Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Members will appreciate that we serve in this place in historic times. Australia currently faces the most complex, most challenging and most consequential strategic circumstances in living memory, and the Australian public look to us for cool heads and calm leadership in this time. Our region, the Indo-Pacific, is currently being reshaped by a series of fundamental dynamics of change: climate change, demographic change, technological disruption and intensifying strategic competition. They're all reshaping our region. Military power is expanding, but the means to constrain conflict are not. The rules and norms that have underwritten our regional security are coming under increasing pressure. The way that all of these changes will unfold will have vital implications for Australia's prosperity, for our security and for our very way of life.

In these circumstances of change, Australia cannot afford to be a mere spectator. We know that we need to influence these dynamics of change in Australia's national interests. We want to build a region that's peaceful, prosperous and secure; a region that's governed by rules, norms and international law; and a region where there's a strategic balance that ensures that countries are free to make their own choices, where no country dominates and no country is dominated. We've said that we'll use all the tools of statecraft to pursue these objectives: diplomatic, defence, development, soft power—every source of national power at our disposal. But we can't do it alone. We need to work with our key allies to pursue these goals. For a country like Australia, isolation is impotence.

So our relationships with our key allies matter now more than ever before, and, since the last election, the Albanese government has worked tirelessly to strengthen our relationships with our allies, to deepen our engagement with our partners and to repair our relationships and restore trust in the Pacific. We've done this because we know that, in complex, challenging and consequential times, our relationships matter. Our relationship with the United States is our most important in this respect

Overnight, the United States resoundingly elected President Donald Trump as their President, and the Australian government congratulates President Trump on his election. Prime Minister Albanese has already spoken to President Trump and reiterated that Australia will work closely with the new Trump administration to realise the benefits of our strong economic partnership. We look forward to working with President Trump in the interests of both of our nations. The United States has long played a leadership role in the stability and security of the Indo-Pacific, and Australia will strive to strengthen cooperation between our two nations in the region.

As the foreign minister said in Senate estimates today, the Australian government has been working to ensure that we were ready for whatever the American people decided in this election. Our preparations included engagement with many key Republicans by the Prime Minister, the defence minister, the foreign minister and our embassy in Washington.

I might just add, on the back of the contribution from the Manager of Opposition Business, that former prime minister Rudd, our ambassador to the United States, is a highly effective ambassador. He's recognised across the Australian parliament as doing an excellent job advancing Australia's interests in the United States. Indeed, he has already met with two-thirds of all senators. As a former prime minister, he's an experienced statesman. He's a China expert. Leaders around the world seek out his advice, and that's true in Washington too.

I just want to share a couple of quotes in this respect. Joe Hockey, another former ambassador, has said with respect to Mr Rudd's work:

… it doesn't matter whether you are Liberal, Labor, Green, whatever. Australia first.

Dennis Richardson, another former ambassador, has said previously:

Those who pursue this matter will be doing so for political reasons, divorced from the national interest.

That's what we've just seen here today.

The Labor Party is proud of our legacy in our relationship with the United States, the legacy of our great wartime leader John Curtin turning to America and laying the foundations for our most important security relationship, the ANZUS alliance. It's a relationship that has endured across generations and across changes of government in both countries. It's a relationship that is being strengthened through the AUKUS agreement. Through AUKUS, Australia is playing its part in working to maintain the conditions for peace in our region. Through AUKUS and other significant and transparent investments in our defence industry and military capabilities, Australia is building our capability as a reliable security partner for the region and contributing to the collective deterrence of aggression and coercion in the Indo-Pacific. This is in the strategic interests of Australia, the US and the UK.

Partnership is at the heart of AUKUS. Members on both sides of the House know well that AUKUS is structurally embedded across both sides of politics in the US. As the Deputy Prime Minister has said, we have a voting record that we can look to in this regard. Democrats and Republicans, including Trump Republicans, voted in support of AUKUS-enabling legislation in the US Congress at the end of last year, and support for AUKUS is embedded in the US. It stretches across the political spectrum. The AUKUS caucus in the US Congress is vibrant and full of advocates for the agreement and friends of Australia. The US election has no more changed support for AUKUS in the US than the Australian election changed support for AUKUS in Australia. Our relationship with the US goes far beyond AUKUS, though, of course. In the Quad, Australia works closely with the United States alongside two other key partners for Australia who have also had elections this year—India and Japan.

The government was pleased to welcome India's external affairs minister, Dr Jaishankar, back to Australia and our parliament house just this week. Australia is one of Dr Jaishankar's most visited countries, a reflection of a relationship that has gone from strength to strength under our government. Australia and India are close economic partners with strong and growing economic and community ties. Under our government, India has become a top-tier security partner, and we are progressing the interoperability of our air and naval assets in an unprecedented manner. We now are a regular participant with India, Japan and the United States in Exercise Malabar. Prime Minister Albanese was even invited onto the INS Vikrant, India's new locally built aircraft carrier. DPM Marles was invited to fly with the Indian Navy from Goa to Delhi on a P-8I flight. Our comprehensive strategic partnership is supporting an extraordinary tempo of engagement between our countries.

Our relationship with another Quad partner, Japan, has never been closer and never been more important. Our special strategic partnership is underpinned by our significant trade, investment, defence and security ties and a deep affinity between our peoples. Japan is an indispensable partner in shaping a region that's peaceful, stable and prosperous. Our joint declaration on security cooperation, the entry into force of the reciprocal access agreement and announcements around further cooperation with NATO and the United States at the 11th Australia-Japan 2+2 all send clear messages to the region about our close alignment and contribution to security and stability.

In South-East Asia, we have built on the extraordinarily successful ASEAN-Australia Special Summit in Melbourne of this year by continuing to implement the South-East Asia economic strategy by establishing the ASEAN-Australia Centre, with an investment financing facility up and running and the development of a pipeline of projects to boost Australian investment into South-East Asia.

Earlier this year, Indonesia held the largest single-day election anywhere in the world, and the people of Indonesia chose President Prabowo as their leader, a good friend of Australia. We've taken that relationship to a new level, signing the groundbreaking Australia-Indonesia Defence Cooperation Agreement earlier this year.

In the Pacific, we've been repairing relationships and restoring trust. Unfortunately, the opportunity to be the only partner in the Pacific was lost to us over the previous decade, but we're now working to become the partner of choice again. We're investing more than ever in the Pacific. We're working hard to be the partner of choice on security and economic matters in the region.

The Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union treaty has now entered into force, and it represents a momentous step in the elevated partnership between our two countries. The Falepili union puts into place transformational arrangements to safeguard the future of Tuvalu and advance our shared interests in a peaceful, safe and prosperous Pacific. Tuvalu and Australia recognise that our interests and futures are intertwined and that our security and sovereignty are best assured by acting together.

The Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs were in Samoa last month for CHOGM. It was the Prime Minister's seventh visit to the Pacific as Prime Minister and his first visit to Samoa. We saw then the Pacific Policing Initiative on display at CHOGM with an 11-country police deployment—a Pacific led, Australia backed initiative endorsed by Pacific leaders in Tonga in August.

We have come a very long way in our relationships with key partners in the Pacific, vital relationships for the future prosperity and security of both Australia and the Pacific family. We've worked on rebuilding trust and rebuilding these relationships. That all happened after the last election and the election of the Albanese government. Since the election of the Albanese government, we've seen elections in most of our ally and key partner countries around the world. Some have seen changes in government; some haven't. What hasn't changed is this government's commitment to working with our allies and key partners in challenging and consequential times—working together to shape a region that we want to live in. That is a region that's peaceful, prosperous and secure, a region governed by rules, norms and international law, a region where no country dominates and no country is dominated. It's in our national interests to do so, and we'll continue to do it.

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