PM: Can I say I'm very pleased to be here in Brussels. Obviously, I've arrived so that I'm able to attend the Asia-Europe Meeting over the next two days. This is the first time that Australia's had a seat at this table. This is a meeting that brings together over 40 world leaders.
As well as attending the sessions of the Asia-Europe Meeting, I will be taking the opportunity to have direct discussions with a number of world leaders, including the President of France, the Chancellor of Germany, the Prime Minister of Japan, amongst others.
I've come here today from Zurich, where I stopped over to talk to the President of FIFA, Mr Sepp Blatter, about Australia's bid for the World Cup in 2022. I, obviously, urged him to see the merits of Australia's bid for the World Cup. We are, of course, a great sporting nation. This is the biggest sporting event in the world. Australia has a great track record of running major sporting events, including the Olympics in Sydney and the Commonwealth Games.
The decision as to which nation will host the World Cup in 2022 will be made in December, so it was great to have an opportunity to talk through Australia's bid for this major sporting event.
And, clearly, I started my trip in Afghanistan. I believed it was very important as Prime Minister to make the first place I visited overseas Afghanistan so that I could talk directly with our troops there, and also with our AusAID personnel and our Australian Federal Police. They are doing a great job under difficult conditions: a great job training the Afghan national army; a great job supporting civil reconstruction works to assist the Afghan people rebuild their society.
It was a tremendous opportunity to be able to talk to the troops, to our AusAID personnel and to our Australian Federal Police directly, as well as to get briefings from personnel on the ground, including Colonel Creighton, General Cantwell, and of course General Petraeus, about the strategy in Afghanistan. I also had the opportunity to meet with the President of Afghanistan, so that was very enjoyable and a tremendous privilege to be able to talk to our troops.
So, I'm very happy to take questions. We'll start over here and go to there.
JOURNALIST: On Afghanistan, there's always pressure for more troops for the NATO effort. Is there any room in it to give on that, and what would be your message to Secretary General Rasmussen when you meet with him about Australia's commitment - length of commitment and numbers?
PM: Well, firstly, I don't want to assume what will be said to me tomorrow by the Secretary General of NATO, but what I will say about our deployment in Afghanistan is this - in terms of the size of our commitment, we have the biggest commitment of any non-NATO nation. We increased our commitment by 40 percent within the last 12 months.
Of course, what we have done here is we have defined the mission, and the mission is to train the Afghan National Army. In particular, to train the 4th Brigade, and having defined the mission, then we have taken the advice of the Chief of the Defence Force, Angus Houston, about what personnel and what equipment is required to acquit the mission.
As recently as being in Afghanistan, the fact that we have deployed the right number of people with the right equipment to acquit the mission was confirmed to me by the Chief of the Defence Force. It was also confirmed to me by commanders on the ground like Colonel Jim Creighton, like General Cantwell, that we have the appropriate force size for our mission.
Of course, the equipment that our troops have is always under review. We recently allocated $1.1 billion to increase equipment, to increase force protection. We constantly keep these matters under review, and should additional equipment be required then of course we will respond to that advice.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, how did Sepp Blatter respond to your message about our game? Did he give you any indication of our chances?
PM: I suspect that inherent in the job of being President of FIFA is that you're pretty good at holding your cards close to your chest, and at the end of the day this is a voting structure, and so the votes will come in in December. Obviously, he confirmed to me that Australia's bid had complied with all of the FIFA rules, so we were, in his terminology, like a Formula One driver at the starting line - the car is fully fuelled and the engine is on. Whether we'll win the race, we'll know in December.
Yes, Karen?
JOURNALIST: What are the chances of you meeting with the Premier of China, who's also here, and there was some tension when Mr Rudd became Prime Minister that he went to China and didn't go to Japan. There's been speculation about concern about the reverse, because you're going to Japan later in the year. How conscious are you of those tensions, and are you hoping to meet the Premier here?
PM: Well, we are still, of course, working on bilateral meetings, so I've indicated some of the ones that are already organised.
Just on the sequence of my travel, what I thought was my first and primary obligation was to make sure that I went to Afghanistan. That's what I wanted to do first, and then my travel during the course of this year is to attend the major multinational fora that are important to our national interest: here at the Asia-Europe Meeting, the first time we've seat at this table; and then later in the year at the East Asia Summit, APEC, and of course the G20.
JOURNALIST: Why did you see it as important to have a seat at the table here, because Australia has had the option before but hasn't been here?
PM: Well, this is something that was actually pressed for, pressed for over a long period of time. This is a significant gathering of world leaders. It's in our interest to be here. It's particularly in our interests when both security and economic matters, including trade, are discussed.
Of course, as I said to the parliament before I left to come on this trip, trade is in our national interest. Trade equals jobs. We're a great trading nation, and so it's tremendous to be here for this opportunity to see so many world leaders in the one place at the one time.
JOURNALIST: How about climate change? What are you expecting to get out of climate change at these meetings here?
PM: Well, as such a significant issue for the whole planet, obviously climate change will be under discussion both in the forum itself as well as in the bilateral meetings, so I will take the opportunity to explain that as a nation, as a government, we are committed to tackling climate change. We believe climate change is real and that we have this multi-party committee looking at all options for the pricing of carbon.
JOURNALIST: Do you think there's support for a carbon price or a carbon tax here (inaudible)
PM: I believe that what we will see here and what we see in other international meetings is nations defining their own strategies, their own way of dealing with pricing carbon and dealing with reducing carbon pollution.
JOURNALIST: Your Trade Minister has raised his voice against groups calling for protectionism related to climate change, and there were warnings under the previous Labor Government about the likes of France suggesting that countries that didn't have emissions trading should be penalised. Australia seemed to use that at the time as an argument in favour of having emissions trading, and now that we don't have an emissions trading scheme you seem to be arguing against that position. Is that a change simply because you didn't achieve emissions trading, and what will you say to the French President here?
PM: Well, look, I think to be fair to what we've said over time, we have always said, over time, as a Labor Government, that we're not interested in protectionist measures, that we're a Party of free trade. We believe free trade is in the interests of Australia. We are a great trading nation.
We've also said, of course, that we should tackle climate change. I would agree with the Trade Minister that we don't want to see a return to protectionism under some other guise.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) out of Indonesia in the last 24 hours in the wake of your lifting of the freeze on processing of Afghanistan visa applications, suggesting that we'll now see an influx. How concerned are you? If you believe that freeze was effective, how concerned are you that this might be facing, you might see more Afghans seeking asylum in Australia now?
PM: Well, I think the message here, of course, is we now have further country information. We have seen the number of Afghan asylum claims which are accepted go down. As a result, the message would be that people who are not genuine refugees will have their claims processed and will be returned back overseas, so that would be my message to anyone.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just on the raised travel (inaudible) threat of terrorism (inaudible)
PM: Look, can I say our information is always used to inform our travel advisories. As I am advised now, our travel advisories have not been changed, but we keep these matters under constant review.
Thank you.