David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was a great pleasure for me to represent Australia at the 44th ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly held in Jakarta and to be accompanied and led by the member for Swan. This is a really important strategic meeting of parliamentarians, and it is coming up for its 50th anniversary. All the ASEAN members were there, but I note that Myanmar did not attend. We were welcomed by the Secretary-General of AIPA, and the President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, gave a keynote address focusing on a prosperous and stable ASEAN as a driver of global economic growth. He really focused on the power of ASEAN, as a calm middle power across the world, as a force for good. Peace, prosperity and stability are the aims of everyone in ASEAN.

I found it very interesting to have the formal dialogues as well as the informal dialogues. In Indonesia we met many very senior politicians who will be very prominent in the current election cycle. Accents were put on our comprehensive strategic partnership with ASEAN, and we also noted we give not just ASEAN nations but South-East Asian and East Asian nations aid to the tune of $1.24 billion annually. We do make, with our ASEAN-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, a contribution of $204 million and we've also been heavily involved in the Indo-Pacific endeavour since 2017.

Many people in this building don't focus as much on these really important ASEAN and Asian focused diplomatic events, but it is critical to our wellbeing that we foster deeper ties with all the ASEAN members. In meetings and in private conversations, Brunei Darussalam, Lao PDR, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam thanked us for our help for them during the COVID pandemic—with both PPE and vaccines. I would like to thank Jeff Norris and the other members of the secretariat who accompanied us and made it such a smoothly run show from our side, and I thank the Australian embassy. Congratulations to Indonesia for putting on a really good meeting.

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