Prime Minister Abe and Mrs Abe, Premier Barnett and Mrs Barnett, my distinguished friend and colleague Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen.
I want to say how thrilled and proud and pleased I am to be again in the presence of my friend, Shinzo Abe, at the close of what has truly been a historic visit to our country. This really has been a historic visit for us and I suspect it has been a historic visit for Japan as well.
Yes, there is the Economic Partnership Agreement that will mean more jobs and lower prices in both our countries. Yes, there is the Defence Technology Agreement which will help to deepen and strengthen our security partnership. It is not just these significant agreements – it is the sheer warmth between two, one-time adversaries; now friends and partners in trade, in defence, in democracy and above all else in peace.
Greg Sheridan, the journalist and commentator, got it right when he wrote in The Australian newspaper this morning that, “Prime Minister Abe’s speech is surely one of the most important speeches ever to have been made in the Australian Parliament”. It didn’t just signal an extraordinary, special relationship between Australia and Japan, it did signal nothing less than a new Japan – a Japan that has learnt and assimilated and acted on the lessons of the past. That is the challenge that all of us face; to learn from the past – not to be shackled by the past.
Today, Shinzo and I accompanied by Sam Walsh and a large delegation of senior leaders from the Japanese corporate world walked the red earth of the Pilbara and saw for ourselves the extraordinary development that has taken place in this great state of Western Australia. I am always conscious of the fact that I am an Easterner and, yes, I feel a little inadequate and inferior when I am here in the West. Just so that you Westerners understand that I appreciate you and what you do for the rest of us let me reiterate that while Western Australia is but 10 per cent of our population – it’s 16 per cent of our GDP and fully 50 per cent of our nation’s exports. So, I want you to know how grateful I am. Premier Barnett is looking a little glum as I say this because my gratitude is never sufficient for your Premier and that is how it should be. Prime Ministers can never quite do enough for Western Australia to keep their Premier satisfied but I am so conscious of the locomotive effect that Western Australia has for our national economy. I am also so conscious of the fact that the Western Australian economy – let alone the Australian economy – is almost unimaginable without the relationship that we have with Japan.
It was Japanese investment, Japanese partnership, that has made possible the iron ore industry and more recently the gas industry which has done so much for this state and so much for our country. We should remember the sheer scale of what has been achieved in the Pilbara in particular. The total amount of iron ore exported to Japan from the Pilbara would produce enough steel to build Japan’s current entire length of railway track more than 300 times over or to build more than 400,000 Tokyo Towers.
Just as our prosperity once rode on the sheep’s back, today just as surely it rides on those bulk carriers that steam so ceaselessly from Western Australian ports to our north. The iron ore that has gone from the Pilbara to Japan is equivalent to the weight of 10,000 fully loaded Panamax carriers. It should be noted that during this past week BHP Billiton celebrated the shipment of its one billionth tonne of iron ore to Japan. So, there are so many remarkable milestones between our two countries and so many of those remarkable milestones are here in Western Australia.
It is interesting today observing the extraordinary achievements of our great mining companies supported with the partnership of the great trading and manufacturing houses of Japan. As I saw what had been achieved I reflected on the contribution that Government had made to this extraordinary success. Government wanted to stop the export of iron ore from Australia until 1960 and then having denied the development of the iron ore industry until 1960 we then tried to control what companies would develop the resources. Then we tried to control the prices that those companies would receive for their resources – and this was a Coalition Cabinet for God sake, in Canberra, that was trying to do all of this. Then there were those arguments that we saw again and again in our country’s history that we were selling ourselves short because the buyers over there in Japan were a united front and the sellers here in Australia were disparate and divided. Well, you know, I saw the representatives of Nippon Steel Mimura-san, I saw the representatives of Mitsui Iijima-san, I have seen the representatives of Marubeni and Kobe and Mitsubishi on this trip. Sure, they are doing well, but look at Sam Walsh, look at Rio, look at BHP, and I think to myself yet again the arguments against market freedom are nor borne out of the reality of the world’s practice.
I do want to thank and congratulate those splendid businesses both Australian and Japanese which have done so much for our prosperity as a nation and as a people.
It’s interesting. You trade with people when you want something – you invest when you trust someone. I do, again, want to pay tribute to the members of Prime Minister Abe’s business delegation. You honour us with your presence – more importantly you honour us with your trust. For two generations now, for six decades, in very large numbers and in very large amounts you have been investing in Australia but in the case of Mitsui and Mitsubishi it goes back 100 years and more.
The great ideal which characterises the relationship between Australia and Japan at every level; the great bargain if you like that characterises our relationship at every level is this sense that we should always treat others as we would have them treat us. This is the foundation of the trust between our people at a national level, at a corporate level and at an individual level. I am so proud to have seen that trust, that partnership, deepen in such extraordinary ways over the last few days.
I think I can say with great confidence and certainty that Shinzo Abe is my friend; but more importantly, I can say with certainty and confidence that Japan is Australia’s true friend and that Australia is Japan’s true friend.
We should never set limits on what we can achieve. Here in Western Australia visionary people in business and, yes, in government too 50 or 60 years ago said that there were no limits to what we can achieve. We saw, with our own eyes, some of what has been achieved today. What a marvellous foundation on which to build and what a great friendship, what a great friendship, and I look forward to Australia and Japan marching together into the future.
Thank you so much.
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