Prime Minister
Prime Minister: Well, thank you very much for coming out on a Sunday in particular. I'm very pleased to be here with you once again and thank you very much for the Welcome to Country. Can I also acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet, the Noongar people and acknowledge their elders past, present and emerging as you can see on display here today. Can I also acknowledge any veterans of serving men and women of our Defence Forces that are here with us today, including of course Vince Connelly himself, who you may I’m sure notice by now is the liberal candidate for Cowan. You can see displayed around the room, that he has been the Member for Stirling and has been doing a sterling job as part of our team. Our Western Australians who do an absolutely tremendous job for Western Australia. I’ve just been with the Attorney-General and the Special Minister of State, the Minister assisting myself as Prime Minister, Ben Morton, this morning in making some very important announcements for Perth with the establishment of a comprehensive cancer centre in Perth, which I think is going to be mean, something amazing for the people of Perth. And to have that available here in your home city, I think will be tremendous, as well as announcing further, further initiatives in the area of trade and skills. But our Western Australian members have been one of the stalwarts of our Western Australia team led, of course by Michaelia, have always ensure that my Government has understood the challenges of Western Australia, but also the opportunities. But this debate has been about understanding the communities of Western Australia, of which there are many and no one has done more than I believe than Senator Smith, Dean in his relationship that he has been able to form with the Burmese community here, especially Western Australia, but not limited to Western Australia and has been a champion for the cause of the of the many ethnic minority groups in Myanmar. Now as Prime Minister, this is an issue which is also close to my heart as I know it is for Vince and my whole team. I was the first Minister in our Government when I was Immigration Minister who visited Myanmar in my back in 2014 and met with many government officials there and met with many in the community back there. When I was in opposition as the Shadow Minister of Immigration, I met with the many Burmese ethnic minorities that were displaced persons living in Malaysia, particularly in Kuala Lumpur and I saw the awful conditions in which that many of the family and friends and fellow countrymen and women were living there, and we thought it was so important to restore our borders in Australia to ensure that the official humanitarian programme and Australia has the second largest per capita humanitarian programme of anywhere in the world. Because we always know, particularly the Burmese refugees who came to Australia, were coming through that official program and they were being crowded out of that programme because the then Labor government had lost control of our borders. And as a result, places in our humanitarian programme were being denied to those in terrible situations, particularly those who I met up in Malaysia. I remember going with them to their place of faith, to their churches and they are great singers I’ve got to tell you, and I was pleased to join in and it was wonderful to be able to share that time with the Burmese, all of them and stressed the importance of how many were hoping to find an opportunity for resettlement in Australia and as a result of our Government restoring {inaudible], our Government restoring integrity to our programme, we've been able to welcome many, many more Burmese refugees to Australia.
Now, Mark is a man who also knows how important these issues are to the local community, the local Burmese community living in Cowan. And so when I came here just over a week ago, Dean and Vince set up the opportunity for me to meet with the leaders, many of them, I think all are here today. And I was troubled to hear the stories of what was occurring, of which we had knowledge, but to hear them personally from those who have spoken to those in Burma who were experiencing these atrocities that continue to occur. And we as a Government have sought to call out these atrocities that are occurring and to work with others in the region to seek to find a resolution. But at the same time, we cannot be anything other than clear eyed about what is occurring. It was our hope that prior to the Junta taking over in Myanmar once again, it was our shared hope, I'm sure that not only, not only would they no longer be the demand for Burmese refugees to be coming to Australia because they could stay at home, but many who are perhaps in Malaysia or other countries. I mean, the same who were hopeful that they could return home. Because who would want to return to such a beautiful and wonderful place. I've been there myself and it's captivating that the people are so pure and I can understand the feeling of angst, of separation from a homeland and how difficult that would be. I know how I would feel if I was separated from my homeland and how difficult that would be. So, when we saw the Junta take over again, we of course, announced and we sought to work with those in the region and particularly ASEAN and we will continue to. So we do want to see this issue resolved within the ASEAN family and we will continue to call out though the behaviour as we have with our partners in the United Nations, we will continue to express indeed my grave concerns about what is unquestionably a brutal, authoritarian regime. We will continue to urge the military to stop the violence, release those arbitrarily detained, engage in dialogue and return Myanmar to the path of democracy.
We will continue to stand by the people of Myanmar, as we have from the beginning and when the Junta was last in control and an interesting fact I learnt when I was in there, when I was in in my when I visited there 2014, that Australia was the only country to have retained a High Commission, and Embassy in Burma over the course of that authoritarian regime, and that enabled us to maintain a connection which other countries departed from. And I think assisted us greatly in supporting those who are suffering so much. So we have a lot of form in standing by the people of Burma. We have a lot of form and in standing up for the democracy that they desire to aspire to, and we look forward to that day when it will be returned. And in response to the coup, we suspended our bilateral defence cooperation with Myanmar. We redirected our development programme away from government agencies, I want to make that very clear, away, we're not seeing any money to the Myanmarese Government and nor should we. We, we offered extensions to Myanmar citizens currently in Australia on temporary visas so they could remain. We have repeatedly urged the military regime to engage constructively and ASEAN's, with ASEAN to implement the five point consensus, including the immediate cessation of violence, and we will continue to use all channels to convey those messages.
We also support the efforts of the special envoy of the ASEAN Chair in Myanmar, Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Prak Sokhonn, who visited Myanmar just this week, and we will continue to hold firm on our long standing arms embargo against Myanmar. Additional sanctions, they remain a very live option. I want to be very clear about that and we discussed that in our meeting. They remain a very live option and our Government has been considering carefully, particularly since our meeting last week where I gave a commitment that we would go back and I would go back to our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and I would speak to the Foreign Minister and we would come together as a National Security of Cabinet and further, and get an update on where we saw the progress of these issues. And we do remain very disappointed at the progress in terms of being able to achieve I think the very worthy goals and efforts of ASEAN in seeking to resolve these issues, and so we'll continue to encourage others to do the right thing. We must continue supporting efforts to pursue accountability. We’ve helped to establish the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, which continues to support in its mandate to collect, collate and preserve evidence of international crimes for future justice processes. This is very important, despite the struggle that is going on. There will be a day of accountability for this regime and for the crimes that they are committing against their own citizens.
Most of all, we remain seriously concerned for the well-being of the people. I've seen their suffering, as I said firsthand. Over 14 million people are now need. The economy is in crisis. More than 40,000 people have fled their homes. The humanitarian crisis is deepening. We have provided some $6 million for the Livelihoods and Food Security Fund, $4.5 million for the COVID19 response both administered through the UN, in total we’ll deliver some $95.5 million of assistance to the people of Myanmar this financial year and in particular when I was discussing this with the Foreign Minister after our meeting last week, we spoke specifically about how we can do more to support the camps on the Thai Burma border and also on the, on the Burmese India border and how we can achieve that in collaboration with our partners both in Thailand and with India. I had the opportunity to talk about the matters of Myanmar with the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi after we last met, and this remains an area of passionate concern amongst leaders within the region, particularly those who lead liberal democracies like I and Narendra do.
As always, we prioritise the needs of the most poor and the most vulnerable, and that is women and girls. And this is something both the Attorney-General and I, where we both have responsibilities for the immigration programme and particularly the humanitarian programme. Both of us increased the intakes we are having for women and girls as part of our programme. We are one of the few countries that have a programme that focuses specifically on women and girls, and you will know of the challenges that women and girls especially face in Myanmar and when they are able to get out of Myanmar because even once they fled the place of violence, they still face many, many challenges in the camps, which could be very unsafe, particularly for women and girls. And so it's important that we prioritise them and we indeed have.
Our assistance is focussed on healthcare, including COVID19 support, education, food and household economic support. Our assistance reaches communities across Myanmar, but I would say particularly with the Chin, Kachin, Kayah, the Shan, right across, right across the ethnic minorities that have suffered so much. And I acknowledge particularly yes, of course, the world is very familiar with the terrible treatment of those who were [inaudible]. But my eyes have never left the field where Christian minorities also in those states, particularly for, and have continued to resist and have continued to ensure that their way of life can be maintained and is not suppressed or dominated or forced out, as we've seen, has been the object of the Junta, not just on this occasion, but in times past as well.
So we will continue to work through our trusted partners such as the United Nations and Save the Children to ensure Australia's funds are going where they need to go. And I'm also proud that Australia has for many years sought to resettle, as we've already mentioned. In the current crisis, we've supported Myanmar nationals in Australia on temporary visas. We've granted new visas under Australia's humanitarian programme and we will continue to do this. And in this year, we'll be increasing the number of places from those ethnic minorities to 2000 in this financial year.
That is something I discussed with the Immigration Minister after I met with Dean and after I met with Vince and I heard of the great need. And we have good form, 2000 a year is what we were consistently doing previously when the Junta was in place and then we had the season of hope where we thought they might not be needed as much as before. But they need it now and we're restoring that intake to those previous levels and it starts this year. So I'm pleased that we can report back to you on that.
And I want to thank those leaders who joined with Dean and I and Vince in particular for sharing the stories, outlining what your priorities are and to be able to come here today and tell you we're making that progress. I hope that continues to encourage you, but please remember you've got great advocates here in Vince and in Dean. They are passionate about your cause and they bring it straight to me all the time, as they should and to the Foreign Minister as well. There are many other issues that we've been considering, in particular how we can engage with the National Unity Government, this is another matter that was addressed. This is a sensitive matter, but I want to assure you that how we can do that practically while at the same time keeping step and keeping to support and I want to stress this we are working to support the ASEAN leadership that remains our priority but equally, we want to see results out of that process and to be able to speak with our ASEAN partners, friends and family and say, how can we achieve these very worth goals that have been put in place ASEAN to get these outcomes and to work with our ASEAN partners to achieve all of that.
We are, of course very concerned about Sean Turnell, Professor Turnell who will be known to all of you, and I know you’ll want the best for him and for his safe return to Australia. And so managing these very sensitive and difficult issues, we must keep his safety and security in very much, foremost in our minds, and I want to thank you for your patience and support for Sean and his family. I know they would be very grateful for your support. Because as you know, Sean loves Myanmar, he went there to support the new country become a reality and to see democracy flourish and see the economy prosper and to see the glory of Myanmar restored and that remains, I have no doubt his great aspiration, and we share that with him as Australians.
So I want to thank you for the opportunity to come here and share with you today these few thoughts. It's important that we, while dealing with many other important issues and you would have heard us speaking a lot about what's occurring in Ukraine and the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. And yes, we have responded to that. Of course we should, we are a liberal democracy. We stand up to those who seek to violate the territorial integrity of other countries and deprive their citizens of their liberties and their rights. And we feel the same way about Myanmar and we have not forgotten and we will not forget. And we will continue to press and use every agency that we have to ensure that we remain focussed on a return to a stable and democratic government in Myanmar and that we'll see them prosper once again in the future. This is our goal, we share it with you. And while I look forward to that time when democracy is restored and you will have the opportunity for your friends and your family not to come here, necessarily as refugees fleeing violence and persecution particularly as Christian minorities, but to come to this country as guests, visitors, friends, family to celebrate, to be together and for you to visit there and to be able to reconnect with family and friends there. And we'll have that time again. And I believe it will happen. And I know that the many minority communities represented here today are very faithful people, are very strong in their faith. And I know what you pray for and I want to tell you that I share in your prayers for Myanmar as well as so many church communities around the country does. My own church community back in the Sutherland Shire in Sydney has had partnerships with the Kachin I believe. They have been on mission trips, they have been up there working with local communities but sadly, it is too dangerous to do that anymore. But they pray for the time when they can go back and help communities restore and get back on their feet.
So I hope this brings some encouragement to you today and ask you to keep liaising, keep working with Vince and with Dean and can you join me in thanking them for their great advocacy on behalf of the Burmese community in Australia. And with that I am going to hand back to Dean, who knows that while I’d love to be here to spend more time with you but we've got a Budget to head down on Tuesday and I need to get back to Canberra this evening and bring down what I think will be a very important Budget for our country. But what you will know is that in that Budget, we are recognising the needs of the Burmese community here in Cowan but right across the country. Thank you very much.