Howard under fire for not meeting Megawati
Howard under fire for not meeting Megawati
Agence France-Presse, Sydney
Prime Minister John Howard returned to the Australian election
campaign on Monday under fire over his failure to meet Indonesian
President Megawati Soekarnoputri at the APEC summit in Shanghai.
Howard arrived in Perth after taking part in the Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit where he tried unsuccessfully
to meet Megawati to discuss, among other issues, people smuggling
from Indonesia to Australia.
But Howard, in Perth to farewell a 150-strong squadron of SAS
troops committed by Australia to the U.S.-led campaign in
Afghanistan, said he would seek a formal meeting with Megawati
after the Nov. 10 election.
Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Laurie Brereton said
Megawati had managed eight separate bilateral meetings during the
two-day summit, but none with Howard.
"To fail utterly to get a meeting with Megawati Soekarnoputri
is nothing short of disgraceful," Brereton told ABC radio.
He said Howard had allowed Australia's relationship with
Indonesia drift year after year now and the consequence was a
high cost to taxpayers and a failure to combat people smuggling
through a regional solution.
The failure was costing Australia more than A$100 million
(US$50 million) to house asylum seekers in Pacific nations like
Nauru and Papua New Guinea, he said.
Brereton claimed she had met leaders of Canada, South Korea,
China, Singapore, Peru and even New Zealand's Prime Minister
Helen Clark, but had no time for the Australian prime minister.
"The tragedy of that is that the boats keep coming, John
Howard can't solve the problem and he wants Australians to pick
up the tab."
Howard said he managed to have some discussions with Megawati
when the leaders were together and there was no difficulty in the
relationship at a personal level.
He said if the government was re-elected, he would move
quickly to go to Indonesia for talks with Megawati on illegal
immigration to Australia using Indonesian vessels.
"I don't think it is going to be something that can be quickly
resolved and I say that very deliberately irrespective of who the
government of Australia is after the 10th of November."