Doorstop - Los Angeles, United States

MINISTERBISHOP: I'm here with mycolleague the Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, Steve Ciobo, onanother special day here in Los Angeles as we celebrate G'day USA. Afterlast night's gala where we honoured three outstanding Australians in BenMendelsohn, Catherine Martin and David Hill, today we're celebrating anotherfantastic collaboration between Warner Brothers and the Australian animationand visual effects firm, Animal Logic. This is the second film thatWarner Brothers and Animal Logic have made in the Lego series and today we'rehaving an advanced screening of The Lego Batman movie. This is afantastic example of Australian creative talent being able to contribute to anextraordinary global production, and it reflects the creativity, the ingenuityand the inventiveness of Australians in the film and television industry.

This G'day USA event has beenan outstanding success. We have met many people who want to invest inAustralia, we have seen many business partnerships flourish, our sponsors,including Qantas, have had a pretty special week, particularly Qantas becausethey were able to also launch and open their new A380 hangar at Los Angelesairport – the only one of its kind in North America. So I'll hand over to SteveCiobo to say a few words.

MINISTERCIOBO: ThanksJulie. Well, this has been a very good G'Day USA. It's part of, ofcourse, the Australian Government's outreach here in North America and I'm verypleased that we've had Austrade and Tourism Australia who've been able to bekey partners this year as well. It's part of the vision that we've got to makesure that we continue to build Brand Australia to keep enticing North Americansto come down to Australia for their holidays, as well as of course to expandthe reach of G'Day USA to include, for example, this year Austin, Texas – theopportunity that I had to sit down with a number of potential key investors totalk about trade relationships, to talk about the fact that as a countryAustralia is very committed to ongoing engagement when it comes to trade andinvestment and tourism with respect to North America.

The other key success I thinkwe've had, Julie, is some very, very fruitful discussions with major studiosover the past 48-72 hours, the opportunity to re-affirm our strong commitmentto the growth of Australia's film and TV industry and the recognition that wecertainly punch above our weight when it comes to not only stars on the screenbut also stars that lay behind the screen and on the production side and thepost-production side.

So I'll leave my remarks atthat and over to you guys.

JOURNALIST: Are you aware, is the AustralianGovernment aware, of any Australian citizens who've been denied entry into theUS because of Mr Trump's executive order?

MINISTER BISHOP:The Australian Government is working veryclosely with the Administration and the US officials and we want to ensure thatAustralians continue to have access to the United States as they have in thepast, as people from the United States have access to Australia. So, ourconsular staff are working closely with the US officials but I won't go intoany details, but we are certainly there on the ground ensuring that Australianscan continue to access the United States.

JOURNALIST: Have you had achance to speak to the Prime Minister since his phone call with the President?

MINISTER BISHOP:Yes, I have. He was very pleased withthe call, it was very warm, it was very engaging, they discussed a whole rangeof bilateral, regional and global issues.

JOURNALIST: Did itprovide, I guess, reassurance that Australians would not be adversely affectedat all by his Administration?

MINISTER BISHOP:I've had two very constructive conversationsnow over the past two days with Vice President Mike Pence, and he re-iteratedthe significance of the Australian US relationship. He was very well briefed onall of the details of the US-Australia alliance and I'm confident that we willcontinue to build our alliance. It will continue to go from strength tostrength. That was the sentiment that Vice President Pence passed on to me andI'm sure it was reflected in the Prime Minister's conversation with PresidentTrump.

JOURNALIST: The refugeeresettlement deal under the Obama Administration is that going ahead?

MINISTER BISHOP:I'm very confident that Australia and theUnited States will continue to work together and co-operate on ensuring thatour respective immigration and border protection policies can be implementedand that we will not in any way encourage the people smuggling trade tore-establish their business models and send people, essentially, to their deathon dangerous journeys to Australia.

JOURNALIST: Are you confident the original deal signed under the Obama administration willcontinue in its previous form or could that change?

MINISTER BISHOP:I'm confident that the Australian governmentand the US government will continue to support each other in ensuring that wecan implement our strong immigration and border protection policies.