Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, I present the committee’s report, entitled Australia’s relationship with India as an emerging world power, together with the evidence received by the committee.

Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.

This report on the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade inquiry into Australia’s relations with India as an emerging world power has been more than three years in the making. The committee initiated this report in March 2006, during the 41st Parliament, and re-adopted the terms of reference on 27 August 2008.

As a member of both the joint committee and the Australia-India Parliamentary Friendship Group, and as someone who has recently been to India, it gives me great pleasure to speak to the tabling of this report.

At the outset, I would like to acknowledge the participation of the committee members for this inquiry, including those who participated during the previous parliament, and I wish to pay tribute to the secretariat staff for their hard work in producing this report.

This report highlights the development of India into a global and regional nation of enormous significance. It details the rapid economic growth that has occurred in India over the last decade and the vast market potential of its burgeoning middle class. It acknowledges India’s success as the world’s largest democracy and as a nation with an outward-looking and resolutely independent foreign policy. It also recognises the importance of India’s very substantial military capability.

The report notes the many opportunities for further developing Australia’s cultural, strategic, defence, business and trade relationships with India in addition to canvassing some of the challenges that India faces in reaching its full economic and social potential. The report acknowledges Australia’s role in assisting the Indian government with these challenges, especially through the work of AusAID, and it acknowledges the great advantages Australia has gained in the last decade through greater engagement with India.

Unfortunately, the timing and scope of the report could not encompass the tumultuous recent events related to the attacks that have occurred on Indian students in Australia, nor could it deal with the revelations involving immigration and education agents and institutions.

However, given the importance of Australia’s cultural, strategic and trade relationships with India, as clearly set out in this report, it is heartening to see the overwhelming commitment of the Australian community at all levels to the safety and wellbeing of Indian students, visitors and migrants in our community. This commitment has been matched and reinforced by the business, trade, law enforcement, tourism and education sectors in Australia.

With the improved understanding both within and between our nations that has arisen out of these unfortunate and regrettable incidents, it is hoped that India and Australia will continue to develop and enhance an already significant bilateral relationship

During his recent visit to Australia, India’s External Affairs Minister, SM Krishna, said India attached importance to its relations with Australia and is ‘committed to further strengthening and expanding our relations to cover virtually every area of interaction’. Minister Krishna said India and Australia are looking to take relations between our countries to a ‘strategic partnership’, including a possible free trade agreement which would further boost our ties.

I note that the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Stephen Smith, will be visiting India later this year. This will be an important opportunity to reinforce the mutual commitment to this important relationship—a relationship that will be vitally important, particularly in the Indian Ocean region we share, as together we face challenges that include poverty, climate change, financial instability, regional security issues and terrorism.

Our two countries have had strong links that are both substantial and symbolic. These links are evident in the tonnage and value of our two-way trade but are perhaps strongest in the sympathies of our national characters. There is a genuine and longstanding warmth and regard felt by Australia and Australians for India and its people which I believe goes beyond the oft-cited notion of ‘cricket, curry and Commonwealth’.

Most importantly, we share a commitment to and a tradition of peaceful democratic progress towards better lives for our citizens and better conditions for all members of the global community.

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