It’s an honour to be this year’s Sir John Downer lecturer.
Sir John was a premier of South Australia and a delegate to the colonial conferences that produced the constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia.
Australians’ reluctance to support referenda that change the constitution testifies to the strength of the system of government that he helped to shape.
It’s a constitution that gives people their due by keeping government in check. Sir John described himself as a Tory.
He was a genial, humane conservative who sought to extend traditional rights and privileges as widely as possible.
He was a supporter of female property rights and intervened to ensure that the new Commonwealth constitution did not disenfranchise Aboriginal people who could vote in South Australia from voting in federal elections too.
He championed the interests of South Australia but was not a provincialist.
He was an Australian patriot but understood the ties of history, kinship, trade and affection between Australia and the United Kingdom.
He also helped to establish a dynasty that has made an enduring contribution to the country he helped to found.
His son, Sir Alexander Downer, was one of our longest serving immigration ministers.
His grandson, also Alexander Downer, was our longest serving foreign minister and is now – of course – as his father was before him – our high commissioner in London.
Great things are not usually achieved by people with small ambitions.
Successive generations of Downers didn’t underestimate themselves or the country they served and neither should we.
That’s my theme for this lecture: don’t underestimate Australia.
We count for more than Australians are often inclined to think.
We shouldn’t imagine that we can change the world on our own; but neither should we doubt the difference we can make.
After all, we are the world’s 12th largest economy, have the world’s fifth most traded currency and are home to four of the world’s eleven top-rated banks.
We’re the world’s largest exporter of metallurgical coal and iron ore and will soon be the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas.
Around the world, we have many friends and few critics.
We’re big enough to be useful but not so big that we’re intimidating.
Throughout our history, we’ve been an utterly dependable ally; a reliable trading partner; and a swift responder to people in need.
It’s often forgotten that the Australian army was a central part of the battles that decided World War One.
Our exploits on the Western Front are much better remembered in France than in Australia.
Australian soldiers captured Jerusalem and Damascus as part of General Allenby’s army.
The centenary commemorations – that started this week with the 100th anniversary of the expedition to German New Guinea should remind us that Gallipoli was not even the beginning, let alone the end, of Australians’ part in the Great War.
When President Wilson chipped Prime Minister Hughes at the Versailles conference, the Australian reminded the American that he was speaking on behalf of 60,000 dead.
A generation later, the Australian 7th division helped to capture Syria from the Vichy French and the 9th division had a decisive role in the Battle of El Alamein.
Under the Colombo Plan, many of the leaders of post-war south-east Asia were educated at Australian universities.
Sir Robert Menzies was the chief British negotiator after the Suez crisis.
John Howard and Alexander Downer put together the UN Security Council resolution and despatched the force that gave East Timor its freedom.
With the assistance of New Zealand, the Howard government assembled the police and military team that stabilised the Solomon Islands.
Australia was the first to help Indonesia after the Indian Ocean tsunami and among the first to help Japan after their earthquake and the Philippines after their typhoon.
We’re still scouring the deep ocean for the wreck of MH370.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has rightly been praised for the Security Council resolution on the MH17 atrocity.
The government’s work merely renewed a long tradition of effective diplomacy – including, to give credit where it’s due, Doc Evatt’s work at the San Francisco conference.
It’s true that Australia is not a dominant power except, perhaps, in the South Pacific.
Still, we are country with global interests and some global reach.
Just last week, for instance, an RAAF Hercules joined American and British planes in the humanitarian airdrop on Iraq’s Mt Sinjar.
Last month, Australia was able swiftly to deploy 200 police and more than 250 military personnel to Europe to support Operation Bring Them Home.
As our record shows, Australia has long been prepared to play our part in the world’s struggles.
We will do what we reasonably and prudently can to advance our interests, protect our citizens and uphold our values.
We will do what we reasonably and prudently can to encourage American leadership because that’s provided the global security and stability that’s allowed Japan, Korea, China and India to achieve the greatest and swiftest advances in material welfare in human history.
Australia needs to manage three overlapping foreign policy imperatives: to maintain stability and prosperity in our neighbourhood; to promote trade and investment, especially with North Asia where our biggest economic partners are; and to help preserve global security in conjunction with like-minded countries.
Since last year’s election, I have travelled – in this order – to Indonesia and PNG (to keep regional relationships in good repair); to Japan, Korea and China (to boost trade); and to the United States and Canada and now Britain (to deepen security and intelligence cooperation).
We are about to conclude a joint understanding on intelligence cooperation that should fully restore the trusted partnership with Indonesia that had been unsettled by the Snowden allegations.
We are continuing to work with PNG on measures to boost development and improve public safety.
Comprehensive free trade agreements have been concluded with Korea and Japan and are well-advanced with China.
Australia’s consistent message is that the countries of our region will all advance together or none of us will advance at all because the consequences of serious conflict would be catastrophic.
One reason for guarded confidence that the territorial disputes in our region will, in fact, ultimately be settled peacefully and in accordance with international law is the cost to everyone of the alternative.
John Howard used to say that Australia didn’t have to choose between our history and our geography.
In like vein, this government has pointed out that you don’t win new friends by losing old ones; and you don’t make some friendships stronger by weakening others.
So far, by focussing on areas of mutual interest and common values, we’ve managed to strengthen all our relationships.
By being clear about where we stand, while respectful towards others’ perspectives, there’s every chance that we can continue to make a constructive contribution to world affairs.
We are ready to continue our existing, training-focused military contribution to Afghanistan, in partnership with our allies and under the right legal framework.
This should help to preserve the gains so painfully made at such cost by so many countries since the fall of the Taliban.
We are ready to continue humanitarian involvement in the Middle East, particularly Iraq, where Australian troops tried to help build a more civil society after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
There would have to be a clear and achievable overall purpose, a clear and proportionate role for us, a careful assessment of the risks, and an overall humanitarian purpose.
We are talking to our partners about how we might contribute to international efforts to protect people against the advances of ISIL terrorists.
There is a world of difference between attempting to create a new polity and a new society and helping to prevent the slaughter of innocents at the request of the existing government.
The geo-politics of the Middle East is a witches’ brew of complexity and danger.
It is much more often a case of choosing the least evil rather than the greatest good.
Still, watching preventable genocide is not a credible option either.
President Obama has wisely resisted taking sides in Iraq’s numerous conflicts but is prepared to help a credible government and is ready to protect innocent people; and, in proportionate ways, Australia, too, should be prepared to help where we reasonably and prudently can.
Consolidation of ISIL rule in Eastern Syria and in Western and Northern Iraq would be a disaster for the wider world as well as a humanitarian catastrophe in the region.
The declaration of a caliphate shows ISIL’s ambitions for universal dominion and claims to the allegiance of Muslims everywhere.
It’s natural to scoff at such seemingly medieval aspirations but ISIL takes them seriously and has been disconcertingly successful against more sophisticated opponents.
Entrenched as a terrorist state in parts of Iraq and Syria, ISIL could do at least as much damage to the wider world as the Taliban in Afghanistan and export at least as much terrorism.
Peaceful, pluralist democracies naturally shrink from reaching out to such conflicts but these conflicts, alas, reach out to us.
The ISIL eruption in Syria and Iraq – along with the parallel growth of Al Nusra, and the appearance of Al Shebab in the horn of Africa and Boko Haram in Central Africa – are grounds for profound concern but not despair.
Not all the signs are bad.
Countries such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, that might once have been ambivalent towards extremist movements, are now deeply alarmed.
Some Muslim countries are even prepared to cooperate with Israel against terrorist movements whose immediate enemy are moderate Muslim governments.
After all, ISIL threatens all countries and all peoples who don’t share its particular brand of extremism.
Energised and augmented terrorist networks are once more planning attacks against western targets.
Thanks to the many hundreds of Westerners fighting with ISIL and Al Nusra (including at least 60 Australian fighters and about 100 facilitators in Australia), there are now more potential home-grown terrorists than ever before.
Australia is boosting border security with biometric screening to be installed at airports and increased funding for security agencies.
New laws against unjustified travel to designated terrorist hot spots will make it much easier to arrest, prosecute and gaol returning fighters.
Laws requiring the retention and availability of limited telecommunications records will maintain our ability to monitor terrorist plotting and prevent terrorist crime.
As well, the government is reassuring Australian Muslims that our concern is to prevent terrorist crime, not to single out any particular community.
Extremism is the enemy; not Islam.
Terrorism is being targeted; not the members of any religion.
It may be that terrorists’ tendency to justify themselves in religious terms is driving Muslims to rethink and rearticulate the real nature of their faith.
From the Saudi king to the president of Indonesia, Muslim leaders are categorically affirming that the slaughter of innocents is always a crime in the eyes of God.
Paradoxically, the growth of religiously inspired terrorism may spur mainstream Islam to become more attuned to individuals’ rights.
Certainly, there has been no shortage of Australian Muslims ready to condemn ISIL and its killings.
Samir Dandan, to take just one of many examples, said that he found such acts “utterly repugnant…both as a Muslim and a human being”.
While some of the Islamic leaders who have met recently with the government claim we too readily justify Israel, none have tried to defend ISIL.
Perhaps this will turn out to be the moment when Australians come to appreciate that the Muslims among us much more often have our perspectives than those of the protagonists in foreign wars.
Perhaps this might turn out to be the time when Islam, like Christianity before it, finally dissociates religion from the use of force.
The alternative, deepening religious divisions between well-armed states locked in existential conflict, should be too horrible to contemplate.
Certainly, Australia has long been an exemplar of how people of different faiths and cultures can not only live harmoniously together but find unity in diversity.
Migrants from the four corners of the earth have come to this country, not to change us but to join us.
They have all voted with their feet for Australia.
No one has been expected to abandon their heritage or conform to any particular ideal of “Australian-ness”.
Multiculturalism has turned out to mean people becoming Australian – joining our team if you like – in their own way and at their own pace.
One of the participants in my Muslim leaders’ round tables this week rather exuberantly declared: “we are all part of Team Australia team and you are our captain” – suggesting that he had yet to assimilate Australians’ habitual scepticism towards politicians!
In our own way, Australia has long sought to showcase this easy-going approach to cultural and religious differences.
Sixty years ago, with the Colombo Plan, the future leaders of the sub-continent and South East Asia began coming here to study at Australian universities.
More recently, this has become a massive export education industry also focussed on our region.
Some of these students have so appreciated their Australian experiences that they have built a life for themselves here.
The vast majority return home as fans of Australia.
Providing an Australian education has not only been of benefit to the overseas individuals and the local institutions concerned but it’s become a very effective exercise in soft power.
It’s become a form of advertisement for Australia: our opportunities, our values, and our way of life.
The government has recently begun the New Colombo Plan, which will complement the hundreds of thousands of overseas students in Australia with tens of thousands of Australian students overseas, mostly in our own region.
The New Colombo Plan is already underway with hundreds of Australians now studying as awardees and scholars in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Indonesia.
As part of their award, some New Colombo Plan students will work as interns in overseas businesses and institutions.
Partly, this is overdue acknowledgement that the countries of our region have as much to teach us as we have to teach them.
Partly, it’s an opportunity for bright young Australians to be ambassadors for their country among their regional peers.
This will be a learning experience for everyone.
Plainly, Australians will come home with a better understanding of the languages and cultures of Asia.
Over time, I suspect, a greater Australian presence will reinforce our region’s existing and increasing attachment to democracy, the rule of law, pluralism and individual rights and responsibilities.
Our regional partners are likely to become freer societies as well as stronger economies.
Australia’s international engagements have rarely been so multi-facetted.
As well as our security, trade, and cultural relationships, there’s also the multi-national economic and financial policy networks associated with Australia’s presidency of the world’s top economic forum, the G20.
A richer world is likely to be a safer and more secure world because there’s scarcely any problem that couldn’t use more resources to address it.
The G20 countries have already agreed to the target of an extra two per cent in global growth above business-as-usual over the next five years.
This is to be achieved through more trade, less regulation, and more opportunities for private business.
Australia is seeking to lead by example by concluding freer trade agreements, by abolishing useless hits to our standard of living and to jobs like the carbon tax and the mining tax, by cutting red tape, by getting the budget under control, and – at the same time – by boosting economic infrastructure.
We’re reducing spending on short term consumption so we can increase it on long term investment.
We’re aiming to build a consensus in favour of private sector-led growth.
If there is a renewed global effort towards stronger international tax rules, more representative economic governance, and freer trade it will be, in part, the result of Australia’s consistent diplomacy.
The first requirement of leadership, after all, is knowing what you want to achieve.
From negotiating free trade agreements, to operation sovereign borders, to operation bring them home and even operation budget repair, there has been a clarity of purpose to all this government has been trying to achieve.
Internationally at least, there has been a measure of recognition for this.
We can and are making a difference.
At the height of the international search for missing flight MH370, I went to Pearce airbase to thank the personnel involved: from Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and the United States; and also from China, Japan and Korea.
It was a fine and fragrant example of international cooperation in a very good cause.
Anticipating my North Asia trip, I sought a photo with the Japanese, Korean and Chinese aircrew – and overcame the reluctance of the Chinese and Japanese to be too close together by coming between them and placing my arms firmly on their shoulders.
A few weeks later, the US, Chinese and Japanese ambassadors sat next to each other on the floor of the Australian parliament to listen to Treasurer Joe Hockey’s budget.
It would be presumptuous to declare “only in Australia”.
Still, these are small but significant straws in the wind for what might be achieved with sustained effort, constant goodwill, and a consistent point of view.
Our characteristics as a nation, reflect our characteristics as a people.
We are instinctively neighbourly.
We judge people by their actions.
We respond to events and needs in a way that’s practical and effective.
We’re among the first to lend a hand and the last to say enough.
We don’t dwell on past enmities and, once a fight is over, strive to turn enemies into friends.
Keeping commitments, valuing human life, and extending freedom are universal aspirations, not just Australian ones, and where those values prevail the world is safer for everyone.
That’s our objective: a stronger Australia in a safer world and our determination is to work purposefully to bring it about.
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