Interview with Julie Snook – Sky News

JULIE SNOOK:

Well, joining me live is Minister for International Development and the Pacific Zed Seselja, Good morning to you.

ZED SESELJA:

Good morning.

JULIE SNOOK:

Well, first of all, New Zealand and Australia are sending that surveillance flight to assess the extent of the damage. When is that happening and how important is that going to be to help understand the extent of the damage on the ground there?

ZED SESELJA:

Yes. So that flight has now taken off from Amberley, I understand earlier this morning around 9:15. And so obviously, it will be very important. It will take a few hours to get above the area, above particularly the outlying islands, which will be the focus for the Australian RAAF aircraft that will be analysing the extent of damage in those outlying islands. We do have a reasonable amount of intelligence and information as to what's happened on the main island, and we can come back to that. But certainly that assessment process for the outer islands where communications have been completely cut off is very very important to understand what is going on.

But in the meantime, we're doing a number of other things to assist the people of Tonga at this time. So that includes getting a C-130 aircraft ready to take humanitarian supplies as soon as it is safe to do so. But in the absolute, immediate term we also have prepositioned humanitarian supplies through our NGO partners like the Red Cross on the ground in Tonga at the moment. So these are there planning for disasters such as these and they are able to be distributed virtually immediately, so we'll be getting reports on that during the day.

In addition to that, we'll also be preparing HMAS Adelaide, which would have the capacity to obviously take more substantial amounts of supplies, particularly things such as fuel and water, if that is needed, and that obviously be done in consultation with the Tongan Government.

JULIE SNOOK:

What do we know about conditions on the main island?

ZED SESELJA:

We know that there is some areas where there is pretty significant damage. Fortunately, that does not include the airport. So I understand the airport will be reopening probably this afternoon, but there has been extensive damage in other parts. I know the AFP did an assessment on the ground in the last 24 hours of the Western beaches area of the main island, and there was significant damage there to houses, to roads, to resorts as well. So there will be significant property damage. There are no reports of any significant casualties at this stage. So that is good news and that is positive. But obviously, we don't have the full assessment because there are parts of Tonga where we just don't know exactly what has happened and obviously when we get those assessments from those surveillance aircraft we'll have a better idea, but we will be working with the Tongan Government. We've got obviously our High Commission staff who are working very hard on the ground. They will be in a better position to be communicating back to Australia later today because they were moved out of the High Commission building for safety reasons, but I understand they'll be coming back at some point today. The communications out of the High Commission building, I understand, are still reasonable, and so we hope that we'll be able to get a better flow of information once that occurs.

JULIE SNOOK:

The vision was absolutely extraordinary. Is there a concern of further eruptions in the coming days?

ZED SESELJA:

I think that has to be a concern. Just before I came on, I heard some Twitter reports suggesting that there may have been a further eruption that hasn't been confirmed. But obviously that's something we're monitoring very closely. And obviously it's a very volatile situation when you get an eruption, which of course is always, or most of the time, is very unexpected and certainly very volatile and very erratic. So that's something that will be an ongoing safety issue. And obviously there's our RAAF aircraft deployed. They are monitoring that situation very, very closely. That was one of the reasons it was delayed this morning, but they have been able to take off, as I said, earlier today, there's also a New Zealand aircraft in the air at the moment, but those further eruptions will cause further complexity. As will, obviously, the COVID situation, as we deliver humanitarian supplies, as we seek to deliver humanitarian supplies on the ground, we'll be very conscious of the fact that Tonga has had very strict border closures to protect their population and we'll be working closely with them to take account of that.

JULIE SNOOK:

All right. Minister for International Development and the Pacific Zed Seselja thank you so much for that update, we appreciate your time.

ZED SESELJA:

It's my pleasure. Thank you.

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