Press Conference – Canberra | Prime Minister of Australia
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA: Thank you very much. It is indeed a great honor to host Prime Minister Rabuka today. And it was wonderful to be hosted by the Prime Minister in Fiji very soon after his election. And it has been great to be able to renew our friendship on a face-to-face basis. The Prime Minister is here for a number of days, and I look forward to hosting the Prime Minister at The Lodge tonight with his delegation with a range of my Ministers. Australia deeply values the close and long-standing partnership that we have with Fiji. That was recently demonstrated in a very practical way with the flying out by Fiji Airways of 13 Australians out of Tel Aviv on the 10th of October, and Australia being about to assist 30 Fijian nationals back home on Sunday.
To reflect the maturity of the relationship, we have signed today a renewed and elevated Vuvale Partnership. Pleased to announce that Australia is providing further budget support to Fiji to help economic recovery and to boost growth. And I’ve agreed with Prime Minister Rabuka that Fiji will be included as a pilot country for a new streamlined Australian visa application service to make sure that people flows between us can continue to assist in the process of making our friendship stronger. I’m pleased to confirm the sale of 14 Bushmasters to facilitate Fiji’s deployment to peacekeeping operations around the world. And we’ve also agreed to finalise a new memorandum of understanding on cyber security cooperation to tackle the rise of cyber security challenges in our region. Both of us agree that Pacific unity is central to the relationship in our region. And Fiji plays a critical leadership role. And I want to single out the Prime Minister for the role that he played in ensuring that the Pacific Island Forum is more united, to make sure that all countries are working together. And at the Pacific Island Forum that will take place in the Cook Islands next month, Australia and Fiji will once again be showing the co-operation, the common values that we have in working for Pacific unity and working on the issues such as addressing the challenge of climate change, economic development, and a strong and secure Pacific region. Prime Minister.
SITIVENI RABUKA, PRIME MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF FIJI: Thank you very much. Honourable Prime Minister, the press corps, thank you very much for taking time to come and hear us out. I’ll just express how grateful Fiji has been for the relationship that we have had with Australia over the years. Fortunately, I have come back into politics and national leadership and I have noticed that it is growing. It is growing very quickly, I don’t know, since I became Prime Minister, but it has been improving. And we can now thank you, most sincerely, the people of Australia. We have reached the pre-COVID-19 figures in our tourist arrivals and also tourism income. And most of the contributors have come to us from Australia. I would like to thank you and the people and the Australians for helping us. As you come to us, we provide employment for our tourism industry workers as well as providing those that, employment for those that were probably not working, or not as gainfully employed in Fiji as they are now involved in the Labour Mobility Scheme. We’re very grateful for that.
In our talks we have looked at ways of improving the lots of workers and perhaps reduce the volume by increasing technical co-operation in our education so that if we maintain the volume, it will be more skilled, a bit more skilled, rather than the semi-skilled or unskilled. Our problem is that they get, the wages they get here are better than what they get at home, and you also have some of those are already in the employment market but we are very grateful. And the Vuvale, the improved, not improved – the increased capacity of the Vuvale co-operation is a great welcome to the list of co-operative efforts we have had. And as most of us know, in the Pacific, Vuvale is family. And the association we have under our Vuvale Partnership reflects that. We are a family. And a lot of the things we do within our sections of the family are supported by others.
The Prime Minister very graciously acknowledged my role in the Pacific Forum. I was able to speak to some leaders who were a bit shaky in their trust of Fiji. We managed to embrace them once again, before I handed over the Forum leadership to the Prime Minister of the Cook Islands. And we are very grateful for the contribution of the Royal Australian Airforce VIP flight that took me up to Kiribati to talk to President Maamau of Kiribati. We welcome the development and the processing of international travel, of our citizens coming to Australia and the promise of those improving. It will also improve our systems at home. You have been a very gracious host. And I’m glad we were able to host you at your own facilities, your own funded facilities of Black Rock, in Nadi, when the Prime Minister had come back from doing something in San Diego with Prime Minister Sunak and President Biden.
I was honoured that Prime Minister Albanese called me the night before just to, because we’re family, we’re Vuvale. He called me to let me know what was happening many miles away. So, I am very, very grateful that we continue to have this warm relationship with Australia. The investors from Australia contribute the maximum volume of investment in Fiji, and therefore contribute also the biggest percentage of employment opportunities for the citizens of Fiji. So, thank you very much.
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Thank you so much, Prime Minister. We have got a few questions.
JOURNALIST: Thanks, Prime Minister. Prime Minister Rabuka, you have spoken about a zone of peace in the Pacific. Obviously, Australia has expressed a level of concern about China’s emergence as a security partner to some Pacific Island countries. Can I ask your view? Do you believe that China can be part of a Pacific zone of peace as a security player or should that be left to Fiji’s traditional partners and members of the Pacific Islands Forum? And Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, while we’re speaking about –
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: You’re being cheeky. It’s one question, but keep going.
JOURNALIST: Just on news that’s breaking right now, obviously deeply distressing images out of Gaza. Does the Australian Government have any information at this early stage about whether any Australians have been caught up in this, either killed or injured? And do you have an early assessment as to whether Israel is behind the strike or is it actually Hamas, as Israel has alleged?
PRIME MINISTER RABUKA: I’ll do the perception of the Pacific in this. Some people call it rivalry, some people call it one-upmanship, whatever it is. We’re more comfortable dealing with traditional friends that we have similar systems of government, our democracies are the same brand of democracy coming out of the Westminster system of parliament and based on British law that we inherited. So our justice system, our policing system, we’re more comfortable with friends that we have had over a longer period. And we would like to develop the concept of a Zone of Peace and the concept of friends to all, enemies to none. I know that it is naive to believe that can happen, but that’s the way we must conduct our domestic affairs so that we do not appear to be aggressive in our relationship with our neighbours and also with our friends that we have had cordial international bilateral relationships with.
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Thanks very much. We have seen a devastating loss of innocent life since the attacks on Israel by the terrorist group, Hamas. But the scenes from the explosion at a Gaza City hospital are deeply distressing. And it is clear that there has been a devastating loss of life. Every innocent life matters – whether it is Israeli or Palestinian. Our thoughts are with those killed, those injured, and their loved ones. The protection of civilian lives must come first, as the Parliament said in its resolution that we carried on Monday. And respect for international humanitarian law is paramount. We condemn any indiscriminate attacks and targeting of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals. And Australia joins with others in calling for international law to always be upheld. Next question is from Fiji.
JOURNALIST: Once again, I acknowledge the new visa arrangement that you just announced. But maybe you could tell us, is your Government working on the pursuance of the Fijian Government and the PIF Forum members for a visa-free Pacific and maybe tell us why the delay on this?
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: We are working. And today, what we have announced is Fiji being a part of, with Fiji’s agreement, being part of a pilot program to have a streamlined visa system so that the delays already have been reduced substantially, cut by almost three quarters between January and September. So, we have made major progress. What we want in particular is for visitors from Fiji who are regular visitors to Australia to have streamlined access. This is possible through new technology, through those who have e-Passports, to be able to get much faster passage and much streamlined passage. Australia, though, will continue to maintain our system of visas that we require for visitors. But what we want to do is to make sure that we work, and I think the agreement will do this, with Fiji. And this will be an important pilot program.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister Rabuka, you spoke yesterday about the Lowy Institute about how Pacific countries are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis, a crisis Pacific countries didn’t cause. You’ll be at the Pacific Islands Forum meeting in the Cook Islands next month, alongside Prime Minister Albanese. Are Australia’s emissions targets enough or should Australia be curbing new fossil fuel developments? And do you expect Pacific leaders will use next month’s meeting to put pressure on Australia to shut down its fossil fuel industry?
PRIME MINISTER RABUKA: Thank you very much. We’re realistic about our demands. As things slow down on some of the things that are making them tick at this time, that have contributed to the progress this far, and we have benefited from those, through aid and assistance and straightforward grants in the past. We do not want them to stop doing what they’re doing. We want them to tone down. The word is sustainable. We all forget that we’re all going for sustainable and it’s got to be sustainable. You don’t just stop everything. You have to be sustainable from a sovereign point of view. And for us in the Pacific, we will have to contribute to counter what has not been able to be achieved quickly here. We in the Pacific can contribute through assistance for our mitigation and other programs that we carry out and contribute to towards climate change, to lessen the effects of climate change.
JOURNALIST: Once again I acknowledge the work that’s been put in place in regards to the PALM Scheme. Our workers, the reports continue to come out that some of our workers continue to face ill treatment by some of the employers. What is your Government doing to curb with this?
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: We think overwhelmingly the PALM Scheme has been an enormous success. We want to make sure that any exploitation, whether of foreign workers, or Australian workers, is eliminated. There is legislation before the Australian Parliament right now about closing loopholes, aimed at making sure that Australia’s laws when it comes to wages and conditions are upheld. And so, for example, that legislation provides for a criminalisation of wage theft, where employers consciously are involved in such activity. And we know there have been unfortunately some examples. But overwhelmingly, this has been enormously beneficial for both Australia and for Fiji. What we are looking for here is win-win. Australia benefiting from the contribution of labour from the Fijian workforce, but Fiji benefiting from the repatriation of economic benefits back to families in Fiji. And making sure that both our countries benefit. And that’s why we have reforming the PALM Scheme as a priority. It’s why some of the best examples that I’ve seen overseas of Australian educational engagement as well was when I was in Suva, on my first visit to Fiji as Prime Minister, looking at nursing and aged care, training and skills being now deployed. Some of those staff who I met there are now working in aged care facilities in regional Queensland, making an enormous difference but also assisting their families. But we spoke today about the importance of this program. We will continue to work together. And I very much look forward to hosting the Prime Minister, will be on the floor of our Parliament at Question Time at 2pm today.
PRIME MINISTER RABUKA: Can I answer from the gallery?
PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: I look forward. You can. Well, we’ll see if you get some questions from them. The parliamentarians are less cheeky than the journalists who try to sneak in follow-up questions, but we will see. But feel free to intervene, Prime Minister in the process. But we are, of course, two great friends as leaders, but two great friends as nations importantly. And tonight at The Lodge, we will be celebrating that. And I’m very much look forward to it. Thanks very much.