

Minister for Defence - Press Conference - Visit to India

6 December 2011

TRANSCRIPT: PRESS CONFERENCE - VISIT TO INDIA

TRANSCRIPTION: PROOF COPY E & OE

DATE:  6 DECEMBER 2011

TOPICS: Minister’s departure for India; Uranium; Ballistic Missile Defence; Australia  Network; ALP Review; Force Posture Review; Pakistan; Afghanistan.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well thanks very much for coming, later this morning I’ll depart Perth  for India, I’ll visit New Delhi, and Mumbai. This is my first visit to India as Defence  Minister, but it’s my fourth visit to India as a Minister in the Australian Government.

My visit to New Delhi will see me meeting formally with my Indian Defence Minister  counterpart, A K Antony. There we will conduct the Defence Ministers’ dialogue, and work  towards building and strengthening the Defence to Defence and the military to military  relationship which Australia and India have.

We’ll build on the Declaration on Security Cooperation, which our respective Prime  Ministers struck in 2009.

We have a very good working relationship with India so far as Defence and military matters  are concerned.

This is particularly the case so far as our respective Navies are concerned, and Australia is a  member the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS), an initiative of the Indian Navy.  Australia will host the IONS Conclave of Chiefs in Perth in 2014.

India is the current Chair and Australia the Vice Chair of the Indian Ocean Rim Association  for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC). We are jointly leading efforts to further develop the  regional security architecture of the Indian Ocean, with a particular focus on maritime  security.

My visit to Mumbai will see me visit the Western Naval Command, and also the Victoria  Dockland, emphasising and underlining the closeness of our Indian Ocean and Naval  cooperation.

My visit to India will of course be the first visit by an Australian Minister since the decision  over the weekend to reverse the ban on export of uranium to India. This decision is one which  I strongly supported at the conference, and one which I expect India will very warmly  welcome.

This is a deeply significant decision, reflecting as it does not just the fact that India has  brought itself under the international nuclear regulators, the International Atomic Energy  Agency, and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, but also reflects the fact that India is one of the  great rising powers of this century, the world’s largest democracy, and in the course of this  century, together with the United States and China, will be one of the world’s three great  powers.

And so I’m looking very much forward to my formal meeting with Defence Minister A K  Antony, we last met in the margins of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Plus meeting in Hanoi,  in October of last year, the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Plus meeting of course is the Defence  Ministers’ meeting in the East Asia Summit expanded format.

So I’m very much looking forward to my visit, I’m happy to respond to your questions on our  relationship with India, and my visit to India, and other matters you may wish to raise.

JOURNALIST:      [Indistinct]

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, it won’t be a matter for me to negotiate, as you know the change  that the conference made to the platform was to allow the exporting of uranium to India,  subject to the striking of a Bilateral Safeguards Agreement.

Australia has struck very many of these Bilateral Safeguards Agreements since our basic  uranium platform was resolved in 1984. The carriage of that is the Department of Foreign  Affairs and Trade, and as the Acting Foreign Minister and Trade Minister, Craig Emerson has  made clear overnight, those discussions will occur in the course of the beginning of next year.

My message to India will simply be that the bilateral relationship between Australia and India  is very important, we regard it as one of our most important bilateral relationships, and the  potential for that relationship to grow, is great, and that particularly applies, so far as Defence  to Defence contacts are concerned, as you know, Perth is Australia’s Indian Ocean capital,  and so Perth looks west to India, and the Indian Ocean rim, and I’m looking very much  forward to encouraging greater Naval contact between Australia and India.

On a regular basis we do Naval exercises with India, on a regular basis we see Indian Naval  visits to Australia, I want to encourage that, and see that grow. That will of course naturally  grow, as India’s rise occurs, but my message so far as uranium exports are concerned, is that  we have changed our platform, it no longer requires in the case of India that India be a  member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it does require we strike a Bilateral  Safeguards Agreement with India, and the work on that will commence next year.

JOURNALIST:      Will the Government allow for the export of uranium to Pakistan?

STEPHEN SMITH: No, the circumstances of India in this respect are unique. What has  changed circumstances so far as India is concerned is India seeking and getting the approval  of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors and the Nuclear Suppliers  Group, to what is described as the India United States Civil Nuclear Arrangement.

In doing that, India, which since 1967 has said that it would not enter into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, undertook to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it would  enter into the Additional Protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency arrangements,  that effectively sees the capacity of the International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, to  examine India’s civil nuclear arrangements, it gave an undertaking to keep separate its civil  nuclear technology from military, it gave an undertaking to not engage in any nuclear testing.

So the effect of that, which had to support an international community, was to effectively  bring for the first time, India under the governance of the civil nuclear international  regulators, that’s what has changed there.

Secondly of course, there has never been any suggestion, any serious suggestion, that from  India we have seen a proliferation of either uranium or nuclear technology.

Those circumstances don’t apply to Pakistan, and our platform makes an exception for India,  and only India, so far as entry into the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is concerned.

JOURNALIST:      Do you have any feedback by Perth or West Australian uranium  companies who have interest in uranium mining, have you had any feedback in relation to  their support for the export of uranium-

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, you’d expect that that feedback would go to my colleague, Martin  Ferguson, the Minister for Resources and Energy.

The only feedback I’ve had has either been from conference delegates, or from individuals  I’ve had contact with over the last 24 to 48 hours, and that has been that this is a very good  decision, a deeply significant one in terms of our strategic engagement with India, and that’s  of course a view I share.

But any response by the resources industry, the minerals resources industry or the uranium  industry, I’d expect that to go to my colleague, Martin Ferguson. But I’d also be expecting,  hopeful and confident, that it would be warmly welcomed.

JOURNALIST:      [Indistinct]

STEPHEN SMITH: Well that’s a separate question, I mean I’ve made it clear to my state  colleagues over a long period of time that I believe that the State Labor Party’s judgement  about uranium mining, and the State Labor Party’s policy both in Government and in  Opposition, to not allow the mining of uranium in Western Australia, is wrong.

I’ve said the same thing to my Queensland state colleagues, because the Queensland State  Government has precisely the same policy approach.

But of course under our constitution, it is a matter for states to authorise the mining of  mineral resources, it is for the Commonwealth to set out the public policy parameters for  exporting, and the state of Western Australia, under Labor, and the state of Queensland under  Labor, have made it clear they don’t see a capacity in their minds for the mining of uranium  in those two states.

I’ve made it clear to my state colleagues I don’t think that is a correct policy position, but it’s  entirely a matter for the state parties, both in WA and Queensland.

JOURNALIST:      [Indistinct]

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, we currently have four or five operating uranium mines, including  when its current expansion is complete, the largest uranium mine in the world, Olympic Dam,  or Roxby Downs in South Australia

And one of the points that I’ve always made is that in 1984 when the National Conference  authorised the exporting of uranium from Olympic Dam and allowed exporting under the  conditions that I have outlined, once the platform and the party and successive Labor  Governments had adopted that position, frankly, everything else was academic.

It’s a bit hard to say that you authorise export of uranium from the largest uranium mine in  the world and then be churlish about other mines. So it’s entirely a matter for the state  colleagues both here and in Queensland. But I’m sure that’s a policy decision which is very  warmly welcomed by successive State Governments of South Australia.

But there is of course another point which is this. I have made it clear, Martin Ferguson as the  Minister for Minerals Resources has made it clear, that we’re not expecting to see a  requirement or a need for India to receive uranium from Australia for a number of years.  India currently has no shortage of uranium supply, so I’m expecting that this process will  occur over the next few years. In the course of that period, respective state governments  either in WA or Queensland or elsewhere may make different judgments about the mining of  uranium within their state borders.

JOURNALIST:      Is Australia [indistinct] part of a regional [indistinct].

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, I had a very good meeting yesterday with MichÃÂ¨le Flournoy. We  spoke about all of the issues that you would expect Australia and the United States to speak  about: the success of the President’s visit, the changes we’ve made so far as access to  Australian facilities are concerned in the Northern Territory. We also spoke about  Afghanistan. We also spoke about some of the emerging challenges that we find, whether it’s  Ballistic Missile Defence, whether it is space or whether it is cyber.

On Ballistic Missile Defence, the policy of the Australian Government is reflected by the  2009 White Paper; it’s also reflected by the Australian Labor Party’s National Platform and it  was reaffirmed in this respect over the weekend - is that we are very happy to have  consultations and discussions and explore Ballistic Missile Defence so far as that relates to  in-theatre or relates to our strategic interests, for example, population centres.

But we’ve made it clear over a long period of time that we’re not proposing to engage in  Ballistic Missile Defence which might be intercontinental or which might shift the deterrent  balance so far as nuclear weapons is concerned.

We currently don’t have Ballistic Missile Defence capability but we are continuing to have  discussions with the United States in particular but other countries as well on Ballistic Missile  Defence issues develop and unfold. But our policy starting point is made clear by the White  Paper that’s reflected by the Australian Labor Party’s National Platform which, as I say, was  reaffirmed over the weekend.

I’ve seen a reference in some reporting today about our Air Warfare Destroyers. Our Air  Warfare Destroyers, which will come on-stream from the middle of this decade, are precisely  what they are described as - Air Warfare Destroyers, and the Aegis that they will have, the  Aegis Combat System, is an Air Warfare Destroyers, not a Ballistic Missile Defence system.

JOURNALIST:      Do you think the Australian Network should always remain in the hands  of the ABC?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, that’s a decision that the Cabinet made last night. I see that the  Minister for Communications, Senator Conroy, and the Prime Minister were out there this  morning explaining that decision and going into the detail. I’m not proposing to add to their  remarks, particularly when it’s someone else’s portfolio.

But there’s no doubt that that’s been a difficult issue for the Government as a result of the  leaks which occurred in the tender process. The tender process was stopped recently, as  Senator Conroy announced, and last night the Cabinet made a decision which Senator Conroy  has announced and he and the Prime Minister have detailed this morning.

JOURNALIST:      Do you think that the secret part of the ALP Review should be made  public?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, it was a confidential part of the election review, and the authors of  that review and the national secretary at the time, and the national secretary of the time  believed that it should remain confidential. I’ve never seen that part of the examination of the  2010 election, and I don’t have an interest now in seeing it.

My own view is that these are essentially matters of history. We had a difficult and tough  election campaign in 2010. The only way that we can proceed as we’ve been doing over the  last 12 months is to seek to govern well and deal with the difficult policy issues that our  nation faces.

JOURNALIST:      [Indistinct] -to be made public?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, that’s entirely a matter for them. What I do know is that at the time  it was confidential, it was treated as confidential, successive national secretaries have treated  it as confidential. I’ve never inquired as to its content and I don’t see, frankly, the interest in  doing that now.

We had a difficult campaign. In some respects it was a bad campaign. All of that is on the  public record. I’m much more focused on the three-year obligation we have. We’re into the  final weeks of our first year of this parliamentary term, the end of the first year of our second  term in office. The next election will be September-October-November of 2013 so we have  effectively just short of two years to go.

The judgment the Australian community will make in two years’ time won’t be about a  confidential report about a difficult campaign for the Labor Party nationally in the 2010  election, it’ll be how we have governed and how we have addressed the issues that confront  the nation. And at the appropriate time they’ll also start making a comparison between the

Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition and Labor’s performance and promise for  the future and the Coalition’s stance on a range of issues.

JOURNALIST:      You keep mentioning public interest [indistinct].

STEPHEN SMITH: I made the point yesterday, I’ll make it again. I regard those matters as  matters of history. You can never win the next campaign by rerunning the last one. You can  only win the next campaign if you are an incumbent Government by governing well and  persuading the Australian people that you have faced up to the difficult issues facing the  nation, whether they are in the national security space or whether they are in the economic  security space.

JOURNALIST:      The recent announcement of the US troop presence in Darwin, will that  be on the agenda when you talked with your counterpart from India? Do you expect them to  be concerned or are you expecting a backlash?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, I’m sure that they will come up in discussions. Minister Antony  and I will traverse, as we always do when we meet in the India-Australia Defence Ministers’  Dialogue, traverse all of the strategic and bilateral issues and regional issues that we find.

So I will brief my Indian counterpart on the announcement that we’ve made and the details of  those. I’m not expecting that India will in any way be concerned by the arrangement we’ve  entered into.

And just to reinforce some of the points I made at the time, we don’t have United States bases  in Australia; we have joint facilities. But we also have access to our facilities by United  States Defence Force personnel - Navy, Army and Air Force. And this is a rotation of United  States Marines, which will start with 250 by the end of the first quarter of next year and grow  over a period of five years to 2500, effectively a six-month rotation on exercises and training.

That is a very good thing for a number of reasons. Firstly, it shows an intention on the part of  the United States to remain engaged in the Asia-Pacific. That’s an unambiguously good thing  as economic and strategic and political influence moves to our part of the world - the rise of  China, the rise of India, the rise of the ASEAN economies combined. The ongoing influence  and importance of the United States is essential and best reflected by not just an ongoing  engagement by the United States in the Asia-Pacific but an enhanced one.

But secondly, from our perspective, from Australia’s Defence perspective, it’s a Marine  taskforce group. They are very experienced at amphibious capability and ship-to-shore  manoeuvres, whether that’s for stabilisation and security reasons or whether it’s for  humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Again, in the middle of this decade we receive our Landing Helicopter Docks which will  essentially give us a much bigger ship-to-shore amphibious capability than we’ve had in the  past.

So the prospect for us to be doing joint exercises and joint training with a Marine taskforce in  the Northern Territory over the forthcoming years is a very good thing from that perspective.

JOURNALIST:      Can you give us your reason [indistinct] Pakistan, do you think that  Pakistan is going to understand those reasons, and more to the point, do you think this could  not add instability to an already [indistinct] region?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well firstly our, the rationale, the public policy rationale for our decision  is quite clear. India brought itself under the governance of the international nuclear  regulators, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group. That  has not occurred with respect to Pakistan. Secondly, there’s never been a suggestion of  proliferation of nuclear materials from India.

Regrettably over preceding years there have been serious concerns about proliferation from  Pakistan.

I regard the circumstances that attach to India as being unique, and as a consequence saw my  strong view, and my argument at the conference that we should make a change here which  reflected the modern reality of India being under the international civil nuclear regulators.

Those circumstances don’t attend to Pakistan. I made the point earlier, India does not need  Australia’s uranium at this point in time. That will occur in years to come and I don’t see this  decision as having any adverse outcomes so far as the Australia Pakistan relationship is  concerned, nor do I see it in any way being relevant to stability in south Asia.

JOURNALIST:      So you don’t think it’s going to make your job really more difficult  [indistinct] considering we need their support in the region.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well we have a very good military to military, and Defence to Defence  relationship with Pakistan. Since we came to office we have done a number of things to  enhance that engagement, we have doubled the number of Pakistan military officers who  come to Australia for counter-terrorism training. We’ve doubled our development assistance  to Pakistan. And we are one of the countries who has responded quickest and in large  amounts of assistance, when disaster has struck Pakistan particularly the floods that occurred  at the end of last year.

So we’ve made a decision with respect to India, Pakistan will understand that decision.

I don’t see that decision as having any adverse consequences for our relationship with  Pakistan. And I don’t see it as being relevant for stability or security in south Asia.

JOURNALIST:      [Indistinct], do you support [indistinct] have your support when he said  that?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well Ben’s perfectly entitled to use his own form of words. I use my  form of words and I have on any number of occasions. We are in Afghanistan with an  International Security Assistance Force under a United Nations mandate, and we’re there to  stare down international terrorism.

We don’t want Afghanistan, in particular the Afghanistan Pakistan border area to again  become a breeding ground or a hot bed of training for international terrorists. We believe  very strongly that we are on track in Uruzgan Province to make the transition to Afghan  security-led responsibility by 2014.

I’ve made the point in recent times, as had the Prime Minister, both to the Parliament and  publicly, that such is the progress of our training and mentoring that we may make that  transition in Uruzgan earlier than 2014. So we regard ourselves as on track to make that  transition.

The international community overnight at the Bonn Conference has reaffirmed the same  essential commitment of the international community - we don’t want to be in Afghanistan  forever, we can’t be in Afghanistan forever, there is a period in our time in Afghanistan that I  regard as the lost years - four or five or six lost years as a result of the distraction of Iraq.

And then when returning from Iraq, the international community was not focused enough on  an appropriate military and political strategy.

But we believe we’re on track to hand over responsibility, and we’ve also made the point  again echoed by the Bonn Conference overnight, that once the transition is made in 2014,  there will need to be an international community presence in Afghanistan. There will need to  be a post-transition presence, both to provide resources to the Afghan National Security  Forces, but also to provide expertise.

Now that might be special forces for counter-terrorism. It’ll certainly be training. It may well  be advisers. And it’ll certainly be a development assistance and capacity building.

But we’re on track to effect the transition to Afghan-led security in Uruzgan, and the  International Security Assistance Force colleagues believe - and I share this view - that  we’re on track to do that Afghanistan-wide by 2014.

JOURNALIST:      [Indistinct] play a role post 2014.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well I’m not going to personalise it, but I have made it clear, when I’ve  returned from NATO/ISAF Defence Ministers’ Meeting on- [indistinct] meetings on two  previous occasions this year, we do need to look at what the post-transition contribution will  be by the international community. In Australia’s case, one of the options, one of the  possibilities is an ongoing Special Forces contribution.

Whether that’s from the SAS here in Swanbourne, or from 2 Commando in Holsworthy in  New South Wales.

JOURNALIST:      [Indistinct]

STEPHEN SMITH: Well I think Stephen Jones from New South Wales has indicated  publicly that he’s proposing to get support to introduce a Private Members Bill. I made my  view clear in the course of the National Conference, I very strongly believed that this was an  appropriate area for a conscience vote - strong views, personally held, deep convictions  based either on religious views, or cultural views, or personal or family views, or personal  family experience. And so I certainly strongly support the conscience vote.

I also made it clear in the course of conscience that if a Private Members Bill was presented  to the Parliament to bring marriage equality then I would support that, and subject to seeing  the detail of the legislation - and I’m sure that if it’s Stephen Jones or any number of  colleagues, They’ll get the detail right, I would support such a Private Members Bill.

Thanks very much everyone, thank you.





