RSS FeedAustralia’s New Approach to the Pacific
7 August, 2008, Australian Institute for International Affairs, Melbourne
Introduction
Mr Clive Hildebrand (National President), thank you for that welcome.
Thank you too for giving me the opportunity to speak to your members today about the Australian Government’s new approach to international relations and in particular the Government’s new approach to Australia’s relations with the countries of our Pacific neighbourhood and our broader Asian region.
The Australian Institute of International Affairs has a long and distinguished record of encouraging informed debate about our country’s foreign policy.
I’m pleased to contribute to that debate, particularly in relation to the Government’s ambitious and co-operative new approach to our Pacific neighbours.
Australia has an abiding interest in helping Pacific nations secure a better future for themselves and for the region as a whole.
To help bring that about, we have brought a different approach to our neighbours: an approach based on mutual respect and mutual responsibility.
This new tone and this new spirit of cooperative engagement are elements of a wider ambition to play a more active and responsible role in our region and the global community.
The Government’s foreign policy approach
The new Australian Government came to office determined to make a difference as a good international citizen, determined to embark on a foreign policy shaped by, and reflecting, our democratic values, our respect for the rule of law both domestic and international, our tolerance and our deep-seated belief in others getting a fair go.
We have three pillars of foreign policy to guide Australia’s relationship with the international community.
One pillar is our commitment to Australia’s Alliance with the United States.
This Alliance remains the fundamental and indispensable bedrock of Australia’s security, strategic and defence arrangements.
Continued active engagement by the United States in the Asia-Pacific is essential to the peace, stability and prosperity of our region.
Our close Alliance endures and flourishes because it is based on shared values and interests, a common democratic heritage, and a genuine commitment to work together to address the difficult strategic issues of the day.
Secretary Rice remarked during her visit to Perth two weeks ago that "there is no better friend for the United States than Australia".
Secretary Rice's visit was both a celebration and a reaffirmation of the value of the Alliance and of the commitment that Australia and the United States share to deepening and strengthening it.
Our commitment to the Alliance transcends political boundaries – Labor, Liberal, Republican and Democrat - and will endure no matter what the outcome of the forthcoming US Presidential election.
A second foreign policy pillar is our re-engagement with the United Nations and other multilateral organisations.
The Australian Government does not view the United Nations and its agencies as peripheral to Australia’s national interests.
Australia’s approach is to ensure we are active within the United Nations.
It is counterproductive and wrong to simply criticise the United Nations from the sidelines. There is no point just standing outside throwing rocks at the building.
The Government’s approach reflects the growing realisation that there are a number of issues, foremost of which is climate change, that Australia can only address in concert with the international community. There is equal futility in not acting or acting alone.
For too long Australia has been too quiet and too inactive in the major councils of the world.
We have a strong wish to see Australia speak and act on the world stage as a good international citizen.
Our first act as a Government was the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. Since then, Australia has played, and will continue to play, a leading and constructive role in international climate change negotiations.
The challenge of nuclear proliferation is another issue which can only be addressed through effective multilateral action.
That’s why Australia will convene an International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, to be co-chaired by Gareth Evans.
The Commission will aim to shape a global consensus in the lead up to the 2010 review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Its objective is to reinvigorate the global effort against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to seek a recommitment to the ultimate goal of a nuclear weapons-free world.
The Government is very encouraged by the reaction we have received to date from both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons States.
On peace and security, the Security Council is at the heart of the United Nations’ response to such pressing issues.
Just as Australia has in the past contributed directly to the Security Council’s work, we believe Australia should be prepared do so again.
It’s for this reason that Australia is seeking election to the United Nations Security Council in 2013‑14.
Our commitment to being a good international citizen is also reflected in our determination to make better use of our considerable prosperity to help those less fortunate than ourselves.
Guided by our commitment to the realisation of the Millennium Development Goals, we have pledged to increase our Overseas Development Assistance from 0.3 to 0.5 per cent of gross national income (GNI) by 2015.
This reverses a trend which for most of the last decade saw Australia’s commitment to Overseas Development Assistance going backwards.
The Australian Government is also determined to play its part in addressing the misery and instability being caused by steeply rising world food prices.
In May, I announced an additional $30 million contribution to the World Food Programme to help meet immediate humanitarian needs associated with high food prices.
At the G8 Summit last month, the Prime Minister announced a further additional contribution of $50 million to a new World Bank trust fund, to stimulate agricultural production in developing countries suffering the adverse effects of increases in food prices.
To complement these initial responses the Australian Government, through AusAID, the Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR), the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry is developing a comprehensive long-term plan to address food security.
This will include initiatives to increase production by providing much needed seeds and fertilisers to poor farmers and to increase agricultural productivity through agricultural and scientific research - an area in which Australia leads the world through ACIAR.
Despite recent setbacks, the Government remains committed to global trade reform as a vital element in addressing the food crisis.
The Asia-Pacific region
The third pillar of our foreign policy, and the one I’ll focus on today, is comprehensive engagement with Asia and the Pacific.
The global centre of gravity for economic and strategic influence is shifting undeniably towards the Asia-Pacific region.
In 2007, over A$200 billion, or nearly two thirds of our merchandise trade, was with Asia.
China and India’s rapid economic growth has led to forecasts that by 2020 Asia will account for around 45 per cent of global GDP, one-third of global trade, and more than half of the increase in global energy consumption.
The tremendous growth in our region drives Australia’s own economic prosperity.
Rapid economic and demographic development is mirrored by the region’s increasing strategic importance. And with this has come growing global political influence.
Against this backdrop we must focus on the implications for Australia’s strategic interests and position ourselves to help shape the way our region evolves.
Our bilateral relationships in the region are, of course, the building blocks of our regional diplomacy.
The Government from the Prime Minister down has from the outset embarked on an energetic program of bilateral visits to demonstrate how seriously we take these relationships.
Regionally, our efforts are centered on the institutions that matter most to us – ASEAN and its related fora, the East Asia Summit, and the ASEAN Regional Forum, as well as APEC.
Last month, I travelled to Singapore to take part in the annual series of ASEAN-related meetings. These meetings reinforced Australia’s positive and constructive engagement with ASEAN, including in the areas of education and development assistance.
I also held numerous bilateral meetings with my regional counterparts and emphasised Australia’s intention to build on our key relationships in the region.
ASEAN countries expressed considerable support for Australia’s strong engagement in the region. I was pleased to note support within the grouping for the early conclusion of a Free Trade Agreement between ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand.
This will improve flows of goods and service between Australia and a region forecast to reach an aggregate GDP of almost US$1.5 trillion this year.
In recognition of the importance of our links with ASEAN across many fields I announced in Singapore that Australia will appoint an Ambassador to ASEAN to further our relationship.
APEC is the other regional grouping we consider vitally important. I’m proud of Australia’s role in forming that grouping in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Since that time, APEC has played a vital role in promoting trade and investment liberalisation and business facilitation. It is now engaging on the challenge of structural reform behind borders.
APEC reinforces the United States’ engagement in our region, something Australia regards as essential.
Each of these regional fora makes a unique and positive contribution to regional relations and regional cooperation. But in this rapidly changing region we need to think about how to best develop our cooperative arrangements into the future.
This is why the Prime Minister recently launched an initiative to engage our neighbours in considering how the Asia Pacific regional architecture might evolve to meet future strategic, security, economic and political challenges and opportunities.
It makes sense to address this issue through a discussion with our friends in the region, to ensure Australia is involved in influencing and shaping the future regional architecture.
Australia will now have the opportunity to engage even more deeply with the region following the invitation we have this week received to participate as an Observer to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
The member countries of SAARC are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Current Observers to SAARC are China, the European Union, Iran, Japan, Mauritius, South Korea and the United States.
The invitation recognises Australia’s potential for strong relationships in the South Asian region.
Observer status at South Asia’s premier regional body will enable Australia to annually engage South Asian Governments at the highest levels.
The Pacific: A different approach
I’ve spoken about Australia’s broad approach to the countries of our Asian neighbourhood. Let me now deal with our relations with our Pacific Island neighbours.
As friends and neighbours we confront many of the same problems. The Government is determined to engage our Pacific neighbours in a conversation as equals, to work collaboratively to realise shared economic and social aspirations.
In any conversation, the tone you adopt can matter as much as the substance of your discussion. The tone of exchanges with our friends in the Pacific certainly needed changing when we came to office.
We committed ourselves from the outset to change. Progress and reform are far more likely to be achieved through a respecting and respectful relationship.
The change has been evident in the personal commitment that the Prime Minister and Ministers have shown in making it a priority to visit our close Pacific neighbours, including New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Samoa, Kiribati, Tonga and Fiji.
These visits – and reciprocal visits by Pacific leaders to Canberra – highlight the priority afforded to Australia’s investment in the high-level personal relations that underpin our Pacific bilateral relationships.
As does our decision to appoint Duncan Kerr as Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs and Bob McMullan as Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance, who will play a major role in advancing Australia’s Pacific Partnerships for development.
In April, the largest-ever Australian Ministerial Delegation attended the Australia/PNG Ministerial Forum in Madang.
I’ve only recently returned from my second visit to the Solomon Islands and my first to Fiji.
It is of significance that both of these visits were under the auspices of the Pacific Islands Forum and involved Foreign Ministers from across the region. Ministers from Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Samoa, Tuvalu, New Zealand, Niue and Australia have been nominated to represent all of the nations of the Forum in discussions on two of the region’s most pressing issues.
These approaches show how regional partnerships based on equality of membership and mutual respect can be used to effectively address serious challenges faced by all the countries of the Pacific.
Mutual respect, mutual responsibility and mutual commitment to building a better future for the Pacific is what underpins our Pacific Partnerships for Development, which were at the heart of the Prime Minister’s Port Moresby Declaration on 6 March.
When you recognise that nations are ultimately responsible for their own development, and respect – as we do – our Pacific neighbours and their national leadership responsibilities, you can’t be prescriptive about defining for them their issues and priorities.
You have to pay close attention to each country’s political, social and economic conditions.
In this process, you need a policy framework that goes beyond treating everyone the same.
That’s what our Pacific Partnerships are designed to be.
We have already had very productive, practical discussions at officials’ level with the governments of Samoa and Papua New Guinea about their respective priorities for Partnership frameworks.
I'm confident we'll soon see equally good outcomes in our talks with other neighbours, commencing with talks over coming months with Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Vanuatu, Nauru and Tonga.
We want to establish a series of Pacific Partnerships to support our neighbours meeting their Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
Pacific Partnerships will assist them to strengthen the economic performance and governance frameworks they need to achieve this.
Through these Partnerships, Australia will make available increased development assistance to assist partners who share these ambitions.
We’ll commit jointly to improvements across the spectrum of priority areas, public infrastructure, governance, economic growth, education, health and public sector and public institutions capacity building.
In helping to address these immediate needs, we aim to build on individual countries’ own development strategies and their commitments to progress and reform. This is essential in promoting higher growth and more effective delivery of basic services.
To do all this, we need to go beyond traditional modes of development assistance.
We need to widen our discussion to involve trade and economic cooperation, as well as policy and political dialogue to strengthen a shared sense of mutual responsibility and obligation.
In pursuing the goal of a stable and more prosperous region, we are working even more closely with New Zealand.
As well we will coordinate closely with Japan, the United States and the European Union, and with leading international financial institutions such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
And we will also seek to engage new and emerging donors on playing a positive and constructive role in the region.
Constructive regionalism
Australia is committed to close, strong relationships with the Pacific Islands Forum and other regional institutions.
We look forward to the 19 August Forum Leaders’ meeting in Niue, which the Prime Minister will attend.
Australia will engage our neighbours at the meeting on a range of issues including climate change, trade liberalisation, fisheries and food security.
To underscore a renewed commitment to multilateral engagement with our region, we have offered to host the 2009 meeting of the Pacific Islands Forum.
Australia fully supports the Forum’s Pacific Plan. It sets out practical overall approaches to addressing important regional issues.
As the Plan notes, it is ‘based on the concept of regionalism: that is, countries working together for their joint and individual benefit’.
In addition to the goals of good governance and regional security, the Plan also focuses on economic reform and sustainable development.
In recent years we have seen encouraging economic growth in parts of the Pacific, including PNG and Vanuatu.
But the record is not uniformly encouraging.
The smaller and more remote Pacific nations still face considerable obstacles to growth, and, as a region, the Pacific is falling behind other developing nations.
The twin threats of fuel and food price rises have a disproportionately adverse impact on the Pacific nations because of their fuel import dependency and relative geographic isolation.
Our new development approach goes beyond traditional development assistance to the Pacific, significant though that remains, at $1 billion this year.
Much of our development assistance is designed to support the drivers of growth, promoting the skills, infrastructure and trade, regulatory and investment policies to support growth.
Towards Economic Integration
The more the Pacific nations are integrated with Australia, New Zealand and the global community, and the freer the flow of goods, services and investments within the Pacific, the better the prospect of genuine, stable and long-term economic growth in the region.
Aid is no substitute for sustainable and productive growth.
The time has come to take forward negotiations for a region-wide Free Trade Agreement – the so called ‘PACER Plus’ arrangement.
This would build on the existing Pacific Island Countries’ Trade Agreement, and the original Pacific Agreement on Closer Economic Relations (PACER).
To achieve this goal we will work with interested countries on bilateral packages of trade capacity and trade development assistance to strengthen national capacities to trade with the region and beyond.
These packages must be tailored in close consultation with Pacific island countries. Australia has committed to fund further discussions with Pacific island countries to progress the packages.
Our mutual interests lie in ensuring the Pacific islands are well positioned to benefit from trade liberalisation and closer economic integration with the economies of Australia and New Zealand.
Our aim will be to secure new opportunities for Pacific Island countries and to assist in adapting to the challenges of an increasingly globalised economy.
It will also be important to ensure that, when it comes to formal negotiations, Pacific island countries are given the means to properly represent their individual national interests.
Their individual positions should be informed by national studies which identify impacts, benefits and opportunities.
Australia has already pledged to fund independent national studies for each partner country in 2008-09 and will continue to do so throughout the negotiations.
The sooner negotiations commence, the sooner we can work with our Pacific neighbours to ensure they benefit from, rather than fall behind, the globalisation of markets that affects us all.
There are other measures we will examine in parallel.
One that has generated considerable interest across the region is labour mobility.
The Prime Minister will announce our approach to this at or in the run up to the forthcoming Forum Leaders’ Meeting in Niue.
If any pilot program were to proceed, it would necessarily be demand driven and start with a limited number of countries participating on a trial basis.
The Government has been examining New Zealand’s seasonal labour policy, the “Recognised Seasonal Employer Scheme”. It is appropriate that we learn from New Zealand’s wisdom and experience when thinking about the possibility of a pilot program in Australia.
Remittances from Pacific Islanders working overseas are already worth over $430 million a year. They are an important source of income for families back home.
As a separate but related measure, we are co-funding with New Zealand, the development of a new website to help migrant Pacific Islanders cut the cost of sending money home from Australia and New Zealand.
The Pacific Islands are among the costliest destinations in the world to send money. Modelled on successful European examples, the website will allow migrants from eight Pacific Island countries to more easily compare costs, transfer methods, speed, and exchange rates when sending remittances home to family and friends.
Education
The Pacific Partnerships approach on which we’re now embarked provides opportunities for Australia to assist in the vital task of building regional skills and capabilities, especially through education.
Education is crucial when you recall that, in some Pacific countries, nearly 40 per cent of the population is under 14, compared to just 19 per cent in Australia.
The pace of population growth threatens to outstrip economic capacity and infrastructure development. Without adequate education, training or employment opportunities, young people – especially young men – face the bleak prospect of idleness or leading at worst to criminality.
We are committed to a program aimed at enhancing regional education institutions.
And to a significant program of scholarships to study at Australian education institutions.
Our existing commitment to the Australia-Pacific Technical College -- $150 million over four years starting in 2006 – is intended to provide Pacific Islanders with skills that will enable greater regional mobility.
Fiji
Australia and other Forum members are working energetically to secure the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in Fiji.
In a region in which economic performance has been improving in recent years Fiji, is going backwards. The latest economic data suggests the Fiji economy contracted by 6.6 per cent in 2007, an appalling result.
Just three weeks ago I visited Fiji in the company of Foreign Ministers from five other Pacific Countries.
The report of our visit, and our meeting with Commodore Bainimarama, will form the basis of the Forum Leaders’ discussion at Niue in two weeks’ time.
The Ministerial Contact Group came to the view that there was nothing that would prevent Fiji going to an election by March, in line with Commodore Bainimarama’s faithful commitment, if the political will was there.
An end to military government will help all the people of Fiji. Their fundamental political and human rights have been seriously infringed and they have been hurt economically by the succession of coups.
A return to democracy in Fiji is also vital for the region. Fiji is a hub for tourism, trade and commerce, and home to key regional institutions such as the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and the University of the South Pacific.
So we are doing all we can to help Fiji return to its rightful place as a fully-fledged member of the regional community.
This includes strong support for the efforts of the Commonwealth Secretariat to promote a constructive dialogue between political leaders in Fiji.
Conclusion
I’ve outlined for you today our engagement in the Asia-Pacific region and our determination to help our Pacific neighbours address the issues we face.
The Government is working to build a deeper spirit of regional engagement. We have made a fundamental change in the way we work with and talk with, rather than at, our neighbours.
Our desire to assist practically is a real reflection of the values and expectations of the Australian people, a partner committed for the long haul to accepting responsibility in building a better future for the nations and the people of the Pacific.
Thank you.