Australia's Opposition Leader and parliamentarians on Lankan tour:

Spur C'wealth countries to attend CHOGM - Julie Bishop

Deputy Opposition leader of the Australian Parliament Julie Bishop along with parliamentarians Scott Morrison and Michael Keenan visited Sri Lanka recently. The following are excerpts of a joint press conference held by them on their return to Australia.

Julie Bishop : I wanted to brief the media as soon as possible on our return from Sri Lanka. Last week Scott Morrison, Michael Keenan and I visited Sri Lanka to see the conditions on the ground, meeting a wide range of people and determining whether our policy directions on Sri Lanka were heading in the right direction. The visit was organised in three parts. The first part was organised by, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), the parliamentary party and they were encouraged to take us to places they wanted us to see, to meet the people they wanted us to meet.

The second part was organised by the Australian High Commission. We met AusAID officials, saw a number of AusAID projects and met a number of NGOs, the UNHCR, IOM and the like.

The third part of the visit was organised by the government. On the last day we met the President, ministers and concluded with a round table led by the chief of the defence forces including the leaders of the Navy, Customs, Police and Intelligence. We are satisfied that the policy positions that we have taken are the correct ones at this time.

It was not our job to visit Sri Lanka to take sides between the Sinhalese and the Tamils, it was not our job to involve ourselves in the domestic policies or domestic politics or indeed some of the controversies, but we spoke to many people about the issues. We have to remember that Sri Lanka is emerging from a bloody conflict against terror of thirty years. The Tamil Tigers, the LTTE was a proscribed terrorist organisation in a number of places around the world. The Sri Lankan forces defeated the LTTE and we must remember that the LTTE had a navy, an air force and had essentially occupied northern Sri Lanka. Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced as a result of the conflict which ended three years ago.

On reconciliation there is a long way to go but we were heartened by the steps that have been taken. Indeed, the veteran leader of the Tamil parliamentary party and others were travelling to South Africa to talk with the ANC in South Africa about ways that they could progress the reconciliation process under way in Sri Lanka.

In terms of resettlement, I mentioned that hundreds of thousands of people had been displaced during the war. The majority of them have been returned to their homes, in their homeland. Some, who were displaced because of military camps being established in the north in the last few years of terrorism, have not been returned to their homes but they are provided with land and temporary accommodation and in some instances permanent accommodation pending decisions about the military withdrawal from the north. We saw many housing projects under way, e.g. the Indian Government is providing housing and the Australian Government through AusAid is providing permanent housing. On the rehabilitation of the former LTTE combatants, a rehabilitation process is under way.

After the conflict many people were detained but we have seen evidence of steps being taken to rehabilitate them. For example, we visited a landmine site. The Australian Government through AusAID is supporting a private sector organisation to de-mine agricultural areas so that it can be productive and used for agricultural purposes, once more. Women, in particular, are being employed by the private sector organisation to carry out the de-mining. It's a painstakingly, detailed work. We had the opportunity to speak to the women, some of whom were former Tamil Tiger combatants.

One was a Sea Tiger and her job had been to be part of an effort to send explosives in small boats to blow up the Sri Lankan Navy.

We visited Jaffna and Kilinochchi in the northern province which was held by the Tamil Tigers for so many years and were struck by the amount of reconstruction work going on. Billions of rupees have been invested in major infrastructure projects, which is self-evident when you travel to Jaffna. New highways, roadworks water sanitation projects and electricity transmission are visible. Much of the north has never had electricity and now a majority has electricity. There's still some way to go.

The mobile phone coverage was superb. Indeed I had better coverage throughout the north of Sri Lanka than I do driving through Kings Park in Western Australia. What was also heartening was the reconstruction work carried out in schools. We visited a school that AusAID has funded to rebuild and a young student told us that at the end of the battle on terrorism, after the schools had been closed, only 36 students had returned to school. Today there are 2,000 young students in the school. There are, of course still concerns such as the presence of the military in the North.

We also visited the eastern province where the naval command is based. In the final years of the conflict the Sri Lankan military presence increased dramatically. Sri Lanka and Australia have roughly the same size populations.

Our defence force is around 50/55,000. The estimates of the size of the Sri Lanka defence force is anything between 200, 300,000 soldiers and defence force personnel. They are facing the challenge of decreasing the military presence in the north and not having several hundred thousand young men and women trained for defence force purposes unemployed. So in a number of instances the military have been deployed for civilian purposes and they are involved in building houses.

We visited a model village where the military were building permanent housing of the same standard that AusAID were building elsewhere in the northern and eastern provinces. We saw the navy deployed to build a golf course in the hope to build a tourist area around Trincomalee. The military who have been sent back down south are involved in the beautification process of Colombo which is quite evident.

The city of Colombo has improved dramatically in terms of the beautification, the heritage building restoration and the like.

There is concern about recent matters regarding the Chief Justice of Sri Lanka who has been the subject of impeachment proceedings. We discussed the matter at length with a range of people.

But we should not fall into the trap of assuming that every controversy in Sri Lanka is directly linked to the Tamil/Sinhalese conflict. As a member of the Commonwealth we want to ensure that Sri Lanka respects the rule of law, and the independence of the judiciary. We heard grievances from some people in the north, in particular one Tamil member of Parliament told us of his frustration at having his office raided by the police.

But when we spoke to the Tamil parliamentary leader and asked him of instances of violations of human rights, of physical abuse of intimidation, harassment against Tamil MPs, he didn't cite any examples.

From my perspective I was there to gather facts for our foreign policy positions and Scott for border protection. We arranged to meet the US delegation who were there, focused on alleged war crimes. It is part of Sri Lanka's history that they will have to come to terms with and we will certainly look closely at any resolution that goes before the United Nations on that score. As far as the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) later this year is concerned, I'm satisfied that Australia should attend and should encourage other Commonwealth countries to attend. The Sri Lankan Government is making inroads into the challenges facing the country and should be encouraged to continue to do so. On the issue of border control, as it relates to Sri Lanka, I am satisfied that our policy is the right policy setting at this time and on that note I will ask Scott Morrison to give you his observations on border control.

Scott Morrison:

The Coalition is in the business of, if elected to government later this year, of being able to hit the ground running and particularly on this issue more than most. I think there is an obvious high expectation of the change in policy that would be required if there were a change in government later this year and frankly that expectation of change in policy was something that was often discussed with people in Sri Lanka at all levels, both civilian, within the government and within the military. A couple of figures that I think are relevant in terms of the pace of change in Sri Lanka. GDP per capita has increased by US $1000 per person since the end of the battle against terrorism. That's a 50 per cent increase, GDP is up 50 per cent since the end of the war, visitor arrivals to Sri Lanka are now over a million which is double since the end of the war. 20,000km of roads have been constructed, 17,000 to 18,000, of them are in rural areas, access roads.

Now that stands in stark contrast to a battle that cost the country an estimated $200 billion, 500,000 people displaced, 100,000 dead and 4,000 child soldiers part of the ex combatants that came out of it and 45,000 widows in the north. It's hard to move around in the north and just not be struck by the change. You don't see soldiers with machine guns on street corners anymore.

The reports of midnight abductions and white vans and the brutality of torture and so on that was a routine thing some years ago are no more. And the reports of those things barely arose and when did, it was to events that had taken place some time ago. There have been some arrests, particularly up in the north at the university campus, but in those arrests everyone knows where everybody is.

Those people haven't disappeared. They are being investigated for various matters that the authorities wish to investigate them for and it's important, as Julie said, that we don't involve ourselves in the domestic politics of Sri Lanka. Our job was to prepare ourselves if we're elected to government to implement sound border protection policies. There is a significant military presence in the north and they are still involved in the day-to-day civilian life and civilian administration and Julie's given some of the reasons for that. Let's not forget this was a country fighting terrorism just four years ago.

But of the two key areas, the Kilinochchi and the Mullaitivu districts, in Kilinochchi we've had a reduction from 36 to 26 battalions and that's around 9000 soldiers, in the Mullaitivu district we've had the withdrawal of two divisions which is almost 10,000. Now this has only taken place in the last few months, certainly there's a long way to go but the direction was encouraging.

The proudest parts of our trip was to see the work of AusAID. Here the Australian people building schools and homes for people who desperately need them and in terms of the soft diplomacy and the true spirit of Australians I think our commitment has been very very well felt in these remote villages of Sri Lanka. 5700 people have returned from India since the end of the battle against terrorism.

They were people who fled Sri Lanka and they have returned from India to Sri Lanka unviolated and have been able to reengage in the community. But when you look at the situation in India where people have fled Sri Lanka can go live, work, send their children to school, move freely, have access to permanent housing, power and all of these things and there's a UN agency office in Chennai and there's health care and the High Commissioner for refugees only recently described India as a model country in terms of how they're looking after refugees, you have to wonder why people would take the $1m rupee journey 3000km to Australia when India is 30km away.

The overwhelming message we got in terms of people coming to Australia is due to a number of factors, primarily economic and the lifestyle. The greatest threat and risk to life to Sri Lankans in Sri Lanka was if they got on a boat and came to Australia, not if they stayed in Sri Lanka, not if they returned to Sri Lanka.

And that's why I think Julie and I and Michael Keenan can say very confidently and comfortably that our policy of ensuring that all those who would seek to come to Australia illegally by boat would be returned. In terms of the intelligence roundtable with the security forces and others I make a number of points. When Senator Carr was there last year, I could not be struck by any other impression that this was just a regurgitated stunt.

The measures that were announced barely scratch the surface and most of which were already in train anyway. There is a deficiency in the interception capacity of the navy in Sri Lanka which needs to be attended to. There is a deficiency in the aerial surveillance capacity which needs to be attended to.

There is a deficiency in the sharing of intelligence and other intelligence operations which needs to be attended to and they'll be important parts of what a Coalition government would do if we were to be elected.

We had a high level of cooperation and enthusiasm from the Sri Lankan government about what we could do more constructively to ensure the current interception rate which is one in three to as close to three out of three. We would prefer to see the vessels prevented from leaving Sri Lanka whether on land or within a reasonable distance from their shoreline than them take that dangerous journey all the way to Cocos Island. But if it's necessary, it's the Coalition policy to ensure those boats do not cross our sea border. So our policy is to send back and it's probably best to conclude on this note.

That is, when we asked the commander of the naval base in Trincomalee what was the most important thing that we could do, he said send them back.

Now I acknowledge that the government's decision that they dragged to introduce last year in relation to Sri Lankan arrivals as the pirate boat headed toward Australia last year and they finally saw the wisdom in sending them back, that has had an impact on the traffic of Sinhalese. I think if we were elected to government, we'd be able to work very constructively to ensure that people don't risk their lives on these boats.

- MF