

PRIME MINISTER  TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE  NEW DELHI, INDIA  15 OCTOBER 2012



E & O E - PROOF ONLY

Subjects:      India Visit; Fair Work Australia

PM: I am delighted to have just arrived in India and I will be here over the next few days. This is a  very important relationship for Australia.

In 2009, we entered into a strategic partnership with India. That was a recognition that we are two  countries with a history of shared values and a history of mutual interests, but that we needed to  broaden and deepen the relationship.

Now is the right time for my first visit as Prime Minister because we can broaden and deepen the  relationship as our interests converge. Our economic interests are certainly converging with a  spectacular growth in trade between India and Australia.

But whilst we have seen that spectacular growth in trade, I do want to see a broadening and  deepening of the economic relationship. India is one of those nations that in our region of the  world, in this Asian century, we will see grow spectacularly in economic weight. We will see the  rise of its middle class.

And so I do want to see a deepening of our economic relationship, and I am also pleased that  during the course of this visit, I will be able to meet with a number of Australian CEOs who are  particularly focused on working with their Indian counterparts to strengthen the economic ties  between our two countries.

Our interests are also converging because we have got a shared strategic  outlook on our region of the world. Our interests converge as we work together in  multilateral forum including the G20 and the East Asia Summit.

And the Indian community in Australia is Australia’s fastest growing migrant  community. We have more skilled migrants from India than we do from any other  country in the world. That gives us a good opportunity to strengthen our people-to-people links.

In terms of objectives for my visit, I do want to see us working on a deepening of  our economic relationship as I referred to. That will include work with CEOs; it will  also include discussions about a comprehensive economic partnership  agreement.

I will want to be talking to my Indian counterparts, including Prime Minister Singh,  about strengthening the bonds between our two countries, the diplomatic

architecture and relationship between our two countries, and strengthening our  work together in the G20 and in the East Asia Summit.

I will also be focused on strengthening our knowledge partnership. We welcome  to Australia Indian students in very large numbers. They are the second biggest  source country - India are the second biggest source country for international  students - and there are many partnership arrangements between Australian  universities, vocational education and training institutions and India, and I will be  focused on the strengthening of that knowledge partnership.

And finally I will also be focused on two issues, which are big domestic  challenges for India. They are the issues of water and energy security, where I  believe Australia can make a contribution.

I will tomorrow night have the very delightful job of launching Oz Fest. This is a  cultural festival presented by Australia in India, in a range of locations across  India.

For many Indians when they think of Australia, they think of cricket. We want to  make sure that the full panorama, the full kaleidoscope of our country is on  display, so there will be a set of events involving music, theatrical performance,  book writing and beyond, for Indians to understand what contemporary Australia  has to offer.

With those words, I am happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: PM, how much will the uranium exports feature in your  discussions during this trip?

PM: I anticipate that I will have some discussions on uranium. Just taking this  back to the start, I formed the view as Prime Minister that it was appropriate for  us to sell uranium to India, and that it had become an obstacle in our relationship  that we were not.

So I went to our ALP national conference and ensured that the party changed its  policy.

Since then the Government has changed its policy too. We are now open to  selling uranium to India. In order to do so we would need to negotiate a  comprehensive agreement that would go to civil nuclear arrangements. So during  the course of being here I am sure the issue will be raised.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what do you say to the critics in Australia who say  no matter what safeguards you negotiate, that India can’t be trusted on the use of  Australian uranium? And how will you absolutely assure the public that uranium  will only be used for peaceful purposes, it won’t in any way be used for

weapons?

PM: Well, we know how to negotiate these agreements because we have done it  in the past and we have done it on the basis that Australian uranium is only used  for peaceful purposes. That the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is  involved in oversight, and that the nation that we sell uranium to has an  appropriate protocol with the IAEA.

All of these things would be part of the kind of agreement we would negotiate  with India.

I do note that India is a party to a range of international security arrangements -  safety arrangements I should say - for uranium, and indeed the world is  strengthening those arrangements post the Fukushima incident.



So we will work these issues through as we work through with India an  appropriate agreement.

JOURNALIST:  Indian authorities have shot dead at least two anti-nuclear  campaigners in the last few weeks.  Is that really the kind of a country we want to  sell uranium to?

PM: India is a robust, liberal democracy. It’s the largest democracy in the world. It  is governed by the rule of law. And to the extent that there is an allegation that  laws have been breached in any circumstances then people can take complaints  about that.

But let’s be very, very clear, we are standing now in the world’s largest liberal  democracy.

JOURNALIST: Is it appropriate for Australia to be encouraging investment from a  company like Adani enterprises which has serious allegations of corruption  leveled against it by (inaudible)?

PM: Well I think allegations about anyone or any company need to be dealt with  by proper authorities. We don’t act on the basis of allegations and nor should we.  Due process should be followed and any allegation made should be dealt with.

JOURNALIST:  Given the serious allegations, should the Australian Government  be accepting sponsorship money for Oz Fest from a company like Adani  Enterprises?

PM: Well I have just indicated I don’t think it is appropriate to act on the basis of  allegations. If allegations have been made then they need to be dealt with  properly by the relevant authorities.



JOURNALIST:  Will you be meeting with Mr Adani during the visit here?

PM: I’ll be meeting a wide range of people. The answer is I anticipate I probably  will. I can’t summon to mind every detail of my program and every person in  attendance at every event. But I would make the point that we don’t deal on the  basis of allegations.

JOURNALIST: Back to the nuclear issue, the Indian Auditor General raised some  serious concerns about the regulation of the civilian nuclear industry, saying that  they are headed towards a possible Chernobyl-style disaster. How do you think  (inaudible) by selling uranium?

PM: It’s in India’s interest to have the most robust safety standards for its own  civil energy generation program out of nuclear energy. I also note that the Indian  Government is in the process of legislating a new regulator in this area, and that  India has a national interest in making sure its nuclear program is safe, and seen  to be safe by the world.

JOURNALIST:  Prime Minister, what is your anticipated timeline for all this. When  would you see safeguard negotiations beginning and when is the earliest you can  expect actual exports to commence?

PM: Well we have done the first two steps, which is changed our party policy and  made a Government decision that we are open to selling uranium to India.

On the rest of it we will keep working through and I will let you know time frames  when that is possible. But these agreements are complex ones and they do take  some time to negotiate.

JOURNALIST:  India has a large and growing disparity between live births of  boys and live births of girls. Given your status as a female leader in the world, is  this, the killing of lots of girls in utero a thing that you think might come up? Might  be appropriate to raise at any level?

PM: It may be raised during the course of discussions. I am going to see some of  our aid and development projects here in India, and it may be the kind of issue  that some involved with the aid community want to talk to me about.

But as I made clear when we had the parliamentary launch in Australia last week  of the International Year of the Girl Child, that has been sanctioned by the UN, as  a way of directing the world’s attention to the way in which discrimination against  girls matters at every level.

And certainly in many societies, the fact that girls are less prized than boys has  an implication right from birth, from whether or not children are abandoned,  whether they are cared for, whether they get the opportunity for a school

education, and all of these things I think should weigh on us and are matters of  conscience for us.

I made the point when I spoke at the event for education champions at the UN,  that we will never see true equality for adult men and women in our world until we  see true equality for boys and girls. That is the foundation stone for us having a  world in which men and women are truly equal, and so to the extent girls are  discriminated against in any way that does concern me.

A big part of our aid program is directed towards gender equality, a big part of it  is directed towards securing education for children. And around the world that  means that there is a special mission for involving girls in education, because too  often they’re the ones that are left outside formal education.

JOURNALIST:  Prime Minister is there a lingering strain on the Australia-India  relationship from the student violence, particularly in Melbourne? And how will  you be addressing that on this trip?

PM: That is a good question and I will obviously be interested to hear the views  of people here in India as I move around over the next two days. But my sense  is, and I obviously had a very big insight into this as Education Minister and in  fact traveled to India on the last occasion as Deputy Prime Minister and  Education Minister because these issues have been such a huge moment in  India and so spectacularly reported.

My sense is since then that we have addressed these concerns, we have got a  comprehensive student welfare strategy that has has been agreed between the  federal government and state governments, which goes to issues about housing  and treatment of Indian students, making sure that they are facilitated.

Number two, we’ve worked long and hard on quality questions. We had within  our vocational education and training sector particularly a number of operators  who weren’t at the right quality standard and they have been cracked down on.

And I think we did see, as a community in reaction to that violence, the  community stepping forward to strengthen their embrace of Indian students. I  certainly know that in my own local community in Melbourne’s west that a  shocking incident of violence that happened near the Werribee train station  actually then meant community members in Werribee and Hopper’s Crossing  went out of their way to create ways of supporting Indian students who live in that  local community.

So I think the Aussie character was on display as we responded to it. I think  those actions by government, by education institutions and the community have  been sufficient to respond to Indian concerns, but I will obviously be keen to hear  the feedback from people as I move around.



JOURNALIST:  On an issue at home, Fair Work Australia has pushed ahead with  the charges against Craig Thomson in federal court. I understand you probably  won’t comment on that matter given it will be coming up before the courts. But  given it is a civil case, will the outcome have any impact on whether or not Mr  Thomson is able to remain in parliament?

PM: Look I am not going to comment on a matter that is before the courts, and I  am also not going to war-game a lot hypothetical questions about a matter that is  before the courts.

Thank you.

[ENDS]

