Subject(s): Annual Australia-Indonesia Leaders’ Meeting; Home insulation scheme; Border security; Business investment in Indonesia
PM: Well I’m delighted to be back in Indonesia for the annual Indonesia-Australia Leader’s Meeting.
This is of course my first time abroad since being sworn in.
Indonesia was in fact the first country I visited having been sworn in as Prime Minister back in 2007. And I have been back to this country about ten times since then as Prime Minister or as Foreign Minister. And it’s a delight to be back in Jakarta.
Indonesia is one of our closest friends and neighbours and it’s one of our most important trading partners across the spectrum.
We share a truly comprehensive strategic partnership based on mutual respect, shared democratic values and a common interest in building a stable and prosperous region. I’m pleased to be here for this important meeting.
Indonesia is a great and dynamic success story unfolding. I pay tribute publicly to President Yudhoyono for his leadership in engineering this chapter in Indonesia’s transformation; transformasi as it’s called here.
Transforming Indonesia into a stable and continuing democracy and transforming the Indonesian economy into one which has grown at about six per cent each year during the period of his presidency.
I’ve already had a good conversation with the President on the telephone. And I look forward to catching up with him this evening over dinner with my wife Therese and of course with Ibu Ani.
I’ll be thanking him personally for his strong and active support for the Australia-Indonesia relationship over the years, a relationship that will be critical for Australia’s success in the 21st Century.
Of course the relationship covers all areas including our economic engagement, our defence engagement, education, border security, tourism, economic development and people-to-people links.
This is a very good relationship for both of us, and an important one.
Indonesia has a young, fast growing economy with a quarter of a billion people. It’s projected to be the world’s tenth largest economy by 2025.
I’m particularly keen to discuss with President Yudhoyono the ways in which we can build our economic relationship into the future.
I believe it’s still underdone at present. We’ve got a long, long way to go in building a much stronger trade and investment relationship between Australia and Indonesia.
We’ll also of course be discussing how we can work more closely to make the most of the opportunities that will come with the profound shift in global economic weight to our own region.
It’s a big year ahead for both Indonesia and Australia.
Indonesia hosts APEC later this year. We of course host the G20 next year. This therefore brings these major global institutions right into the heart of these two countries of ours – Australia and Indonesia.
And I’ll also be congratulating President Yudhoyono for his first class work as the co-chair of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on the post-2015 development agenda, and reiterate to him Australia’s intention to continue cooperating with Indonesia while we are on the UN Security Council as a non-permanent member.
Again, let me say how delighted I am to be back in Indonesia. Saya senang berada di Jakarta. Terima kasih and I look forward to your questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the parents of Matthew Fuller asked that you apologise for their son’s death. Will you do that?
PM: This is an unspeakable tragedy affecting a young boy, a young man and young men.
I cannot, as a parent, begin to understand the grief which parents would be feeling under these circumstances.
As the Prime Minister of the country I am deeply sorry for what is occurred and of course I apologise for these deaths given that it was a government program.
The Queensland Coroner has issued a report on the subject and I’ve looked carefully at what the Acting Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said today.
I agree with the Acting Prime Minister. We accept the Coroner’s conclusions.
The Coroner’s report of course goes to a range of subjects. But let’s not beat around the bush, this was a government program.
Secondly, I also note what the Coroner had to say about the culpability of individual firms as well.
A number have been prosecuted by the relevant Queensland authority already. And I understand one further has been recommended for further prosecution by the DPP.
But on the question which is purely personal, purely about the death of young men, and this young man in particular whose parent have spoken out on, I simply say on behalf of the Australian Government, how deeply sorry I am, and of course we apologise without reservation.
JOURNALIST: Was there too much haste in the assembling of this program Mr Rudd, and are there any lessons that you’ve learned as a result of what’s happened?
PM: Up until now there’s been an independent review of this program I think by Allan Hawke.
I think there has also been an Auditor-General’s report into this program.
Of course we accept their recommendations as we do those of the Coroner who’s deliberated on these professionally.
The other thing I’d say is that the Australian Government has co-operated fully with the Queensland Coroner and that is at it should be.
So those conclusions and those recommendations of course we fully accept.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister what can be expected, I know you spoke before you left about talks on border security. What should we expect from tomorrow’s summit?
PM: Well I think it’s quite wrong to have huge expectations that there’s going to be some headline result out of what is a regular meeting between the Prime Minister of Australia and the President of Indonesia, which covers the full breadth of our relationship.
Of course border security will be part of the discussions I have with President Yudhoyono; that’s right, and it’s logical and it’s natural.
But I’m in the business of working with our Indonesian friends and partners on what actually works in dealing with the challenge of border security rather than using three-word slogans which sound good, but in practice don’t work.
So this is going to be a serious discussion about the economy, about trade and investment links, about how much more we can do on that front, our defence ties, border security and the rest our engagement with the region.
JOURNALIST: You said that you were implementing an election promise when you dismantled the Howard Government approach to border protection. Do you concede that it was a mistake though, that that promise that you implemented – elements of it – have proven to be flawed?
PM: As I said recently in interviews the truth of it is that immigration policy is constantly subject to change, as it should be because our global and regional circumstances change as well.
So on our immigration policy we’ve necessarily seen adjustments over time, whether it’s under Mr Howard or it’s been under us, and again under us more recently.
And I’ve made comments about the speed of adjustment which should have occurred to our policy in the 09-10 period following other developments in our region.
The reason I say all that is that Australia’s immigration policy is not etched in stone.
You’ve got to continue to adjust it to changing and emerging circumstances.
We’ll do that, but here is the criteria: one, it’s got to work, number two, it’s got to honour our international obligations, and three, I am not faintly interested in people producing three word sound bites to win a few votes, as opposed to doing the real hard work on what actually works for a challenge faced by countries right around the world.
JOURNALIST: Part of your mission here is furthering Australian business investment in Indonesia, giving Australian businesses direct advice as to the options. How important is an FTA to facilitating that type of investment?
PM: I think it’s really important, and the fact that we’ve got this close economic partnership agreement negotiation underway is fundamental.
A lot of Australian businesses have a perception problem when it comes to Indonesia. They think it’s just too hard to get into as a market.
Well, frankly, if you took that attitude to what it was like dealing in China ten, 20, 30 years ago, or frankly in Japan 40, 50, 60 years ago, we would’ve got nowhere.
All I’m saying is, there’s a quarter of a billion people next door to Australia, it’s barely an hour’s flight from Darwin depending on where you are.
And therefore, when you see hundreds of millions of people emerging here, as the Indonesian middle class, wanting to purchase things that we in Australia buy, and frankly the Australian business community needs to lift its horizons and see that there’s a whole new world of opportunity here.
And folks, I’ve really got to see the Indonesian President tonight over dinner, I don’t want to keep him waiting, thank you very much.