Press conference - Sydney

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA: Good morning. This is a great day, and I am so pleased to be here with my dear friend, Prime Minister Marape. Joining us is the Rugby League Commission Chair, Peter V'landys and we're also joined by the NRL CEO, Andrew Abdo, my parliamentary colleague Pat Conroy, and Ministers from Papua New Guinea. You are all very welcome here.

Prime Minister Marape, it is great to have you back in Australia. Australia and Papua New Guinea are the nearest of neighbours and we are the truest of friends. We're bound by a history of shared sacrifice and a common commitment to a peaceful, stable and prosperous Pacific. And we are united, of course, by a love of rugby league. And that's why I'm delighted to announce the Australian Government is supporting a PNG team to join the National Rugby League competition from 2028.

Rugby league is PNG's national sport and PNG deserves a national team. The new team will belong to the people of Papua New Guinea. It will call Port Moresby home. And I know it will have millions, literally, of proud fans barracking for it from day one. Not just in PNG, but I suspect many Australians as well, will adopt the PNG team as theirs.

When I walked the Kokoda Track earlier this year, prior to going to the Anzac Day service at Isurava with Prime Minister Marape, the first Australian Prime Minister to walk the Kokoda Track, the first PNG Prime Minister to walk the Kokoda Track as well. It struck me when we would emerge from the densest of jungles that you can imagine, that when we entered villages, you would be familiar with what people were wearing, because there were many Queensland State of Origin jumpers, I must say, many more than wearing the Blues jumpers. There were Broncos jumpers, Cowboys jumpers, and of course, anywhere in the world, there's always a random Souths guy or two. And they were there as well. Every team represented. And the kids had such joy when they were passing the footies that we carried along the trek to hand out during that. It was so clear that sport brings us together. It unites us and it inspires us. It crosses borders and it builds bridges. In competing against each other, we learn from each other.

And I spoke with Cam Murray, who was objectively chosen to be captain of the PM's XIII team last year, and Damien Cook this year. I don't know how that keeps happening. When I spoke to Cam Murray, he was just blown away by the enthusiasm when the team arrived in Papua New Guinea to play Prime Minister Marape's XIII. They were treated as heroes, they were welcomed with such open arms. And the enthusiasm for anyone who has watched those last two games when Papua New Guinea led and scored first, the enthusiasm as well this year when they scored last at the end, was just as great. That joy, bringing people together in this amazing country of Papua New Guinea.

What this is about isn't just the elite level. This is about the grassroots level. It's about economic development. It's about our relationship between our peoples. And it provides, as sport often does, an opportunity for people to succeed, not just in sport, but in life. And that is why this partnership that we're announcing today isn't just about Papua New Guinea, it's also about our relationship with the Pacific.

The partnership will support young people in the Pacific, girls and boys, women and men, to play rugby league, with a focus on PNG, but also on Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. It will complement our existing health and education programs in the Pacific and create new opportunities for women and girls to get involved, too.

This Pacific Rugby League Partnership and my Government's support for a PNG team in the NRL, shows we're serious about working with our Pacific partners, dare I say it, our Pacific family members, on the aspirations that we have.

In January this year, last year, I had the great honour of being the first foreign leader to address the PNG Parliament in Port Moresby. And earlier this year, Prime Minister Marape became the first Pacific leader to address the Australian Parliament in Canberra. We've worked together on so many issues, from responding to the tragic landslide in PNG's Enga province to engaging with our fellow leaders at the Pacific Islands Forum. And I know that Prime Minister Marape has just wrapped up PNG Investment Week here in Sydney. Another reminder of our economic cooperation.

Today also confirms the entry into force of our Bilateral Security Agreement, which we signed just over a year ago in Canberra. Since signing that landmark agreement, we've made real progress with Australia providing tangible support to PNG's internal security priorities. And just this week, we have opened our Pacific Policing Initiative training facility in Pinkenba in Brisbane, providing support for training in policing right across the Pacific, a $400 million initiative that we announced and got support for as the centrepiece of our engagement at the Pacific Island Forum.

As Prime Minister Marape has said, Australia is Papua New Guinea's security partner of choice. And that's not surprising. Next year, in 2025, we will celebrate the 50 years commemoration of PNG independence.

This is a relationship which went to a new level as well in World War II, which is why the Kokoda Track is a sacred site for our relationship as far as I'm concerned, and for so many Australians. So, as we look towards that anniversary of independence next year, what is clear is the growing strategic trust that underpins our partnership and our enduring commitment to working together as friends and as equals.

I think that today is a day where people will look back in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, and see that this was a day where the relationship between our nations was cemented even further and strengthened from a very strong base that we have forged with our common history into a new level. Because what this will do is make sure that all those who visit Port Moresby to watch their team play or just to watch a game in what will be a ground that has, dare I say it, a most extraordinary atmosphere compared with any ground in Australia. There'll be none better as an experience than going to Port Moresby, or they're watching it on TV or just following it in the press where you find journalists are writing about the games. It will change the way that PNG is reported on in Australia and the way Australia is reported in PNG to something that's not unusual, but something that is a day to day occurrence. That dynamic is what has driven me to be so supportive of this extraordinary project.

And I thank Prime Minister Marape for his extraordinary leadership of his nation and for the relationship that he has forged with Australia. And I ask him to make some comments before we take questions in the orderly way in which it happens at these bilateral meetings.

JAMES MARAPE, PRIME MINISTER OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Prime Minister, thank you, my brother, the Right Honourable Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia. You have been a wonderful friend at the personal level to Papua New Guinea. Your party at 1975, the Whitlam Government birthed what is now Papua New Guinea. We stand as the most diverse nation on the face of planet Earth. Over 830 spoken languages. They all belong to their own cultural structure and society, fused into one nationhood. In 1975 a Labor Government gifted Papua New Guinea its sovereignty, at 1975. And at the verge of our 50th anniversary next year to have this team announced, and I want to appreciate the Australian Rugby League, Peter V'landys and your Commissioners. I want to appreciate National Rugby League Andrew Abdo and every one of you at the National Rugby League without influencing your due processes.

The support by two governments was strategic. It was strategic in the sense that we belong to one region. Our shared space is important in a world that is currently conflicted all over. As I see as a leader of my country with concern the contests and conflicts happening in Eastern Europe, so to speak, or in Middle East, so to speak, and the potential of conflicts into the future.

We want to preserve our Pacific, safe, peaceful and good for all of us to live in, especially our children. And wise good generations construct the future in which their children could enjoy peace and comfort and life. And today, the decision made all in all not just by the two governments and the investments of time and money we put into this, but more importantly by National Rugby League and the Australian Rugby League, to embrace a team from Papua New Guinea is a monumental, monumental decision that will stand into time as pivotal in the construct of anchoring the PNG-Australia relationship and the Pacific relationship.

In the heart of every foreign relation lies people to people relations. A foreign relations minus people to people relation is completely in vain. When we engage with people to people it secures the future of our space, our region and our nations.

Papua New Guinea is no stranger to Australia. We have relations in Australia. For instance, the furthest north Queensland are only about five minutes by swim across into the south part of my country. You have the Torres Strait Islanders DNA with Papua New Guineans. They have relations in PNG and relations in Australia. And so that is how close we are apart from other closeness we have in our shared worldview, in our shared democratic outlook, in our shared free market capital. We have more than 5,000 Australian investors, companies who pay their taxes in Australia. If I could remind this to assist my brother Prime Minister here.

Some may complain, what is the use of investing substantial money into a PNG team? Well, Australian companies earn their money in PNG and pay their taxes in Australia. And so it goes both ways. Papuans also in time want to invest in Australia. We have Papuan investors now investing in Australia. The last conference that we just held in Sydney spent 20 million Australian dollars into the week we were leaving, camping and spending our time in Sydney.

So, the synergy of border economies work two ways. It is a two way relationship. Much of this were also led and driven by our government's own intention to unite our country. I want to say I was in the Cabinet in 2008, 35 years after our independence. That Cabinet was led by the founding father of my country, the late Grand Chief Sir Michael. He saw it in him that to unite our country, we must have a team in NRL. And he under his Cabinet first initiated our NRL bid in 2008. God bless his soul. He's rested, he's gone. But the spirit lives on. The spirit to unite PNG and rugby league.

I want to say to Peter and Andrew and the team behind Australian Rugby League and National Rugby League that what you are gifting to us in the licence to have a team in NRL goes in the heart of uniting our diverse country together. For us, it's not just sport and sport commerce, it is deeply national unity strategy in the face of our 50th independence anniversary next year. Uniting the most diverse nation on the face of planet Earth and also uniting PNG-Australia together in ways that matter most, people to people.

And as far as rugby league is concerned, you have no other nation on planet Earth who will claim that it is their national sport except Papua New Guinea.

In terms of viewing today, my country is almost 100 per cent covered in terms of ICT and satellite access to telephone and the access to ICT. In that space you would have seen in the Last Prime Minister's XIII match, we would have broken any other ordinary club match viewership in as far as viewing online is concerned. And so that market is enormous for the online viewing as well as actual game time viewing both in Australia and Papua New.

I have over 100,000 working Papua New Guineas in Australia right now, in the mines, in work in Australia. A potential spectator and support base to move from time to time, game to game, as the team is playing. I want to indicate to every one of you in Australia and back home, we're not just filling the numbers for Anthony and James 'feel good', far from it. We want to win competition. And just like Dolphins did in the first year of entry, we will fill a very strong team first game 2028, a strong team running. We have a solid team behind the scene working. Chairman Wapu is here, Andrew Hill is here, Sandis Tsaka is here, our Sports Minister is here, our Security Minister is here. It just goes bigger than just rugby league and sport. It is national development, national unity, regional unity, PNG-Australia unity, our security conversations all is dovetailed into this one team. To unite our country into one team, one nation, one country and of course one people.

So, I just want to appreciate the Australian people for your support, to your national leader who is visionary, who thinks beyond just this generation. What Prime Minister Albanese and his Cabinet is doing is thinking two, three, four generations down the line that this Pacific, this part of the world, our Pacific, must remain focused, united, free market, democratic ambience around how we live in this space.

And this is not just for today and what is expected in 2028, far from it. It is futuristic to anchor our two nations, anchor our two people and anchor our Pacific together as one Pacific family. So, I just want to appreciate your vision. It is said by Greeks that wise men plant trees who they shall never sit under, you and me and Peter and Andrew may never sit under this age, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years from today. But as South Sydney lives on a hundred years from its birth, this one we live on way after you and me is gone. Our people forever bound in a shared love, not just for rugby league, but a shared love for each other. Thank you very much.

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Well, thanks very much, Prime Minister. And Peter V'landys is available for questions as well here and I do want to thank his leadership as well and the leadership of Andrew Abdo for being a part of this journey. David, Mark is first question.

JOURNALIST: Thanks very much to both of you. And I want to address the sporting side of this and the players and officials who might go and play for this new team. Prime Minister Marape, how can you guarantee the safety of the players and officials who want to go and join this new franchise in the coming years? And to Mr. Albanese, given that you hold the right to withdraw the funding at any particular point in time and therefore terminate the franchise and the licence agreement, how can players and staff feel confident in signing on with the club?

PRIME MINISTER MARAPE: All right, he'll have his fair share of response to the two questions. But in my response, firstly, security is all part of the mix. This is not an event conversation for PNG and Port Moresby. It's a lifestyle transformation. It's a total lifestyle transformation for us. We saw what APEC did for Port Moresby in 2018. APEC, hosting APEC changed Port Moresby for the better. But for this NRL to be hosted out of Port Moresby, the team to be based out of Port Moresby, it gives me the enough reason now to make sure Port Moresby is safer, Port Moresby is cleaner, Port Moresby is better to host continuous international games post 2028.

And so we're working behind and I want to appreciate the Australian Government for the Bilateral Security Agreement we signed. It was signed one year earlier than these announcements. It is all working hand in hand neatly to make sure Port Moresby is safe, PNG safe. So, come 2028 I can give you, I bet my life on this, I want to bet my life on this, it is in my own national interest to make your PNG safer. I have daughters and I have children who will live in PNG forever. And the catalyst to make it urgent for me right now is a three year window I have to 2028. And we want to make it safe for our players. We want to recruit the best players available. We're also nurturing the younger ones to be nurtured to play. And so it is for me this is transformational. The Bilateral Security Agreement dovetails neatly into this one. Training police, PNG police to work side by side and in the long run it just gels in very well.

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Thank you. I make three points. The first is that this isn't just about what happens during the 80 minutes of play on the field of the NRL. This is about an entire relationship of lifting up Papua New Guinea. It's about economic development and that includes of course security relationships. And we signed our Bilateral Security Arrangement.

This is about saying to a young boy or young girl, if you want to play rugby league, you've got to go to school, you've got to go through those exercises as well. Rugby league, like other forms of sport can be transformational in lifting up opportunity across the board. And this will be a part of it. The Prime Minister's vision is for that as well. And it's a vision that my Government shares.

Port Moresby is the closest national capital to Australia. You can swim from Saibai Island where I've been in the Torres Strait, you can see PNG. We are so close. We have as a national interest story for Australia, we have a national interest not just because we're family, but even from an Australian selfish point of view in a prosperous, secure, forward-looking Papua New Guinea. In our region with so much change in the world that is so important. And so that's the first point.

Second point is that I think that PNG will attract people. There are some financial incentives as part of these arrangements have been put in place by PNG of tax free status for Australian nationals who go and play for the franchise when it comes in. And I think that it will be an incredibly attractive place to go. If you want to go somewhere, where you are, I know that sometimes, you know, NRL players like playing in Melbourne because they can be a little bit, you know, not as open. They don't get asked for as many selfies if they're at a restaurant in Carlton compared with at a restaurant in Redfern. I assure you no one will be incognito in PNG. They will all be heroes. They will know that they're playing a role in lifting up Papua New Guinea.

And the third point is, Penrith Panthers have been pretty successful in having a pipeline of juniors coming through that then feeds into other clubs. This is the greatest rugby league pipeline potential on Earth, bar none. This is a pipeline where if you look at the number of Samoan and Tongan players playing in the NRL compared with PNG, PNG is underrepresented. That's because of economic development issues and opportunity. Once you bring in that economic development junior pathways and opportunity, you will have, I have no doubt that PNG, within a very short few years, they'll need some experienced players like were brought into the Dolphins and comes in with new franchises, Melbourne Storm, etc. They will be a powerhouse in the National Rugby League with homegrown players, I have no doubt. Matt Vari.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister Marape, Prime Minister Albanese mentioned about the little children that you met along the way when you walked the Track. What is your personal message to all the young people up in the mountain tops, in the back streets of Port Moresby, who pick up a football every day?

PRIME MINISTER MARAPE: Thank you Matthew. The pathway has been established. I want to also appreciate the Australian Government for investment right now and we have over 700 boys and girls in junior competition. We saw how close our juniors came to beating the Australian Rugby League junior team when the game was played last in Port Moresby. And so the pathway is set for young children who want to pursue sport as an alternate path in life.

Not everyone is born to be a rocket scientist. Some are born to be sports persons, whether it's in AFL, soccer, all the other sports available. But for us in PNG, the greatest attraction to sport is rugby league. And the actual part now opens for an endgame to Australian participating in Australian Rugby League competition. Just many Marcus Bais out there, many Justin Olams out there. The difference between Justin Olam and Marcus, they came through sheer talent and commitment, dedication almost in the maturity of the teen life. This one going to the heart of the pathway. Schoolboys, schoolgirls in primary school, high school and they have the options to migrate to sports. That's the reason why we parked the Higher Education Minister, we parked the sports portfolio with the Higher Education Minister so that those who are good in sports can go and pursue life after grade 12 through sports.

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Matthew Knott.

JOURNALIST: We're told there's a separate, parallel agreement on shared strategic trust between Australia and Papua New Guinea that sits alongside the NRL deal. Why does that have to remain confidential or are you willing to share the details of that agreement and does it contain an explicit cause that would stop PNG from agreeing to a security or policing deal with China or another nation if Australia didn't approve?

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Well, Australia is PNG's security partner of choice and today coming into effect is our Bilateral Security Agreement. That agreement is certainly public, but it is certainly not a secret that our relationship is so strong, that we work together. And part of that working together is because of our common values.

We're both great democracies. We both share a commitment to human rights. We both share market based economies that are important as well. So, our agreements go to the full range of relationships between two nations.

We, of course were, during World War II, and Matthew, congratulations on surviving the walk with myself and the Prime Minister in Kokoda, which was an enormous experience and a great, one of the best things I will do in my life, not just as Prime Minister. At that time we were one nation. So, this is not a surprise that we have these relationships entrenched so strongly between us. They will continue to be the case and we have an interest obviously in the Pacific.

We do live in a region where there is strategic competition. That is well known. But the work that the Pacific Island Forum has done in emphasising that security in the Pacific is primarily the responsibility of the Pacific family is a principle that we share. And it's something that was highlighted as well with the Pacific Policing Initiative which is now in place, making sure we make a difference. In addition to that, of course, our defence cooperation. When I was in PNG, up in the north as well, there are Australian defence personnel there. We assist with training of PNG defence forces as well. Our relationship here, what this is about, is taking the relationship which is already there between our defence security relations, issues such as customs, education, on the employment level, with the workforce that come to Australia temporarily to assist on agriculture and other areas and then remunerate money back home to make a difference.

This is about, as the Prime Minister has said, very much about that, people to people relations on a regular basis, which is why it's so important. And just a shout out to the Minister for Pacific, Pat Conroy, who has developed such a strong personal relationship with countries, not just PNG, but throughout the region as well. And he deserves a lot of credit for where we've got to today.

PRIME MINISTER MARAPE: Thank you. And if I could assist in answering this question, the Bilateral Security Agreement we signed last year precedes this NRL conversation. It encompasses how our two economies, our two nations, want to have synergy.

We've seen lately emergence of, for instance, trafficking of drugs from PNG into Australia. And likewise PNG is in the heart of, we're placed in a unique place. We are joined with Indonesia by land. We are exactly north of you and buffer you into Southeast Asia and Asia. And so for Papua New Guinea to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement, it wasn't just overnight influence and something that Canberra enforced on us. Far from it. It was itself in PNG's strategy, strategic national interest to have synergy with compatible police and compatible military, so to speak. And it's strategic for us.

We make this deliberate choice to have Australia as a security partner of choice. In the first instance. That doesn't stop us from relating with any nation, especially our Asian neighbours. We relate with China, for instance, a great trading partner, a great bilateral partner. But in security, closer to home, we have the synergy and our shared territory needs to be protected, defended, policed and our own borders together, but as well as our regional borders.

And in that context we make this call and the NRL conversation fits in neatly with it. A question asked earlier. Is the player safe? Well, the player is safe when we have good rapport between our two police. And it goes beyond police to our immigration conversations, our banking relationship conversations, our economy conversations. So, no one should take offence, whether it's PNG-Australia observers or even our foreign relations elsewhere. It is something that we choose to do in our own immediate precinct interest, our two borders.

The traditional border crosses in Far North Queensland and South PNG. We need our police to be in partnership. That space is in direct interest of PNG-Australia to have the relationship signed. And it takes precedence. I share a border with Indonesia. I share a border with Australia. And the relationship I have with the security arrangements must be unique in the sense that we have the border arrangements. And I want to indicate many things that Australia is pushing this down on us. Far from it. Let me say this, it is in our interest to have a secure PNG, secure border, secure relationship. NRL team is a benefactor of the security arrangements.

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Thanks. The last question is from Carmella Gware.

JOURNALIST: My question is to the PNG Prime Minister.

PRIME MINISTER MARAPE: Why aren't you asking him? Please.

JOURNALIST: Rugby league in Papua New Guinea has been focused on our male populace. Will this historic partnership include development pathways for our young Papua New Guinean girls who are passionate about rugby league?

PRIME MINISTER MARAPE: God bless your heart. And our girls are playing now and again thankful to the Australian support. Minister Pat Conroy, I think was up there watching one of those girls' competitions and a host of at the High Commission level. When I was last in Goroka watching our junior competitions, I saw Ambassador Feakes, High Commissioner Feakes. I keep on calling you Ambassador. Are you pointing him elsewhere? But he was there running the waters and a lot of support at the ground level.

Today as I speak, over 200 girls, small girls, and I just want to indicate this to the power of rugby league. Peter, Andrew, you're not wasting effort. 10 years ago it would not have been possible to see parents allowing their girls to play. And I'm saying 10 years ago. That stereotype has been broken down. Really warm my heart to see girls playing rugby league. I personally went out there for a junior competition, hugged the girls and said, my daughters, you're doing well. It's a career option. It's a lifestyle change. It's a path for you. And so and girls are stepping up to it. Our own Government gives commitment with our chairman of our bid and NRL team as well as PNG rugby league who's here and I have a family of sponsors downstairs. They will not just be just be sponsoring the senior team, the National Rugby League team, but the entire clockwork so to speak, including our girls development path to a women's team.

This team also encompasses women rugby league team in the National Rugby League. So, both men team and women team and post 2028. Come with me, join up in the story. Trust me in this one, within 10 years time, we want to lift a trophy too. South Sydney beware.

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Indeed. Thanks very much. We'll have a crack next year before PNG get there. So, now Wayne's back, anything's possible. Thank you very much.

PRIME MINISTER MARAPE: Thank you. Thank you very much. God bless.

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