No Klaus in the House as president rejects metal detector

President Václav Klaus caused a minor diplomatic incident in Australia this week after refusing to go through security at Canberra’s Parliament House. Mr Klaus had arrived for a TV interview with Australia’s ABC network – which has a studio inside the building – but promptly turned on his heels when asked to walk through a metal detector.

Václav Klaus

ABC News is Australia’s most prestigious TV channel, and its nightly 7.30 show is one of the country’s leading news and current affairs programmes. President Klaus is currently visiting Australia in a private capacity as a guest of free-market think-tank the Institute of Public Affairs. He’d just given an address to the National Press Club about climate change – something about which he is notoriously sceptical - and a number of media interviews had been lined up to discuss his unorthodox views.

Greeted by ABC producer Michelle Ainsworth, he was asked to pass through security at the entrance to Parliament House. Ms Ainsworth later told Australian media Mr Klaus had taken one look at the metal detector and said ‘I'm not going through there.' She asked a security guard if he could be spared the check, to which the guard replied –‘I don’t care who he is – everyone goes through.’

At which Mr Klaus turned on his heels and walked off, telling the stunned producer they could come and interview him at his hotel. For technical reasons, they could not. Radim Ochvat is the president’s spokesman:

Radim Ochvat

“Here in the Czech Republic and in most countries around the world, X-ray machines in state institutions are there primarily to protect heads of state and senior officials from others – not the other way round.”

An official at Parliament House, Alan Thompson, defended his security staff in an interview with Australia’s The Age newspaper, saying that everyone was asked to go through the metal detectors, with the only exception being the sitting prime minister. Special arrangements for visiting heads of state, he said, required early notification, and President Klaus – on a private, not a state or official visit - had turned up with no notice at all, he told the paper.

There’s now a lively debate both Down Under and Back Home about Mr Klaus’s conduct, with some say he was merely defending his dignity and others accusing him of being a prima donna. Ladislav Špaček, President Václav Havel’s longtime spokesman and an expert on etiquette and protocol, was one of the first to stand up for him:

“Senior officials – and especially heads of state – are never asked to go through security anywhere in the world. I was President Havel’s spokesman for eleven years. I travelled with him to 50, 60 different countries around the world. We visited dozens, maybe hundreds of presidential palaces, royal palaces, parliaments, senates, various secure buildings. We attended NATO summits, EU summits, the UN General Assembly – not once were we nor any other head of state ever asked to go through security.”

The 7.30 show, meanwhile, is not complaining – presenter Chris Uhlmann, who was left twiddling his thumbs after the presidential snub, says his programme has had more press for not interviewing the president than if the interview had gone ahead.