Australian Embassy in Ukraine

Senator VAN: Earlier in the day—I believe it was in response to some questions from Senator Ghosh—about rent for embassies: are we paying rent still on the Ukrainian embassy in Kyiv?

Ms Adams : I will ask my OPO colleagues to help me. I know that we still have the fifth floor—the top floor in fact, unfortunately—of the Canadian embassy available for our use. Ms Pitson will correct me if I'm wrong, but we no longer have the leases on the residential accommodation.

Ms Pitson: We have an MOU arrangement with the Canadian embassy. That is still on foot.

Senator VAN: What's the annual cost of that?

Ms Pitson: I can take that on notice and come back to you over the course of the—

Senator VAN: There is a cost?

Ms Pitson: Yes. We pay a fee-for-service arrangement.

Senator VAN: That embassy has now been vacant for nearly two and a half-years. Can you tell me on notice how much was spent in that time on an empty embassy?

Ms Pitson: We can take that on notice.

Senator VAN: On 27 April the DPM was asked why the embassy hasn't been reopened. His answer was, 'We're working through the logistics and the issues of reopening an embassy in Kyiv. There's a range of issues associated with that which are being processed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.' Ms Adams, can you please highlight what that range of ongoing issues is?

Ms Adams : Yes, I can. The matter is, as was said, under consideration. I'll start by reminding you that the embassy we had set up in Kyiv was originally called a pop-up embassy. It was in response to the shooting down of the MH-17 plane, as you know. We had a budget of about $1 million a year then for that embassy. The decision was made in early 2022—obviously before I was in this position and, in fact, under a former government—to temporarily relocate out of that embassy. Of course, when you do that, you have to decommission the communication systems, the security settings and all the information and security communications systems. So one aspect of the logistics is working out how we would now, under conditions of war, re-establish those systems.

Senator VAN: But that work's being done currently?

Ms Adams : We are examining how we would go about doing it. Likewise, we would have to find residential accommodation. Given the uncertain and volatile situation and the fact that cities across Ukraine as well as energy facilities across Ukraine are constantly under attack from missiles and drones, we would have to look for residential accommodation that had access to bomb shelters and was appropriate for the vastly different circumstances that now prevail in Kyiv.

We would also need to address the need for real-time intelligence communication. Most of that communication would come through Defence channels. Australia obviously doesn't have an Australian defence presence in Ukraine. We're also not in NATO, so we're not in the NATO defence communication system. We'd have to work out how to have access to that kind of real-time information to provide as much security as would be possible. There are budgetary aspects as well. So there are many aspects that need to be sorted out to possibly allow us to be operating again—having the ambassador and the deputy operating—in Kyiv, rather than operating out of Warsaw, which is where they're primarily operating out of now.

We would also have to think about how to manage the psychosocial risks of living in a situation where air sirens can be sounded several times a week. I've read some accounts of the stress for people living there who have their nights disrupted several times a week and have to go down for several hours at a time into bomb shelters. That's not a normal work environment, needless to say, under an Australian legal framework. So the way that we adjust for that—or not even adjust. The way that we manage or try to mitigate those risks to some extent in other places is to have arrangements for spending time out of country. That obviously requires a bigger staff footprint and obviously has very significant budgetary impacts. So there are a lot of things to work through.

Senator Wong: We are all looking at the ways in which we can continue to back in Ukraine. Ms Adams has gone through some of the issues associated—an issue I appreciate that you've been very consistent in your advocacy on. From the government's perspective, there's a judgement not only—there are the judgements Ms Adams has to make about staff welfare, wellbeing and safety. There's also a judgement, in a finite budgetary context, about the things that we think and the Ukrainians think are the highest priority. We have tried to look to those sorts of issues, which is why there was priority on military assistance, for example, in the first quarter of the year—not quite quarter; first four months.

Senator VAN: Mr Cannan, you were previously Australian Ambassador to Israel, weren't you?

Mr Cannan : I was, correct.

Senator VAN: In your time there, did you ever hear rocket or missile warnings from the embassy or your residence?

Mr Cannan : Fortunately in my time, very rarely.

Senator VAN: But you did?

Mr Cannan : Less than a handful of times.

Senator VAN: But you're alright; you haven't suffered any psychosocial risks?

Mr Cannan : I think I'm alright. That's for others to judge, but I think so.

Senator Wong: That's a very risky question.

CHAIR: I tell you what: the laughter in the room is not helping.

Senator VAN: We'll leave that there. Ms Adams, I hope this work is ongoing to resolve these issues. Obviously, DFAT resolve these issues in many other places that you operate. It has been 2½ years. You are continuing to spend rent there. I think the Australian people and I know the Ukrainian people would very much welcome having the embassy back open in Kyiv.

Ms Adams : I note that it will cost significantly more to have our staff return to Kyiv than it is currently costing, the rent in Kyiv notwithstanding. It's not a money-saving option; I can tell you that. I forget the earlier point you made now—on other places. Of course, those embassies were built in a different context, if you're talking about Tel Aviv, or Baghdad, for that matter. Also, the capacity to withstand those missile attacks, as you well know, is significantly different. In fact, Ukraine itself has been saying very consistently that its current capacity to have reliable air defence is inadequate. That's one of the reasons why Australia, the US and others have focused military assistance on improving air missile defence capability. It's just the reality that the contexts are different. Our missions have been established in different ways, and the security that we have in those other missions is very expensive.

CHAIR: Last question.

Senator VAN: As I've said before—I was on the Public Works Committee, and we went through some of those requests for money for some overseas posts that needed a lot of security. None of them were in such a geopolitical and geostrategic strong point or point of conflict as Ukraine.

Ms Adams : I'm not sure that's absolutely true over time, with respect to Australia's interests. But I also repeat what I said earlier, which is that we would all—including me—prefer to have our diplomatic staff work in Kyiv. We are adequately covering our interests through the combination of having our locally engaged staff in Kyiv, our ambassador and his deputy in Warsaw and, of course, as was referenced earlier, a lot of contact with the embassy here.

Senator VAN: Okay. Thank you, Chair.