The evolution of this Bo'ao Forum for Asia is a striking symbol of the evolution of our region itself: both of the successes and challenges which have endured and of the new challenges and opportunities which have emerged.
Here two great enduring responsibilities are discussed: continuing Asia's economic growth while achieving human development - and maintaining Asia's peaceful regional order while growth changes the strategic balance.
Growth in the region must continue and must strengthen.
The national economies of the region vary widely today, both in their overall degrees of development and in their immediate economic circumstances and prospects for growth.
This Forum reflects just this variety: from developed, knowledge-based economies needing to restart long-term growth - to emerging economies managing the challenges of urbanisation - and incorporating the firms and international organisations which operate across the whole of Asia.
Through all these varying national contexts, the enduring challenge of economic growth merits an enduring response.
Unlocking the power of well-designed markets to create wealth - while harnessing the power of investment in the skills and knowledge of people to spread the benefits to all.
Well-designed markets and well-targeted investment in human capital remain the key to Asia's economic success.We must also understand that continued and strengthened economic growth will keep changing the strategic order of our region.
Militaries are modernizing. Economic growth will put more pressure on energy, water and food resources.
This does not make major power conflict inevitable - all countries in the region share a deep interest in strategic stability - but the consequences of conflict are ever more severe for us all.
This is nowhere more clear than on the Korean Peninsula.
There, any aggression is a threat to the interests of every country in the region.
For this reason, I do welcome the growing co-operation of all regional Governments to prevent conflict on the Korean Peninsula and to counter North Korean aggression.
That co-operation is also a sign of what will be needed in future as we face other security challenges.
Asia must be a region of sustainable security in which habits of co-operation are the norm.Peace and prosperity are challenges which endure - but since this Forum's inception, new challenges have emerged.
While the climate change debate was a live one in Asia fifteen years ago, then it was a debate about the region's future.
Today, it is a debate about the region's present.
We are living through the effects of carbon pollution and climate change now and we are moving to clean energy sources now.
Today, Australia has a comprehensive approach including record investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency, a price on carbon and emissions trading from 1 July 2015.
Australia has deliberately pursued a market-based response to this pressing environmental challenge. Many Asian nations are doing the same.
More than one third of the world's clean energy investment in 2012 was in Asia.
Last year Japan introduced its carbon tax.
South Korea's national emissions trading scheme begins in 2015.
Over the three years to 2015, pilot emissions trading schemes will commence in seven Chinese cities and provinces covering 255 million people.
Beijing's emissions trading scheme, which will cover a population of twenty million people, will launch shortly.
That will be a great day for Asia's clean energy future.
So will the commencement of China's national scheme following 2015.
The climate is already changing. Asia is already acting.
All this will be important to your discussions this weekend.
This Forum reflects change in the region - as it reflects the enduring significance of growth and security as matters for us all.
I want to conclude by observing that for Australians, Bo'ao is also a particularly significant symbol of the role we seek to play in the region.
The statesmen of 1998 who presented the idea of this Forum to the Chinese Government were of course, President Ramos and Prime Minister Hosokawa - and my friend and predecessor Prime Minister Hawke.
In this, our former Prime Minister took precisely the kind of role Australia seeks to play - co-operative and supportive, but more - accepting our share in the responsibility of collective leadership which falls to all regional leaders and nations.
This was Australia's approach to our engagement in the region as long ago as 1973: when my predecessor Gough Whitlam became the first Australian Prime Minister to visit China.
This was Australia's role in the origin of this Bo'ao Forum.
This was Australia's role in the founding of APEC and the expansion of the East Asia Summit.
This is Australia's role this week, when I lead the most senior Australian political delegation ever to visit China.
Bo'ao is a vital forum for Asian conversations - and we have more to talk about than ever before.
I look forward to the insights which emerge from your discussions.