MICHELLE GEBER, CEO OF CHÂTEAU TANUNDA: Good morning, everyone. It’s such a pleasure to welcome you, and absolutely incredible, we’re so honoured to have the PM here to visit us at Château Tanunda, our Sydney Cellar Door, in The Rocks. We’re a 135-year-old family winery, and the resumption of trade in China has meant so much to our business. Over the last year, we’ve seen an increase in 1,000 per cent of our sales into China. And so, you know, we’re so thankful and grateful for your trip that’s coming up, and we would like to welcome you to speak. Thank you, Prime Minister.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Well, thanks so much Michelle, and thank you to Château Tanunda for having us here at their cellar door here in historic The Rocks. An appropriate place, given the age of the vines which are there in the Barossa Valley, producing some of the oldest wine vines in the world. Producing, in my view, the best wine in the world. And importantly, as well, that’s what the world thinks, because they want to purchase our products. And my visit to China tomorrow will be my second visit to the People’s Republic of China as Prime Minister of Australia. That follows the resumption of leaders’ talks. And I will have a leader-to-leader meeting with Premier Li, as well as a meeting with President Xi Jingping. And I look forward very much to engaging with the Chinese leadership, as well as visiting Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu.
During the visit there, I will be taking a range of Australian businesses, led by the Business Council of Australia, because one in four Australian jobs depends on our trade, and around about 25 per cent of our exports go to one destination: China. Bigger than the next four of our partners combined - of Japan, South Korea, the United States, and India. That tells us a lot about the significance which is there. We have worked hard on the relationship with China, agreeing and cooperating where we can, disagreeing where we must, but engaging in our national interest. Because engaging in our national interest is important for our security, to be able to raise issues in a one-on-one situation with the Chinese leadership. But of course, it’s important for our economic relationship as well. The relationship with China means jobs in Australia. It’s as simple as that. Jobs in iron ore and the resources sector, jobs in the wine export sector, jobs in areas like barley and red meat as well, that have been major exports to China. And as well, I look forward to a further expansion of that trade in new industries as we go forward. I’m very much looking forward to travelling with so many Australian businesses. There’ll be representatives of companies like Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue, Macquarie Bank, the university sector as well, travelling with me. And it will be a further demonstration of the good relations that exist between Australia and China, something that both countries have worked on. Happy to take questions.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, why are Australians only now finding out about the meeting between Kevin Rudd and Donald Trump, and what does that say about the Australian Government’s transparency?
PRIME MINISTER: They’re not.
JOURNALIST: Are you in a position to tell us what type of –
PRIME MINISTER: Yeah, I spoke in a morning TV interview. I mean, James Paterson needs to pay more attention. I’d spoken publicly about this at the time.
JOURNALIST: What was the contents of the meeting?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, they had a meeting. They had a brief discussion. It’s out there. What we don’t do is take meetings with world leaders – what we do is engage constructively.
JOURNALIST: Was it a secret meeting though, as alleged by the Coalition?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I just said that I talked about it at the time. It’s pretty hard for it to be a secret when you talk about it and get asked on morning TV. And if you go back, you’ll see that. See, the Opposition need to decide whether they’re going to continue to just undermine Australia’s national interest or whether they’ll join Team Australia. And that is a decision for them, but what we need from them is less hyperventilation and more concentration on what Australia’s national interest is. James Paterson and the Coalition never miss an opportunity to miss the opportunity to back Australia.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, you mentioned that you’re looking forward to expanding trade opportunities, new industries with China. China’s ambassador to Australia, he raised the potential of adding AI, healthcare, clean energy to an expanded Free Trade Agreement. Are those some of the areas that you’re looking at?
PRIME MINISTER: Look we’ll engage constructively across the range of issues and the range of potentials that’s there. But certainly, in the areas such as green energy, for example, there is a real prospect of further engagement. But we’ll engage – one of the things that we do of course here is we’re bringing a whole range of business representatives like the last time I was in Shanghai, there’ll be a roundtable in which Australian and Chinese businesses will be interacting. That’s a positive thing.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, has business told you their main interests? What are they looking for out of this trip?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, business wants to see this engagement. And business has been very supportive. Businesses will recall that in the term of government between 2019 and 2022, there were no phone conversations between Australian government representatives and Chinese government representatives. They’ll recall that there were impediments to more than $20 billion of our trade. And some of that trade has bounced back very strongly. Wine is one of the areas that’s bounced back very strongly. As Michelle said, the fact that this business here has increased its exports to China by more than a thousand per cent, and that’s replicated in the Barossa Valley, in the Clare Valley, in the Hunter Valley, in Margaret River, in Tasmania, in the Riverina, in the wine regions of Australia, in which those regional jobs are so important. And so, there is a real interest in ensuring that Australia benefits from trade in our region. My Government has worked very hard to diversify trade as well and to increase our relationships with other countries in the region, including India and Indonesia and the ASEAN countries. But the relationship with China is an important one. As is our relationship when it comes to exports with the north Asian economies of South Korea and Japan.
JOURNALIST: The report released yesterday by the Special Envoy on Antisemitism – it recommended that the Government screen visa applicants for those who display antisemitic views. Is this something you’re already doing? Will you instruct Border Force to deport non-citizens if they do display antisemitic views?
PRIME MINISTER: This is something that we do. We screen people when they apply for visas, it’s something that we make sure that we represent Australia’s national interests. And you’ll recall there was a particular American citizen who recently got denied a visa because of the antisemitic comments that he had made in having a song that praised Adolf Hitler.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, did you see Penny Wong’s criticism of China’s expanding military presence in the Pacific? Did she speak out of turn?
PRIME MINISTER: Penny Wong speaks as Australia’s Foreign Minister and never speaks in any other capacity than that. And she does a fantastic job.
JOURNALIST: Is that something you’re planning to bring up with the Chinese, their navigation, their circumnavigation of Australia? And also, what about the detention of Yang Hengjun, the –
PRIME MINISTER: We raise the full range of issues. As I said, we cooperate where we can, we disagree where we must, and we’re able to have those honest conversations about some of the disagreements that are there. Australia and China have different political systems. We have therefore different values that are reflected in those political systems. But we’ve got to be able to have that engagement directly, and that’s what we’ll be doing.
JOURNALIST: With that antisemitism report, you say that you’re already screening visas of people with antisemitic views. Do you agree with the envoy that if someone who suggests that the State of Israel should be eliminated, that is an antisemitic view, and they should be deported or not allowed entry?
PRIME MINISTER: We have our system, which goes through security clearances and that’s a condition that we make. Across the board, we examine whether someone’s an appropriate person to be granted a visa to Australia.
JOURNALIST: Would they face risk of deportation if they do express these views?
PRIME MINISTER: We assess people on the basis of our national security assessments. We do that across the board. We keep Australians safe. That is what we do.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, have you had a brief on the action in Western Sydney with the 61-year-old Palestinian woman, Maha Almassri, whose visa was cancelled, and what threat she posed?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, I have.
JOURNALIST: What rationality -
PRIME MINISTER: No, because we don’t talk about national security issues -
JOURNALIST: She vehemently denies that she’s a threat. Do you have any more to add to that?
PRIME MINISTER: No.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just to change tack slightly. Perhaps the most serious question you’ll get today. Panda diplomacy – are you bringing any pandas back to Australia?
PRIME MINISTER: Fortunately, on my last visit to China, I did declare that we were pro-panda. And as a direct result of that, we still have pandas present of course in the Adelaide Zoo. That’s a major tourist attraction, but it’s also a sign of friendship between our two countries. I’ll visit Chengdu next week as well, I look forward to that. We have a range of cultural exchanges – can be really positive in broadening understanding between our two countries. Thanks.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, the AFP has arrested a man for making threats to a federal MP. Do you have any comment on that?
PRIME MINISTER: No, other than that the person is myself as was mentioned in today’s newspapers, but I don’t comment on national security issues and on those issues whether it involves someone else or whether it involves me directly. What I do is have confidence in our national security agencies to do their job and they do it very well. Thanks very much.