Tony Abbott has defended the role of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance while on tour in North America, saying it should never apologise for “doing what’s necessary”, and confirmed he is hoping to meet Rupert Murdoch in New York.



The Australian leader has arrived in Canada to meet the country’s prime minister, Stephen Harper, a fellow conservative. Canada is part of the Five Eyes alliance along with Australia, England, New Zealand and the US. Abbott declared the US the “heavy lifter” of the group.

Revelations from the whistleblower Edward Snowden have raised controversy about the alliance's activities.



“Obviously we have to be intelligent about our intelligence. I mean that goes without saying, but the important thing is not to be deterred from doing what is necessary to protect our citizens, our interests and our values, and what is sometimes forgotten about the work of the Five Eyes is that it’s not just for the benefit of those five countries but it is ultimately for the benefit of the wider world,” Abbott told reporters in Ottawa when asked if Five Eyes should assess its spying practices.

He added: “Sure, our intelligence gathering has got to be done in a way that is decent and fair and which doesn’t betray the fundamental values that we are doing our best to uphold, but we should never, ever apologise for doing what’s necessary to protect ourselves and to help our friends, and that’s exactly what the Five Eyes arrangements are designed to do.”

Abbott has come under fire for not committing to meetings with the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, and the World Bank president, Jim Yong Kim, when he moves on to America, but has confirmed he is hoping to meet with Murdoch while in New York subject to their schedules.

“As I said, the program is not entirely finalised but I hope I do, because he is a very distinguished Australian and the last time I was in New York certainly I did meet with him,” Abbott said.

Asked if Murdoch was pencilled in, Abbott replied he was not going into “precise” details. He called reports about him cancelling meetings with finance chiefs “greatly exaggerated” and he was yet to finalise a schedule.

Abbott did not rule out barring Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, from the G20, to be hosted in Brisbane in November, and supported comments made by Harper calling Putin an “extreme nationalist” and an “imperialist” who was threatening global security.

“Canada probably has more involvement in the affairs of Europe than Australia often does, but nevertheless let's not minimise the affront to international stability and the affront to the ordinary norms of behaviour between nations which Russia has been responsible for. I mean it's bitten off the Crimea, it's obviously interfering in Ukraine and this should stop. This should stop. No country has a right to bully another country just because it can,” he said.

Asked if Putin could find comfort in his attendance at the G20, Abbott did not rule out excluding Putin from the meeting.

“Let's wait and see what happens in the next few months. I had the opportunity to talk to President Poroshenko of Ukraine as part of the D-Day commemoration and there were some discussions that day between President Poroshenko and Mr Putin. Let's hope that this can be the beginning of better behaviour,” he said.

“Let's hope this can be the beginning of a return to normalcy in the relationship between Ukraine and Russia.”

Abbott discussed the Syrian conflict when visiting Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and French president François Hollande on the first leg of his trip and said it was a concern to people around the world. He said there was an ongoing Islamic terror threat and Syria could escalate the threat by militarising radicals.

“I don’t say that there is any simple solution to this problem, but the vigilance that’s been maintained since 2001 needs to be increased in these circumstances and it is certainly no time to be reducing the emphasis on good intelligence, which has been a very important part of Australia’s response to the terror threat ever since then,” he said.

Abbott also declared there was no sign that emissions trading schemes were being increasingly adopted around the world, saying that they were actually being discarded. Harper campaigned in the 2006 Canadian election against an emissions trading scheme, so Abbott is in friendly company.

“I do want to stress that the argument is not about climate change, the argument is about the best means to respond to climate change and I believe that carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes are the wrong way to go,” he said.

“The right way to go is to take sensible steps to improve energy efficiency, to cultivate better soils, to plant more trees, to take the kind of direct action measures which we certainly intend to take in Australia and which increasingly are being taken right around the world, including here in North America.”