Address to Institute of Strategic and International Studies

Friends of Malaysia, friendsof Australia, I'm delighted to be here this morning.

My day began very early withan appearance on Australian breakfast TV shows, and my older sister who livesin Adelaide saw me, got in contact, "do you remember your first visit to KualaLumpur?" Indeed it was almost forty years ago when as young – very young –university students we made our first overseas trip and we came to KualaLumpur.

Not content with remindingme of how long I've been on this earth, she also sent me a series ofphotographs from that trip and I have them here on my smartphone. Theyare photographs of us at street stalls, at the temples, visiting the touristsites of Kuala Lumpur, but she also has photographs of a number of Malaysianmedical students who hosted us at the time because they had studied at AdelaideUniversity.

So I have photographs of anumber of Malaysians who might be a little embarrassed to see the hair, theclothing, but I thought what I could do is start a search on social media 'WhereAre They Now?'

It does bring home the closeconnections of Australians and Malaysians through education.

I was appointed ForeignMinister in September 2013, and visited Malaysia a few months later in February2014, and this was a visit marked by constructive and positive discussions onour trade and investment ties and of course an education event to highlight thedeep personal connections that have been forged over the years througheducation.

Just weeks later, ourrelationship took another turn as we were confronted with the mystery of thedisappearance of MH370. A number of Australians were onboard.

Over the past eighteenmonths, Malaysia and Australia have had to respond to two shocking tragedies.

Not only did MH370 disappearover the South China Sea with 239 people on board, prompting a multinationalsearch across the vast Indian Ocean, the scale of which we have probably neverseen before.

But then, three monthslater, an appalling tragedy took place over eastern Ukraine – 298 people fromnations across the world were killed when MH17 was brought down, this time athuman hands. A cruel twist of fate for Malaysia and Malaysia Airlines.

We have seen in recent daysan important new development in the disappearance of MH370. We hope thisis a step towards shedding light on its disappearance and helping to ease thesuffering of the families of those on board, who are in our thoughts today.

Australia remains committedto continuing the search in the southern Indian Ocean, as difficult and ascomplex as it is.

Many countries have beenaffected by these two tragedies. Last month also brought us another developmentin relation to MH17.

Russia vetoed a proposedresolution to set up a United Nations Security Council backed tribunal toinvestigate the circumstances surrounding this atrocity – and to hold thoseresponsible to account.

Australia lost 39 lives inMH17, leaving families and communities across our nation deep in grief.

With their own grave loss oflife, the Dutch are deeply committed to bringing those responsible to justice.

So too is Malaysia not onlygrappling with immense grief, but also facing the challenge of drivinginternational action in a conflict zone half a world away.

Now a non-permanent memberof the UN Security Council, Malaysia is taking a strong leadership role inimplementing the principles of UNSC Resolution 2166 passed unanimously justdays after the plane crashed in July of 2014. We continue to work together asmembers of the joint investigation team determined to establish a mechanismthat can prosecute the perpetrators.

Australia and Malaysia'sjoint response to these two tragedies exemplifies the close partnership, thefriendship, between our two countries, and the way in which we work together toseek to deliver results when crisis strikes or need arises.

Such cooperation is notnew. It is founded on a long history of our two countries workingtogether on security-related issues.

This year we celebrate the60th anniversary of Australia's diplomatic presence in Kuala Lumpur– a history that stretches back before the Malaysian Federation itself.

We have long shared thecommitment of keeping our region secure.

During the Second World War,we fought together in the Malayan Campaign. Since the late 1940s we have builton our common interest in shared regional security, symbolised today by theFive Power Defence Arrangements.

Our strong bilateral defencecooperation is underpinned by Australia's continuing defence force presence atRMAF Base Butterworth - Australia's only ongoing rotational detail of defencestaff in Southeast Asia.

Young Malaysian cadets havebeen studying at the Australian Defence Force Academy with Australiancounterparts for decades – forging the relationships that are essential whenworking together to manage regional crises.

Our defence relationship hasevolved into a modern partnership focused on the more complex task ofmaintaining security in a much more dynamic environment.

Today, our securitypartnership also encompasses combatting the non-traditional threats ofterrorism, transnational crime, people smuggling, cyber crime, naturaldisasters, pandemics and violent extremism.

In an example of ourreadiness to cooperate and at short notice, in June Australia's defence assetshelped Malaysia find the hijacked Malaysian tanker the MT Orkim Harmony – a successful joint search conducted by the Royal Malaysian Air Force, theMalaysian coast guard and RAAF assets operating from Butterworth.

Likewise, Malaysian defenceassets operated out of Pearce Air Force base in Perth during the initial aerialsearch for MH370 in the Indian Ocean. That our defence forces worked sowell together in these operations is testament to decades of cooperation andtrust.

Beyond defence, we have atrade and investment relationship that has dramatically broadened over the past60 years.

From the first decades ofthe 20th Century, Malaya was an important tin and rubber supplierfor Australia, helping our young economy as it began to industrialise.

Malaya was one of the sevenplaces visited by Australia's first diplomatic trade mission to Asia in 1934,and later, one of the first Asian countries with which we formalised tradearrangements after the second world war.

Bilateral trade really beganto intensify in the years after Malaysia's independence. From the start of the1970s on, Malaysia's New Economic Policy began to develop the country as anexport-oriented economy.

Likewise, from the 1980s,Australia began to remove old protectionist policies – a move that started thelong, but extremely valuable, process of integrating our economy with aglobalising world.

By the early 1990s, Malaysiawas Australia's eleventh-largest export market – and several hundred Australiancompanies had established a foothold in Malaysia. Today, we are among eachother's top ten trading partners.

Through my personalexperience as a student, then as Education Minister and now as ForeignMinister, I know that education has long been a key pillar of our relationship.

As partners in the originalColombo Plan back in the 1950s, Malaysia provided the largest group of ColomboPlan scholars to study in our universities of any of the participatingnations. About 4,000 Malaysians studied in Australia under the originalColombo Plan.

Annual enrolments inAustralian educational institutions have increased by thousands in the decadessince. This year, more than 22,000 Malaysian students were enrolled inAustralian institutions, and thousands more are studying at the Monash, Curtin,and Swinburne University campuses here in Malaysia.

Since the days of theoriginal Colombo Plan thousands more Malaysians – some 90 000 since 2002 alone– have studied in Australian educational institutions.

This year, the latestexciting chapter in our education and people-to-people relationship is takingoff.

Last night I launched theNew Colombo Plan here in Kuala Lumpur – a scheme initiated by the AustralianGovernment when we came into office in 2013 designed to build the skills andunderstanding of Australians about our key partners in our region.

The New Colombo Plan willprovide opportunities for bright young Australian undergraduate students tospend time in countries in the region, including Malaysia as part of theirstudies – to deepen their connections to the region, to learn about the publicand private sectors operating in our region, and to forge personal links thatwill hopefully bring benefits to both nations.

I'm truly excited andexceedingly passionate about its prospects for deeper engagement between ourtwo countries, as more Australians gain a deeper appreciation of Malaysia andits people and of the importance of our relationship with Malaysia.

Notwithstanding present andpast cooperation between our two countries, I believe that our best days lieahead of us.

We are at an exciting andpivotal point in our history, one in which the Indian Ocean-Asia Pacific hasbecome a focal point for the global economy and for global security.

The changes that we haveseen in the Indo-Pacific over the past sixty years have been welcome.

First and foremost, theemergence of Asian countries from the legacies of the 20th Centurythrough greater and more sustainable development, lifting millions and millionsof people out of poverty. Malaysia is an exemplar of this.

Secondly, just as important– the greater political and democratic transformation of so much of our regionhas brought greater freedom and choice.

These two developmentstogether, against the background of a long period of relative peace andstability, have strengthened the capacity of millions of citizens of our regionto embrace economic and social opportunity, and to engage more fully in thecritical task of nation building.

Our strong economies andstable societies owe much to the robust public institutions and legal frameworksthat our parliamentary democracies share.

It is our experience thatstrong institutions backed by the rule of law deliver transparent andaccountable governance.

Australia and Malaysia bothbenefit immensely from living in a dynamic region of rising prosperity. We willinevitably face challenges from time to time in maintaining and buildingregional security and economic prosperity.

ASEAN has played a criticalrole in our joint efforts to keep Southeast Asia peaceful and stable, but as welook ahead, the great transformations taking place in so many Indo-Pacificcountries are bringing new stresses and challenges to our security.

With around 70 per cent ofAustralia's merchandise trade passing through its waters, a safe and secureSoutheast Asian region is of utmost importance not only to our security butalso to our prosperity.

Australia's interest in apeaceful and stable South China Sea is clear.

Land reclamation andconstruction by China and other claimants raises tensions. Australia hasconsistently called for a moratorium on land reclamation by all claimantstates. We publicly raise our concerns regarding construction work andthe prospect of militarisation of any artificial islands or structures in theSouth China Sea.

Australia does not take aposition on competing territorial claims in the South China Sea. We do believethat disputes should be settled peacefully, in accordance with internationallaw, and that freedom of navigation and freedom of overflight must be upheld. Iwas pleased to hear unanimous support for freedom of shipping and aircraft, atyesterday's EAS meeting.

We are committed to workingwith partners, including Malaysia, to promote a stable and peaceful South ChinaSea, including through encouraging claimants to take steps to reduce tensions.We urge ASEAN member states and China to conclude a meaningful and respectedCode of Conduct for the South China Sea as soon as possible.

There is also, in ourregion, the growing risk of rising economic nationalism and protectionistpolicies.

The critical imperative isthat we continue to work together to build regional stability and security –and that we continue the fight for inclusive economic liberalisation.

Economic reform – and agreater sense of regional integration with ASEAN at its core the Association ofSouth East Asian Nations at its core – has been responsible for building somuch of the prosperity of our region in recent decades that it is imperativethat we keep up the pace of reform, and do not succumb to the false appeal ofprotectionism.

For these reasons, wewelcome Malaysia's leadership role as ASEAN Chair in strengthening key regionalinstitutions.

Australia is committed tobeing a strong partner of ASEAN, and to working with countries includingMalaysia towards this common purpose.

This week I haveparticipated in the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum ministerialmeetings, and held consultations with ASEAN and with bilateral members. And Icongratulate my good friend and counterpart Dato' Sri Anifah for hisoutstanding chairmanship of all these meetings.

ASEAN-led stability is thevital foundation of a free and open trading environment in Southeast Asia.

Just as the EAS wasestablished in 2005 with the Kuala Lumpur declaration, we fully supportMalaysia's leadership on strengthening the EAS in this, its tenth year.

We welcome the launch of theASEAN Economic Community at the end of 2015. Australia is pleased to supportthe ASEAN integration project through our aid program and through our continuedcommitment to trade agreements. And I should mention that we areparticularly supportive of the Australia-Malaysia Free Trade Agreement signed afew years ago.

Last year we elevated theASEAN-Australia relationship to a Strategic Partnership and are looking toincrease trade, political and security cooperation, including through theRegional Comprehensive Economic Partnership negotiations – the RCEP.

Australiaparticularly sees the importance, in a world that faces the terrible challengeof violent extremism and terrorism, in working together on these grave securitythreats.

While the focus of thethreat posed by Da'esh lies in Syria and Iraq, we know that these are globalthreats, as the tentacles of these extremist groups reach back into our regioninto our societies.

Thousands of people havebeen recruited to join their brutal campaign, with hundreds from SoutheastAsia, and Australia.

I am particularly keen tofocus on how we can cooperate to address the threat that violent extremistideology presents to communities in our region, particularly drawing onMalaysia's experience as a moderate Muslim nation.

I applaud Prime MinisterNajib's leadership in promoting the moderation agenda. I applaud Malaysia'scommitment to starving terrorist organisations of funds that finance theiractivities.

Australia is working withthe South East Asia Regional Centre for Counter Terrorism to conduct a workshopon this topic in Kuala Lumpur in December.

Australia participated inMalaysia's ASEAN Regional Forum workshop on counter radicalisation and we areworking with Malaysia on countering violent extremism through the EAS.

The phenomenon of foreignterrorist fighters means that Australia and Malaysia must work together againin conjunction with civil society and our communities to build resilience tothe lure of violent extremism.

Ladiesand gentlemen, Australia and Malaysia have been close partners – close friends– for the past sixty years.

In the last year and a half,tragedy has brought us even closer together.

Opportunity can forge evenstronger bonds. We are natural partners.

As we look towards thechallenges in coming decades, I am convinced that a closer more strategicrelationship between our two countries will not only benefit both Malaysia andAustralia, but it will also benefit our region.