Patricia Karvelas: I'm joined from the Pacific Island Forum in Palau by the Minister for Pacific Island Affairs, Pat Conroy. Welcome to the program.
Minister for Pacific Island Affairs, Pat Conroy: Thanks PK.
Karvelas: Australia has pledged $600 million for this new Pacific-wide initiative to combat the surge of illicit drugs and drug smuggling in the region. There's a lot of cocaine that comes into Australia through this. What kind of impact is it likely to have? What is your aim with that spend?
Minister Conroy: Well, what we're seeing is crime has gone multinational and we need a multinational solution. And that's why the Pacific Island Forum leaders have endorsed the Waqa Moana initiative and we were honoured to announce the $600 million investment in it. This is Pacific led and Australian backed. And the goal is obviously to restrict drug smuggling as much as possible in the Pacific. We've seen a really significant rise in it. In 2025, those seizures of around five and a half tonnes of illegal narcotics. This year it's 15 million tonnes. So, it's a massive increase in seizures and that presumably reflects an increase in the trade and it's having a big impact in several Pacific Island states. Fiji is one example where you're seeing unfortunately it not just being drug smuggling hub, but it's being then distributed within the island as well. And you're seeing a rise of HIV infections as well. And this is something that has not been caused by the Pacific Island countries. Most of the demand is from New Zealand and Australia. And as proud members of the Pacific family, we have an obligation to stop this trade as much as possible. Not only to look after the Pacific, because obviously it then means less drugs being trafficked to Australia.
Karvelas: Okay, so I get all of that, but in terms of the aim of stopping it with $600 million invested, how much will that get us? What do we achieve with that? Does it stop the drug trade? Like how much will you reduce the drug trade as a result of that investment?
Minister Conroy: Well, the goal is to restrict it as much as possible. Sadly, you can never eliminate crime 100%, I am yet to see anyone seriously claim that. But what we're trying to do is severely restrict it through this investment in increased aerial surveillance, greater coordination between different nations, increased training of police and border forces and customs so that we can stop it before it gets to the Pacific Island nations and stop it before it gets to Australia.
Karvelas: Moving to some other issues, just five leaders from outside the Pacific are expected to attend that Australia organised United nations climate event in Fiji and Tuvalu next month. The Opposition says the Energy Minister should apologise to Pacific Island leaders for not attracting more interest. Is that attendance a bad result? Do you understand the criticism of the low number?
Minister Conroy: Well, the Opposition should apologise to the Pacific and the Australian people for not taking climate change seriously. Taking action on climate change is the price of entry.
Karvelas: [interjecting] Well, that's not the question on the attendance issue.
Minister Conroy: Well, no, hold on. We are talking about who should apologise for what PK and I'm saying the Opposition has zero credibility in this area because they don't take climate change seriously. And that's one of the reasons our relationship with the Pacific was so damaged before we came to government in 22 and have set about repairing it. In terms of the pre-COP, as Chris Bowen pointed out in the press conference, in the last four pre-COPs, I think there's been zero world leaders attending. Zero. The fact that we've got a significant number of leaders attending this pre-COP is, is a good thing. It will draw attention to the plight of the Pacific in terms of climate change. It will enhance the advocacy of Pacific Island nations and Australia to demand more global action on climate change. This is a good investment in raising awareness of what is occurring in climate change, particularly in countries like Tuvalu, where soon, by the end of the century, the main capital, the main island will be, 40% of it will be underwater at high tide. So, this is an important investment. And people who criticise us engaging in climate change diplomacy are criticising us taking the Pacific seriously. And it means they're weak on national security and weak on our relationships with the Pacific.
Karvelas: Aren't people entitled to criticise if something looks like it's undershooting its goals, in terms of the participation of nations? I understand you're shifting the conversation to how the Coalition treats climate change, but attendance to this does look rather low. Doesn't that worry you?
Minister Conroy: Well, I reject the premise of your question, PK. If leader-level attendance of pre-COPs in the last four COPs has been zero, the fact that we've got lots of Pacific leaders attending and at least five leaders from outside the region attending, the fact that we've got most international climate agencies attending, journalists, that's all more than previous pre-COPs. So, I think people are setting a bar that is not accurate. Like if every other pre-COP in the last four years have had zero attendance, we have massively overshot what they've previously achieved.
Karvelas: The UN has released a report saying it is unavoidable we will overshoot the 1.5-degree target in the Paris agreement and likely in the next 10 years. That is a pretty devastating result, isn't it? Does that concern you that the world's efforts to get to that goal have been a failure?
Minister Conroy: It absolutely concerns me. And the world needs to take more action and that's why we obviously bid for a COP, that's why we have got the pre-COP events in the Pacific, is to draw attention to what happens with climate change, the real-life impacts of climate change. So, the world needs to do better. Australia has got some very significant climate policies in place that are making a difference. But we need the entire globe, particularly large emitters, to step up.
Karvelas: And if Australians look at this headline today, right now, they've seen this and you know, we're not going to get there. And that's what the UN tells us. How do you keep people committed to your objectives when it looks like that global agreement isn't working?
Minister Conroy: Well, overshooting 1.5 means that we need to work harder to pull that temperature rise back in. So, we have to work harder to do that. But obviously we need to minimise temperature rises full stop. So, whether it's, so every point degree of a difference, every point degree of climate change makes a difference. So, we need to keep working hard at this to deal with climate change because the impact will be devastating around the world, including in Australia. Secondly, we need to take action because it is a national security issue. Both the impact in Australia, the impact in the region and the impact on our relationships in our region. If we don't take climate change seriously, the Pacific will not take us seriously. They will look to other countries to partner with them and that imperils our national security. So, there's both the inherent importance of combating climate change and minimising temperature rise, as well as how we relate to our neighbours. That means we have to keep working on this.
Karvelas: Just again, on a couple of other issues. The leaders of Kiribati, Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa skipped the forum and there has been a lot of discussion that Beijing has been working hard to undermine the event. The New Zealand Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, said over the weekend it would defy gravity and logic not to think foreign interference was playing a role. Is he right?
Minister Conroy: I'd make a couple of points PK. One, we've got very senior levels of representation from those countries that were unable to send leaders. It's not unusual to have a couple of leaders missing. Historically, that is the case. To give you an example, in the last PIF in Palau in 2014, there were only eight leaders who attended. This time we've got 12 or 13 attending, so it's a significant improvement there. And these leaders have been absent for a variety of reasons. Some have been ill health. The Prime Minister of Vanuatu has his party national conference on at the same time, which obviously he needs to attend. The President of Kiribati Parliament sitting. So, there's a range of reasons why people can't attend. But this is still a very high-level conference that is delivering real outcomes for people of the Pacific, including Australia.
Karvelas: Minister, I get that, but do you think that Beijing has played a role here?
Minister Conroy: Well, I'm not going to speculate on the actions of other governments. That's a question best directed to them. What I can say to you is that we're here at a very high level. We've got a Prime Minister and two Cabinet Ministers here. This is the highest level of representation we've had in a long time. We're taking it very seriously and that's to our credit with our Pacific neighbours, to other members of the PIF, and we're working very hard on it. We've made no secret of the fact that there is a geostrategic competition in the region, that there is a diplomatic contest going on and we're intent on controlling what we can do, which is our representation, our participation, our engagement in Pacific led, but Australia backed initiatives like our $600 million investment in combating transnational crime. So, I'm happy for other people to speculate on what other countries are doing. What I'm focused on is what Australia is doing to be the partner of choice for the region, which is why we've been able to land landmark treaties with Nauru, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and two new alliances with Fiji and PNG. We're making Australia safer by these relationship building exercises, and that's our job.
Karvelas: Minister, thanks for your time.
Minister Conroy: Thanks. Have a good afternoon.