Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two weeks ago I had the privilege of accompanying our Prime Minister to Singapore to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue, which is the Indo-Pacific's premier foreign affairs and defence forum. At the dialogue I participated in a range of bilateral meetings alongside Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles, and I'm appreciative of his inclusion of me in those meetings. Our Prime Minister delivered the keynote address of the dialogue, in which he asserted the agency of Australia and other smaller countries. He called for China and the United States to establish reliable and open channels of communications, or guardrails, in their vital relationship. The PM also noted that Australia's deterrence measures are aimed at preventing the outbreak of war in our region.

The PM's keynote speech, along with the presence of defence minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, was a strong signal of our government seizing this significant opportunity to set out our vision for the Indo-Pacific. We seek a region that upholds sovereignty not just for the biggest powers or the loudest voices but for every nation—a sovereignty that confers on every nation the right to determine its own destiny, to enjoy freedom of action and policy independence, to make its own choices and to speak for itself and its interests, free of external pressures or duress. Ours is a vision that sees our immediate region as the fastest-growing one in the world and in human history and one that is driving the global transition to net zero.

We are proud that, for as long as Australia has made our own foreign policy, our alliance with the United States has been central to it. At the Shangri-La Dialogue, it was great to meet with the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and I conveyed to him our pride in hosting the US Marines in Darwin. But our region is also one that celebrates the spirit of practical partnership that drives our engagement with the Pacific Islands Forum, and it was fantastic to meet with the Secretary General of the PIF, Mr Henry Puna, in Samoa last week.

Before he stood alongside President Biden and Prime Minister Sunak to announce Australia's pathway to acquiring our conventionally armed nuclear powered submarines, our Prime Minister ensured that the government spoke with every ASEAN and Pacific partner and many other nations in over 60 phone calls. That was really important to reiterate to the region and to the world that Australia remains strongly committed to our obligations under the NPT and the Treaty of Rarotonga. We have already seen the wisdom of this approach to our Pacific family in the fact that the prime ministers of Fiji and Samoa, among other Pacific leaders, have publicly expressed their understanding of Australia's AUKUS pathway.

As mentioned, I was delighted to visit Samoa as well as New Zealand last week as head of a Standing Committee on Regional Development, Infrastructure and Transport delegation to our region. New Zealand is a natural ally of Australia, with a strong trans-Tasman and Anzac sense of family. While there, I had the pleasure of meeting members of their transport committee, the Speaker of their House of Representatives and other parliamentarians and stakeholders, including a very important stakeholder, the Prime Minister of Fiji. Samoa is another like-minded country and an important member of our Pacific family. While in Samoa last week I met, among others, the Prime Minister of Samoa, the Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, MPs from across the parliament, and officials from the Ministry of Works, Transport and Infrastructure. Both legs of this visit into the Pacific enabled the committee to compare experiences with our near neighbours on the post-disaster reconstruction of roads and critical infrastructure. I thank the DFAT staff in Singapore, in New Zealand and in Samoa for their professional assistance.

House adjourned at 20:00