Deputy Liberal party leader will not apologise for comment about island lost to rising sea levels, saying it was in response to Labor minister’s ‘blunder’

Julie Bishop thinks she has no cause to apologise for recent comments mocking claims that one of the Marshall Islands was already under water because her remarks were based on a “shocking blunder” by her opposite number, Tanya Plibersek.



Asked whether she would be apologising to the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands, Tony de Brum, when they encountered one another at the Paris climate conference, Bishop said she wanted to “get some facts straight” – including that she is not Plibersek’s “subeditor”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Julie Bishop says she is not Tanya Plibersek’s subeditor.

“My comments in the parliament were in response to an authorised official transcript put out by the deputy leader of the Labor party. It transpires that it contains a shocking blunder, but I relied on the transcript, an official transcript, approved and authorised by the deputy leader of the opposition,” Bishop said. “If she makes mistakes in her transcripts I am not her subeditor.”

Bishop mocked her Labor counterpart, Tanya Plibersek, in parliament last week for claiming the island of Eneko had “disappeared” due to rising sea levels when in fact it was a “beautiful and accessible beach getaway”.

“You can rent a bungalow for $50 a night. It is in good condition, we’re told. There are houses, lawns, gardens, there is a toilet block and there are picnic tables,” Bishop said.

It subsequently emerged that an ABC transcript, reissued by Plibersek, had misnamed the island, and that she had been referring to a different island, called Anebok, which had disappeared.

De Brum chided Bishop for the remarks, saying Australia still had not learned not to make jokes about low-lying islands and climate change.

“The spelling of Anebok and Eneko is very close and the Australians haven’t spoken English for years and probably don’t know how to pronounce those names properly because that is what the whole section was about,” De Brum said.

“One island has disappeared, we didn’t go to that island because it is disappeared. We went to where it used to be, took pictures and went to the other island where the press conference was broadcast from the Marshalls. So I am sure when Minister Bishop arrives tomorrow we will have a chance to sort that out.”

Bishop said she knew De Brum well and “I am sure I will see him in the course of the week.”

She does not have a bilateral meeting scheduled with De Brum, but she will chair a meeting of Pacific Island foreign ministers on Wednesday morning that he will attend.

Australia has backed the island states’ demands that the Paris agreement include a reference to the need for global warming to be limited to 1.5 degrees, in line with the latest science, as well as its overall 2 degrees goal. In fact the commitments made by all countries in Paris would result in warming of at least 2.7 degrees, if all countries do what they are promising.