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MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS  HON ALEXANDER DOWNER, MP

TRANSCRIPTION: PROOF COPY E & OE

DATE:   26 February 2007

TITLE:   Joint Press Conference with Hon. Winston Peters, New Zealand Minister of Foreign  Affairs - Wellington, New Zealand.



MR  PETERS:  Ladies  and  Gentlemen  thanks  for  coming.  We  have  for  some  years  now   conducted  six-monthly  bilateral  talks  between  the  Prime  Ministers  of  New  Zealand  and   Australia  and  likewise  [inaudible]  Treasurer  of  Australia  as  well  and  others.   We’ve  just   completed  -  with  the  Hon  Alexander  Downer,  the  Foreign  Minister  for  Australia  -  very

successful  talks  this  morning,  continuing  on  from  an  informal  meeting  last  night.   So  if   you’ve any questions now’s your time to ask them.

QUESTION: What was on the agenda Mr Peters?

MR  PETERS:  On  the  agenda?  Obviously  Pacific issues, various national engagements such  as Timor, the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, issues to do with Asia, the  new  East-Asia  Summit  organisation,  APEC  itself  -  which  is  being  hosted  by  Australia  this   year in September- and wider issues to do with the inter-faith dialogue coming up in May this  year at Waitangi. So it was quite comprehensive.

QUESTION:  Will  you  two  be  presenting  a  united  front,  presumably  you  will  be  at  the   (inaudible) foreign ministers at Fiji?

MR  DOWNER:  Yes  -  we  certainly  will.  Let  me  just  say  a  couple  of  things  by  way  of   introduction.  Certainly  I  appreciate  the  opportunity  of  being  here  in  Wellington  today  and   catching  up  with  Winston.   Also,  I’ve  met  with  Phil  Goff  this  morning  and  I’m  seeing  the   Prime  Minister  later  today.   Our  relationship  with  New  Zealand  is,  of  course,  centrally   important to Australia and over recent years, it’s been an extremely strong relationship and I  think part of that strength is the cooperation there’s been between us in the Pacific.  We’ve  had a lot of problems in the Pacific, and of course in East Timor as well, but the cooperation  between Australia and New Zealand has been very intimate and very successful.  So in terms  of  Fiji  we’ve  taken  very  similar  measures  to  each  other  and  we’ve  consulted  each  other   throughout all of this process of the coup in Fiji. Now we’ve received copies of the Eminent  Persons Group report, we hope they’ll be a sort of a scheduled - I think - meeting of Pacific  Island  Forum  Ministers  on  16  March  in  Port  Vila  at  Vanuatu.  We’ll  certainly  be  taking  a   common  position  in  response  to  that  report  which  we  might  not  publicise  our  common   position  now,  but  wait  until  the  meeting  and  show  appropriate  respect  to  our  Ministerial



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colleagues there. But in an overall sense, I think the Eminent Persons Group has done a good  job but there’ll certainly be a common position between Australia and New Zealand.

QUESTION: So when would you like to see Fiji return to democracy - I mean Bainimarama’s  talking about 2010?

MR  DOWNER:  We’d  like  to  see  Fiji  return  to  democracy  as  quickly  as  possible  and  they   clearly need a roadmap, but not a roadmap that’s four years long or three and half years long.   I think they need to get back to democracy very quickly - that’s not just because countries like  Australia  and  New  Zealand  believe  very  passionately  in  democracy  -  but  because  that’s   important to the broader economic and social development of Fiji.  Having the country run by  the military isn’t going to be much of an option for the country over a period of years.  So the  quicker they can hand over to a civil democratic government the better.

QUESTION:  Have you discussed…

MR  PETERS:  Just  one  thing,  logistically  there’s  no  impediment  to  Fiji  having  an  early   election - within a matter of months in fact. You’ve got to remember that the rolls in May of  2006 were at about 92% which is an achievement that many western democracies would love  to  aspire  to.   So  basically  the  problem  is  the  Commander  returning  to  his  barracks  and   realising that the overall authority with respect to the military does not lie with the army but  lies with the elected government and the president.

QUESTION:  Have  you  have  any  direct  talks  with  the  commander  since  he  came  to  New   Zealand?

MR PETERS: Ah, yes but pre the coup.

QUESTION: Not post the coup?

MR PETERS: Not post the coup.

QUESTION:  Have  you  talked  about  any  further  measures  both  countries  can  take  to  put   pressure on Fiji to return to democracy?

MR  DOWNER:  I  think  the  measures  we’ve  taken  -  the  smart  sanctions  in  particular  -  are   proving as a matter of fact to be quite effective. You see the balance here has to be a balance  between  taking  measures  that  affect  those  people  in  Fiji,  who  are  responsible  for  acting   illegally in this way, and making sure that the ordinary people of Fiji don’t pay a penalty as  well so - they’re obviously paying a penalty in the sense that tourist numbers are down - the  economy  will  turn  down  as  a  result  of  what  Commodore  Bainimarama  has  done.   That  of   course is damaging to the economy in itself, but I think these sanctions on travel by people  who  are  involved  in  the  coup  or  who  have  participated  in  an  illegal  government  -  stopping   them travelling to Australia or New Zealand - I think they are very effective, I do, and they  obviously  -  for  all  sorts  of  different  reasons  -  causes  quite  a  lot  of  pain  for  those  people.  I   want  to  focus  our  efforts  on  the  people  responsible  for  this  coup  and  the  people  who  have   participated in it, not on the ordinary people of Fiji.  I don’t want to punish them. I mean I’m  sure  the  vast  majority  of  them  didn’t  want  a  coup  and  what  is  more,  they  all  went  out  and   expressed their view last year in the general election.  We all know what they think and they  don’t think this is the right thing to do.



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QUESTION: The argument that…

MR PETERS: Can I just say one thing to add to that?  It’s very easy to slide into the view that  Australia and New Zealand are punishing Fiji - we are not.  Australia and New Zealand have  taken these measures to see a quick return to democracy - a totally different objective.

QUESTION:  The  argument  that  Laisenia  Qarase  should  be  returned  to  office  -  that’s   obviously an argument that hasn’t got any currency anymore.  Would that be fair to say?

MR  DOWNER:  Well  obviously  it  would  be  nice  if  the  democratically-elected  government   would be returned to office but you know I don’t want to stray into unreality in diplomacy. I  think that is clearly not about to happen. What we would like to see is a roadmap that’ll bring  Fiji back into democracy and hopefully never repeat this….[inaudible] had several coups now  over  the  years  going  back  to  1987  and  coups  are  becoming  a  habit  there  and  they’re  doing   their country so much damage - they’re doing the whole Pacific region’s reputation so much  damage by this constant coup-making. And they really need to get over coups and embrace  democratic institutions, and most people in Fiji do do that.  It seems that the military finds it  very  difficult  to  respect  democratic  institutions.  So  we  look  forward  to  a  roadmap  back  to   democracy and a rapid return to democracy.

QUESTION:  Mr  Downer  -  you  see  no  benefit  or  relevance  in  Bainimarama’s  proposal  to   remove the race based voting system in Fiji and replace it with common roll [inaudible]…?

MR  DOWNER:  Well  I  think  military  commanders  aren’t  the  people  qualified  to  talk  about   how  to  run  a  country.  I  think  the  ordinary  people  of  the  country  themselves  -  through  a   process of democratic evolution - a constitution should be built, not by a military commander

just coming in and seizing power.   Of course he’s making all sorts of arguments about how  the  constitution  could  be  improved  and  criticisms  of  the  previous  constitution.   Whether  I   agree  with  those  arguments  or  not  isn’t  the  point.   What  is  the  military  commander  doing   taking  over  control  of  the  whole  country  and  stipulating  how  the  constitution  should  be   written?  It seems to me that his job is to defend the country from foreign invasion - which  isn’t  a  problem  for  Fiji  -  to  make  sure  the  military  force  is  well  trained  and  capable  of   performing  the  various  tasks  that  the  democratically  elected  government  wants  them  to   perform - in particular in Fiji’s case in a range of peace-keeping operations.  His job is not to  be  a  politician.  I  told  him  that  to  his  face  -  he  is  not  a  politician.   And  now  of  course  he’s   called  himself  the  Prime  Minister,  he’s  finding  that  job  a  little  more  difficult  than  he  had   imagined - it’s a little more complicated being the Prime Minister of a country than running a  military force.  So now we need a roadmap back to democracy and how the electoral system  works and, all of that, whether the old constitution is just going to be resuscitated or there are  some changes to that constitution.  That should be a matter for civil society not for a military  commander.

QUESTION: Mr Peters, on Iran there are reports [inaudible] set up a panel to discuss ways  [inaudible]…?

MR PETERS: Well as you say there are reports. I’ve not seen them - I don’t know whether  they authoritative, whether they are fact - they are media reports.



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QUESTION:  What  is  your  view  about  whether  it  is  legitimate  or  wise  to  consider  military   action against Iran?

MR PETERS: Well the question for New Zealand in that context just doesn’t arise. If there  are measures and moves and designs and plans for such an action I’d comment on them when  I saw them, when we knew they were a potential reality.  But our position with respect to the  desire  for  peaceful  resolution  of  differences  between  countries,  our  position  has  never   changed in recent years and it’s not changing now.

MR DOWNER: I think there’s an effort by some commentators to try to whip up a bit of a  campaign here against the Bush administration for reasons that aren’t necessarily to do with  Iran  by  suggesting  that  what  happened  in  Iraq  in  2003  is  going  to  happen  in  Iran  and  no   amount of denying of this by the Administration should be taken seriously.

Can I just say the American position is perfectly clear. What they say is that they never, in  any  circumstance  -  and  this  is  true  of  the  Clinton  administration  and  administrations  going   back  well  before  his  administration  -  the  position  they  always  took  that  the  United  States   would never rule anything in or out, they don’t get into doing that.  But the leadership in the

United  States  is  not  on  the  threshold  of  launching  military  action  against  Iran  -  what  has   happened in relation to Iran is that Iran has failed to comply with the demands of the United  Nations Security Council. So I would urge people, instead of making sort of political points at  the expense of the American administration, to focus on the central issue here, which is that  Iran is in breach of the demands of the United Nations Security Council.

And the concern of the international community should be - and I think at the diplomatic level  is - how are we going to get Iran to comply with the demands of the Security Council to cease  its enrichment programmes and to cooperate fully and in a transparent and open way with the  International Atomic Energy Agency. I mean here we are in New Zealand - which is a country  which has historically been very concerned about nuclear weapons and nuclear power - so I  think in New Zealand the concern should be what are we going to do now that Iran has not  complied  with  the  Security  Council  resolution.   But  the  American  administration  is  not   planning  a  military  attack  on  Iran  and  nobody’s  ever  said  they  were  -  apart  from  some   commentators. So instead of beating up on the Bush administration, I think people should be

beating up on - if I could use this in the nicest possible way - diplomatically beating up on  President  Ahmadinejad  and  encouraging  him  to  respect  the  UN.   In  New  Zealand  people   respect the UN, they think Security Council resolutions are important and let’s get behind the

Security Council and the UN.

QUESTION: Did you discuss the [inaudible] …Afghanistan?

MR PETERS: No.

MR DOWNER: We did a little bit.

MR PETERS: Oh on Afghanistan yes.

MR  DOWNER:  I’ll  just  say  what  I  said.  I  told  Winston  that  we  were  giving  thought  to   strengthening our military capability in Afghanistan, but we haven’t made any final decisions  in relation to that yet.



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QUESTION:  What  are  our  plans  Winston  Peters  in  terms  of  increasing  any  role  in   Afghanistan?

MR  PETERS:  We’re  in  about  the  same  position  as  Australia  in  the  context  of  considering   what our future response and engagement might be - in numbers and resources - we’ve yet to  make a decision upon that.

QUESTION:  Mr  Goff  said  about  a  week  ago  that  you’d  recommended  to  cabinet  that  the   numbers  would  essentially  stay  the  same,  just  roll  over  the  current  commitment.   Are  you   saying that you’re talking about an increase in numbers?

MR  PETERS:  No,  I’m  just  saying  the  matter  has  not  gone  before  cabinet,  it’s  not  been   finalised. The government has not made a decision about that yet.

QUESTION: Mr Downer - are you confident that the Solomon Islands is going to renew the  RAMSI mandate this year, and that Australia will remain part of it?

MR DOWNER: Well I think if Australia wasn’t part of RAMSI it would collapse. It would  cease to exist.  We put $250million a year into RAMSI and we are the bankroller of it and, of  course, a very large percentage of the personnel in RAMSI come from Australia. I think the  people  of  the  Solomon  Islands  regard  RAMSI  as  a  wonderful  thing.   I  think  it  has  been  a   wonderful  thing.   It’s  helped  to  re-establish  health  services,  it’s  helped  to  re-establish

education,  it’s  brought  some  semblance  of  order  back  into  public  finance,  it’s  got  the   economy growing again.  So the criticisms of RAMSI are criticisms by people who have an  alternative agenda which is not an agenda which is consistent with the broader aspirations of  the  ordinary  people  of  the  Solomon  Islands.   I  think  just  about  everybody  outside  of  the   political class - if I could put it that way - in Solomon Islands strongly supports RAMSI and  there aren’t many people in Solomon Islands who want to go back to the status quo ante, back  to where Solomon Islands was particularly between 2000 and 2003. So I’m confident that the  very strong views of the Solomon Islands public are reflected amongst not all, but many of  and the vast majority of, members of the Solomon Islands Parliament.

QUESTION: Mr Downer - did you discuss the Australian Government’s view on Iraq?

DOWNER: We didn’t much no, but I am happy to tell what our view about Iraq is.  That is,  you have a choice here between the insurgents and the terrorists winning in Iraq and if that’s  your - I don’t mean you personally, I am sure it is not true of you personally actually - but if  that is people’s preference they should make it clear that it is or the democratic institutions of  Iraq assisted by the international forces there winning in the sense of ensuring the insurgents  and the terrorists are not able to take control of the country and the democratic institutions can  survive and the Iraqi security forces can take over the country. That’s the choice.

Now it seems to me that for countries like Australia and New Zealand, we unequivocally  would want the democratic institutions of Iraq to win out, and we would want the Americans  to help them win out. We are talking here about problems on a micro scale compared to Iraq,  about the Solomon Islands and so on, and here we are at this press conference talking about  passionate support for democracy, political stability, economic progress and prosperity in the  Pacific. Well I don’t confine my support for those things to the Pacific - I include the Middle  East in my agenda and I want democracy. I want prosperity. I want our allies to prevail in Iraq  and they can prevail and I am confident with the right political will, they will prevail. I don’t



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want to see the terrorists and the insurgents win and if they do, I know what the consequences  will be. All the advice that I have had is that if the terrorists and the insurgents win in Iraq, the  democratic institutions are destroyed and the Americans and their allies humiliated and  defeated, then the consequences in terms of the war against terrorism, including right down

into our neighbourhood in South-East Asia, will be dire, and at the end of the day my first  responsibility is to the people of Australia and Australia’s security. And Australia’s security  will be substantially diminished by a victory by the terrorists and the insurgents in Iraq, I  know that.

QUESTION: One Australian citizen has being held [inaudible]… now for five years though.  Why is the UK doing so well at getting its citizens back and Australia seems to having a bit of  problem getting Mr Hicks back?

DOWNER: We got Habib back. You are probably not really familiar with all of this because I  think from the structure of your question you are not familiar with all the details and there is  no reason for you to be of course here in New Zealand. We had two Australians who were  taken into Guantanamo Bay and after some time we said to the Americans, that if they are not  going to charge them, they should release them. They shouldn’t stay in Guantanamo Bay  without charges. They said that for one reason or another, which I won’t go into here, they  wouldn’t charge Habib and so they released him. In the case of Hicks, they said that they  would charge Hicks and they brought charges against Hicks and there were appeals, some by  Hicks some by others, and in particular an appeal by a man called Hamdan who was Osama  bin Laden’s driver, and ultimately all the way up to the Supreme Court which ruled that the  Military Commission in which Hicks was to be tried had not been constituted by an act of  Congress but by an executive order and it should be constituted by an act of Congress.

So Congress subsequently enacted legislation to establish the Military Commision and Hicks  is now facing charges and trial in the Military Commision. But this has taken an inordinately  long period of time - a bit like this answer to your question - taken an inordinately long period  of time and we have been unhappy about the time it has taken. That might not all be the fault  of the American administration but to some extent it is their fault and we have made that very  clear to everybody from the President downwards. We had Dick Cheney in Sydney yesterday,  the day before yesterday and the day before that and the Prime Minister and I and others made  it clear to him we wanted this case expedited. So we will see.

We are obviously concerned about Australians who get into situations, as Hicks has  apparently got into, where allegedly he has belonged to four differrent terrorist organisations -  the Kosovo Liberation Front, Taliban, Al-Qaida and Lashkar-e-Toiba, which is an anti-Indian  terrorist organisation. I mean if those allegations are true, that is a matter of enormously deep  concern when you are trying to struggle in a war against terrorism. So we take these  allegations seriously, not lightly, and we expect him to be tried and hopefully that trial will  happen soon. As soon as the trial is finished, regardless of the results of the trial, acquitted or  convicted, he will be able to return to Australia. He will be released from Guantanamo Bay  when the trial is complete. So he can serve his sentence - if there is one to serve - in Australia  or else he of course will be released. The sooner that is done with the better.

QUESTION: Mr Downer was suggesting before that this corner of the world will be less safe,  if the terrorists and insurgents win in Iraq and the allied trooops pull out. Would you agree  with that?



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PETERS: Well our position in New Zealand is clearly to seek an outcome in Iraq where there  is a democratic government in control of it. The fact that we have a difference in opinion as  regarding the origins of the intervention, is not the issue now. The issue now is how can there  be an exit from Iraq where there is a successful self-governing democracy with outside  intervention and that is briefly and bluntly our position still. Anything we can do in the  country even now to assist in that occurring, outside direct military engagement, but in other  ways, New Zealand will seek to do.

QUESTION: Could that be achieved, could that goal be achieved with a military withdrawal?

PETERS: Well you are asking me for an opinion as to whether that will be a sound step at this  point in time. I will give you my opinion. I cannot see how we are advantaged by that  happening right now in February of 2007. I think the [inaudible]… would slide into total  chaos if that was to happen.

QUESTION: Mr Downer the problem [inaudible]… you appear to be losing that political  support at home. What…

DOWNER: I don’t think so. By at home you mean in Australia?

QUESTION: Yes.

DOWNER: Look I don’t think so. I think in Australia the view of the Australian public, what  Winston has just said, whatever they may think about the original decision to get rid of  Saddam Hussein - and you know there may be people in Australia who think it would have  been better to have left the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in power - that isn’t of course the  decision that we face today. He has gone. The decision we face today is just what we have  been talking about. Should we, should the coalition - particularly the Americans - just  withdraw from Iraq and leave it, as Winston has said, in a state of complete chaos? Or should  we continue to build up the Iraqi security forces to the point they are able to sustain security  in the country and the democratic government is able to survive? I think that when you put it  to people that way, people probably on balance agree with that proposition.

Then there is another issue - should Australia be involved in all of this or should we leave it to  the Americans? Well I suppose it sort of gets to the notion of mateship in Australia really. I  mean do you just abandon your mates? We say to the Americans you do it all, we are just  going to abandon you,  or do we stick by them? I think we feel in the end we will stick by our

mates in difficult times. It is always easy to stick by mates when everything is going  swimmingly but I think the true test of friendship is sticking with your mates when things are  tough. New Zealand is in an entirely different position. It is not a comment in any shape or  form directed at New Zealand but in the case of Australia and the Americans, were are mates  and we stick by our mates in difficult times as well as easy times, just as let me say New  Zealand sticks with us through difficult times and easy times. We have had difficult times in,  more recently, in East Timor and in the Solomon Islands. Who is always there with us? Who  can we always rely on? I will tell who we can always rely on - New Zealand. You can always  rely on them. We may not privately always agree on everything, or everything we each say, or  all of our tactics and strategies, but we stick together.

With us and the Americans you have a very difficult situation in Iraq and I think - as  Winston’s put it very eloquently - I mean obviously just to walk out the place is going to



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leave a simply horrific situation. I have talked about the impact that would have on stability,  security, counter-terrorism in South-East Asia. In Australia we are next to South-East Asia so  that is a real, real, issue for us. But there is another argument - should we just pull out and say  to the Americans you do it all?. Well I don’t think that is the way you treat your mates  [inaudible]….

QUESTION: [inaudible… are they aimed at stopping the browning of New Zealand as  Tariana Turia would put it?

PETERS: Sorry I didn’t….?

QUESTION: Your immigration policies -  are they aimed at stopping the browning of New  Zealand as Tariana Turia would [inaudible]…?

PETERS: I can hardly be responsible for comments from Tariana Turia, but I kind of thought  that in the space of two weeks she has contradicted herself. Two weeks ago she said that  immigration was actually, was contrary to, the interests of the Maori because it would  diminish their percentage in the population. Two weeks later she is saying something  different.

QUESTION: Well no, she is saying the same thing.

PETERS: No she is not, totally converse, but then of course the number of politicians who  make contrary statements without any regard to consistency in New Zealand is legend. I am  not one of them.

QUESTION: Do you think that the drive from western countries to migrate to this country,  that is what she is talking about, that there is too much emphasis on western countries and not  enough maybe on Asian or…?

PETERS: Well she should make up her mind, because way back in 1995, the then National  Party promised to deliver a better English language standard when they were in government  and they didn’t. It’s finally been addressed now in 2007 by the Minister of Immigration. The  tragedy of that of course is that in the meantime you have so many thousands and thousands  of misplaced people, not aligned to jobs, occupations or futures which can not be explained  away in anything other than careless wanton neglect of the country’s long term economic,  social and national interest. But I am pleased to say that the circumstances are changing now  to a proper requisite immigration regime requiring people to have an English language  standard because it happens to be the fact that in modern context you want trained flexible  minds, not just hands and those minds have to be capable of speaking the language. Now that  is not unique to New Zealand. Many other countries have applied that standard and none more  so than all the Asian countries about who we speak.

QUESTION: Mr Peters, can I just… has New Zealand been asked to increase its commitment  to Afghanistan [inaudible]…?

PETERS: Let me be honest and say that other countries that are engaged in Afghanistan have  constantly asked of all of us, each of the parties engaged there, for a greater commitment. The  question is what is warranted in the circumstances and that is what is being decided by the  New Zealand Government now.



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QUESTION: Did that possiblity come up in your talks today [inaudble]….

PETERS: No, not in that context but let me make it very clear. I don’t think that there is any  Government engaged in Afghanistan that hasn’t been asked can you not do a little bit more.

[Ends]

