New York City, USA
PM: I'm shortly to leave New York to return to Australia, this is my last day here. My day started visiting the 9/11 memorial. It is a stark, very stark, very solemn memorial. The cascading water creates an environment in which you can contemplate what happened there.
I had the opportunity to see the names of the Australians we lost on 9/11, ten Australians in all.
For all time I think that that will be a place that people go to mourn lost loved ones, to reflect on everything we lost on that dreadful day. For me it's been a reminder of the chilling images of that dreadful day of what we all felt as the news first came through. It's also been a real reminder of why we commenced our mission in Afghanistan.
Apart from that today I've had the opportunity to engage in a number of bilateral meetings. All in all as my week in New York draws to an end, it's been a busy week, it's been a productive week.
I came here with five objectives, and that was to advocate for the millennium development goals, to talk about the importance of peacebuilding, to deliver my address to the UN General Assembly, to meet fellow leaders in bilateral discussions and of course to advocate for our Security Council bid.
I've been able to do all of those five things across the week.
The work I've done across the week really has had four themes. I've been focused on global security and on regional security. I've been focused on making poverty history, I've been focused too on climate change in my discussions, and I've been focused on peace and human rights.
As the week draws to a close, I've certainly thought throughout the week as I went through all of these engagements that whatever happens with our Security Council bid, this week at the UN has reinforced to me that Australia is a nation that is respected in the world. Our practical contributions for change are much admired. And whatever happens with our Security Council bid, I've certainly been left with an impression of warmth for Australia.
Now I know of course that people will want me to give a status report on how we're going with the Security Council bid, and as I said a little bit earlier in the week, football coaches heading towards the grand final don't give a running commentary on what they expect the scoreboard to be at the end of the game. And I'm going to abide by that rule myself.
But I have been encouraged by the support we've received. I've been encouraged by the warmth there is towards Australia.
I would, as we've gone about advocating for the Security Council, I've said to people that we would bring an Australian voice, an Australian accent, to the Security Council. We have been talking to people all week about the Security Council bid, and I am encouraged by some of the warmth that we've received in response.
But this is a mission that continues. Voting day is not until 18 October. And we will be continuing to work between now and 18 October to secure a spot on the Security Council.
I would take this opportunity to thank our ambassador to the UN, Gary Quinlan and his team. Not only for everything they've done to facilitate my visit here, but everything they do to hold Australia's name up high at the United Nations.
I'm very happy to take any questions.
JOURNALIST: (inaudible) running commentary-
PM: No I'm not.
JOURNALIST: But do you feel different now you're at the end of the week, more confident or less confident than you were at the beginning of this week about our bid?
PM: I said to you at the beginning of the week that we've been encouraged by the bids and expressions of support we've received from around the world. That we had been encouraged by that, but we were always expecting it to be a tight, close contest.
I leave the week personally encouraged in the sense that I've had the opportunity to sit with people, one next to another, face to face, eye to eye, and talk about our Security Council bid.
So I leave the week personally encouraged but still aware that it is a tough, close contest. And we won't know the result until all the votes are in on 18 October. And we won't stop working until all the votes are in on 18 October.
JOURNALIST: In a couple of weeks you're going to be in Bali as well, 10th anniversary of that attack. Is that something you pondered as you were there at Ground Zero today?
PM: I certainly pondered the direct loss of life on 9/11. I'm sure everyone in this room, and every Australian can remember where they were and what they were doing when the news came through about 9/11.
They can remember where they were when they first saw on their TV screen the images of the twin towers, of the plane, of the towers coming down. And as the rest of the news came through, and you just didn't know when it was going to end, because then there was the Pentagon and you didn't know what was going to happen next. I think we can all remember how that felt, how truly terrifying it was. It felt for a lot of it like you were watching a movie and yet you knew it was hideously real.
So I've relived the emotions of that day, and of course everything that has happened since; took us to Afghanistan, we saw the loss of life in Bali, and I'll have some time to grieve with families in Bali who still, ten years later, would be mourning and feeling in their lives the absence of those loved ones.
JOURNALIST: Senator Carr was asked earlier today whether the Security Council bid was about ego, as one commentator has suggested. And he said it was about Australia's ego. What do you think? Is it about Australia's ego?
PM: I'm a fiercely proud Australian, I'm very proud of our country, I'm happy to bend anybody's ear to talk Australia up, and so I do think we've got a sense of national pride, and so we should. So we should have a sense of national pride.
We're a great nation; you wouldn't live anywhere else on earth. When you travel overseas there's always that wonderful moment when you get back home and as you settle back into your home the first thing you say to your loved ones when they're clamouring at you for duty free gifts, is you wouldn't live anywhere else in the world.
So we're a proud nation, we feel that ourselves as individuals, we should feel it collectively on the global stage here at the UN.
JOURNALIST: And on the global stage at the UN, what was that like, yesterday speaking to the General Assembly. What's that experience like for you?
PM: It's a different kind of venue to any other that you'll speak in. It's obviously a moment for me, there's not that many times in anyone's life that they get to speak to the UN General Assembly. But my main mission there was to outline Australia's world view and I believe I did that.
JOURNALIST: And on the Security Council bid, when you speak to other leaders, have you been directly saying, will you vote for us? How have you gone about that and have people have actually said we will vote for you?
PM: I think you know I'm not particularly shy. So when you're canvassing in an election campaign, then you do have to ask people for their support. There's more or less subtle ways of putting that, there's a variety of options, but at the end of the day they all get to the same thing, you are asking people to vote for you.
Of course we have had expressions of support, but we don't underestimate how difficult this contest is, and it will go right down to the wire. UN contests are famous for multiple voting rounds, for unexpected results. We really do believe that this is tight and tough and that we won't know the outcome until all the votes are in.
JOURNALIST: The most burning question for Australians this weekend: who's going to win the grand final?
PM: On the AFL grand final I don't have a dog in the fight, as you're well aware, tragically no dog in the fight. So I've gone for Sydney. I've gone for Sydney for a few reasons. One I think it would probably be good for the game, for Sydney to win it this time round. Two, I thought Hawthorne played a pretty punishing match against the Crows, so how sore they are I'm not sure what the coach is saying about that, but it would seem to me human reason to tell you they'd have to pull up pretty sore.
So I've gone for Sydney but I don't think it will be by much. I think we'll be biting our nails right to the end.
On the NRL grand final I've gone for the Melbourne Storm, I'm the number one female ticket holder, so it'll be good to watch the Storm play up in Sydney.
JOURNALIST: I know this is not an economic week here but one thing we can't fail to notice here is that after 30 years of decline the US manufacturing sector has turned around. Australia has a lot of problems with its own manufacturing sector I wonder if there's anything now that you take from that or anything you think Australia can learn?
PM: I think you will see this phenomena is in part correlated with your currency. And the circumstances we're in are different from the circumstances of the US. Our dollar is very, very high, high by historic standards.
When I first came to the United States, when friends of mine first travelled here, if they were getting 60 cents for their US dollar they thought they'd done themselves a pretty good deal. Now of course our dollar trades above the US dollar and you were probably there when I joked, perhaps chided, at the US reporter about that the other day.
So our dollar is very high, that is what is putting pressure on manufacturing, there is also competition for capital and labour because our economy is growing strongly, particularly in the resources sector.
None of these economic factors are pressing on the US, the US has been in recession, it has a high unemployment rate, its currency is not as highly valued against comparative currencies as it was, including our own. And so all of those things are combining to enable a resurgence in US manufacturing.
Now I do think that that speaks to ultimately the adaptability and innovation that is inherent in the American economy. The American economy has often been written off in the past, only to defy its critics. This is an innovative nation where people find a way through and they'll find a way through the current economic predicament that the US continues to face - sluggish growth.
JOURNALIST: You made mention yesterday in your speech about Syria (inaudible). This morning we heard from the Foreign Minister about just how serious the situation is. He used statistics such one million people being displaced, 2.5 million people in need of medical aid.
Now we've included 1,000 refugees from Syria in terms of our humanitarian intake as part of the 20,000 program. Would you give consideration to actually lifting that number from Syria considering what we're learning now about what's going on there?
PM: We'll keep under close review humanitarian assistance and refugee intake and the like, the things that we can do to support the people of Syria.
JOURNALIST: To clarify I didn't mean to lift the 20,000, I meant-
PM: No, no within the quota, so we've moved to 20,000 that you're talking about countries of intake. Look we'll keep under close review our humanitarian assistance. We'll keep under close review the mix of our refugee intake. But at the end of the day, what needs to happen in Syria is the violence needs to stop.
The humanitarian crisis is the symptom of the violence. If the violence stops then there will be a lot to do to assist the people of Syria, but at least you won't continue to see people killed and new humanitarian tragedies unfolding before your eyes, which is why I did speak about the need for the Security Council to act decisively on Syria yesterday.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister you said you had some talks on climate change with various people this week. Did the state of the UN carbon market come up, because I think there's a proposal to actually pour money in to try to prop it up. We didn't get much of a mention of climate this week, is it going down the international agenda given Syria and Iran and various other things?
PM: In the UN itself, this is not a week focused on climate change, of course there is the annual event that is focused on climate change, and we will participate in that very important meeting, and some very important progress was made in Durban last year.
My discussions about climate change have mainly been in bilateral meetings where there is a widespread understanding of what Australia has done with putting a price on carbon.
I've met this week with a number of countries that are small island nations for whom climate change is an existential threat, and they look and they monitor and they see what countries are doing to act on climate change and they know that we have put a price on carbon, and they certainly view that as a very worthwhile reform.
JOURNALIST: Obviously you've not been 100 per cent well this week. Your team describes you as a tough cookie, was it difficult for you, did you find you had to kind of push yourself through it not feeling 100 per cent through the week?
PM: I've been a bit off colour, that's true. I've mainly felt it on Monday and I do regret that I wasn't able to give that speech, but at that moment I wasn't confident I could have stood for 25 minutes, and not a good thing to be half way through a speech and go over to one side. But since then I've felt like I could do the program and have basically done the program, and a few members of the team have also been a bit unwell but we've pushed through so it's not too bad.
JOURNALIST: There were some reports, however true or scurrilous, coming back from Australia that the source of your illness actually came from Tim, who had gone out and got some dodgy food, so is he to blame?
PM: I think we can absolutely rule out on the list of culprits Tim and the procuring of dodgy food. I can rule that out for you.
JOURNALIST: Just going back to climate change and what I raised earlier about manufacturing I was going to mention one of the big factors is shale gas in America. Not only boosting manufacturing and reviving chemical industry but their meeting their Kyoto targets if they hadn't, even if they hadn't signed the thing, Australia has been a lot slower to exploit unconventional gas sources, had a lot of opposition. I'm just wondering if that's something we could be doing a little more efficiently, a little better?
PM: We are a nation with a wide range of energy options, and that's a great strength for us. Of course we are bringing on stream considerable use of cleaner energy sources including gas, and including considerable use of renewables.
I certainly believe when it comes to things like coal seam gas that we should be making prudent use, and that is, having appropriate environmental assessments, and then using those sources that meet the appropriate environmental assessments. And we've put in place a process to help get that done with state governments so that there is good science available to communities who are seeking to assess coal seam gas projects.
JOURNALIST: Back to the Security Council bid, I know the P5 don't get too involved in this sort of thing but have you had any indication from the United States and UK as to whether they are going to support our bid, and have you asked them?
PM: As a matter of convention permanent members of the Security Council do not disclose their votes.
JOURNALIST: Have you asked them though?
PM: There's no point asking them because they don't disclose their votes.
JOURNALIST: (Inaudible)?
PM: Well all I can repeat to you is the convention; they don't disclose their votes for obvious reasons.
JOURNALIST: Lindsay Tanner said that, in an interview yesterday, that you argued to cease the CPRS under Kevin Rudd. He said that, I think it's the first time publically that anyone involved has gone on the record. What do you say to that?
PM: Well I've dealt with all of this extensively before, and having lived with what we've lived through and endured all we've endured, I don't think anybody could doubt my commitment to putting a price on carbon.
JOURNALIST: We've got the US presidential election campaign at the moment, who do you think is in front?
PM: I don't comment on Australian opinion polls, I'm not going to start commenting on anybody else's.
JOURNALIST: You've had a lot of analysis while you've been over here back home from senior Labor figures about your leadership, state of the Party, state of the Government. You going to knock some heads together when you get home?
PM: I'll do what I do which is get on with the job and make sure that as a government we are doing those things that Australians want done.
We've been over here this week talking about how we're a practical people. I've been doing that because I genuinely believe it, and people look at their governments to get practical things done too.
So my focus when I get home will be on making sure our economy is still offering people the benefit of jobs, getting on with the school funding reforms, and getting on with building that National Disability Insurance Scheme.
JOURNALIST: Do you feel it's undermined your efforts over here though?
PM: Government, Labor Government, is about sharing opportunity. It's about a fair distribution of opportunity to do that, you've got to have a strong economy so the doors of opportunity are open.
To do that you've got to support people when times are tough, like when people are facing a disability, themselves or in their family, to do that you've got to make sure every kid gets a chance - that's going to be my focus when I get home.
Thanks very much, safe travels.