President Bambang Yudhoyono, Madam Ani Yudhoyono, the Leader of the Opposition, my Ministerial and Parliamentary colleagues, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. This Great Hall of the Australian Parliament has hosted many lunches for many friends and visitors to our country but none is more important than the luncheon we have today in honour of the President of the Republic of Indonesia.
Today, the President and I met for the fifth occasion, personally, since the 30th October last year. That is a reflection not only of the shared tragedy and adversity that has brought our two countries even closer together but it is also witness to our shared determination at a personal level to ensure that the relationship between our two countries grows closer and deeper as time goes by.
Mr President we welcome you here in three capacities, we welcome you as the elected leader of the third largest democracy in the world. We welcome you also as the leader of the largest Islamic nation in the world and we welcome you as a friend and neighbour leading a country, that by reason of destiny and geography, will be forever linked with Australia and the Australian people.
We've heard a lot of talk recently and properly so, about the democratic successes of recent times. Democracy around the world has had a good six months. We've seen the great 'Orange revolution' in the Ukraine, we've seen the cautious depth towards a settlement of the long running enmity between Israel and the people of the Palestinian state, we should not be too optimistic but we should be cautiously hopeful. We have seen the beginnings of a possible Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, we have seen the inspiring example of eight million Iraqis voting in defiance, against the most appalling intimidation.
But of all the great democratic transformations of recent times, none has been more impressive than that of Indonesia and it is my very strong view and that of the Australian Government that Indonesia has not received enough credit for the remarkable embrace, so peacefully, of change to a democratic state. To bring about that change in a nation of more than 200 million people is a remarkable achievement so therefore we honour today, the directly elected President of this great country, whose importance to Australia can only grow as time goes by.
We are also conscious that we recognise him as the leader of a great Islamic nation, at a time when more than ever, it is essential to have inter-faith dialogue, the world presently mourns the death of a great figure of our age, Pope John Paul II, who led the Catholic Church for more than 26 years and amongst his many great achievements was the fact that he was the first Pope to enter a mosque, he understood the importance of inter-faith dialogue. He understood as we have understood in recent months as we have been thrown together in adversity that at a time of challenge, our differences fall away. In the face of the appalling tsunami disaster, the hearts of 20 million Australians reached out to the people of Indonesia, without any regard to the differences in faith or background but in a common humanity and a common desire to help the suffering of those people.
So we welcome you Sir at a time when understanding between the different faiths is so important, and I am very proud of the fact that one of the things that our Government was able to do was to inaugurate an inter-faith dialogue that brought together the leaders of the Christian denominations from Australia, Islamic leaders from Australia and join them in conference with their friends and colleagues of different faiths in Indonesia.
We welcome you also of course as the leader of our nearest neighbour. Geography has placed us together. Geography and destiny will mean that despite the differences we will inevitably have in the future and it never serves a productive relationship between two countries whose backgrounds are so different to pretend that we won't from time to time have a difference of emphasis, from time to time have arguments.
But fundamentally the sense of goodwill and a shared future is very strong and I have in my associations with President Yudhoyono, a man of immense decency and immense vision for his own country. I think it is difficult and challenging on occasions to be Prime Minister of Australia and I think some of the decisions that we take in this country to bring about economic and social change are burdensome and impose great political challenge but then I think for a moment about the sort of challenges that the President has faced in recent weeks in reducing by some 30 per cent, a fuel subsidy, that has been for the benefit of every Indonesian citizen over so many years, and the big task he faces in ensuring that his country becomes economically more attractive to the rest of the world and he is making great progress and can I say to all the businessmen and women gathered here today that it is important that we invest in Indonesia's future because of all the shared challenges that Indonesia has with Australia, none is greater than the challenge of terrorism, a successful moderate Islamic Indonesia.
Led by a man of compassion and a man of vision such as President Yudhoyono, is about the most powerful weapon that we can have against zealotry and extremism in our part of the world. Extremism breeds on an absence of democracy, extremism can breed on injustice and to the extent that a moderate Islamic Indonesia prospers and grows and strengthens its bonds with its democratic friends and neighbours, so we are able to deny to the terrorists and the zealots success, and a future breeding and training ground for those who they might recruit to their perverted goals.
I want to say to you Mr President on behalf of the relatives and friends of those 88 Australians who died in the Bali nightclub in 2002, I want to say two things. I want to say that they will never forget the way in which the Indonesian police cooperated with the Australian police and caught those responsible. We are grateful that Indonesian justice was so effective and I also want to say on behalf of those people, many of whom heard your inspiring speech on behalf of the Indonesian Government at the gathering in Bali, a year after that tragedy, what a wonderful demonstration it was of your personal commitment to ensuring that terrorism was rooted out in your country and your personal commitment to joining Australia in fighting the scourge of terrorism in our region.
Today Mr President we've had very productive discussions, you've reaffirmed your support for Australia's involvement in the wider architecture of the region. We have both reaffirmed our determination to build ever closer bonds between our two nations but above everything else we have reaffirmed our common commitment to some values that we have, our commitment to democracy, our determination to fight terrorism, our determination to lift the living standards and the trade opportunities of this part of the world. President you come as a true friend, you come to this country as a man I respect and like a great deal and I look forward to many, many gatherings of this kind in the future as we build even more the bond that brings our two countries together. I therefore in welcoming you Mr President, hope that you and your wife and your Ministerial colleagues have a very enjoyable time in Australia and I would like the Leader of the Opposition Mr Kim Beazley to support my remarks. Thank you.
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