Television Interview – 7:30 | Prime Minister of Australia
SARAH FERGUSON, HOST: Prime Minister, welcome to 7.30.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Good to be back, Sarah.
FERGUSON: Welcome back from your trip.
PRIME MINISTER: It was a very successful trip to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore and then the bilateral visit to Vietnam.
FERGUSON: We’ll come to that in a moment, but just On today, with the release of Kathleen Folbigg, we’ve seen the reversal of injustice as profound as that suffered by Lindy Chamberlain. As Prime Minister, do you have anything to say to Kathleen Folbigg?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, this has been an extraordinary case where new evidence has led the Attorney General of New South Wales, Michael Daley, to intervene and to pardon, Ms Folbigg. She has been in jail for some 20 years. And Michael Daley has chosen to show mercy and to intervene in this case. I think it is an extraordinary set of circumstances. And I’m certain of the obvious is that Kathleen Folbigg will be very relieved today.
FERGUSON: Now, you’ve just returned from a trip as you said to the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, a major defence event, but first you’re back from Vietnam. There’s been work behind the scenes for Australian citizens detained in Vietnam. Was there movement on their cases?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there was a substantial breakthrough with the granting of clemency, just yesterday, for two Australians who had been sentenced to capital punishment. I made representations to the Prime Minister yesterday morning, and by yesterday afternoon the President had signed the clemency orders. Australia very much welcomes this. Australia, of course, has a strong position of opposition to the death penalty. And we make representations on behalf of Australian citizens. And we are very pleased that Vietnam has agreed to the request and we thank them for it.
FERGUSON: Now, in this case, we’re not mentioning the names of those two individuals, but as you say, both of them face the death penalty in Vietnam. Have you spoken to their families since that clemency was obtained?
PRIME MINISTER: The families have been informed and they are very relieved. They passed on their thanks to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials who’ve been working on this for some time. But they are very much relieved today with this outcome. They have asked that their privacy be respected, which is why I am not mentioning the names this evening.
FERGUSON: Do you understand what was decisive in this case? They’ve been pressing for clemency for some time. What changed?
PRIME MINISTER: I think Australia is building a strong relationship with our ASEAN partners, and in particular with Vietnam. The visit provided an impetus for this outcome. We, as well, have made representations on behalf of Chau Van Kham who was convicted of other offences. That’s a different case. We were after an international prisoner transfer, and we’re hopeful in that case. But we’ll continue to work on those issues. We make representations, we do it diplomatically. And we always look for positive outcomes in the interest of Australian citizens.
FERGUSON: You’ve just returned from giving a major security speech at the Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore. You talked there about the importance of guardrails between the US and China to prevent them stumbling into conflict. You said they must be beyond just principles or a set of ideals. What would those guardrails look like?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what we know is that during the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, there were systems set up so that a misadventure or miscalculation didn’t lead to disastrous consequences. The concern here is that the guardrails aren’t in place. So the consequences of a misinterpretation or an accident occurring, and it leading to a reaction and then a further action is something that is very dangerous. What we want to recognise is that, as a nation that wants peace, security and stability in our region, we think that of both bilateral arrangements between major powers, but also, engagement in multilateral forums are important as well.
FERGUSON: Can you conceive of a role for the Australian Government in formulating or being part of what these guardrails that you talk about, that would prevent the kind of Cold War incidents from reoccurring?
PRIME MINISTER: I think, primarily, the guardrails need to be nation-to-nation so that communication can happen very directly and very clearly and very unequivocally. But Australia does have a role to play, and we are playing that role. We are engaging in the Pacific Island Forum. We’re engaging with our ASEAN neighbours. Penny Wong, as Foreign Minister, has visited every single ASEAN nation, as well as every single nation that’s a member of the Pacific Island Forum. We are very much engaged in our region. And and we have a role to play. The fact that I’ve been invited again to attend the NATO summit in July, as part of the Asia Pacific Four nations to do a separate presentation there. The fact that we were invited to give the keynote in front of the world’s Defence Ministers. All of the major powers were there in Singapore, I regard it as recognition that Australia does have a significant role to play, given our history, given the the upfront way in which we engage with our neighbours in the region and throughout the world.
FERGUSON: To be specific, in terms of ensuring the peace and making sure that accidents don’t occur, that would be very dangerous in our region. Are you talking about Australia having a specific role in ensuring those communications remained open?
PRIME MINISTER: I think we’re having a role already, by the fact that we are meeting with that our Chinese counterparts on a ministerial-to-ministerial level, but also on a leader level. And, of course, our alliance with the United States is one of the three pillars of our foreign policy along with regional engagement and our support for multilateral forums. Peace can’t be taken for granted. It has to be built, it has to be nurtured. It has to be argued for. It doesn’t just occur. It’s not the default setting. So we need to make sure, as a country committed to peace and security in the region, that we continue to play a role. And the key to that, of course, is dialogue. The problem that had occurred is a breakdown in those relations. And that’s why the US Administration’s call for increased dialogue with China is so important. It’s one that we support and it’s one that we’ve encouraged China to participate in.
FERGUSON: Can Australia be an intermediary, when it is so tightly welded to the US military?
PRIME MINISTER: We have an alliance with the United States that is an important part of our international framework in our foreign policy. And we don’t shy away from that. The United States has an important role to play in this region as a Pacific power.
FERGUSON: We are talking about guardrails, as in the relationship between China and the United States. That’s my question. Can Australia be any kind of, play an intermediary role when it’s so tightly welded to the US military?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I think it’s very important that those guardrails be bilateral and direct between the United States and China, and that’s something that the President has made clear. But Australia, in the way that we engage with the world, can play an important role as well.
FERGUSON: There’s been a mild thaw in diplomatic relations between China and Australia. Are you any closer to a visit to Beijing?
PRIME MINISTER: I think that we are looking at establishing a date, but the dialogue is still going. Over the last couple of days we’ve had one of the other impediments to trade removed, that of stone fruit. That is a trade worth hundreds of millions of dollars for Australian farmers and agriculture. We want to see all of the impediments removed. But we continue to engage, we think that dialogue is a positive thing. And if we can determine a mutually suitable date, then I’ve said that I’m certainly up for travelling to China at some stage and that would be a positive thing. We will welcome the Assistant Foreign Minister here next month, and it’s good that this dialogue is occurring.
FERGUSON: Prime Minister, thank you for joining us.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much, Sarah.