PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well perhaps I could start, because this is the first occasion that the Prime Minister and I have met since the New Zealand election, in congratulating her on reforming a Government and being Prime Minister of New Zealand again. Helen Clark and I have worked together now for quite a number of years and we're both very committed to maintaining a close relationship between Australia and New Zealand. It is a very close relationship. We both put a lot of work into keeping it that way and I can say at the commencement of her third term on behalf of Australia that I will work very closely with her as Prime Minister of New Zealand to ensure that the very smooth relations of the past are maintained. It's a relationship I've put a lot of effort into in the nine and a half years I've been Australian Prime Minister. I don't think it's a relationship that should be taken for granted. It's one that ought to be worked on and I've tried to do that.
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
Thank you John. And its been a good opportunity to catch up for the first time since the election and I'd say John as Prime Minister of Australia, made the first phone call to me after the election and that was nice to have. This is the first of four significant international meetings we're both at in the course of the next six weeks. This one's followed by APEC in Korea, then the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Malta, and finally the East Asian Summit, which is an innovation and a table we're very pleased to be at the first meeting of. So we've had a chance to catch up on those issues and I've also been able to brief John on the one day visit that I made to the Solomon Islands with some other regional leaders on Sunday and to report on the quite amazing progress which is being made in restoring the situation there.
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
We're both very keen to ensure that the greater emphasis on governance and pooled responsibility within the Pacific Island area is maintained at this meeting. We had quite a turning of the page at the meeting in New Zealand a couple of years ago and there was a feeling of a new optimism and a new era and that was based on the emphasis we placed on governance and pooled responsibility and pooled activity. And it's important that the Forum maintain that and that will certainly be the view that I will put and I'm sure Helen will have the same approach.
JOURNALIST:
Australia and New Zealand do seem to have different approaches to the Pacific Island Forum approach on seasonal workers. Did you discuss that today?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
We had a general discussion about it. Obviously the New Zealand Prime Minister can talk for herself on that but I don't know that the differences are all that marked.
JOURNALIST:
What is your opinion on that?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well we have had some long standing reservations about the concept. We apply an open, non-discriminatory immigration policy and people from the Pacific Island area come in increasing numbers. We have always had a preference for permanent settlement or permanent migration. We do allow of course, in the student category, people to come and study and we've made it easier when they've completed their courses, to apply for permanent residence or citizenship. There are some fundamental issues involved in seasonal workers and it's not something that in the past Australia has felt inclined to embrace and it's not something that we change our policy on regularly.
JOURNALIST:
What are those fundamental issues Prime Minister?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well I think you either invite somebody to your country to stay as a permanent resident or a citizen or you don't.
JOURNALIST:
Is there a fundamental inconsistency with CER allowing labour mobility and attempting to push a CER on the Pacific which doesn't have...
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
No I don't think there's a fundamental inconsistency. CER is an expression of the close relationship between Australia and New Zealand and the accord that is extended or the respect that is extended in New Zealand as part of that is an expression of that relationship.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, are you also keen to stamp out corruption and crime?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well I like to see corruption and crime eliminated everywhere. Clearly issues of governance are uppermost in the minds of the Australian Government when it comes to the provision of aid to any country. I'm not being specific; I'm making a general point. We take the very strong view, and we don't apologise for it, that if we give aid to a country, we expect it to be wisely spent and we don't want it wasted because of poor governance and corruption. Now that's a strong view that we have no matter what country we're talking about.
JOURNALIST:
In light of the riots in (inaudible) prison which is a private prison owned by an Australian company, is that the sort of governance....
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well I don't think there can be any doubt that as a result of the activity of Australia and New Zealand and other countries in the Pacific, the Solomon Islands now has a future it couldn't have dreamt of a few years ago and Helen has just spoken to me of the great sense of optimism and enthusiasm that came out of her visit to the Solomon Islands. That's been a great Pacific success story and it's the sort of thing that has resonated in the region.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister Clark, do you think your new Foreign Minister will endorse your views about looking at seasonal workers from the Pacific?
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
Well firstly we need to be clear what we're saying on the subject and our history on this is a little different from the Australian history because New Zealand has long had in place access from the Pacific for migrants, including unskilled migrants. They get a chance to be balloted and providing they can get work in New Zealand they can come. So we're not applying the normal skilled migrant criteria. The second aspect of it is that we are short of workers. New Zealand does have the lowest unemployment in the Western world and we're particularly short of seasonal workers. Now obviously our first obligation is to our own people and we have been working with the seasonal industries to look at how they can employ more of those in New Zealand who aren't participating in the labour market, which may include women at home, may include young people on holidays, may include older people. But there's no doubt that there are quite a lot of people coming from off shore for seasonal work including working holiday makers. Now if a case is to be made to the New Zealand Government for seasonal permits from the Pacific, our foremost concern would be that people do go home at the end of the permit. We have had a scheme in the past with Tuvalu, long predating my period as Prime Minister, where workers simply didn't go home. And we still have an illegal population from that time. Illegal populations live under the threshold of what is acceptable in a first world society. They're exploited by employers and they don't get the health and social security backups people would expect. So if there's to be any consideration of arrangements for seasonal permits, there's quite a lot of issues which would have to be confronted and a lot of undertakings would have to be given and we'd have to be satisfied that these were the best arrangements for those industries.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, do you rule out any move towards these seasonal permits at this Summit?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well I rule in what I said a moment ago in answer to the question.
JOURNALIST:
Can there be a Pacific plan without the labour mobility aspects of it?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Oh yes.
JOURNALIST:
So that could be dropped from this Pacific Plan?
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
It's not in the Pacific Plan.
JOURNALIST:
It could be argued that on a closer trade (inaudible) that services would include this- more flexibility in the labour market. Do you say that's not...
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
Those are all issues that have to be negotiated. It always takes two to tango in a negotiation and from the New Zealand Government's point of view there are quite a lot of difficult issues around seasonal labour permits. And the foremost in our mind is that we do not want to have a growing number of illegals who come and skip at the end of permits. And unfortunately that's been some of the experience in the past.
JOURNALIST:
How is the New Zealand and Australian Government doing to try to stop illegal immigrants transiting into Australia from Papua New Guinea? It looks like, you've commented about fighting corruption, but nothing been mentioned on the PNG Indonesian border and other sea ports?
PRIME MINISTER:
Is that question directed at me?
JOURNALIST:
How is the Australian and New Zealand Government trying to help PNG to maintain the borders from illegal entries transiting from PNG?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well I haven't received any requests from the PNG Government. I have to say, when that issue what briefly discussed in my meeting with Sir Michael Somare earlier this afternoon he was not expressing any concern about the problem.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, the State Premiers have labeled your anti-terror laws unconstitutional. Have you had any further legal opinion on that and have you spoken to the Premier's about that?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well the two that I spoke to on the phone earlier today didn't say that to me?
JOURNALIST:
So you haven't had any further legal opinion on that?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well the legal advice we have is that there is nothing unconstitutional. I have offered in discussion with Mr Bracks and Mr Beattie, I have said that I'm quite happy for the Solicitor General for the Commonwealth, or our Commonwealth Crown Law Authorities and theirs to get together and discuss these issues. But we're very happy with the constitutionality and I wasn't aware that the law had been so branded. And that certainly wasn't the thrust of the conversations I had. I had two very amiable conversations. I have no doubt that the Premiers want this legislation passed and as far as I'm concerned, any proposals or suggestions which don't in anyway violate the substance of the agreement that we made at COAG, I'm prepared to look at.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, Don McGauchie, the Chairman of Telstra has come out today and said that he doesn't believe Telstra should be privatised for any price. What's your reaction?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well there's nothing new about that. We've said all along we're not a distressed seller. And what you've reported him as saying is precisely the same thing.
JOURNALIST:
Prime Minister's have you discussed West Papua this afternoon.
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
No.
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
West Papua no. I think we must go in a minute. I've got to talk to another Premier. There's a lot of them.
JOURNALIST:
Mr Howard, your meeting with Sir Michael Somare, can you tell us what you discussed? Did you discuss the ECP, did he bring up the question of labour mobility with you and what was the result of the discussion?
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well he certainly didn't raise West Papua. The issue of labour mobility was discussed and the views that I have expressed to you are the views that I expressed in that discussion. We talked about a number of other things. I did express the hope that the big gas project would come off which is so very important to Papua New Guinea and I've also offered to provide up to seven Australian technical experts to Papua New Guinea to assist in relation to that project. It was otherwise a wide ranging discussion. We talked about our two countries common interest in rugby league. And congratulations on a keenly fought contest.
PRIME MINISTER CLARK:
Keen defences.
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Yes, keen contest between Australia and New Zealand and beyond that it was situation normal.
JOURNALIST:
Do Pacific security concerns end at the West Papua Border? Does the Pacific Plan include security issues? Do Pacific security concerns end at the West Papua Border....
PRIME MINISTER HOWARD:
Well I can tell you, it may disappoint you, but West Papua was not raised by the PNG Prime Minister.
Thank you.
[ends]