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."