LEE: We've had a very good discussion on a wide range of issues and reaffirmed our commitment to step up cooperation between our two countries.
While both Singapore and Australia have been blessed with peace in recent decades, our relationship goes back to the Second World War when Australian troops were deployed in Singapore with other Commonwealth forces.
That chapter of our history is preserved at the Kranji War Cemetery which Prime Minister Rudd visited first thing this morning before dawn.
When Singapore gained independence in 1965 Australia was quick to recognise us the very next day. Since then we've built close ties rooted in a deep and strategic relationship. Our geographic circumstances and priorities are not identical. Australia's interests encompass the South Pacific where it has shouldered responsibilities for fostering and periodically restoring peace and stability, while Singapore is a part of ASEAN and tracks more closely developments in South East Asia.
Nevertheless our relationship is underpinned by our broadly similar strategic outlooks and many mutual interests. We both uphold an open globalised system that promotes economic interdependence between countries. We both see the vital importance of the United States to the Asia Pacific. We are both convinced that a peaceful emergence of China and India is positive for the region and for the world. We both want a stable and open region, which embraces Australia and New Zealand as part of the broader Asian family.
Furthermore both societies are direct, pragmatic and informal in spirit and in tone which makes it easy for us to understand each other and get along together.
This convergence of interests and ethos sets the overall tone for our bilateral relationship. Our ties have developed steadily and become institutionalised and during through successive changes of leaders on both sides our cooperation is robust and substantial spanning diverse areas.
One key pillar of our cooperation is in defence. The MOU on defence cooperation which we have just signed underscores our strong and multifaceted defence ties. We have been partners in the five power defence arrangements since 1971 and our armed forces have a well established working relationship honed through many joint exercises and training courses.
The Singapore armed forces trains regularly in facilities like the Shoalwater bay training area and the Oakley aviation centre in Queensland as well as the RAAF base Pearce in Western Australia.
We owe many thanks to the Australian Government and people for these generous arrangements. This year the (inaudible) will be deploying a medical team to support the Australian Defence forces in Oruzgan province in Afghanistan.
I'm confident that the MOU we have just signed will help us to strengthen further our defence interactions and cooperation.
In the economic field our bilateral trade has flourished, particularly since the implementation of the Singapore-Australia free trade agreement in July 2003. Last year Singapore was Australia's fifth largest trading partner. We are both open economies committed to promoting trade, investments and bigger stakes in one another's success.
For example the interior design project for Changi airports new terminal 3 was lead by Australian architectural and design firm Woodhead, working alongside a Singapore partner. We look forward to more such collaborations between our companies as well as deepening and broadening of the free trade agreement in future reviews.
Our people to people ties through tourism, cultural and educational linkages are warm and friendly. More than 10,000 Australians live in Singapore, adding to the vibrancy of our city. The Australian School here is full and expanding, in fact the Prime Minister just opened a new building today.
Similarly tens of thousands of Singaporeans live and work in Australia, while an even larger number have received their tertiary education there. In our early years of development many of our students studied in Australia on Colombo plan scholarships. Today we have four Cabinet Ministers, quite a few members of Parliament and numerous senior civil servants who are alumni of Australian Universities.
Singapore has since graduated from the Colombo plan to our regret, but many Singaporean youths continue to pursue their studies in Australia. On our part we hope to see more Australians come to study in our educational institutions, because such ties form a vital bridge between our countries.
On the political front Singapore and Australia cooperate closely in regional forums such as the ASEAN regional forum, the East Asia Summit and APEC. Singapore has always supported Australia's active engagement within the region. We appreciate Australia's contributions including your quick and generous response to humanitarian relief efforts after the Boxing Day tsunami and cyclone nargis.
These are clear demonstrations of Australia's commitment to the region, as your linkages with East Asia grow we hope you will work closely with us in Singapore and our ASEAN partners to shape the evolving architecture of regional cooperation and in particular we look forward to Australia's appointment of its Ambassador to ASEAN and to the speedy conclusion of the ASEAN- Australia- New Zealand Free Trade Agreement which will strengthen Australia's economic linkages with South East Asia.
Prime Minister Rudd Singapore is glad to have in Australia a close friend and a strategic partner. Over the years we have nurtured diverse and solid ties through regular exchanges between our leaders and officials at all levels. I am happy to work with you and your team to build in this long tradition. Recently Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard visited Singapore and we look forward to welcoming your Ministers for the upcoming Singapore-Australia joint Ministerial committee meeting.
Our meetings are characterised by the candour of our exchanges and the ease of which we relate to each other. Even when we hold different views on issues we always try to work through them together in good faith, bearing in mind our shared longer term interests and perspectives.
Distinguished guests, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen may I now invite you to rise and join me in a toast to the good health and success of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, the peace and prosperity of Australia and the enduring friendship between our two countries and peoples.
HOST: Ladies and gentlemen the Honourable Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia
PM: Thank you very much Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, distinguished members of the Cabinet of the Government of Singapore and Distinguished representatives of the Government of Singapore, Ladies and Gentlemen.
When Australian Prime Ministers visit Singapore they feel instantaneously that they are among friends and so it is today. If I could, Prime Minister thank you very much for the personal hospitality you have extended to myself and my delegation during our visit here to Singapore today. It is regarded by us as a continuing reflection of the warmth and sentiment which has existed in this relationship for many, many decades and many, many decades to come.
The Prime Minister rightly pointed to the stage in history when this relationship was formed. The days of 1941 and early 1942 were dark days for both our peoples and visiting Kranji as I did this morning before dawn and seeing the graves of thousands of Australians and also to be reminded that there also lies thousands of graves of British servicemen, there lie also even more graves and more memorials in the names of Indian servicemen. This was an extraordinary contribution from across the world in the defence of this island in a very difficult time.
In the hearts and minds of Australians therefore when we think of Singapore, our first thoughts go to those dark and terrible times. So many families in Australia today still bear the scars of those losses. Of course that common endeavour in the field of defence and security has continued in the decades since then. We work closely with each other since Singapore became its own independent republic.
The Prime Minister has also referred to the five power defence agreement, an arrangement which we continue to place confidence, an arrangement which we continue to support. We regard that arrangement as important in terms of the interests of our respective countries. Important in terms of the wider stability, strategically of South East Asia and we will be continuing our support for that arrangement into the future.
But beyond the formal requirements of the five power defence arrangement there is also the fact that our armed forces on a daily basis are engaged in practical forms of cooperation in so many different ways. In Australia at Royal Australian Air Force Base Pearce and Oakley in Queensland and elsewhere.
But also as the Prime Minister also indicated the fact the our friends from the Singaporean armed forces will soon be with us in support of our troops in Afghanistan through the deployment of their medical team. This again is a sign of, not just the friendship between our two countries, but a sign that our armed forces are comfortable in their work with each other in theatres across the world and we look forward to receiving them soon in Tarin Kowt.
Defence is one strong pillar of this relationship but it is not the only pillar. The second pillar lies of course in the strong economic and business ties which have developed now over many, many decades. I met with many representatives of the Australian Business Community this morning over breakfast and none of them Prime Minister told me that they weren't earning a dollar. They always have problems to raise such is the nature of business representation to representatives of their Government.
But in this state of Singapore they have found a comfortable and welcoming business environment in which to operate for which I thank you. It is for many of them a platform to which they conduct their wider business operations across South East Asia and beyond.
Our business relationship has been augmented by the conclusion of the free trade agreement between our two countries. That free trade agreement will continue to be subject to review and refinement over time. But it has provided a strong and solid foundation for the economic and business ties which have developed over the years and will continue to develop into the future. The good thing also about the Singapore-Australia business relationship is that it is not narrowly based, it is broadly based and we intend through our combined bilateral efforts and the efforts of our business communities in both countries to add fabric and depth and breadth to this relationship because it is important for both of our economies.
A third pillar in this relationship lies in the connections which have built up over a long period of time between our educational institutions. I met again with the representative of James Cook University here in Singapore this morning. James Cook will be running a campus soon in Singapore for some 3500 students. But beyond that particular initiative there are as the Prime Minister indicated literally thousands and tens of thousands of Singaporean students whom we have welcome in Australia over many decades to come and live among us, to study among us, to return to Singapore and to form important human bridges of understanding and concrete business relationships between our two countries and two economies.
Prime Minister you said that Singapore had graduated from the Colombo plan and I was speaking about the Colombo plan this morning with your Minister for Transport and Second Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond Lim who was himself nostalgic about his own education in Australia at the University of Adelaide through being a Colombo plan scholar.
I think in some creative way we need to revisit how we expand our cooperation again through tertiary educational opportunities for young people across South East Asia and beyond. And the Government of Australia will be devoting keen attention to this challenge in the days, weeks and months ahead.
The human bridges and professional bridges which the Colombo plan formed between Australia and Singapore and between Australia and so many other countries in South East Asia in fact rich, profound and one which continues I believe to yield enormous lasting benefits to our two countries and our two communities. I think it's a lesson from which we should continue to learn into the future.
Prime Minister you also mentioned a fourth pillar in our relationship which is our common endeavours in working to build the architecture of this the South East Asian region and wider Asia Pacific region.
As I said to the Prime Minister this morning some around the world have from time to time criticised ASEAN for being insufficiently active or activist. I have never supported that criticism for the simple reason that I regard ASEAN as one of the extraordinary successes in international relations.
The fact that the South East Asia of 40 years ago is so radically different to the South East Asia of 2007-2008 is itself a remarkable achievement. The fact that here in South East Asia we now have a real sense of community, a real sense of security cooperation, a real sense of continuing political dialogue within one another to solve problems through diplomacy rather than by other means, a real sense of emerging economic community. And in that respect ASEAN has been in our view in Australia and on the part of the new Australian Government an extraordinary success.
Part of that success and a key engine room of that success has been the effective diplomacy of Singapore itself and Prime Minister I would pay public tribute to your own contribution in that respect and to that of your predecessors Goh Chok Tong as well as your father Lee Kuan Yew. These achievements in terms of regional cooperation in South East Asia are owed in no small measure to the effective and successful diplomacy of Singapore over a long period of time.
We also have new regional institutions which have emerged including the East Asia Summit in which Australia is also now a participant. The Prime Minister and I will work closely together in how we shape the future agenda of the summit together and in cooperation with other parties to those summit arrangements.
It's important that again across wider East Asia we inculcate the culture of cooperation. The habits of cooperation often do not come naturally. Institutions which encourage cooperation are to therefore of themselves to be supported. That's why we will work closely with Singapore in the future evolution of this important institution, the East Asian Summit.
More broadly again we have next year the opportunity for Singapore to host APEC. When that meeting occurs here in Singapore at the end of next year APEC will have reached its 20th year. It will be important for us all to continue to contribute to APEC's agenda as a forum for wider Asia Pacific Cooperation across the new great powers of this our East Asian Hemisphere and of course the continuing great power that is the United States. Again the habits of cooperation are to be encouraged and are to be supported.
We also look forward to the admission soon across the country to the Asia Pacific region by our special envoy Dick Woolcott the former diplomatic representative in this part of the world. An Australian diplomat of great standing Mr Woolcott will be engaged in wider dialogue with our friends across the Asia Pacific region on the possibility of the long term evolution of an Asia Pacific Community. And we look forward to the contributions of all regional governments including that of Singapore to that proposal
Mr Prime Minister it has been a great honour for me to be invited to this extraordinary residence here in Singapore today and I thank you very much again for the hospitality which you have shown to me and to members of my delegation.
I extended to the Prime Minister early today an invitation to visit Australia again. I said to him, he is always a welcome guest in Australia and we look forward to seeing him in Australia very, very soon. I think sir you will know and know from experience in our country you will always be made to feel welcome because there as here we feel that we are among friends.
In conclusion if I could on behalf of all of those present, now propose a toast to the President and to the people of Singapore.
To the President and the people of Singapore. I thank you very much.