INTERVIEW WITH NEIL MITCHELL, RADIO 3AW
Subjects: Afghani asylum seekers; visit to World Trade Centre site.
E&OE……………………………………………………………………………………
MITCHELL:
Mr Howard, thank you for your time.
PRIME MINISTER:
Good morning Neil. Nice to talk to you as always.
MITCHELL:
Thank you. Can you outline for us what the plan is with the asylum seekers, what will the offer be?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I had a meeting today with Mr Karzai, the provisional Prime Minister of Afghanistan and we talked about the issue, I explained the basis of our policy and I indicated that our current policy would continue. I said that in relation to people who were not judged to be refugees then we would be willing, if they returned to Afghanistan, to provide some kind of resettlement, financial assistance, similar to what was offered incidentally in relation to the Kosovars about 18 months ago.
Mr Karzai said that he would send a delegation and one of his Ministers, and he hoped it would occur in the next couple of weeks, to Australia to talk about the issue and obviously they’ll have an opportunity of talking to the people who are seeking refugee status and they can clearly talk to the asylum seekers. One of the reasons why they wanted to send a delegation was that they wanted to be satisfied that all of the people claiming to be Afghanis were, in fact, Afghanis. That was a point that was made a couple of times during my discussion and I said that I fully understood that and naturally that was one of the reasons why we had a screening process and they seemed to understand that. Mr Karzai did not seek a change in our policy. I mean, I am not saying he supports it or opposes it but he did not seek a change in it. I thought it was a fairly positive meeting, it’s a difficult issue and I thought it was a fairly positive development.
MITCHELL:
How much money will you offer?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, we haven’t made a decision on that and I didn’t mention amounts to Mr Karzai and the Government will have to as a group, ministers have to consider that but it will be more than nominal but obviously it will be reasonable. Bearing in mind that Afghanistan has a lot of problems to say the least if there were some financial assistance provided on an individual basis then it would make the re-absorption of people that much easier and I don’t have any difficulties as a matter of principle of that. I think it’s a very sound approach. This is a difficult issue, we don’t intend and we won’t be changing our policy but we do have to address the issue of the people who are screened out and judged not to be refugees and we are talking here potentially of about 1100 Afghanis. I do think it’s right that they go back to Afghanistan and now that the Taliban is no longer there the public reason that most of them have given for leaving Afghanistan is no longer there I don’t think it’s unreasonable of us to expect them to go back but equally given Afghanistan’s circumstances I don’t think it’s unreasonable or unfair or overdoing it to offer some resettlement assistance.
MITCHELL:
It would be hard to see how any of them could still claim to be refugees because they were fleeing the…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I mean, everybody has that in their mind and I don’t want to do offence to the case-by-case process which by making a generic declaration,’well they’ve no longer got any claim’. But certainly now that the Taliban is gone you would have to wonder about the continuation of their original reason for coming. I accept that.
MITCHELL:
Will the money be paid to them individually or to the Government?
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh yes.If this comes off it would be paid to them individually, yes.
MITCHELL:
And it’s not just their cost of going back, it’s a resettlement….
PRIME MINISTER:
No, no. We would obviously have to be happy to carry the cost of them going back but it would be something to defray the cost of their resettlement. I think this is a perfectly sensible, reasonable thing for a government to contemplate. It hasn’t come off. I mean it requires the cooperation of the Afghani Government. But we have made a reasonable start. I think it is a promising sign that they’ve agreed to send a delegation. It’s also a promising sign that they have agreed that one of their senior minister’s should attend the people smuggling conference that Australia and Indonesia is co-chairing in Bali in February, that’s a very positive development. So I think we are making some progress consistent with the maintenance of our policy, I think we are making some progress but I don’t want to get too excited about it because it’s a very difficult issue.
MITCHELL:
Some will see it as a bribe or say it’s a bribe to get them to go home.
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, people will say that about anything that involves money. Of course they will. I mean, some people said that about the Kosovars but I don’t think in the fullness of time people saw it that way. You have got to bear in mind that whatever may be our feelings about the legitimacy of people coming here willy-nilly Afghanistan has appalling challenges and the Taliban was a brutal regime. In those circumstances I don’t think it’s unreasonable to offer some financial help.
MITCHELL:
Will that apply to Afghanis perhaps in Nauru and New Zealand as well?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, I think most of them that are in New Zealand have been judged to be refugees. It’s in relation to people not judged to be refugees and the answer would be yes.
MITCHELL:
So the other countries that have taken them as well?
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, those that are sort of part of our general ring, yes.
MITCHELL:
Okay. Now, I know you are in a hurry Prime Minister, can I just ask you about your visit to ground zero to the site of the former World Trade Centre buildings, it must have been emotional, difficult…
PRIME MINISTER:
Well, it was very emotional. It’s a bleak, sad dismal site. I met a group of workers, the leader of which had been there since the 11th of September. The clearance operation, if I can call it that, of course has been conducted by Lend Lease which is an Australian company and I met Jill Ker Conway the Chairman, an Australian who introduced me to the workers. Oh look, it’s desolate and sad and awful. The remembrance wall is very heart-wrenching, the messages from people. I saw photographs of some of the Australians, Andrew Knox, the young man from Adelaide and some of the messages…photographs of New York police with, ‘daddy, you are a hero,’ from their daughters. It’s pretty heart-wrenching stuff. It’s a very sad place and the Americans will never forget that. I don’t think the world will ever forget it either.
MITCHELL:
It must reinforce the awesome nature of what happened to walk around there though.
PRIME MINISTER:
Oh, it does because you…I mean, the night before I’d gone to the top of the Empire State Building with my wife and two sons and we looked down towards where the World Trade Centre had stood and it’s like an illuminated cavity surrounded by other tall buildings. And it’s certainly left…it’s left a very determined bitter of feeling in New York but there’s a lot of resilience in New York and the new Mayor, Bloomberg, said to me this afternoon – I saw him just after I’d been to ground zero – he said that New York’s best days were ahead of her and the city’s come back pretty well. [TAPE BREAK] It’s a fantastic city and I don’t think it’s going to let this overcome it. But it is still, you know, the enormity of it is something that’s very hard to grasp and to actually see the 16 acres of desolation is quite a sight.
MITCHELL:
Prime Minister, thank you very much for finding time to speak to us today.
PRIME MINISTER:
Thank you.
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