Press conference with Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia Wan Azizah Wan Ismail

WAN AZIZAH WAN ISMAIL: I'm happy to receive the courtesy call by Her Excellency Julie Bishop, the Foreign Minister of Australia. First of all, I'm delighted to announce that Malaysia and Australia have agreed to hold a bilateral Gender Policy Dialogue in November, a key priority for us both, and this initiative will bring together Australian and Malaysian experts and allow them to exchange perspectives and experiences on issues to help inform on our respective gender policies and efforts to promote women empowerment. We, together, look forward to this building an ongoing stream of work and cooperation for our mutual benefit.

In addition, we also discussed other areas – we discussed a long time – that we are seeking to explore further collaboration and learn from each other, including a variety of institutional reform, disaster management particularly around the fighting and management of forest fires, and [indistinct] political party. Also we talked about the other management of the major disasters around Australian continent, particularly around the management of forest fires and the inclusion of volunteers, because volunteerism is very good in Australia in this effort, and provision of the aged pension and superannuation, the child protection and wellbeing of cultures. As well as the environment, especially the coral reef protection. Australia has one of the best policies and way of managing their coral reefs. I think it is very important for us as well to learn from them.

We also discussed on how our two countries can collaborate on achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. One of Malaysia's own efforts towards this is the crafting of the National Wellbeing Roadmap that will be ready soon.

We also spoke about the death penalty, about how Malaysia will look into the matter of abolishment of the death penalty.

Noting our long history of business cooperation, we also discussed how to encourage more trade and investment between Malaysia and Australia. While there is already a vibrant relationship between the two committed trading nations – we are a trading nation – Excellency Bishop and I agree that we will continue to encourage more companies to explore business opportunities in each other's country in both the trade and investment spheres.

Thank you.

JULIE BISHOP: Thank you, Deputy Prime Minister, and I'm delighted to have this opportunity to meet with you and to visit Malaysia so soon after your historic election.

Just spending a short amount of time in Kuala Lumpur, it's possible to see how energised and enthusiastic the people of Malaysia are about the opportunities that lie ahead with the new government.

Australia and Malaysia are natural partners – we have common interests, common values, and many areas of existing cooperation. I'm so pleased to have had the opportunity to discuss with you other areas where Australia and Malaysia can further cooperate, collaborate, deepen and strengthen our already close friendship and partnership.

In particular, we stand ready to support in whatever ways the Malaysian Government thinks appropriate your reform agenda in the driving of economic growth, in strengthening your democratic institutions, and in social policy. We discussed the educational exchanges between Australia and Malaysia, which really is one of the pillars of our enduring relationship, and how we can enhance our education exchanges and partnerships and cooperation between our universities and higher education institutions.

We spoke about our trade relationship, which is strong, but there is more we can do in trade and investment. We have the Australia-Malaysia Free Trade Agreement, we also have the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement, and we're both signed on to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the TPP11. We support open, liberalised trade and together I believe there is more that we can achieve in that regard and I am looking forward to meeting with a number of Australian businesses who are represented here in Malaysia throughout my visit.

We also discussed issues like disaster relief management, natural disasters. Australia has, sadly, some expertise in that regard.

We discussed social policy, including our superannuation system, and I have offered to the Deputy Prime Minister opportunities for your officials, your parliamentarians to visit Australia so that we can share experiences, share ideas, and talk about what Australia has done in some of these areas and offer to share our experience with you.

We discussed other issues including the tragedies that have brought us closer together – the downing on MH17 and the disappearance of MH370.

We talked about ways where we can strengthen cooperation regionally because it is in both our interests for us to live in a safe, secure, and prosperous Indo-Pacific.

We are hoping that there will be more ministerial exchanges and I am delighted to have had this opportunity to visit Malaysia – my third as Foreign Minister – so soon after the formation of the new Government.

Thank you.

JOURNALIST: Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah, a question to you – your husband Anwar Ibrahim was very critical of Australia's previous support for the Najib administration, saying that Australia had been complicit in corruption. Is that a view you share and did that create any tension, awkwardness in today's meeting? And to you, Deputy Prime Minister Bishop-

JULIE BISHOP: How about Foreign Minister Bishop?

[Laughter]

JOURNALIST: I should say, Foreign Minister Bishop – given that there's been additional criticism this week as to Australia's support of the Hun Sen regime in Cambodia, is Australia's support for illiberal regimes something that needs a rethink?

WAN AZIZAH WAN ISMAIL: Actually, we did not discuss that because we are glad it's over, now we have the new government, and whatever Australia has done, that was critical, I mean we criticised it, and now Australia's offering us help, especially in transition. That was the first thing we discussed – Malaysia has not had a transition in 61 years. Australia has had transition, so we discussed more what to do and what to do to move forward, rather than dwell on past issues. For Hun Sen, I think maybe Australia has some other views of looking at that.

JULIE BISHOP: The Deputy Prime Minister and I had a very positive discussion about our future relationship. In the past, Australia has worked with the Government of Malaysia of the day, and for the past 61 years, it has been the same government. If we were waiting for the new government, we would have been waiting for 61 years before dealing with Malaysia and that is patently ridiculous. So, we work with the government of the day. We're looking forward to the opportunities of deepening our friendship and partnership with Malaysia and we came up with many initiatives where we'll be able to do that.

In relation to Cambodia, it is not correct to say that Australia supports illiberal regimes – quite the contrary. We have expressed our serious concerns about the recent election in Cambodia and we have certainly made that clear to the Prime Minister and his Government. This weekend, I'll be attending the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit. I would expect that the members of ASEAN would have quite a deal to say about what's been happening in Cambodia, and we will certainly add our voice to those concerns.

JOURNALIST: Foreign Minister Bishop – you mentioned strengthening democratic principles. You are housing a very brutal hit man and fugitive, Sirul Azhar Umar. Could you tell us any timeline that you have that you would be surrendering him to Malaysia and what would the conditions probably be?

JULIE BISHOP: He is currently being held in immigration detention. As Prime Minister Mahathir said recently, Malaysia has not made any extradition application, so it would be inappropriate for me to speculate as to the rest of your question until such time as Malaysia makes an application for extradition under the existing treaty between our two countries.

JOURNALIST: Foreign Minister Bishop, on the same topic, previously Australia has developed the position that they would not extradite anyone who was on death row, so was that discussed or would there be a discussion?

JULIE BISHOP: Not that specific aspect, but we most certainly discussed Malaysia's intention to consider the abolition of the death penalty. This is a position that Australia has held for some time – we oppose the death penalty both at home and abroad. In fact, we advocated strongly for the abolition of the death penalty as we campaigned for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. We are on the Human Rights Council now and the abolition of the death penalty is one of the pillars of our advocacy, so that is a matter that we certainly discussed, but I point out again, there has been no application for extradition in this particular case.

JOURNALIST: Minister Bishop, can I just follow up on that question? So, Australia's stand – can I clarify that Australia's stand is that if there is a death penalty in Malaysia, that you will not extradite the person? If there is a request made?

JULIE BISHOP: Well, you're asking me to speculate. Australia's position as a matter of principle is that extradition cases take into account whether or not the death penalty will be applied in the applying country, but there has been no application, so this matter has not been tested.

JOURNALIST: Do you really think the relationship can move forward even though you are housing a very brutal murderer of a young woman? How can you move forward even though this is an issue?

JULIE BISHOP: Well, let me make this plain in case somebody doesn't understand – he is in immigration detention, he's being held in detention. There has been no application for extradition by the Malaysian Government and that was confirmed by Prime Minister Mahathir recently.

JOURNALIST: Just on China's announcement that they will join with Australia and others in military exercises near Darwin later this year – does that represent a de-escalation in some of the tensions that we've seen in relation to China's militarisation of the that region, and is Malaysia taking part in these exercises as well?

JULIE BISHOP: China has taken part in military exercises with Australia in the past, so this is an extension of what has already occurred. We all have an interest in a safe and secure region, and I think it is important for our militaries, our navies, to carry out these exercises from time-to-time. It adds to our understanding, it adds to our appreciation of the position of each nation. Australia and Malaysia already have a very strong defence relationship, we have hundreds of personnel stationed at Butterworth, and we continue to work together through the Five Power defence arrangement. Australia and Malaysia have a very strong defence and security relationship already.

JOURNALIST: The MH370 report that was recently released, was that discussed? And also plans to take action with regard to MH17? I understand that there was some concern expressed on Australia's part on Malaysia's stance towards Russia's alleged involvement.

JULIE BISHOP: Yes, we had a very positive discussion about both tragedies that have brought Australia and Malaysia closer together in the most unfortunate of circumstances, but these are matters that I'll be discussing in more detail with the Foreign Minister when we meet at ASEAN on Saturday, but we did have a broad discussion about both matters.

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