(Transcript from SBS World News Radio)
We want them home, but first we have to get them out - those were the words of Prime Minister Tony Abbott, speaking today about the difficulties in retrieving the bodies of Australians killed in the Malaysia Airlines crash in Ukraine.
Pro-Russian separatists have removed many of the 298 victims, taking their remains to refrigerated train compartments fifteen kilometres away and guarding them.
And while access to crash site has improved today, Tony Abbott says it's still nowhere good enough.
Christine Heard reports.
(Click on the audio tab above to hear the full report)
Limited access to a contaminated site, where bodies have been moved and belongings stolen.
The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, is appalled.
"This is still an absolutely shambolic situation. It is an absolutely shambolic situation. It does look more like a garden clean-up than a forensic investigation."
Mr Abbott has spoken to leaders of The Netherlands, Ukraine, Malaysia, Great Britain, France, Germany and the United States.
And their resolve, he says, is strengthening.
"It's a firmer and sterner mood than it was. And frankly it's firmer and sterner as it should be as more and more facts emerge about this terrible, terrible event."
The Washington Post has reported that three anti-aircraft missile systems were moved from eastern Ukraine to Russia less than 12 hours after the crash.
To the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, that's just one more piece of evidence in a damning brief.
"We picked up the imagery of this launch. We know the trajectory. We know where it came from. We know the timing. And it was exactly at the time that this aircraft disappeared from the radar. So there's a stacking up of evidence which Russia needs to help account for."
Tony Abbott spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin last night.
He won't reveal details of the conversation but says the President did say all the right things.
"I want to stress that what he said was fine. The challenge now is to hold the Presiden to his word. That's certainly my intention and should be the intention of the family of nations to hold the President to his word."
President Putin's office did release details of the conversation - including a claim that both sides agreed to avoid politicised statements.
Australia's Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, in New York to shore up support for a United Nations Security Council resolution for an independent investigation, got political.
"I say to the separatists and to the Russian government that backs them, that there are 298 bodies on that site. Their families, their loved ones want them home now. This is not a time to use bodies as hostages or pawns in a Ukrainian-Russian conflict."
Minister Bishop is in New York to shore up support for a United Nations Security Council resolution for an independent investigation.
If Russia vetos the resolution, the EU says it will impose further sanctions.
But even if it supports it, is there enough wreckage left to determine the cause of the crash?
"The advice I have is that access to the site and forensic access to significant amounts of the wreckage is likely to give us a very clear idea of what precisely downed the aircraft."
Australia is hoping for a vote on the UN resolution as early as tonight.
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