Pak President, welcome to Australia.
It is so good to see you again.
Your visit to this country two years ago and your address to our Parliament in Canberra was a moment of enormous significance in the history of our two nations.
I will long remember your words that day:
We are not just neighbours, we are not just friends ... we are strategic partners.
And the decisions made during that visit will be remembered too.
We are here this week because two years ago in Canberra our Governments agreed to a new annual leaders' meeting, agreeing to a closeness of co-operation we share with only a handful of countries.
Last year was the first meeting in Indonesia and this year is the first on our side.
It's especially fitting that we are meeting in Darwin, Australia's “northern capital”.
This city is at the centre of so much of the great and growing economic, strategic and humanitarian co-operation between Indonesia and Australia.
And so I want particularly to pay tribute to the people of Darwin, to the Government of the Northern Territory and my friend the Chief Minister Paul Henderson.
You have done so much to welcome us here this week and to foster relations between our two peoples.
So tomorrow, we will meet as strategic partners with much work to do.
We share a full agenda - our dialogue will be a powerful symbolic expression of good will.
But it will be much more than that too.
We will have our sleeves rolled up and there will be very real business to do.
Ours is a busy working partnership.
Travel and study, investment and trade, are all growing, with great opportunities to grow more in coming years.
Our Governments exchange high-level visits every few weeks.
Indeed between APEC, the East Asia Summit, the G20, ASEM, it sometimes feels like you and I meet personally every few weeks!
Our Defence personnel work closely together, in the region and beyond.
Among the thousands of Indonesian peacekeepers serving in the some of the most difficult UN missions are those who serve alongside Australians in South Sudan.
Wearing the blue beret of the United Nations which you yourself, Pak President, wore with such distinction in the Balkans in 1995.
I remember that a few years later, in 1999, as a new parliamentarian, I was privileged to be an election observer in West Timor, witness to the birth of modern Indonesian democracy.
The patient enthusiasm of the people I saw, waiting to cast their precious ballot, is something I will never forget.
That was the 1990s.
You and I have both come a long way since then - our countries have come a long way together as well.
Some of the issues for tomorrow are hard - terrorism and drugs, people smuggling, natural disasters management - threats as difficult as any in our shared history.
It's a remarkable tribute to the relationship between our nations that now, when faced by these hard issues, we turn towards each other, rather than turning away.
I believe problems which once threatened to divide us now only bring us closer together.
For two such diverse and dynamic nations to achieve a relationship of such stability and maturity is the real proof, Pak President, that we can meet the goal you set in Canberra in 2010: to build a “fair dinkum partnership”.
The people of these waters and lands have been neighbours for tens of thousands of years.
The Commonwealth of Australia was a friend of the Republic of Indonesia from the moment you proclaimed your independence in 1945.
Tomorrow, we meet sharing a partnership.
And, Pak President, your share in this partnership, as a great neighbour and friend of my country, is high indeed.
I look forward very much to our discussions tomorrow with you and your delegation.
And we are so very pleased to be hosting your visit here in Darwin.