Mr Dick, your wife, Yolanda, High Commissioner and Dr Choo, the co-patron and one of the great alumni of Sydney University, ladies and gentlemen. For Janette and myself it's a great pleasure to be back here in Singapore and it's a great pleasure to have this opportunity of speaking to so many people who are making a daily contribution to this very critical bilateral relationship between Australia and Singapore.
When I looked again this morning at the title of the address that I was to give, "Australia's relations with Asia," I thought to myself that really is something of a misnomer - for two reasons. Firstly Australia's relations are with a large number of countries in the Asian region that make up the aggregate which is so frequently referred to as Asia. But for an audience like this there's no need to give the reminder that the nations of the Asian region, indeed the nations of the South-east Asian region, are very different, they are very distinctive, they have their own characteristics, their own identities and they require in terms of our relationships with them an understanding on the part of Australia of the different challenges and the different issues that are involved. And the second reason why it's something of a misnomer is that the very description, "Australia's relations with Asia" suggests somehow or other than it's an issue that is still being debated, that in some way people are saying do we really relate to Asia or not? The reality of course is that a country such as Australia that has very close linkages by reason of a combination of geography, history, culture, strategic alignment, shared experience in both war in peace, a country such as Australia has very close relations with many parts of the world.
Our relationship with Singapore is a very good relationship, it's close, it's practical, it's open, this morning I met the Prime Minister and we spent most of our time talking about global issues - we talked about trade challenges, we talked about the outcome of the election in Iraq, we talked about the impact on regional perceptions and co-operation on the aftermath of the tsunami, we of course talked about a number of bilateral issues as well. But it was a conversation between two people who felt completely at ease with each other and completely able to share confidences and attitudes about matters that affected the entire world.
In his introduction the president said, Mr John Dick, said that he wondered how I'd endured an electorate, perhaps it's the electorate enduring me, for a period of 30 years and through 13 elections, that's true, a lot has changed over that period of time. And one of the things that has changed is that my electorate of Bennelong in Sydney at the last election enrolment included no less than 14 to 15 per cent of electors of an ethnic Chinese background which is an illustration of the way in which the character of Sydney has changed and the vibrancy that people of Chinese and other backgrounds and ethnicities from Asia has brought to our community.
Our relations with the various countries of Asia are defined as all relations between nation states are - they are defined by a combination of national self-interest, the sharing of the challenges of a region, but most importantly of all our common values and our common humanity. A lot has been said about the way in which the world and the region, and Australia in particular, responded to the terrible Indian Ocean tragedy which hit the region on Boxing Day last year. My most vivid impression that came from that, apart from the terrible tragedy that was visited upon so many, was the realisation of how much in common all of us have when faced with disaster and sorrow and sadness. And the differences of race, differences of nationality and differences of religion dissolve into a common humanity and a common desire on the part of people of goodwill all around the world to respond in an effective and constructive way.
Australia has embraced the largest single commitment of overseas aid in her history with the commitment of a $1 billion fund over a period of five years for Indonesia. And it was done very deliberately and without any real demur by the Government of Australia because we saw a need, a great human need, and we also saw in providing that human need a way of expressing profoundly our partnership with and our friendship towards and a desire on the part of the Australian people to share the adversity of the people of Indonesia. That fund will be jointly administered by a commission chaired by President Yudhoyono and myself and the day-to-day work of running it will be the responsibility of two Indonesian Ministers and two Australian Ministers.
But I wouldn't want to pass from a discussion of the response to the tsunami without acknowledging the great leadership displayed by the Prime Minister of Singapore and his response, the response of Prime Minister Lee, to the tsunami, his initiative in suggesting the convening of the conference chaired by President Yudhoyono in Jakarta that brought together not only regional leaders but the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the former Secretary of State in the United States, and many leaders from Europe, and many other leaders of major world organisations. His initiative meant that the focus of the world could be on not only a regional response but a world response to this terrible catastrophe.
We live in a region which has both a lot of opportunities, a great number of success stories but also a number of challenges. The challenge of international terrorism is well understood by the Government of Singapore. The Government of Singapore and the Government of Australia work together very closely in the fight against international terrorism, which has touched both of our countries in different ways, and very tragically in our own case in Bali, and more recently the lives of Indonesians bravely working for the Australian Embassy in Jakarta were taken through the brutal acts of terrorists. But it's also a region that has had some tremendous success stories - the advantages of countries embracing globalisation, and nowhere better found than in the Asian region. If you look at nations like Korea and Thailand and indeed Singapore itself you can see the enormous advantages of countries over a period of time lifting themselves from lower standards of living to higher standards of living through embracing the benefits of globalisation. And when I hear people, as I did in the lead up to going to the Davos meeting, decrying globalisation, blaming economic openness and freer trade for all of the ills of the world I invite them to look at the success stories. And the story of Singapore is the story of a country that has reached out, a very small country, a small population, no natural resources, and yet it has a living standard that is the envy of many countries around the world. And this has been achieved because it believes in the advantages of economic growth, of investment, it understands as all of you understand that we live in a world where investors can pick and choose, and if you don't have a transparent legal system, if you don't have a strong economic framework, if you don't have welcoming foreign investment laws, then you will simply take your capital somewhere else. And this is a lesson that should be absorbed and understood by other nations that are struggling to attract foreign investment and to lift themselves from third world standards of existence.
The major subject in many respects on the agenda at the recent meeting in Davos was the challenge of poverty, particularly from Africa which brings together the saddest examples of poverty stricken nations. And I presumed to offer the view that there were two areas of responsibility - there was an area of responsibility on the part of the developed world, most particularly the United States and Europe, and also Japan because Japan's trading policies in certainly areas such as agriculture also impact on the underdeveloped world. But there was a responsibility on the part of the developed world to remove, or at least begin to reduce, trade barriers that were locking out largely the agricultural exports of underdeveloped countries. And that although direct foreign aid was of importance in helping underdeveloped countries it was nowhere near as valuable and nowhere near as productive than dissolving trade barriers and one can find myriad examples in the last few years of where opening up trade has done a lot more than direct overseas assistance in order to bring about an increase in living standards. Now that was a responsibility that I think lies at the feet of the developed world, but I think the concomitant of that is to understand that electorates in nations such as Australia demand that their dollars be used in a sensible and prudent fashion. And that if overseas aid is not applied where it is needed but is somehow or other lost in the transmission through all manner of behaviour, not always acceptable according to any reasonable standards, in other words if corruption occurs, then there's a loss of interest on the part of the electorate. And people in my position listen to what electorates say, leadership is a combination of listening and doing what people want you to do and also from time to time according to the need seeking to change and to mould and to fashion and to lead public opinion. But I think there is a genuine desire on the part of nations such as Australia and nations such as Singapore and the developed countries of Europe and North America to do more to lift the nations that are in poverty out of that and I think the two messages that came out of that gathering to me were on the part of the developed world to get rid of trade barriers but also on the part of the countries themselves seeking the assistance to understand that unless their standards of governance are improved, unless there's more transparency then not only will foreign aid not be there but more seriously also investment will not be attracted. And it's a message that's been well understood in nations in many parts of the world and it's a lesson that should be further understood by those that don't now understand it.
Australia of course has different economic and different political relationships with different parts of Asia. With Singapore we have a close intelligence relationship, we have a close military relationship, we have a very strong education relationship. The alumni of Australian universities in Singapore is legendary and many in this room would be testament to that. And the presence of so many Australians involved in the education process in Singapore is evidence of a very close relationship on that front. We recently signed a Free Trade Agreement, and that Free Trade Agreement is bringing additional benefits. And I found in my discussion with the Prime Minister this morning that there were no major issues causing bilateral tension or bilateral difficulty. As we go further afield to other parts of Asia, we go to North Asia and we find that still Australia's largest single customer is Japan. Now that is a relationship, the grounds of which or the groundwork was laid way back in 1957 when the then Deputy Prime Minister of Australia John McEwen courageously negotiated a commerce agreement with Japan. And negotiating a commerce agreement with Japan in 1957 by an Australian Deputy Prime Minister required a great deal of political courage, World War II was only 12 years distant, and he encountered a lot of criticism, he was attacked by the then Opposition, he was attacked understandably but nonetheless it made it difficult by many other sections of society. But he ploughed on and the fruits of that are to be seen in the fact that Japan remains our largest single customer and an extremely valuable economic partner and one that has stood the test of time and one that has the great respect and is seen as having enormous value by both sides of politics in Australia. Our relationship with Korea, although a slightly shorter duration, is nonetheless an extremely valuable economic relationship and in terms of export destinations second only to that of Japan and indeed the largest single individual customer for Australian product is a Korean company.
In recent years of course the big change that's occurred in trade relations with this part of the world, indeed any part of the world, is the enormous change that's occurred in our relationship with China. China's trade with Australia has grown almost exponentially and the signing two years ago of an agreement to supply over 25 years LNG to the Guangdong province in China represented an historic breakthrough and probably the harbinger of many more contracts of that kind over the years ahead. China's economy is growing at a very rapid rate, China's appetite for raw materials is very great indeed, Australia's capacity to supply them is equally great, our reliability, our dependability, our predictability are all enormous assets that this country has, our country has, in dealing with such very valued customers.
On the 1st of January this year two Free Trade Agreements between Australia and other countries came into operation. One of them was with the United States. Australia is the first Western developed country to have signed a Free Trade Agreement with the United States. And the value of that Free Trade Agreement will grow as the years go by and the greatest value will be the fact that Australia will have access to the enormous service sector of the American economy and enormous access to the equally large government procurement capacity of the United States Government and governments of the various states of the United States. The Free Trade Agreement didn't include everything we wanted, free trade agreements never do. But it is enormously valuable in its specifics and it's even more valuable in the long term access it will provide of which I've just spoken. The other free trade agreement that we've entered into, which started on the 1st of January, is the Free Trade Agreement with Thailand, which provides very valuable access for motor vehicles, for Australian wine, for dairy products and represents an extremely valuable step forward in our relations with that country. We agreed at the meeting in Vientiane in November to commence negotiations for a Free Trade Agreement between Australia and New Zealand and the countries of ASEAN. Whatever the course of those negotiations might be we should bear in mind that the true value of Australia's relations with the countries of this region are to be found in the substance of our associations with individual countries rather than in the symbolism, if I could put it that way, or the architecture of the relationship. And if you look at each of the individual relationships you find a very, very rich story, you find the story of relations that are based overwhelmingly on people-to-people links, but also based very heavily on economic interest and the expansion of freer and more open trade.
I commenced my remarks by saying that the description of an address of Australia's relations with Asia was something of a misnomer for the reasons that I've described. Australia in my view is a country whose dominant interests in the years ahead will be found in this region. This is our part of the world, this is the part of the world to which we most immediately relate, not only in a geographic sense but increasingly also in a strategic and economic sense. But we'd be misunderstanding the character of the world in which we lived if we saw our relations exclusively in terms of the way in which we relate to the Asian region. I used an expression very early in my Prime Ministership which drew a bit of comment and controversy at the time when I said that no nation should choose between its history and its geography in defining its relations with the rest of the world. Australia by reason of its history and its culture has, and always will have, very strong links with nations in Europe, some more so than others. We have unapologetically a strong and important relationship with the United States and so far from that relationship detracting from our engagement with Asia - it adds value to it. And I've found many examples in my dealings with Asian leaders of that reality. But because we are seen as having a close relationship with the United States we are seen to bring to other relationships an understanding and a value that might not be otherwise there.
So my friends in concluding can I say I speak very comfortably with our relations with this nation of Asia, Singapore. It's a case study of how two countries can get on very well together, can share confidences, can share experiences and contribute to the future of each. And I finally want to pay tribute to those Australians who live and work in Singapore and indeed in other parts of Asia. Not only do you obviously do it for very proper reasons of self-satisfaction and self-interest, that is true and understood. But you are in every way wonderful ambassadors of our country. I think one of the reasons for Australia's high standing in the region, it's high standing in South-east Asia is that the men and women who've come from Australia in business, the men and women who represent us diplomatically and that was wonderfully on display in the aftermath of the tsunami, the magnificent work of people such as our Ambassador in Thailand, Bill Paterson, and our Ambassador in Indonesia. All of that represents Australia on display to our part of the world, communicating to our neighbours that we are their friends, we don't always agree, we have our own way of doing things, we have our own distinct identity, but we come to the region with immense goodwill and above all else a commitment to a shared future.
Thank you.
[ends]