MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS  HON ALEXANDER DOWNER, MP





TRANSCRIPTION: PROOF COPY E & OE

DATE:   17 November 2006

TITLE:  Doorstop at Hilton Hotel, Hanoi



MINISTER DOWNER: Good morning, I just wanted to say two things to you this morning.   The first is that I hosted a dinner for a number of Foreign Ministers where we discussed the  way ahead in APEC on the climate change and energy issues.  It was a very productive  meeting and we are, as the incoming chair of APEC, going to prepare a work plan for the next  year which will include a focus on energy cooperation and climate change issues, so that we

hope that by September next year we will be able to put together a package to help address  this issue.  That includes dealing with issues such as CO2 emissions but also nuclear  technology and the prospect of there being cooperation under the auspices of APEC between  those countries in APEC which have atomic energy agencies of one kind or another or nuclear  industries or nuclear regulatory authorities.  So we had a good discussion about that and there  is work to be done and the dinner meeting has really kicked a lot of that work off.

Secondly, in relation to Tonga, I have spoken again to the Prime Minister of Tonga.  We have  prepared defence force personnel in Australia to go to Tonga if necessary and the New  Zealanders have done the same.  We have been in discussions here with the New Zealanders  and are coordinating very closely.  New Zealand of course has very strong ties with Tonga  and New Zealand would take the lead rather than Australia in terms of any response but we  are certainly prepared to provide resources.  That is, we would be prepared to provide some  police and some military personnel to reinforce the efforts of New Zealand.  If the Tongans  want to have some support.  Now, at this stage the Tongans believe that they have the  situation under control but that their security forces are very stretched, as the Prime Minister  said to me.  They are having a Cabinet meeting this afternoon, their time, so that is happening  now and this Cabinet meeting will work out whether they need any outside assistance,  obviously if they can get away without any outside assistance, that will be their preference.   Our position is that if they desperately need it, New Zealand and Australia would be prepared  to provide support.  We will have to provide some development assistance to help them with  the reconstruction of Nuku’alofa.  In particular, getting power back on - the power system is  down there - and provide some other logistical support and the New Zealanders are providing  some immediate logistical support so the airport can re-open.  That’s pretty much the situation  in relation to Tonga.

QUESTION:  Did the Prime Minister indicate what might push them to ask for more support?

MINISTER DOWNER: If they feel that the riots are going to flare up again.  They are  hopeful but not certain that the worst of the rioting is over but it is just too early for us to say.   We just simply do not know and we will act on the advice of the Tongan Government, but  they seem a bit uncertain.



Inquiries:  (02) 6277 7500 2

QUESTION:  This has been characterised as pro-democracy riots.  Do you see this as an  expression of the fundamental pressures running through much of the South Pacific, the sorts  of economic hopes and the youth bulge, those sorts of issues the islands are facing?

MINISTER DOWNER: I was in Tonga myself not all that long ago, it was about March or so  this year, and I had the opportunity to look at some of these issues while I was there.  There is  a pro-democracy movement there, the Government has set up a Committee to prepare a report  on the way forward for the Constitution, trying to strike a balance between the traditions of  Tonga and the aspirations of the democrats there, that work is not yet concluded   Unfortunately the head was killed in a car accident tin the US so that work is still not  completed.  The parliament itself, much of which  it is appointed, not all of it is, will have to  consider that and the Government itself, and ultimately the King.  They have had the King die

fairly recently and the new King come to the throne , so there is additional political  uncertainty, particularly which is a traditional monarchy, when you have a reign in that way.

We have been in touch with the Tongans a fair bit in recent times.  We had the Prime Minister  of Tonga in Australia a few weeks ago but in response to this the main thing is that they get  the situation under control and continue with the work of how best to proceed with the  process of Constitutional reform.

QUESTION:  How many Australian personnel are on stand by, and it sounds like you don’t  think they will have to go?

MINISTER DOWNER:   Neither likely nor unlikely.  I do not know.  I’m not saying whether  they will go or not.  It depends on the assessment made by the Tongans themselves during the  course of this afternoon and they will make an assessment for today.  We will have to wait to  see another day.  How many personnel are preparing to go?  We wouldn’t be looking at  sending a large number, if we end up sending any troops at all it will be somewhere between  about 60 and 120, that kind of dimension.  Small numbers.  Of course, the New Zealanders  looking at sending personnel but I leave that for them to announce, it would be quite wrong  for me to do that.  But  they would be looking at sending some troops as well.  It wouldn’t be  a very big intervention, Tonga is a small place, it has a small population.  The Tongan defence  force has about 400 personnel in it and they have a police force.

QUESTION:  Are they loyal?

MINISTER DOWNER:  They are, there is not a question of them rising up against the  Government or the King.

QUESTION:  What did the Prime Minister tell you about the death toll?

MINISTER DOWNER:  He was not sure about the death toll but my understanding is that  there were 6 people killed.  The Tongans have said that the remains of 6 people have been  found which is consistent with the advice we have received from our High Commission.   Those people may have been looters.



Inquiries:  (02) 6277 7500 3

QUESTION:  With that nuclear agreement you mentioned, are you talking about sharing  technology between APEC members?

MINISTER DOWNER:  No, sharing regulatory information in particular and making sure  that we have coordinated regulations of nuclear industry in the interests of the non-proliferation regime.  Some countries in APEC don’t have any nuclear technology, some like  Australia  have research reactors, some have nuclear power reactors and two of them are  nuclear weapon states as in China and the US.  Countries in APEC, other than China and the  US have no interest in using nuclear technology for military purposes but some have nuclear  power plants and some of them think that is the way to go.  If we are going to use nuclear  power for power generation then it is very important that there are appropriate safeguards and  regulatory regimes in place.  To coordinate that on a region-wide basis would, I think, be  quite effective, and the model that we can look at here, is a very successful model in Europe  called EURATOM and that has been in place for many years.  It is, of course, a somewhat  different situation but it does serve as a bit of a model of what you might be able to achieve in  the region.

QUESTION:  Do you think APEC can do a better job that the UN has been doing in relation  to (inaudible)

MINISTER DOWNER:  I think it’s not a question of saying better or worse, it’s a question of  using every vehicle you have to address these issues.  I think in relation to APEC it just  remains to be seen.  It’s too early to say, we’ll see how we go. Australia will chair SAPEC  and Australia is very much an ideas country and is very ambitious about APEC as you all  know.  It’s an opportunity for us to drive the agenda forward as best we can and we will see  how we get on.  But it’s too early to say.  The UN process has been in place since the early  1990’s.

QUESTION:  There is a story out of Nairobi that a Chinese delegate has expressed concern at  an Australian statement that if Australia reduced its emissions, China would overtake that  within 10 months?

MINISTER DOWNER:  Well, somebody from Greenpeace Australia says that some Chinese  official whom I have never heard of, said something to him, so I wouldn’t respond to that.  If I  could go up the food chain somewhat, after the dinner last night I met with the Chinese  Foreign Minister and in all the issues we discussed - we spent 30 to 40 minutes in the meeting  - he didn’t register any complaint about anything anyone had said in Australia about the  climate change issue at all.  My guess is that this is a classic example of somebody saying  something to someone from Greenpeace, and Greenpeace are of course, pursuing a political  agenda which is part of life and perfectly legitimate and I think it needs to be seen in that  context.  I don’t think that this is an issue between Australia and China. Any analysis of  China’s emissions is practical and factual analysis, as it would be if it was analysis of  Germany’s or Australia’s emissions, and I don’t think that kind of analysis is going to cause  offence.

ENDS

