agreement will cover a massive 20 percent of Australia's two-way trade, worth $112 billion.
The deal will eliminate tariffs on 96 percent of our current exports to ASEAN nations by 2020. Currently, only 67 percent of our exports in the region are tariff free. This will be the most comprehensive free trade agreement to enter into force for ASEAN, covering a range of areas including goods, services, investment, intellectual property and e-commerce.
The entry into force of this massive new free trade agreement for Australia as of 2010 is a big step forward for Australia, it is good for the Australian economy, it is good for jobs, and that is why this Government is pleased to have been part of this negotiation, pleased to have brought this negotiation to a successful conclusion, but most critically in terms of today's events, confirmation that this agreement will enter into force as of 1 January next year - a good economic story for Australia.
Over to you, folks.
JOURNALIST: PM (inaudible) is it an indication our military commitments in the region are stretched to capacity (inaudible)
PM: Our military capacity is first class. In my experience as Prime Minister, when we need to act, and act quickly, and if I speak to the Chief of Defence Force, staff, and the Defence Minister, we have kit and equipment quickly and able to be delivered, but that often needs to be complemented with civilian capabilities as well.
Whether it's in the medical field, whether it's in the civil reconstruction field or whatever, what we're seeking to do is in fact integrate both. This idea for a new civilian corps for Australians to help with counter-disaster relief in our region came directly out of the 2020 Summit last year. It was an idea from the floor, from the Australian community, saying 'we're a bunch of medicos, we're a bunch of specialists who know how to repair broken bridges, how to quickly plug in a power system which has fallen down or how to get the water system going again, but what we need is prearrangements, preparedness and rapidity of deployment to be effective.' So, that just doesn't happen by clicking your fingers when you see on the morning news that something has happened. It means having all this prepared, as we prepare for contingencies with our military capabilities as well. This is a good news story, I think, for Australia's contribution in the region.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)
PM: Absolutely.
JOUNALIST: (Inaudible)
PM: Will they travel with them or not is a separate question, but an integrated Australian response will deploy all the capabilities we've got within the ADF which are first class and, quite frankly, are without parallel in most of the region and secondly, also making sure that our civilian capability and that whole list of skills that I ran through before are able to be deployed with a similar urgency.
As you know, the first few days after a disaster hits are the most crucial. The first few weeks are the most crucial, for example, in preventing or reducing the outbreak of pandemic diseases through, often, the collapse of the water flow, of the water supply, or the pollution of local water services.
JOUNALIST: Prime Minister is it appropriate that an Australian vessel is about to deliver (inaudible) to an Australian-funded facility in Indonesia where there are allegations of wide spread abuse?
PM: On the question of Australia's engagement with Indonesia and other countries in terms of processing facilities, for example, we have been providing, as a nation, assistance to the Indonesians for reprocessing centres or processing centres going back four or five years now. That's the first point.
The second is as far as Indonesia itself is concerned, we provide funding through the UNHCR and through the IOM. Australia has provided approximately $34.7 million in funding to the regional cooperation arrangement since 1999. The Government recently increased its core funding to the UHNCR by $4.4 million to $14.3 million and provide another $2 million over two years specifically to support UNHCR's delivery of protection assessments and outreach activities in Indonesia - that's UNHCR.
In the 09/10 budget we provided the IOM with $5 million over two years to provide additional accommodation, food and medical care for intercepted irregular migrants in Indonesia. IOM will continue to provide care and maintenance and counselling services to the residing irregular migrants in these community accommodation arrangements. In 2007, the Australian Government provided $7.7 million to IOM to improve the management and care of irregular migrants in Indonesia as well.
My overall point is here are the agencies which are best equipped and best charged with ensuring the proper delivery of these services to these centres in Indonesia and elsewhere. The Australian Government for some time has been providing support for these international organisations. These organisations are effective, and therefore we believe that the best way for us to continue to support these arrangements in the future is to continue to work in partnership with the Indonesian Government but in partnership with these two critical international organisations.
JOURNALIST: ASEAN is wanting to hear more about your Asia-Pacific community. You'll be discussing that today. ASEAN wants to have a central role in that. Are they going to hear what they want from you on that?
PM: Well, I've put this forward, this proposal for an Asia-Pacific community, sometime last year. I'm here in Thailand with my special envoy, Dick Woolcott, who has travelled all the capitals of the region to discuss this at some length with regional heads of government over the last year or so, and you know we have a one-and-a-half-track conference coming up in Sydney in December, and what I detect across the region is an openness to a discussion about how we evolve our regional architecture into the future, and, as you know from my own proposal, I do not set an urgent time line on this. I've in fact suggested a time line of 2020 so that everyone has an opportunity to canvass a range of options for the future.
Our good friends in Japan, for example, have put forward an idea for an East Asia community. This is a good part, a good contribution to the overall regional conversation as well. What does all this symbolise? It reflects the fact that in this dynamic region which is so much the centre of global economic activity for the 21st century, but still with genuine and continuing security challenges into the 21st century, so we must always work to improve our regional coordination and cooperation systems and institutions into the future.
Now, I think that's a very healthy and live conversation for all countries in the region to have. Everyone is going to have a different view on what shape it should be and over what period of time. That's good - I'm perfectly relaxed about it. It's important that we are in a conscious discussion and a conscious process to evolve options for regional institutions for the future rather than just sitting back and waiting for big problems to emerge, and I think what is healthy within this group of leaders gathered here in Thailand at the East Asia Summit is preparedness to engage, still, in this open conversation about the future and I welcome the discussion.
JOURNALIST: A common currency, Prime Minister? Would that ever be considered by Australia?
PM: I think it's important to take things one step at a time. What I'm concerned about is to ensure that over time, to the greatest extent we can, we evolve institutions within our region which have it within their mandate to deal with the common security challenges of the future, the common political challenges of the future, the common economic challenges of the future across the spectrum and to do so in a way where our sense of common community becomes the driving force, rather than the things which may separate and divide us.
Having said that, I've got to zip.