It is my great pleasure to be here among the ASEAN family - and indeed Australia was proud to become ASEAN's very first dialogue partner back in 1974.
It is my great pleasure to be here in Bali - this beautiful island where the very first ASEAN Summit was held 35 years ago.
It is my great pleasure to be here in Indonesia - a great strategic partner and friend of Australia over many decades.
The relationship between Australia and Indonesia has never been more important for our two countries.
And I want to thank and pay tribute to President Yudhoyono for his efforts in building the friendship that our two nations enjoy.
I am looking forward to participating on Sunday in what will be the first of annual summit meetings between Australia and Indonesia, reflecting our desire to work ever more closely and cooperatively together.
Friends, I recently turned 50 and I was thinking about the Asia I learned about as a young girl back in the 1960s.
It was a region of poverty, colonialism, ideology and war.
The reality, a few short decades later, couldn't be more different - for Asia, and for Australia's place in it.
The region is growing in prosperity, peaceful and strong.
And for my nation, these have been remarkable years of learning and engagement.
Years in which we came - not always easily - to see our place in Asia as a source of strength.
To celebrate the “advantage of adjacency” to our own neighbourhood rather than fear the “tyranny of distance” from our Northern Hemisphere origins.
It is true we come from many cultures; many different histories; many political traditions.
But our objective is the same: to strengthen and deepen our economic, political and security cooperation across the Asian region.
And to do so in what that very first ASEAN Summit calledthe spirit of “mutual respect and mutual benefit”.
Today we gather on the eve of another summit.
A defining moment for our region as the United States and Russia join the East Asia Summit for the first time in its short history.
President Obama has just visited Australia and I know he is looking forward to being the first US President to attend the East Asia Summit.
It is defining because it acknowledges the global significance of our region.
Because it acknowledges the shift in economic power to the East is not a temporary phase but a long-term development of lasting significance to the whole global community.
This is truly the ‘Asian Century'.
And by Asia, we don't just mean China and India - but the whole of Asia.
This is a favoured region at the best time in its history.
Economic growth the fastest in the world.
Economic growth lifting millions of people out of poverty.
For all who exercise leadership in the region, this is cause for the greatest satisfaction.
To see the living standards of your people improve and to see your nations rise in the esteem of the world.
This is the region where the economic history of the 21st century will be written.
By 2020, it is estimated that 1.2 billion people will join the middle classes of Asia.
We are witnessing enormous economic and human transformation and that creates enormous opportunity.
That shift is already well underway, as any visitor to the streets of Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok will attest.
We are witnessing the growth of financial and legal services.
Higher education.
Technology and innovation.
It is a story of dynamism and sophistication.
But we also know that our emerging success story is not immune from the events of the wider world.
I am sure that at the East Asia Summit, leaders will want to talk about the Eurozone crisis and how it is affecting the region's prospects.
The Global Financial Crisis is not over.
Instead it has presented as a crisis in two parts.
The first phase was largely a crisis of liquidity in the private sector, triggered by the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market in the US.
The second and current phase is a crisis largely surrounding sovereign entities and their capacity to meet their debt obligations.
We are seeing more turbulence on global markets.
The need to act has become more urgent, not less, since the G20 in France.
So we look to Europe for a swift and decisive response to problems of high debt and low growth facing the Eurozone.
New political leadership in Italy and Greece offers the Eurozone a further opportunity for the response the world needs to see.
We urge them to seize this opportunity and implement the October 27 package in full.
Beyond resolving the Eurozone crisis, the most immediate challenge to the health of the global economy is securing continued global growth.
That will require economies committing to macroeconomic policies to support recovery and this includes action from both the developed economies and the major emerging economies of the world.
Developed economies need to take steps to bolster growth in the short-term, whilst putting their public finances on a sustainable footing over the longer-term.
Emerging surplus economies need to rebalance their economies away from external demand and towards domestically-driven consumption, and allow for a greater role of market forces in setting the value of their currencies.
And all economies need to undertake necessary structural reforms to boost productivity and growth.
One of the harsh lessons of the Global Financial Crisis has been that economic problems no longer begin and end at national borders.
This was a lesson Asia itself learned through the Asian Financial Crisis of the late 1990s.
At the G20, leaders acknowledged the International Monetary Fund's central role as a key line of defence in the global economy and leaders affirmed their strong commitment to supporting the Fund to carry out its systemic responsibilities.
Friends, as global economic and strategic weight shifts from west to east, global institutional frameworks reflect this in turn.
At the 24th ASEAN-Australia forum in September in Canberra, Australia reaffirmed its support of ASEAN's mission to champion regional integration.
Expanding markets.
Eliminating barriers to trade.
Australia recognises this through a growing body of cooperative work with ASEAN across a broad spectrum of areas including: business and people-to-people links; education and health; climate change; and transnational crime, including drug trafficking and people smuggling.
With Indonesia, China, Japan, Korea, India and Australia counted among its members, Asia takes its rightful place at the G20.
And now, with Russia and the United States onboard, nearly half of the G20 sits at the EAS table.
Just as ASEAN has grown in stature and purpose since 1967, new institutions have emerged to meet the needs and challenges of the 21st century.
The East Asia Summit is one such institution whose wide membership is a response to the new era that has redefined how we view our world.
Perhaps our single most important understanding is in the area of trade.
We know that closed markets are never the answer.
Nor is this a time for the faint-hearted.
As with the financial crisis which we so successfully negotiated in 1997, this is a time to be resolute and embrace the future.
A time to invest - as my Government is - in the drivers of growth: skills, infrastructure, high-speed broadband, clean energy, tax reform, better health care.
To strengthen our banking and regulatory regimes.
To optimise our exchange rate settings.
To boost transparency, enshrine the rule of law and uphold the rights of our people.
Above all, this is a time to keep breaking down barriers and opening the doors of trade.
There is a simple equation at work here: trade equals growth, equals jobs.
Benefits that accrue even through unilateral tariff reductions, as Australia's experience over the past 25 years so amply demonstrates.
Making us more competitive.
Making us more productive.
And forcing us to look beyond our own shores because nations that trade are nations at peace.
Friends, I'm very proud of the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement.
And I warmly commend Indonesia on finalising ratification this week.
This is the most comprehensive trade deal that ASEAN has negotiated.
A gold-standard regional trade agreement.
By opening up our markets to each other, we are creating a trading group with a combined population of 620 million people involving some of the fastest growing economies on earth.
Around this time last year, President Yudhoyono and I agreed our two countries should work towards a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
Our Trade Ministers have used the time since to prepare the ground for detailed talks, consulting with our business communities and discussing economic cooperation designed to ensure the benefits of the agreement are widely spread.
Now we are both in a position to begin in earnest our work on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
In doing so, we will emphasise the ‘P' in CEPA - partnership - ensuring our agreement delivers real benefits to everyday Indonesians and everyday Australians.
Both our governments are determined that it will not only be large corporations that benefit from this market opening - as important as you are.
We want to ensure the benefits of greater trade are spread throughout our communities and throughout our regions.
Indonesia's population of more than 240 million makes it the fourth most populous country on earth.
Its economy is already one of the 20 largest in the world, having achieved impressive real average annual growth of five per cent during the last decade.
Private forecasters predict Indonesia will grow to around the fifth to eighth largest economy in the world over the next 20 years.
The strong commercial bonds we have built are set to produce large dividends for both our nations.
Friends, the same thinking informed our deliberations at APEC in Hawaii last week.
Regional leaders affirmed that Asia and the Pacific will not wait for the rest of the world to move the free trade agenda forward.
The Trans Pacific Partnership stands to become a free trade zone bigger than the European Union.
But only if we avoid becoming mired in the quibbling and controversy that has beset Doha.
Now it's time for TPP supporters to make this Agreement a reality, translating the consensus and goodwill of last week into a concrete deal next year.
And, of course, our job doesn't end there.
We need to push for further structural reform.
Reform that will promote confidence and allow business to create jobs and drive productivity throughout the region and across the globe.
As governments and as businesses we must not respond to uncertainty by closing markets or turning away from reform.
Governments need to focus on trade and give business the conditions that encourage growth, including through entrepreneurship and innovation.
The driving force behind government measures is the desire to build resilient economies because it is resilience that provides the stable environment which promotes open trade and investment.
But sustainable economic growth is only possible where there is certainty, and the EAS provides a collaborative framework for regional stability and growth.
The key to growth in the region and the resultant jobs is economic openness.
The member nations of the EAS will use our position in the G20 to deal with structural imbalances.
At APEC to open the region as a whole.
And through a comprehensive agenda of Free Trade Agreements to deepen country-to-country economic ties.
We need effective regionalism through institutions with the right membership and mandate to address the full range of security, political and economic issues facing the region.
The EAS has made a strong start to what I believe will be a great history of cooperation between nations who have not always been friends.
We have learned from our history and moved on from it.
We understand the need for cooperation and convergence.
And we are beginning to see just what a more united Asia can mean for our region and for the world.
This is moment of opportunity and a time of hope.
Let's master its challenges and seize its opportunities.
In the ASEAN spirit.
As partners - as neighbours - as friends.
Together.