Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. How is Australia working with APEC to address key challenges in the Asia-Pacific region?

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. APEC of course is the premier regional institution for the Asia-Pacific so far as trade, investment and the economies of the Asia-Pacific are concerned. In a century where we see political, economic, strategic and security influence moving to our region, to the Asia-Pacific, with the rise of China, the rise of India and the rise of the ASEAN economies combined, this premier regional institution for trade, investment and economic matters is even more important today than it was when a previous Labor government was so instrumental in establishing its effectiveness.

Last week, the Minister for Trade and I attended the APEC ministerial meeting in Lima, Peru and in the last couple of days the Prime Minister has attended the leaders meeting. Foremost amongst the issues, of course, was the APEC follow-up to the G20 meeting insofar as trade in the context of the global financial crisis was concerned. The ministerial meeting recommended to leaders the complete and full endorsement of an adoption of the Doha Round as an absolute priority. My colleague the Minister for Trade has been speaking in very detailed terms about these matters.

I make the point, as I did to various colleagues at the APEC ministerial meeting, that Australia remains of the view that India’s omission from APEC is an ever-increasingly important oversight. Most people see the rise of China and not enough people until recently have seen the rise of India. India’s addition to APEC at the completion of the moratorium of membership in 2010 is, in Australia’s view, very important.

In addition to those APEC matters, the meeting provided the opportunity to meet bilaterally with a number of colleagues. I make the point that, given elections recently in Canada and New Zealand, I took the opportunity of meeting for the first occasion with Foreign Minister Cannon from Canada and Foreign Minister McCully from New Zealand. Australia, Canada and New Zealand have very good bilateral relationships but we also, in international institutions, combine together within the so-called CANZ group—Canada, Australia and New Zealand—and I had very productive meetings with the two foreign ministers. In addition, given changes of prime minister in Thailand and Japan recently, I had the opportunity of meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Nakasone and Thai Foreign Minister Sompong.

The APEC meeting in South America also provided the Australian government the opportunity of making the point that we very strongly believe that Australia’s engagement in South America or Latin America needs to be substantially enhanced. It has become quite clear to the government over the last 12 months that people-to-people exchanges, economic and trade exchanges, interest in educational services, interest in scientific research and technology and interest in some of our important and world-class industries like minerals, petroleum resources and wine have gotten ahead of the government-to-government relations.

We saw earlier this year Foreign Minister Amorim from Brazil come to Australia, where we agreed to adopt a plan of action to enhance our relationship with Brazil. We saw the signing earlier this year of the free trade agreement between Australia and Chile with the visit to Australia of Foreign Minister Foxley. On the way to Peru I took the opportunity of visiting Mexico City to have formal bilateral discussions for the first occasion with Mexico, with Foreign Minister Espinosa, and in Peru took the opportunity of bilateral meetings with Peru.

It is important for Australia to enhance its engagement and relationship with southern America, and Peru being the venue for APEC provided that opportunity which the government proposes to strongly pursue.