Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

As Senator Wong said in her contribution on this condolence motion, Mr Abe's untimely death created deep shock right around Australia. It was one of those events I think that all Australians' attention was grabbed by. That was of course partly due to the shocking nature of Mr Abe's death—something that should never happen in any society. It was partly due to Mr Abe's genuine stature as a real national leader, and I think it was also partly due to the deep, long-term, sustained relationship between our two countries. That's what I want to focus my brief remarks on in this condolence motion, especially in relation to the portfolio I have the great privilege now of representing—the portfolio of agriculture.

Australia's agriculture relationship with Japan is one of our strongest and most highly developed in the Indo-Pacific region. Our trade with Japan in agriculture is extremely strong. In fact, Japan is our biggest market for beef and cheese, and our farmers are strongly committed to supplying to Japan and want to maintain and increase market share. We have deep and longstanding ties in agriculture. Japan is one of Australia's largest and most valued trading partners, as it has been for more than five decades. This relationship has underpinned the broader relationship between our two countries, as is evident in trade more generally, in national security and in people-to-people links. The reason that I mention that in this condolence motion is Prime Minister Abe's integral role in forging and strengthening those links.

Prime Minister Abe, as has been noted by a number of speakers, was a true friend to Australia. Under his prime ministership, our bilateral relationship was upgraded to a special strategic partnership in 2014. By 2015, we had signed the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, or JAEPA, which underpins our economic relationship and supports our broader cooperation on economic security and the prosperity of the Indo-Pacific.

Prime Minister Abe was a reformer, and he had a vision for the Japanese economy. As has been noted, he was known for his signature 'Abenomics' policy, which included agricultural reforms in which his government made small but important reforms to the Japanese agriculture sector, focusing on competitiveness and exports.

We share similar goals to Japan in growing our agriculture industries. Japan is looking to grow agriculture exports in the same way that our agriculture industry wants to expand its farm-gate returns. Again, Mr Abe can take credit for the fact that, bilaterally, we continue to increase our cooperation on food value chains and to collaborate with Japan on activities that strengthen global agriculture supply chains. Multilaterally, Japan has been a like-minded partner in many forums, including the G20, APEC and the UN, as well as a leading proponent of trade agreements, including the CPTPP. Again, Mr Abe can take personal credit for much of that.

The other reason I wanted to speak in this motion is that, apart from my role as the new agriculture minister for our country, I wanted to speak on a personal level as someone who's had a long-term interest in and friendship with Japan. I studied Japanese at school a very long time ago, or, should I say [Japanese language not transcribed]. There's not much more to my Japanese knowledge that I've recalled from my school days. But I was reflecting on this in preparing these notes, and I remembered that the reason that, more than any, I studied Japanese, of all the languages that were on offer at my school, was that, at that point in time, the mid-1980s, when I was starting high school, Australia was really coming to understand exactly how important Japan was to our future, and there was a really big push for students in high schools to study Japanese. It was something that I really enjoyed. I might say, it was one of my better subjects at school, because I did really enjoy it. It really gave me a deep interest in Japan, its history, its culture and its relationship to our own country.

I also had the privilege of visiting Japan as part of a delegation of federal and state aspiring politicians, shortly before I started in this place. I was accompanied on that delegation by Senators Dean Smith and Bridget McKenzie, which is probably the reason that, despite our political differences and our tendency to trade blows, we're actually pretty good mates. I put it down to that delegation that we undertook to Japan along with a number of other MPs. That visit confirmed to me, through the meetings that we had with government industry and other officials in Japan, the enduring strength of our two countries' relationship.

Mr Abe's untimely death is an extremely sad blow to the Japanese people. We grieve with them, and I sincerely pass on my condolences to Mr Abe's family, his friends and the Japanese people at large. In closing, I might just say, kono tabi wa okuyami moshi agemasu.