Michael Johnson (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak on this important motion in the House of Representatives and to commend the motion by my senior colleague the deputy leader of the parliamentary party. The government’s failure to properly manage Australia’s foreign relations is a very important topic because in today’s world it has all kinds of implications. It is not just an issue of hardcore security but it affects softcore security as well. It has enormous implications for social and economic prosperity in our country, so it is absolutely incumbent upon Australians, Australia’s Prime Minister and the Australian government to manage our relationships with all the key countries of the world, and indeed those nations in our part of the world, with great care and diligence.

My view on the role of the Prime Minister and an Australian government is that their absolute first priority is the defence and national security of the country. The first obligation of any Prime Minister and any Australian government must surely be to ensure the security of their country. For me, and I suspect for all the constituents of Ryan that I represent and the overwhelming majority of people in this country, that must also extend to the protection of our national borders. Clearly in the last week in particular, but also in the preceding weeks, the integrity of border protection policy has come to the fore.

I will also put forward what I think is the second most important view of a Prime Minister of this country and his or her government: that must be to promote, facilitate and strengthen the international relations of this country. Clearly, the Asia-Pacific region is of fundamental importance. To use the words of a former Labor Prime Minister, our security does lie in Asia. Absolutely it does and there is no doubt about that. Equally, of course, we cannot disentangle or disconnect ourselves from the critical importance of the United States to Australia. We have longstanding historical and cultural ties with the US, which is a nation that will always be dear to our hearts—indeed, so dear to me that I married an American, and a very fine lady she is too. That is how much I think of Americans.

This motion that the Deputy Leader has put up is critical, because it asks Australians to question the quality of leadership of the Australian Prime Minister and the Australian government. I want to raise this in relation to three countries in particular. It might be said that the government’s failure to manage Australia’s relationships with these countries is glaring. It is inconsistent, it is counterproductive and it is highly politically driven; absolutely so, in my view.

I have a passion for international relations. It is something I have a particular affection for, having had the great pleasure and great privilege of studying foreign affairs at Cambridge University. For me, ‘inconsistent’, ‘counterproductive’ and ‘politically driven’ are tags for this government’s management of our foreign relations. Let me take the case of Indonesia, because it is very pertinent at the moment. Indonesia, measured in purchasing power parities, rates as the 16th largest economy in the world, at $910 billion. Its GDP is actually greater than Australia’s. The United States stands at $14.4 trillion, China at $7 trillion, followed by Japan, India and then Germany. From the Parliamentary Library’s research, on 2009 figures measured in US dollars, Indonesia’s purchasing power parity is $910 billion. Australia, at No. 18, follows Indonesia at $799 billion. This is a country of enormous significance to us. This is a country of some 231.5 million people. We all know it is the largest Muslim democracy in the world. Australians might not know that the capital city, Jakarta, is the 14th largest city in the world. In mid-2007 it had a population of 15.1 million people. Our country’s population in 2007 was 21 million people.

This nation of Indonesia, with its 13,600 islands that make it a sovereign nation, is one which is absolutely fundamental for the Australian government and the Australian Prime Minister to have very warm ties with. I commend former Prime Minister Howard for the way in which he embraced Indonesia, and President Yudhoyono for the way in which he absolutely put our relationship front and centre. Yet of course we know now what Prime Minister Rudd thinks of Indonesia and how he handles it. My understanding is that Indonesia is very unhappy with Mr Rudd, because there was a leaking of a private conversation between the Australian Prime Minister and President Yudhoyono over the fate of asylum seekers and the Deputy Leader, the member for Curtin, alluded to how it seems somewhat interesting that the Prime Minister has a tendency to reveal private conversations with leaders of other countries. I think it is untenable that the integrity of the leader of our country could be put in question by the leaking of conversations with other world leaders. That is just unacceptable.

Indonesia is critical. We have seen in recent days how the management of our relationship with Indonesia has just been torn to pieces, with the news that President Yudhoyono is actually not coming to Australia this week. That is terrible because it has been some time since he has come here. The last visit was in 2005, during the Howard government. For a nation of this significance the postponing of such a visit is not a slap in the face to this country or to the Prime Minister; it is more like a punch in the head. It shows a lack of respect for the Prime Minister. As an Australian citizen—let alone as the member for Ryan, a member of this parliament—I feel terribly disappointed that President Yudhoyono would have such a lack of respect for my Prime Minister that he would postpone an important bilateral visit. In fact, I would like to ask the Prime Minister when he actually knew the Indonesian President was not coming to Australia. When was the Australian government told that he would not be coming here? It was only revealed very recently that he was not coming. That was a great disappointment.

With border protection, we have all these boats coming here, we have all these asylum seekers coming here, and some 50 boats have arrived since Mr Rudd and Labor decided to weaken the coalition’s legislation. We cannot have a situation in this country where people can just hop on a boat and come to this country and hold hostage the policies of the country. That is just unacceptable and a terribly poor way to formulate immigration and foreign policies. In fact, I touched on this issue in my maiden speech in 2002. I talked about how important it was for this country to be generous and tolerant but to never compromise border security and the domestic security of this country.

I regret very much that my time is fast running away, so let me touch very quickly on India, another incredibly important country in our part of the world. Mr Rudd was in India last week and I have gone through all the press releases and his speeches and local papers and nowhere do I see any commentary about Australia selling uranium to India—probably the greatest thing we could do to strengthen and enhance our relationship with India. This is a country of some 1.1 billion people, a country that in a few years time will be the largest nation on earth, in terms of its population.

We could do so much for our bilateral ties with India if we sold our uranium to India. After all, we are happy to sell it to Russia and we are happy to sell it to China, and now Canada is selling uranium to India. But, no, Australia cannot do that. Yet former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr and Paul Howes, the Secretary of the AWU, say let’s sell our uranium to India. Mongolia is selling its uranium to India. But, no, we must not do that. Why is this politically driven? It is politically driven because the Australian Labor Party says, ‘No, we must not sell our uranium to India but we will sell it to Russia; we will sell it to China. There are no problems there.’

This is the inconsistency. This is how counterproductive it is. Imagine the jobs. Imagine the strength of our economy. Imagine all the flow-ons of that, the billions. Which hospital in this country would not take some proceeds of that? Which road? Certainly the roads in the Ryan electorate would take some of that cash from selling our uranium to India. I could go on, because this is an issue of great passion for me. I say to Mr Rudd and to his colleagues, let us sell our uranium to India. Let us do what John Howard did. We can sell our uranium to India. It would be good for Australia. (Time expired)

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