Australia — Minister for Defence Stephen Smith on MRRT, CHOGM, Facebook and Afghanistan

TOPICS: Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM); Face­book and Afghanistan; MRRT.
STEPHEN SMITH: Well thanks very much for turn­ing up. I just first­ly want­ed to indi­cate how pleased the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment is that Buck­ing­ham Palace has announced overnight that Her Majesty The Queen, togeth­er with His Roy­al High­ness The Duke of Edin­burgh will come to Perth to enable Her Majesty to offi­cial­ly open the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in Octo­ber.
This will be a tremen­dous boost to the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing and a great thing for West­ern Aus­tralia and Aus­tralia.

CHOGM itself, of course, will be a tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ty for West­ern Aus­tralia and Aus­tralia to show­case itself to the rest of the Com­mon­wealth. Over 50 com­mon­wealth lead­ers, pres­i­dents and prime min­is­ters, and over 50 for­eign min­is­ters attend­ing over the CHOGM week and we very much look for­ward to it.

I, of course, was very pleased to have been able to play a small part in the last Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing in Port of Spain to encour­age the Com­mon­wealth to choose Aus­tralia and sub­se­quent­ly to allow the Gov­ern­ment to announce that CHOGM will be held at Perth, and very much look­ing for­ward to, as the local Fed­er­al Mem­ber for Perth, see­ing so many lead­ers from the Com­mon­wealth come to Perth and West­ern Australia.

It will be a tremen­dous eco­nom­ic boost to Perth and West­ern Aus­tralia, but also a very good oppor­tu­ni­ty for West­ern Aus­tralia and Perth to show­case itself to the rest of the world. So we’re very pleased with the announce­ment overnight and I’m hap­py to respond to your questions.

JOURNALIST: How much will secu­ri­ty have to be tight­ened even fur­ther now with the Queen being one of the head­line acts, so to speak?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well we’ve always known that with sig­nif­i­cant inter­na­tion­al events regret­tably in the mod­ern era secu­ri­ty will always be an issue, and secu­ri­ty is one of the mat­ters which the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment is work­ing very close­ly with the state gov­ern­ment but also with the city of Perth, with local gov­ern­ment as well.

There will be all of the usu­al secu­ri­ty pre­cau­tions tak­en. It will, of course, be a need for sig­nif­i­cant secu­ri­ty for Her Majesty but, in any event, we will also have, as I said, over 50 lead­ers from the Com­mon­wealth and that brings with it, regret­tably in the mod­ern world, the need for secu­ri­ty but those mat­ters will be assid­u­ous­ly attend­ed to and I’m very pleased that on that front there’s very good coop­er­a­tion not just between the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment and the state gov­ern­ment but also between the rel­e­vant agen­cies, in par­tic­u­lar the West­ern Aus­tralian Police.

JOURNALIST: What do you think the reac­tion will be from Aus­tralians and, I guess more specif­i­cal­ly, peo­ple from Perth about learn­ing that the Queen will be com­ing out here?

STEPHEN SMITH: I think they’ll wel­come it very much. Last year I had the great hon­our to rep­re­sent Aus­tralia at the cen­te­nary of diplo­mat­ic rela­tions between Aus­tralia and the Unit­ed King­dom at Aus­tralia House in Lon­don, had the oppor­tu­ni­ty of meet­ing Her Majesty and also meet­ing the Duke.

I think West­ern Aus­tralians will be very, very pleased. Many Perth res­i­dents and many West Aus­tralians will be old enough to remem­ber Her Majesty open­ing the then called Empire and Com­mon­wealth Games back in the ’60s and very many peo­ple will remem­ber her most recent vis­it to Perth in 2000.

So she will receive a very warm wel­come. She is very fond­ly regard­ed by West­ern Aus­tralians and Australians.

JOURNALIST: With the con­fir­ma­tion today, the debate’s kind of turned now to what we’d like the Queen to vis­it while she’s here. What would you like Perth to show­case? As the Mem­ber for Perth, what do you think we can take her and show her to see?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well I’ve always thought that one of the high­lights of Perth was the view of the city and the riv­er from Kings Park. That, of course, is where the lead­ers retreat will take place with the expand­ed Fraser’s Restau­rant. So that’s, I think, an icon­ic view of Perth, so hope­ful­ly Her Majesty might have the oppor­tu­ni­ty of shar­ing that view when the lead­ers gath­er for their retreat.

There’s also an expec­ta­tion, sub­ject to con­fir­ma­tion, that she will stay at the Governor’s res­i­dence in The Ter­race and, as many West Aus­tralians know, as many Perth res­i­dents know from the open­ing up of Gov­ern­ment House on reg­u­lar occa­sions for peo­ple to vis­it the gar­den and see the gar­den, that’s also a great, a great spot and a great part of the city itself.

JOURNALIST: Can we talk about Afghanistan now?

STEPHEN SMITH: Yeah, I’m hap­py to respond. If we’re fin­ished on CHOGM I’m hap­py to respond to that.

JOURNALIST: Sor­ry, can I just-

JOURNALIST: Yeah, yeah, sure. Sorry-

JOURNALIST: In terms of the rel­e­vance of the Queen, it’s prob­a­bly her last, fair to say her last vis­it to Perth any­way, if not Aus­tralia, being at the age of 85 I think she turns next month; so how sig­nif­i­cant and how rel­e­vant, I guess from a Com­mon­wealth point of view, is her vis­it here because today’s soci­ety, I mean do you think peo­ple real­ly care that she would be coming?

I mean is it real­ly, does it real­ly strike a chord?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well whether it’s Her Majesty’s last vis­it to Aus­tralia time will tell. I expect that she will be very, very warm­ly received. I think there is a great affec­tion for her in the hearts of the Aus­tralian people.

I also think that there is great respect and regard for her in the way in which she has con­duct­ed her­self as the Monarch. The view of the Gov­ern­ment is at some time in the future Aus­tralia should move to become a repub­lic and I share that view, but I think there’s also a view in the Aus­tralian com­mu­ni­ty that maybe the appro­pri­ate time to do that is when Her Majesty fin­ish­es her reign.

But I think both affec­tion and respect and regard are the way in which the Aus­tralian pub­lic view Her Majesty The Queen and I think that’s a very good thing.

JOURNALIST: So do you think it could also be the last time we get a vis­it from roy­al­ty as part of the Monarchy?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well time will tell. Time will tell.

JOURNALIST: Do you think there’s been a renewed inter­est in the monar­chy because of the upcom­ing Roy­al Wedding?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well cer­tain­ly when the Prince was both in New Zealand recent­ly and also in Queens­land recent­ly there was an out­pour­ing of affec­tion for him and there’s great inter­est in the wed­ding. So I think the inter­est in the monar­chy, the inter­est in the Roy­al Fam­i­ly continues.

JOURNALIST: How dam­ag­ing has this lat­est inter­net scan­dal been to the Defence Force’s rep­u­ta­tion and to Australia’s cause in Afghanistan?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well as I’ve said ear­li­er in the course of the day, I spoke to Afghan Defence Min­is­ter War­dak last night. I apol­o­gised on behalf of Aus­tralia, I indi­cat­ed to him that the Chief of the Defence Force and the Chief of Army would cause these mat­ters to be inves­ti­gat­ed and in all like­li­hood, sub­ject to the appro­pri­ate pro­ce­dures, dis­ci­pli­nary action would proceed.

It is also a pos­si­bil­i­ty or a prospect that those involved will return to Aus­tralia, but that’s a mat­ter for the prop­er processes.

The rea­son I rang Min­is­ter War­dak was to make the point that I regard this very much as run­ning counter to the tremen­dous work that the Aus­tralian Defence Force and Army have done in Afghanistan over a long peri­od of time.

He indi­cat­ed to me that he did not believe that this would sul­ly Australia’s rep­u­ta­tion. He said to me on the phone last night, as he has said to me in the past, that he holds Aus­tralia and Aus­tralian sol­diers in very high regard, not just because of our fight­ing prowess but also because of the way in which we mix with and deal with the com­mu­ni­ty in Afghanistan and in Uruz­gan Province, not just com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers but also Afghan cit­i­zens in the vil­lages in Uruz­gan Province.

And the rea­son I rang him was because we have, not just in Afghanistan but his­tor­i­cal­ly, a first class rep­u­ta­tion for being a coun­try which, through its Defence Force, whilst it is a defence force which has got a first class fight­ing prowess also treats the cit­i­zens and the civil­ians of coun­tries that it is in with respect and regard and civil­i­ty and dig­ni­ty and we very much want that to continue.

JOURNALIST: I’m sure there’s already lots of rules and reg­u­la­tions in place about Face­book use and the inter­net access over there. Is it time though, giv­en repeat­ed inci­dents like this, that there’ll be more cen­sor­ship, per­haps bans on the use of things like Face­book by Aus­tralian troops?

STEPHEN SMITH: [Inter­rupts] Well there is access to our forces, our per­son­nel in Afghanistan. There is access to the inter­net and there is, there are some lim­i­ta­tions on that.

One of the things which the Chief of the Defence Force will now exam­ine and con­sid­er is access to and use of social media.

My own start­ing point, my pref­er­ence in all of these mat­ters is not that we pre­vent peo­ple from util­is­ing meth­ods of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with fam­i­ly or friends, but that we ensure that it’s done in a seri­ous and sen­si­ble and respon­si­ble way.

One of the lessons from this is the les­son that peo­ple con­tin­ue to learn in the dig­i­tal age that what you put online or what you put into cyber­space is there for, even­tu­al­ly, all to see for all time. So there’s a les­son about the use of what you put on Face­book generally.

But my own pref­er­ence would be that cul­tur­al­ly there is a sen­si­ble and respon­si­ble use of such mat­ters, but in my dis­cus­sions with the Chief of the Defence Force overnight and this morn­ing, that is one of the issues that he will now have cause to look at.

JOURNALIST: It’s huge­ly dam­ag­ing though to our rep­u­ta­tion, isn’t it? Inci­dents like this can undo years of diplo­ma­cy and care­ful work by our troops overseas.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well this is pre­cise­ly the rea­son why I have been strong in my remarks that what has occurred is not just inap­pro­pri­ate, it’s effec­tive­ly appalling, it is required to be con­demned and that view has been shared in remarks that the Chief of the Defence Force has made today, remarks that the Act­ing Chief of Army made overnight.

But the fact that there has been such a strong response to the inci­dent from Defence, from the Army, from the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment gives me cause for con­fi­dence that this will be seen for what it is, which is the actions of a very small minor­i­ty which run counter to the work that Aus­tralian forces have done in Afghanistan over the last near­ly decade and the work that Aus­tralian defence forces have done since the for­ma­tion of the Aus­tralian Army and the Aus­tralian Defence Force.

And I’m, I gain my con­fi­dence in that as a result of the response from Defence Min­is­ter War­dak who was at pains to make the same points to me.

In the past when I’ve spo­ken to Defence Min­is­ter War­dak and when I’ve spo­ken to oth­er Afghan offi­cials, min­is­ters and Pres­i­dent Karzai they make the point to me that they high­ly val­ue and regard Australia’s con­tri­bu­tion not just because of the capa­bil­i­ty and fight­ing prowess of our troops in the field, but also because of the way in which they deal with Afghan com­mu­ni­ties and the way in which they work with and respect the Afghan pop­u­la­tion and civilians.

JOURNALIST: What about the argu­ment that that sort of atti­tude or, I guess, aggres­sion against the oppo­si­tion dur­ing war time is nec­es­sary? A lot of for­mer sol­diers have come out and said that that sort of mes­sage is quite clear­ly made through­out Defence at dif­fer­ent times. What’s your response to that?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well it’s not a view I share and it’s also entire­ly inap­pro­pri­ate for such views to be placed on cyber­space, on the inter­net where almost inevitably these things are made public.

So I don’t share that view.

JOURNALIST: What about-

STEPHEN SMITH: Peo­ple are not enti­tled, in my view, to make remarks about the cit­i­zens of oth­er coun­tries which are racist, which are deroga­to­ry, which are crit­i­cal of the cul­tur­al val­ues that oth­er peo­ple share. It is not a val­ue and virtue of Aus­tralia generally.

It is not a val­ue and virtue of what we have seen in terms of the Aus­tralian Defence Force con­tri­bu­tion in Afghanistan and it’s not some­thing which the Aus­tralian Army, the Aus­tralian Defence Force or the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment or, in my view, the Aus­tralian peo­ple will tolerate.

JOURNALIST: It sounds like you’re going to have to restrict a lot of access, a few bad apples in the Army.

STEPHEN SMITH: Well that’s why, that’s why I say my own pre­ferred out­come would be sen­si­ble access to such mate­ri­als on the basis that peo­ple con­duct them­selves respon­si­bly. But, as I say, this is an issue that the Chief of the Defence Force have dis­cussed and it will form part of, nec­es­sar­i­ly form part of Defence’s con­sid­er­a­tion of that which has occurred.

What will also occur, which the Chief of the Defence Force has made clear, the Chief of Army has made clear and I have made clear is that this regret­table and offen­sive inci­dent is the sub­ject of an investigation.

In all like­li­hood, after the prop­er process­es have been fol­lowed, dis­ci­pli­nary action will occur and there is also a prospect that the peo­ple involved and respon­si­ble will be returned from Afghanistan.

JOURNALIST: Min­is­ter, on one final note, what do you think of your col­leagues threat­en­ing to with­hold fund­ing from WA if the state increas­es its min­ing royalties?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well I don’t inter­pret it in that way. I mean what the Trea­sur­er and the Min­is­ter for Resources, Mar­tin Fer­gu­son, indi­cat­ed yes­ter­day was that the gov­ern­ment has accept­ed all of the over 90, or near­ly 90, rec­om­men­da­tions of the imple­men­ta­tion group. That’s a very good thing.

The min­ing com­pa­nies who, on the basis of the leg­is­la­tion is enact­ed, who are taxed under the leg­is­la­tion, so that essen­tial­ly is restrict­ed to peo­ple who mine or pro­duce iron ore, coal or oil and gas onshore or off­shore, that they will get a cred­it for state based royalties.

The point that the Trea­sur­er made and the Min­is­ter for Min­er­als and Ener­gy made was that that is not a green light for any state to increase its roy­al­ties in isolation.

We have seen sub­stan­tial increas­es of roy­al­ties in West­ern Aus­tralia and in oth­er states from time to time. All of the eco­nom­ic analy­sis is that a resources rent tax, which is a tax on prof­its, is a much bet­ter way of tax­ing than a roy­al­ty, which is essen­tial­ly on the basis of vol­ume of pro­duc­tion, not on profit.

The Trea­sur­er this morn­ing on Perth radio made it clear that this is an area where he wants to have a sen­si­ble con­ver­sa­tion with West­ern Aus­tralia and Queens­land, the two main min­er­als and petro­le­um resources states, he wants to have a con­ver­sa­tion with them about it.

I also see the Pre­mier, who’s made some rhetor­i­cal­ly robust remarks but he’s also made the point that this is a mat­ter that he wants to have a con­ver­sa­tion with the Aus­tralian Gov­ern­ment about at the next COAG meeting.

And that’s how it should pro­ceed, a sen­si­ble con­ver­sa­tion between the states and the Com­mon­wealth about the imple­men­ta­tion of a prof­it based tax, which is a much bet­ter and more effec­tive and effi­cient way of tax­ing the pro­duc­tion of min­er­als than a roy­al­ty which is sim­ply a tax on the vol­ume of pro­duc­tion irre­spec­tive of whether a com­pa­ny is going well or going badly.

JOURNALIST: Sor­ry, just one more on Afghanistan. Giv­en Defence refus­ing to release a video recent­ly of sol­diers in Afghanistan sav­ing up to 30 Afgha­nis and then this very pub­lic scold­ing, do you think that sol­diers over there should feel hard done by? Is it fair that some of them do feel hard done by?

STEPHEN SMITH: Well, first, there are two sep­a­rate issues. The issue that you refer to goes to the way in which Defence issue images, either pho­to­graph­ic or video images, of oper­a­tions out of Afghanistan and, for a long peri­od of time, the approach has been that images are released on the basis of oper­a­tional security.

These deci­sions are made by Defence offi­cers and Defence per­son­nel whether they’re in the Mid­dle East or whether they’re in Canberra.

There was an asser­tion made, which was incor­rect and with­out foun­da­tion, that the video to which you refer to was not released as a result of action by me or my office. That’s not true. These mat­ters don’t come to me, nor should they. They are deter­mined on the basis of oper­a­tional security.

JOURNALIST: Thank you.

STEPHEN SMITH: Thanks. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

Face­book and/or on Twit­ter

Team GlobDef

Seit 2001 ist GlobalDefence.net im Internet unterwegs, um mit eigenen Analysen, interessanten Kooperationen und umfassenden Informationen für einen spannenden Überblick der Weltlage zu sorgen. GlobalDefence.net war dabei die erste deutschsprachige Internetseite, die mit dem Schwerpunkt Sicherheitspolitik außerhalb von Hochschulen oder Instituten aufgetreten ist.

Alle Beiträge ansehen von Team GlobDef →