E&OE...........
Dr Thaksin, the Prime Minister of Thailand; your Ministers; your Excellencies; ladies and gentlemen.
I am delighted to welcome you, Mr Prime Minister, and your party and so many others who've come here today to honour a very important bilateral relationship and that is the relationship between Australia and Thailand. It's a relationship that we tend instinctively to think of in its contemporary terms but, indeed, it's quite an old relationship. Perhaps some Australians and certainly many of our Thai guests would not be aware, for example, that the most famous, indeed, iconic racehorse in Australian history, in folklore, Phar Lap, was in fact named after, or using the Thai word for lightening, and it derives from the fact that the owner of Phar Lap had a part interest in a tin mine in southern Thailand. More recently, of course, Australians of World War II generations remember the circumstances, some of them of their incarceration in Thailand during World War II, not at the hands of the Thai people but they do remember, in particular, the kindness that many people from that country were able to extend to them.
So, Prime Minister, I welcome you here today as the honoured guest of a country which is very proud of its association with your country. And in celebrating that association we remark on the important people-to-people links, not only but very particularly, in the area of education. Thailand now has the situation where it sends more of its students to Australia for their education than any other foreign country and Australia has just surpassed the United States as the primary destination of Thai students abroad. And as part of our discussion today we have agreed to explore ways of further deepening the education links between our two nations. The Thai community is a respected and integral part of the culturally diverse, modern Australia and in so many different ways the influence of that community is felt and enjoyed by the broader Australian community.
I do particularly want to thank you, Mr Prime Minister, in your capacity as the current Prime Minister of Thailand for the wonderful contribution that your country made at a crucial stage to the INTERFET deployment in East Timor in 1999. That involvement gave to that deployment an ASEAN texture which was very important. And the speedy response of your predecessor and the fact that the current and one previous force commander of the current United Nations' forces come from Thailand is a source of very considerable pride and pleasure to Australia, and it's a very contemporary example of our two nations working together to achieve a positive outcome. And since then, of course, the relationship between our countries has, of course, continued to improve. Our bilateral trade is worth about $5 billion a year and Australia was ready in 1997 to provide financial assistance as part of the IMF intervention package to assist Thailand at the height of the Asian economic downturn.
But those are things that we have done in the past together. What we have agreed upon today relates very much to the future. And in our discussions this morning, which have involved not only myself and the Prime Minister but also senior ministers on both sides, we have agreed on a number of measures that will further intensify the relationship. We have agreed to negotiate a closer economic understanding. We want to develop something akin to, if we can, the CER arrangements that exist between Australia and New Zealand. Those negotiations will not be easy. I've described it in our discussions as free trade plus. It's a question of seeing where we can reach agreement and giving effect to those agreements was moving on to other areas that may prove to be more difficult. But our determination to negotiate that CER understanding or agreement is an example of our desire to build closer relationships between our two societies.
We've also agreed to commence negotiating a memorandum of understanding on terrorism, similar to the memorandum of understanding that Australia has negotiated with Indonesia and other countries in the region. And as a companion to that we will seek ways of further enhancing the already close and effective law enforcement relationship between Australia and Thailand.
As an important initiative to increase the exchanges between our two countries amongst young people we have agreed to commence discussions on the development of working holiday visa arrangements between Australia and Thailand. Once again, the negotiations will not be easy and there will need to be checks and balances and safeguards on both sides but just as it is in the case of our resolve on the CER understanding this is yet another intention of ours to intensify the relationship, particularly between the young people of our two societies.
And finally and very importantly, given the ongoing concern that all Australians have about the impact of the drug traffic on young Australians - and I know that is a concern that is shared by the Government of Thailand - we have agreed to explore with Thailand some Australian involvement in some crop substitution programmes in Burma. Again, it will not be easy to reach an understanding and there will need to be rigour applied to ensure that the commitments achieve the goals that are sought but the concept is not only entirely proper, it's very laudable because anything that governments can do to reduce the devastating and annihilating effect of the drug traffic on the young of our societies and, indeed, on the young of all societies is something that I know will have the support of all of the Australian people.
So, Mr Prime Minister, this is the first visit to Australia by a Thai Prime Minister since 1989 and you are very particularly welcome. Australians like the people of Thailand, they like Thailand. They go in their hundreds of thousands to Thailand for holidays and I know that the tourist exchange between both of our countries will only increase over the years ahead. We've had a friendly relationship over many years built on mutual respect. We feel easy and relaxed in the company of the people of Thailand. It is a relationship that I believe we all feel very comfortable and positive about. Your visit has given it a new focus and a new emphasis and I believe that the arrangements that we have come to today represent a road map for a further enhancement of a relationship which is already strong and true and one to which my Government and I know all of the people of Australia attach enormous importance.
Thank you very much for honouring us with your presence, you are very welcome, as are your Ministers and I invite the Leader of the Opposition to support my remarks.
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