Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Askew very much for her question, because this government recognises that Australia's values and interests are best served by an Indo-Pacific region that is open, prosperous and inclusive, and where the rights of all states are respected. To help promote those goals, I am travelling this week to attend ASEAN related and foreign ministers' meetings in Bangkok. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has an absolutely central role in supporting a rules based regional order. It has helped to underpin regional stability and prosperity for over 50 years.

Australia is ASEAN's oldest external partner. We are celebrating 45 years of diplomatic relations, and the government remain committed to strengthening our engagement with ASEAN. Both the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN Regional Forum provide opportunities to bolster what are already strong and growing economic ties. Our two-way trade relationship with ASEAN countries last year was worth $121 billion. These are fora which present Australia with opportunities to register our views on a range of regional security and diplomatic issues, including the important denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula; stability in the South China Sea; both the regional and human rights challenges of the Rohingya crisis; and, of course, countering terrorism and violent extremism.

We warmly welcome the adoption of the ASEAN Outlook On The Indo-Pacific. It is a statement from ASEAN that sends a very powerful signal about the member countries' commitment to international rules and norms, and it strengthens ASEAN's position at the centre of the region's most important architecture. So I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to take up these meetings this week and also to meet with a number of counterparts in a bilateral context to further commit to our deepening relationships in the region.