Doorstop – Brisbane

E&OE

Subject: Pacific Policing Initiative, Pinkenba Hub

ATTORNEY-GENERAL MARK DREYFUS: Good morning, all. This is a great day for the Pacific Policing Initiative. We're here to mark the opening of the Pinkenba Hub, the development and coordination hub, which is Pillar Three of the Pacific Policing Initiative. This is a Pacific lead initiative. It's something that came out of discussions of the Pacific Police chiefs, something that was endorsed by Pacific leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum this year in August and now we see the opening today of the Pinkenba hub. It's something that's going to, in years to come, provide a continuing place in which training can take place, coordination can take place, a training of the Pacific Policing Support Group can take place. I would like to thank Commissioner Kershaw, for the leadership that he has shown Commissioner Dave Manning from Papua New Guinea, who's standing on my right, and all of the Pacific Police Chiefs and all of the Pacific Police Ministers who have jointly contributed to the Pacific Policing Initiative and the opening today of the Pinkenba Hub.

AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL POLICE COMMISSIONER REECE KERSHAW: Thank you Attorney, and thank you for your support. It's my pleasure to announce the official opening of the Pinkenba Hub today, the third pillar of the Pacific Policing Initiative. We call it the PPI. The Pacific Chiefs of Police first discussed the need for a regional policing initiative to strengthen collective peace and security throughout the Pacific in 2023. And today I'm pleased to stand here among the chiefs to celebrate this momentous milestone for the Pacific Policing Initiative, the PPI. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of my Pacific police counterparts, particularly the senior officers who formed the PPI Design Advisory Group, and the police chiefs on the Design Steering Group chaired by the magnificent leadership of Commissioner David Manning of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary. His collective expertise and the rest of the Pacific has stewarded the Pacific policing initiative, design process and the endorsement by the Pacific Island Forum Leaders in August this year reflects the contributions and the achievements. As mentioned, this Hub is essential and is a third pillar of the Pacific Policing Initiative alongside regional centres of excellence based in the Pacific and the Pacific Police Support Group. The PPI symbolises our commitment as part of the Pacific region and it supports our Pacific neighbours to build security and law enforcement capabilities based on their priorities and views. It reflects our shared approach to policing and law enforcement based on our shared values and culture. And we saw the Pacific Police Support Groups inaugural deployment at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, CHOGM, in Samoa earlier this year, which was a huge success. This state of the art training centre, which is being opened today, will offer courses in operational safety training, public order management, investigations, training, close personal protection and forensics capabilities. It will also see officers from around the Pacific training and learning together. The establishment of the Hub underscores the AFP's commitment to fostering strong collaborative partnerships with our neighbours. The opening of the Pinkenba Hub marks a significant milestone in our efforts to support enhance policing capabilities in the region and we look forward to the positive changes and strengthened relationships that will emerge as a result of this initiative.

ROYAL PAPUA NEW GUINEA CONSTABULARY COMMISSIONER DAVID MANNING: Thank you very much. good morning again. I'm here with the Attorney-General and Commissioner Kershaw and colleagues from the Pacific to witness the launch of the PPI, of the Pacific Police Initiative Hub. I'm pleased to be here for this launch to confirm PNG’s strong support for the PPI. This is a key step forward towards enhancing regional security and reflects the strength of the relationship between police forces across our region. This initiative reflects the strength of unity amongst police forces in our region. The PPI ensures that no matter the size of the jurisdiction we can leverage our shared expertise and resources to secure our communities. Importantly, the PPI provides a clear, effective and agile mechanism through which we can support our Pacific family in times of need to uphold the law and maintain order and security. The PPI represents our collective effort to combat modern crime types and collectively enhance security and safety of our communities. I’d like to thank Attorney-General Dreyfus, Commissioner Kershaw, and the Australian Government for their support of the Pacific Policing Initiative. The Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary Pap looks forward to hosting the inaugural regional centre of excellence in Port Moresby. This is an opportunity for us to support our Pacific colleagues through our ongoing and unprecedented investments in recruitment and officer training programs and at the same time, develop the calibre and capabilities of our own members. Thank you.

SAMOA MINISTER OF POLICE AND PRISONS FAUALO HARRY JEFFREY SCHUSTER: It's a proud day for the Pacific, proud day for us as Minister for Samoa and myself representing Samoa on the launch of the Pinkenba facility. It's a great concept for the whole Pacific and one of the things I really admire about the concept is that it's the Pacific family coming together to look after itself. In the Pacific we have a way of doing things. The area of law enforcement has its particular aspect of it, but it does not erode the way we do things. We do it in the Pacific way and nobody can take care of us better than the Pacific. The zone we occupy is one third of the surface of the Earth. if you put the Pacific together it can contain all the land masses of the world. That presents challenges and this initiative will assist us in our way to police our part of the world. I say that there is a Pacific way of doing things, and we're known for that. But this is one initiative I'm very happy that we didn't quite do it the Pacific way. Pacific way takes time, a long time, we talk and talk and talk. This one was put into practice in Samoa at CHOGM and I'm very grateful to the Australian Government, New Zealand and all the countries, 11 countries from the Pacific, who came to secure this - that was a Pacific joke, not just a Samoan one. But I’m very happy to see that we did not do this the Pacific way. We launched the practical application of the theory at CHOGM, but now we're formally opening this. So I look forward to an approaches like this in the future, so that we do things first and then open it later. I'm proud to announce that we're very grateful to the Australian Government and the Pacific Police Initiative and all the Pacific leaders at our meeting for approving Samoa to be one of the training centres for this initiative. So for that, we're very, very grateful and we're proud to be part of the program. And as Samoa we would put a best foot forward and help assist our fellow countries enforce the law in our region. Thank you.

REPORTER: Could you give us more detail on the facilities that are available here now at the Hub and capabilities and how it helps the policing?

KERSHAW: So we have two facilities, our training facility, which is nearby and that facility has state of art capability and training that will be able to deliver whatever the Pacific countries need, our 22 members. That’s part of the Design Steering Group that Commissioner Manning is working on and we're working with the Pacific for the Pacific. So, we'll tailor that to whatever the needs are. For example, we were able to deliver a close personal protection training course there recently. We ran a women in leadership course there that I addressed. There's a whole range of different things. We'll be able to bring the Pacific together and the benefit of that is not only the AFP and Australia understanding the Pacific at a deeper level, but I think the fact that we we get to work with some amazing people and see some of the innovation coming out of the Pacific and the incredible leadership challenges that we all have. So that facility is separate to this facility, this facility is more of our accommodation plus we have got some training capability here and we we we have a long-term vision around the Pacific Policing Support Group and a deployment group that could be deployed from here, for example, to the Pacific to help out with, you know, public order or any other crises, it might be even humanitarian. So that will be designed and led by the Pacific, not by necessarily the AFP.

REPORTER: This might be a question to you, Commissioner Manning. How do you see that working? Will that ultimately be like a standing group of police, perhaps rotating in the Pacific or ready to be deployed?

MANNING: That is very much our take on the arrangements and that is to have a group here, or a force here, the membership is of the specific jurisdictions. Continue to train and prepare. SOPs have been developed to ensure that everyone is off the same page when we deploy. We have best practices, gold standards in terms of police interventions. So yes, it is based here, on standby, to deploy to the Pacific as and where needed.

REPORTER: And that would be activated at a political level?

MANNING: Correct. So we're working on that and we’re close to completing the legal framework around Pacific Island countries being able to tap into this support.

REPORTER: How does this affect the relationship of individual relations with China and China's push to put policing operations in training into the Pacific region. Does this effectively lock China out?

MANNING: I wouldn't say it locks China out. All I'm saying is that we now have an opportunity to determine what is best for the Pacific and there's any other nation that understands what we're doing. Countries in the Pacific have different approaches in terms of their relationship with China. So I'm not brave enough to speak on their behalf, but as for us, it is purely policing. This is police diplomacy at its best. It's delivering on a shared commitment, on a renewed and reinvigorated commitment to collaborate to best secure our vulnerable communities throughout the region.

REPORTER: About a decade ago the Australian Federal Police had to leave Papua New Guinea because it was ruled unconstitutional by the highest court in Papua New Guinea for them to be in the country and serving the way they did. Have there been any constitutional issues that have been had to be addressed for the deployment of police officers from different nations to other nations within the Pacific?

MANNING: So that incident alone has taught us many lessons. We have ratified provisions in our Constitution and our Police Act place relevant piece of legislation in Papua New Guinea for us to be able to, not only receive assistance from police forces around the region, but also to be able to deploy to support those police forces in the region.

REPORTER: Has that happened in other nations as well so that can deploy to those nations?

MANNING: So there’s two problems. The domestic one is to have our constitution and our enabling laws to allow deployments into Papua New Guinea. But also there’s a regional effort as well to ensure that we're very much aligned in being able to lawfully deploy, to assist other police force or other countries.

REPORTER: So, a place like France, New Caledonia, could you deploy there?

MANNING: That is something for the French to decide on.

REPORTER: There's no clarity whether this operation could actually go into New Caledonia and support?

MANNING: I'm sure there's other countries in the Pacific. Again, like I said, there's a domestic effort in terms of ensuring that we have enabling legislation to do so. But there's also regional, you know, we're talking about bilaterals between individual Pacific countries and your example of New Caledonia or French territories in the Pacific.

REPORTER: Papua New Guinea has had a lot of trouble this year in terms of law and order. You had the riots in January which caused massive economic devastation. You had that the massacres in the Highlands and in the lowlands as well, like in coastal areas. You've had the violence around Enga and Porgera, which has shut down a major economic contributor to PNG. How how would you describe the policing effort in PNG in terms of being able to control lawlessness, when you have all these major incidents occurring and the PNG police doesn’t seem to be able to control it, let alone restore order in Enga so that Porgera can come back online?

MANNING: I mean it goes without saying we're here to launch the Pacific Police Initiative Hub. Papua New Guinea has its share of policing challenges and we've been greatly supported by our development partners to ensure that we understand the challenges. Not only understanding why there are challenges in the first place, but, you know, ensuring that the solutions, both now presently and into the future are sustainable and will continue to do so. The RPNGC remains committed to ensuring that we continue our efforts in securing our country. It’s in everyone's interests, and you know, it's not only just PNG, the same can be said with other countries in the Pacific and that's where that the PPI is a very significant opportunity for us, for Papua New Guinea to tap into. So there's additional support there to deal with our challenges. We're rebuilding the force, we've just received a large budget allocation for next year. So, we will get there.

REPORTER: Commissioner Manning, you’ve mentioned transnational crime and organised crime. Are they the key priorities for this initiative?

MANNING: Yes, yes, there is. Commissioner Kershaw and us and a couple of the chiefs from the Pacific recently attended the General Assembly of INTERPOL. So it is like global theme and it's very much relevant to the emerging and the future threats to the region. That's why all police forces in the Pacific need at least build a capability to continue to reinforce their commitment to securing often isolated and vulnerable communities.

REPORTER: So what's your first deployment going be after this?

KERSHAW: We’ve already deployed to CHOGM. So that's a great start and much faster than operationally than I think I even realised we were able to pull together the multinational force. I've got to give a shout out to a couple of people in New Zealand, in particular police and our partnership with them and their support on this initiative and of course, Australian DFAT and their leadership and supported by the Prime Minister and the Attorney and the Foreign Minister We've been able to get this funding and it's going to help us secure our region, not just Australia, but beyond that. And I think it's a wonderful initiative that PPI and and the other funding we have and that is something that we've got Liz Peak here from DFAT, who's done some amazing work and some of her initiatives are fantastic. So for us, it's a positive, I think, yes, there are a lot of challenges, crime in our region is becoming more complex. It's gone from complicated to complex and the fact is that we're able to work together in a seamless way and to combat, say, TSOC as a serious threat in our region. More and more you're seeing seizures of massive drugs coming through the Pacific and a lot of that's due to the work of the chiefs and the intelligence arms of their police forces. At the same time, we've all got domestic issues and I think we're learning faster and better about how to deal with domestic issues and international issues at the same time. And as Commissioner Manning said, you know, to see INTERPOL as well, there's some geopolitical issues in some of these bigger organisations. We want to show leadership in the region and we want a bit more status and recognition from INTERPOL is our long range gain in the sense that, you know, we currently have Asia represents Australia and the Pacific at the moment at INTERPOL. So we're keen on having that conversation with some of those international bodies and actually getting them to understand some of the challenges down here and how we could they could help us as well.

REPORTER: Have you been asked by Vanuatu to assist with the elections on the 14th of January?

KERSHAW: I'm not aware of that. But it may have come in. I'm not sure operationally.

REPORTER: It’s on the list at the moment?

KERSHAW: Not that I’m know of.

REPORTER: You’ve talked bout the high level type of crime, transnational crime, security, things like that. One of the issues that was raised at the Pacific Island Leaders Forum in Tonga was, what is this going to do for the actual community policing? Gender-based violence, for example, it's a massive issue across the Pacific. Is this going to address issues like that?

KERSHAW: Yes, I think it goes back to what I was saying about complex issues. This will be an opportunity here, whether it's here or in country, the training capability of being able to address some of those issues and strategies. I think strategy is where it's at for policing and you have to be agile, innovative, responsive, and so I think that's where these centres will actually help out with developing Pacific strategies for the Pacific that are going to work and have a degree of success collectively.

REPORTER: Is the Solomon Islands representative here?

KERSHAW: The Commissioner wasn't able to be here. Unfortunately there's some political issues there, so he sends his apologies. He's a personal friend of all of ours and would have been good to have him here. He's a bit disappointed he wasn’t able to be here.

REPORTER: Not because of China and their close relationship with China?

KERSHAW: No, not at all. There's some domestic issues he's got to deal with which, you appreciate that that happens a lot.

REPORTER: They are a member though?

KERSHAW: Yes, yes of course.

REPORTER: And in terms of funding it’s $400 million over 5 years?

KERSHAW: And then we have another pocket of funding for over four years.

REPORTER: How much is that?

KERSHAW: That's $300 million which has all being published in our budget.

REPORTER: Can we have some more details about Samoa?

SCHUSTER: Our training centre will be focused on forensic evidence, and the police will be working in conjunction with one of our scientific research organisations, and it'll assist us to provide training for our colleagues from other countries.

REPORTER: And why was Samoa selected?

SCHUSTER: Well, we applied to use our facility in Samoa to be a training centre. China just completed a police academy and so we wanted it to be used not just for Samoa, but to open up for use by the region.

REPORTER: So the Chinese funded police academy will be used by this initiative?

SCHUSTER: Yes.

REPORTER: And how does that relationship work with China?

SCHUSTER: Well, our internal arrangements are we have our own sovereignty. It doesn't affect our relationship dealing in other areas, but we are clear about providing law enforcement and prevention in some way. That's our duty. And we owe that duty to our people.

DREYFUS: I could say in relation to this last question there are now three Centres of Excellence under the Pacific Policing Initiative. We've already had announced a Centre of Excellence in Papu New Guinea, Centre of Excellence in Fiji, and with the announcement today by the Samoan minister, the third Centre of Excellence, and this is the first pillar of the Pacific Policing Initiative, the third Centre of Excellence will be in Samoa. And that's the way, it's the cooperative nature of the Pacific Policing initiative dispersed across the Pacific that you see in action here.

REPORTER: Are you reconsidering the listing of HTS as a terrorist group?

DREYFUS: We don't discuss listing arrangements. The Australian Government takes advice from security agencies about the listing of proscribed terror organisations and it'll continue in that way.

REPORTER: A number of European countries have said they will halt decisions on Syrian asylum requests. Will Australia pause asylum requests of Syrians?

DREYFUS: That's entirely a matter for the Department of Home Affairs. Alright, thank you very much.

[ENDS]