Peter Stefanovic, Host: Well, let's go to Canberra now and joining us is the Assistant Foreign Minister, Matt Thistlethwaite. Matt, thank you so much for your time this morning. So, you might have just heard from the disappointment from one Australian traveler who's stuck in Dubai at the moment about a lack of government help. So, what are you doing exactly?
Matt Thistlethwaite, Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade: Good morning, Pete. Obviously our priority at the moment is to keep Australians safe, to identify them within the region. I can tell you the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Foreign Minister's Office are working around the clock. We're encouraging Australians in the region, there's about 115,000 we understand, to register with Smartraveller. Once they've registered, it allows us to provide regular updates, 24/7 updates on the latest information. But obviously we're asking people to remain safe, to stay indoors, obviously, and to monitor the situation with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. And as there's updates available, we'll provide those straight away.
Stefanovic: For such a travelling, a major travel hub, do you have representatives on the ground in Dubai to help people out?
Assistant Minister: Yes, obviously the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has representatives there, but of course we don't want people moving in situations where it could be unsafe. And you just heard from the guest there who I really sympathise with and we're thinking of, about the missile and drone strikes in the area. So, obviously safer to remain indoors to continue to monitor the situation via email. I heard her comments regarding access to phones and that's something that I'll talk to DFAT today about to see if we can't also allow communications via phones as well.
Stefanovic: Is that basically the only option they have is just to sit it out? I know you said register for Smartraveller and any updates, etc. But is the only real option to sit it out?
Assistant Minister: Well, at the moment, Pete, the airspace is closed, so the options to get people out are very limited. In the past, what we've been able to do is to bus people or get them on ferries to regional hubs like Cyprus. But again, Cyprus has been attacked. So, at the moment, the best advice is to remain safe, remain indoors and to continue to monitor those messages that are coming on a regular basis from a Smartraveller and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Stefanovic: Are there any other contingency plans you're working on right now?
Assistant Minister: Yeah, look, we're exploring all of the options at the moment, but there's two factors. Well, there's two factors that are crucial at the moment. Firstly, the airspace is closed --
Stefanovic: I understand, I understand that, there’s some limited flights.
Assistant Minister: Yeah, there are some limited flights, but they're tending to go, some of them from Dubai, tending to go north rather than come south. The second point is that there's 115,000 Australians, so logistically it would be impossible for the Australian Government to fly all of them out. The most likely scenario is that it will be via commercial flights once the airspace begins to open up again. And that's why we're providing the latest information as soon as it comes to hand to ensure that people can get access. What we would say to people is, don't cancel your flights. Don't cancel your flights because it could be very, very difficult to rebook them. So, maintain your flights, check your travel insurance check with your airline and monitor the Smartraveller updates.
Stefanovic: Okay, that's good advice. Why wasn't the Government better prepared, though, with better, stronger advice for travellers?
Assistant Minister: Pete, since the 1st of January this year, there's been 41 travel updates regarding the Middle East through Smartraveller, each one of them upgrading the travel advice. There's been 26 social media posts. On 11 January, the Foreign Minister made a statement regarding advice around travelling to the Middle East, warning people that the situation could escalate and that there could be airspace closures. That message was reiterated by the Foreign Minister again in a media conference on 20 February. As soon as our government has received advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, we've acted straight away to update that advice and ensure that Australians have the latest, up to date advice.
Stefanovic: You had that warning for dependents, for diplomatic staff last week. We aired that quite significantly at the time because it fed off the back of everything that was going on. But why wasn't there something stronger for travellers?
Assistant Minister: Well, there was. I did an interview with Kieran Gilbert on Sky where we did indicate that we were getting dependents out of the region. But at the same time, we did upgrade the travel advice. We upgraded the travel advice for general Australians and that that upgrade was reconsider the need to travel to the region because of the escalating tension. And I indicated in that interview that this could escalate quickly and there could be ramifications for flights within the region. So, as soon as we receive that information, we tell the public straight away.
Stefanovic: So, you don't, you weren't caught on the hop by it all?
Assistant Minister: Well, we provided the most up to date advice as soon as we receive it. We're certainly not withholding anything. We provide that advice to the public as quickly as we can, as soon as we receive it. And last week we did that. We indicated that dependents were being removed and the travel advice, the warning around travel was upgraded to reconsider the need to travel. Now that's one off, Do not travel in terms of the level --
Stefanovic: So, should there have been do not travel?
Assistant Minister: Well, at that stage, we didn't know what was going to occur this week and the airspace was still open and the advice that Australia gave was very much consistent with other nations and the warnings that they had through their travel advisories.
Stefanovic: You didn't know. So, you were caught on the hop as other nations were?
Assistant Minister: Well, no one knew. We weren't informed by the United States that they were going to take this action. Some of their closest allies throughout the world weren't informed. But obviously as soon as the action occurred, we acted as quickly as we possibly could. We started out with about 500 registrations through the Smartraveller. We've now got 12,000. So, we've got 12,000 email addresses for Australians in the region that we're keeping up to date with.
Stefanovic: But didn't it seem inevitable, I mean, Dave Sharma made this point in this program yesterday. Did it not seem inevitable that something like this was going to happen with all of the military assets, particularly from the US, that were heading into the region and were parked in the Mediterranean?
Assistant Minister: Well, nothing is inevitable. And as soon as we received the latest information, we acted as quickly as we put possibly could. We weren't informed by the United States or Israel that this action was going to take place.
Stefanovic: All right, Matt Thistlethwaite, we're out of time. But appreciate your time. Thank you so much. We'll talk to you again soon.