TANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE, MEDIA CENTRE, SOUTH PACIFIC
FORUM, TARAWA, KIRIBATI, 10 JULY 1989
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister what do you hope will be the
effect of the $ 6.25 million initiative to study the
Greenhouse effect
PN: Well, a basic service that we want to provide is the
assurance to the countries in the region that we are not
just looking at this from a point of view of large countries
like Australia and Europe and North America, but that we
have a very real understanding that for some of then this is
literally a matter of life and death and that what we are
going to do is to provide a capacity for measurements in the
region, we'll provide monitoring stations, we'll train their
own people to service these monitoring stations and that
will be intrinsically useful for the global measurement of
the Greenhouse effect but it also I hope will be reassuring
to the countries of this region countries particularly
like Kiribati. You only have to be here to see that you
don't need much of a rise in the ocean level and you're
talking about goodbye Kiribati. So they have we'* re not
yet on to this item in detail in the meeting, I0ll be coming
to talk to them in more detail about that later in the
meeting, but certainly last year they were very responsive
to the concept. We're now, since that meeting we've had the
committee of experts look at this and I'll be able to give
them the details of what we intend to do.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, have you been able to get
agreement on a proposal for regional approach to driftnet
fishing PM: Yes, we're on to that item now and as far as I can
see there is a very positive response to the proposed
declaration that I'm suggesting. I've made the point in
introducing the item that it seem to me that what we're
dealing with here is of such fundamental importance that it
warrants more than merely a mention in our overall
communique. we believe there should be a declaration coming
out of this meeting which is aimed at developing a regime
for the management of albacore tuna with a view to achieving
a-ban on driftnettinq and through that purpose to have a
( PH cont): meeting of experts to prepare the outline of the
convention which would achieve that objective, expressing
our hope for that action here leading to a more
comprehensive ban around the world. In the meantime while
that convention, or the preparation of that convention is
taking shape, the resolution that I propose would commit us
individually, as members of the Forum and collectively, to
take whatever action against the driftnetters was possible,
whether by banning them in national waters or denying them
access, doing whatever we could to make it difficult for
them to profit from their activities. Also the declaration
proposes that we should, as we work towards the
establishment of such a convention, do whatever we could in
other international forums to try and bring an end to this
practice because, as I've said before, what you're talking
about here is not just something incidental as I said in
introducing the resolution in a diversified economy like
Australia. if one particular sector of our economy is
adversely affected by some international development or
other occurrence, we have the opportunity of turning to
other sectors of the economy, adding to activity in other
areas, but for some of these economies here in the Pacific
if they lose their fishing resource they've virtually lost
everything. JOURNALIST: Would the convention be a regional convention
PM: You'd be moving to a much wider, more wide convention
than that because it's no good, in other words, just trying
to do something here and shifting the driftnetters to the
Indian ocean, for instance. I mean they have been wiping
out the source of our blue fin tuna for instance.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke, do you think Taiwan and Japan will
respond to the views of the region or do you think it will
take concerted pressure on those countries to stop them from
PH: Well, I think you've got to say it requires pressure
because just very recently there was a meeting at-the
officials level of the Forum Fisheries Agency and the
driftnetting nations and Korea, to it's great credit, has
responded positively and is withdrawing its vessels,
but Japan and Taiwan have to this point refused. So, as Isaid,
it's gone beyond the level of officials. I-think
there's an obligation upon the political leaderships here
now to take action. I would think that opinion is capable
of being mobilised on this issue. I.. say that for two
reasons, one, I think the potential cost of the continuationof
this activity is so obvious and secondly, I based it upon
the fact that in my recent visit to France, the United
Kingdom, United States and West Germany. I raised this
issue and I got positive responses to it in the sense they
-~ A PX
3.
( Pm4 cont); recognise that this was a practice which was
both environmentally and economically not acceptable.
JOURNALIST; Prime Minister, is there a danger that Japan
would use it's economic muscle to undermine this initiative?
PM: Well, let me put it this way, to this point the Japanese
have been unresponsive as compared with Korea but I think
it's one of those issues where you have to keep, not just
keep, but increase pressure upon them. -It seems to me
obviously unacceptable that you can have a practice which
is not just operating to provide some need for the countries
which are doing the fishing, but which if continued will
wipe out the resource. I mean, the catches are now, it's
suggested, at something like twice the sustainable yield.
Now that, getting rid of the economist jargon, if you
say, that they are taking out twice the sustainable yield,
what that simply means is that they are going to wipe out
the resource. And that seems to me something that.
international pressure should'be capable of developing
inco a position where the countries which are practising
this driftnet fishing will come to understand that it is
not acceptable.
JOURNALIST: Mr Hawke your talks with Mr Lange this morning,
are you now confident of or do you feel he will buy more
Australian Naval frigates in the near future? I
PM4, I wouldn't put it that way but let me say that I think
its reasonable to put it that I have the impression that
a positive view on New Zealand's participation is fairly
JOURNALIST: What?
PM: Well I could just have had a microphone there so you
could have listened in to all the conversation I don't
think that would be fair to either David or myself.
JOURNALIST: Have you put pressure on Mr Lange?
PM: Look I'm a soft, reasonable, easy-going sort of bloke
I have never been known to put pressure on anyone in my
life. Were my lips moving then?
JOURNALIST% Mr Hawke how much pressure are you prepared
to put on Japan and Korea? How far would you go to get
the fishing stopped?
PM4: Well it's not a question of how far I'm prepared to
go. I hope that the Forum countries will agree to the
concept of a Declar~ ation. I am simply saying that my
assessment from discussions I have had very recently with
significant countries is that there will be a positive
response to any such initiative by the Forum now as a result
of the-suggestion that I have made for a. declaration coming,.-.
out of-ithe-Forum -and I think we ought to use all. diplomaticpressureszpassible
upon Japan and Taiwan to-act-sensibly
in this matter.
4.
JOURNALIST: ( inaudible)
PM: I think we will resolve the issue today, I think so.
JOURNALIST: ( inaudible)
PM: Well look I think the easiest thing to do is if I
read you the actual terms of the proposal so there can't
be any doubt about it. We say that we resolve to seek
the establishment of a regime for the management of alba
core tuna in the South Pacific that would ban driftnet
fishing from the region as a first step towards a more
comprehensive ban and then go on to say determines to
this end to convene an urgent meeting of regional diplomatic,
legal and fisheries experts to prepare the outline of the
convention designed to give affect to its common resolve
to create a zone free of driftnet fishing and to ensure
such proper management, and calls on the international
community to support and co-operate in the urgent
establishment of the zone and the drawing up of the
convention. Now to say we would see that as a step towards,
while in the first place, directed towards the regiun would
as the earlier language of the declaration suggests lead
to a more comprehensive ban.
ends