Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. In the coming days I will be travelling to Brussels to participate in the Asia Europe Meeting. This is a forum that has been meeting since 1966. It is the eighth such meeting but it is the first time that Australia has been able to participate in this meeting. I think it is good news that Australia will have a seat at the table as leaders from Asia and Europe meet. At these discussions I will seek to pursue discussions that relate to Australia’s security and prosperity.

On the question of security, I will be taking the opportunity to discuss our continued cooperation with NATO partners on Afghanistan. On the question of prosperity, obviously this is one of the international meetings at which, as a nation, we pursue dialogue with the world about recovery from the global financial crisis. This is another opportunity to talk through the economic issues that the globe has faced, and continues to face, from that event, which of course triggered a global recession—the biggest synchronised economic downturn we have seen since the Great Depression.

At the time that the global financial crisis started there were great fears that this would lead to a new round of protectionism—that under pressure people would turn inward and that under pressure people would demand of their leaders and of their governments a return to protectionism. I think we should be congratulating ourselves and, indeed, the reactions of leaders around the world that those grim fears about a wide-scale return to protectionism have not been realised. Australia has played its part in world economic forums, including the G20, in making sure that the world did not close down, the world did not move back to protectionism and the world did not turn its face away from free trade. That is vital for our economic security because, put as simply as possible, trade equals jobs in this great trading nation of ours.

So at this international meeting I will of course be pursuing the trade and global economic agenda, understanding that we in this country are able to make our way in a competitive world and we are able to hold our heads up on the world stage when it comes to these economic questions. I will be able to say that we as a nation worked together to see the challenges of the global financial crisis and to rise to meet those challenges. We met them through the provision of economic stimulus, we met them through employers and employees working together to make sure that jobs continued to be there for Australians and, as a result, we are emerging from the global financial downturn stronger than any other major advanced economy in the world, well positioned for the growth of the future and well positioned as a great trading nation to make sure that through trade we continue to increase jobs.

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