Bob Carr (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister and trade minister Emerson are attending the East Asia Summit meeting in Cambodia this week. It is critical for Australia to have a seat at this table. The EAS is the only forum that brings together the leaders of South-East Asia with major powers. The summit's mandate covers economic, political and security issues in the region, and the 18 EAS countries represent 55 per cent of the world's population and around 53 per cent of global GDP.

Nine of Australia's 10 largest trading partners are in the EAS. They represent almost 70 per cent of our total trade.

Australia is a founding member of the EAS, which was established in 2005, and we led the expansion of the organisation to include the United States and Russia. That was a great Australian foreign policy goal achieved. The first meeting of the expanded EAS was in Bali last year and the US President and the Chinese Premier were at the same table with regional leaders. That underlines the importance and indeed the unique quality of this forum. That meeting had a new focus on political and security issues, as well as on other areas of economic cooperation. We expect this year's summit to consolidate the political and security agenda and to take some important steps forward on economic cooperation. There has been discussion between us and members of the forum, especially those in ASEAN, about the importance of a common ASEAN position on territorial disputes in the South China Sea. We have encouraged ASEAN members to move towards that common position, reflecting in particular an approach to the management of territorial disputes—that is, the code of conduct that governs the behaviour of— (Time expired)