It is an honour to be here in the Great Hall of the Parliament welcoming what is perhaps the most splendid and glittering gathering ever to meet in this building.
We’ve had quite a few sayings today – all of them interesting, many of them instructive – I want to remind you of another.
It is said that when friends meet, a thousand cups of wine cannot contain their happiness.
This is a happy night and it’s part of a historic day.
Not only do we have President Xi and Madame Peng here in Australia for the President’s fifth visit to our country, but after ten long years of negotiation we have finalised our Free Trade Agreement as a sign of the comprehensive strategic partnership between our two countries.
It’s also said that when friends gather and speak the truth, trust grows.
There is, indeed, mutual self-interest – or as the President might say, win-win cooperation based on shared goals – in the friendship between our two countries, but its foundation is respect and affection based on our experience of the Chinese people who have made their home here in Australia.
I have to say that the respect and affection that we Australians have for the people of China was reinforced by the remarkable speech that President Xi has delivered in our Parliament today.
I have never heard a Chinese leader declare that his country will be fully democratic by 2050.
I have never heard a Chinese leader commit so explicitly to a rule-based international order founded on the principle that we should all treat others as we would be treated ourselves.
One of the proverbs we heard today – an Australian one – was when you look at the sun you can’t see the shadows. Well, that was an interesting one, I have to say, Mr President, but when I listened to the President today, some of the shadows over our region and over our world lifted and the sun did indeed shine brightly and I thank you, Mr President, for this historic statement which I hope will echo right around the world.
China has been significant to us here in Australia almost from our very beginning as a settled country.
Thousands of Chinese joined the gold rushes from the 1850s.
There were Chinese ANZACs at Gallipoli and on the Western Front.
But today’s Australia has a deeper engagement with China than ever before – in education, in the arts and in entrepreneurship – and we celebrate that engagement in the inaugural Australia-China Achievement Awards.
I can announce that the winners of these awards are here tonight: Professor Max Lu from the University of Queensland, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Bridestowe Lavender Estate in Tasmania.
As well, to mark President Xi’s visit, Australia and China have reached agreements on infrastructure, financial services and the flow of students, researchers and academics between our countries.
Above all else, we can be proud of what our generation of Australians is contributing to this special friendship between our two countries.
Like any friendship, it occasionally is tested, but invariably it becomes stronger.
It was Deng Xiaoping who often spoke of ‘crossing the river by feeling the stones’.
Progress is like that.
Australia and China are crossing the river together.
Many years ago, a Chinese writer observed that “Chinese wedding, funeral and birthday customs may differ from those of the Western world”, but fundamentally, said our Chinese writer, “love, sorrow and happiness are the same everywhere”.
Our countries are different, our customs and system of government are different – although as we heard from the President, they are to converge – but the hearts of our people are not different, nor their hopes for their lives and their families’.
It is because we all seek prosperity and seek happiness that our governments can find so much common ground.
Now, in the year 1901, the year of Australia’s federation, the Chinese reformer, Liang Qichao, wrote about his time here in this country in a poem called Thoughts on my Return Voyage.
Fluttering seagulls see us on our way, the coral-like harbour glistening in brilliant afternoon light.
Distant waves unfurl as if a mellow lake. Islands scattered like stars in early evening skies. Sea breezes, salt air refresh body and spirit. Boisterous waves open our hearts to heaven’s melody. Good fortune indeed to have made this trip. The tides may find rest but I am lifted high. I am lifted high.
Mr President, I hope that’s how you feel about this trip.
Certainly, that is what it has meant to us.
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