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

(—) (): I thank Senator Griff for his question. I note the senator's points; however, all of the advice to government, all of the work that we have done with counterparts in the region, and, indeed, more broadly, tells us that our strategic environment has most certainly deteriorated faster than anticipated, faster than expected. The trajectory of the strategic environment is not expected to change substantially. The decision to pursue the trilateral partnership with our oldest allies and partners, the United States and the United Kingdom, is about protecting our security and our prosperity, as all countries do. It's about making a contribution to regional stability. We will continue to work not just with those traditional partners and allies but across a whole range of relationships in the region and, again, more broadly. I've spoken about these in this chamber before. I've spoken about our engagements with ASEAN—very much focused on the ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific, at the centre of our perceptions of the Indo-Pacific. I've spoken about our relationships across the Five Eyes in terms of intelligence sharing. I've spoken about our more contemporary relationships in the Quad itself as a new, innovative and focused group of four leading democracies, addressing some of the key issues which also challenge our strategic environment, like climate change, like the vaccine challenge that we've spoken about in this chamber this week, like cyber and critical technologies—(Time expired)