Mr DOWNER (Minister for Foreign Affairs) —In a sense, I think I have already answered that question. My point is that I did not say last Thursday—and I do not say it now—that we never issue general travel advisories; I say that we do have general travel advisories. I would have to check this, but I think some were probably issued in the time of the previous government as well. Obviously, we continue to monitor the situation very closely. The particular pieces of new information I can think of at the moment relate to two factors that have come from Indonesia, as well as very general but very serious information that comes from the Middle East. In relation to Indonesia, there was at one stage some information which we publicised and which we talked about—even in question time, if my memory serves me well—in relation to the possibility of sweeping operations by an Islamic extremist group in Indonesia which has made those sorts of statements from time to time. More generally, as the House knows, there has been the information in relation to a possible terrorist attack in Surabaya. In that particular case, we issued a very specific press release last Saturday.

In addition to that, it is very important to follow the evolution of the individual country travel advisories in relation to the Middle East. They have been reissued many times—over 20 times in the last few weeks, from memory. Naturally enough, we are very concerned about possible terrorist threats in the Middle East region, and it has been important to highlight that. So the general travel advisory, as I explained, does exist, and I did not say that it did not exist. It does exist, and we just endeavour to get the balance right there. It obviously does take into account specific warnings we have in particular parts of the world, but we do try to get the balance precisely right.