G20 Cairns: Treasurer Joe Hockey says Australia won't shut the door on Putin, Russia

Updated

As the G20 finance ministers meeting gets underway in Cairns, Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has told the world's most powerful financial leaders and central bankers he will not be closing the door on Russia.

The Cairns finance summit is seen as an important test run before world leaders gather for the G20 in Brisbane in November.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott had flagged the possibility of banning Russian leader Vladimir Putin from the talks, in the wake of the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, which killed 298 people.

But Mr Hockey, who held a press conference before the meeting got underway, said that as host of the international conference, it was not Australia's decision to exclude anyone.

"G20 is an economic forum, not a political forum," Mr Hockey told reporters.

"If one party is to be excluded for various reasons then it requires the agreement of all parties to the G20," Mr Hockey told reporters.

"They are member of the G20, we expect they will attend the G20 meetings."

Security has been tight outside the Cairns Convention Centre today.

About 700 extra police descended on the far north before the meeting, which has attracted more than 1,000 international financial leaders and guests.

Despite the raising of Australia's terror alert level from medium to high last week, police were confident they were well prepared and have extra powers within a declared area of Cairns.

Mr Hockey said there were 900 proposals on the agenda, including a push to achieve a 2 per cent economic growth target and more public and private infrastructure projects.

His focus however was to get G20 nations to sign up to an agreed global approach to combat tax avoidance and crack down on tax crimes by multinationals.

"Our government is absolutely determined that Australian tax is paid on profit earned in Australia," he said.

"Collectively we are very concerned about the ability of multinationals and high-wealth individuals to avoid or evade their tax liabilities."

Tim Costello speaks out against G20 inaction

Meanwhile, one of the country's leading campaigners for social justice, Tim Costello, has criticised the G20 for what he said was a lack of achievement.

He is the head of C20, or Civil Society 20, which was in Cairns to lobby politicians over issues including poverty and child slavery.

He said the disadvantaged has to be included in world economic growth.

"It has to be inclusive growth, if it is just growth that transfers to profits - not jobs and not including young people and women- and and it goes to the top one per cent - what good is that?" he said.

"The simplest thing they could do is unequivocally commit to transparency, who is paying text and who isn't.

"This is a threshold for the world."





Topics: government-and-politics, foreign-affairs, world-politics, intergovernmental-organisations, activism-and-lobbying, cairns-4870

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