When I arrived in Singapore this morning, the first place I visited was the Kranji War Cemetery.
There is no more permanent reminder of the connection between Australia and Singapore than that sacred place.
More than 2,500 Australians are buried at Kranji or are remembered on the Singapore Memorial to the Missing.
These brave Australians do not lie alone.
Together with the Australians are honoured many thousands of others, including at Kranji some 2700 British, 670 Indians and many others who gave their lives also for the defence of this island.
And those that survived the battle of Singapore then had to go on and endure horror and hardship as prisoners of war.
I thank the Government of Singapore for continuing to honour their memory.
And it is for these great reasons that Singapore has always occupied a special place in the hearts of Australians.
For Australians, military ties with Singapore are not just a matter of distant history.
They have been alive through the Emergency, through Konfrontasi, and more recently through the Five Power Defence Arrangements.
And they continue to inform the present as well as shape the future.
Most recently, our defence forces have worked together in East Timor.
And they will soon be working together in Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan.
Time after time, we also find ourselves side by side in military operations, in peacekeeping operations and in humanitarian operations - as in the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami.
Security, defence and peacekeeping cooperation has been a fundamental, continuing part of our relationship.
Part of a wider relationship between our two countries which I believe is welcomed by both our governments.
It is, therefore, a great pleasure to be back in Singapore.
And I want to thank the Government of Singapore for extending to me the honour of giving the Singapore Lecture.
My purpose in this lecture is to outline our thinking on the possible shape of our region in the future in a rapidly changing world.
And, furthermore, how we might together respond to the new challenges that these changes will create if we are to maximise our common goals of security, prosperity and sustainability for the wider region.
All the more important at the dawn of what will become the Asia-Pacific century - as the centre of geo-strategic and geo-economic gravity progressively shifts to this our own region.
With this shift comes great responsibility.
A responsibility to ensure that this century of Asia and the Pacific remains truly pacific as previous centuries of Europe and the Atlantic have not.
The changes and the challenges we face are therefore great indeed.
The Transnational Scope of the Challenge
Dealing with the challenges of a more integrated world means understanding both the limitations of the state and the limitations of markets - and embracing cooperative solutions to global challenges.
Challenges which lie beyond the reach of any single nation state - however powerful.
For example, climate change is the consequence of the failure of free markets to adequately account for pollution externalities.
Similarly, the recent international financial turbulence was precipitated by too little effective regulation, not too much.
The gathering challenges of energy, water and food security reveal the need for long-term management of these critical global resources - recognising price realities as a product of scarcity while equally recognising macro challenges of energy and water shortages and their impact on adequate food supply.
And one of the major security threats of the 21st century thus far - terrorism - has revealed itself to be diffuse, elusive and no respecter of national boundaries and largely immune to the polarised geopolitics of the Cold War era.
We can say confidently that none of the major contemporary global challenges can be addressed by a retreat into isolationism or unilateralism.
Today's global challenges therefore derive from a diverse mix of market failures, ineffective regulation, and inadequate international institutional frameworks to deal with what most of us would regard as genuinely global public goods.
The Drivers of Global Change
The world is experiencing rapid change of an order of magnitude rarely experienced in human history.
These changes are complex.
These changes are greatly interconnected - defying the capacity of the traditional silos of public sector policy formulation to deal effectively with them.
These changes are also, in the main, global and therefore tend to defy exclusively national responses.
These changes thus demand that every nation review and renew their national objectives, their participation in regional and global institutions, and their place in a dynamic world.
And nowhere is the pace of change greater than in the Asia Pacific region.
Indisputable demographic and economic change dictates that we are entering the Asia Pacific century.
It is estimated that by 2020, Asia will account for around 45 per cent of global GDP, one third of global trade and nearly one quarter of global military spending.
Our region's population is continuing to grow and is projected to reach 4.6 billion by 2020 out of a total global population of 7.7 billion.
Rapid population growth, combined with rapid urbanisation, will place increasing pressure on resources, particularly in relation to energy.
Asia's energy consumption could grow by around 40 per cent by 2020, or to put it another way, more than half of the increase in global energy consumption by 2020 will come from Asia.
The rise of China and India is a significant part of this shifting pattern of global economic and strategic weight toward the Asia-Pacific region.
This rise will be among the key defining developments of the 21st century.
The rise of China in particular represents the great unfolding drama of this new century.
Will China democratise?
How will China respond to climate change?
How will China deal with crises in the global economic and financial systems?
How will China respond domestically to the global information revolution?
And how will Chinese culture adjust to the array of global influences now washing across its shores directly and through the agency of the greater Chinese diaspora?
How China responds to these forces will radically shape the future course of our country.
Which means how countries such as Singapore and Australia seek to influence China's view of its role and responsibility in the merging global and regional order is also of great importance.
Beyond this shift in geopolitical power, a further factor driving global strategic change is the future course of economic globalisation.
The freer movement of goods, services, people and capital across borders has brought many great benefits.
It has generated high rates of global growth.
It has enhanced the prospects, in particular, of developing countries which have opened themselves to the international economy.
The economic globalisation of recent decades has also brought more people around the world out of poverty more quickly than any other time in history.
The challenges of economic globalisation, however, also need to be faced up to and their strategic consequences need to be addressed.
The illegal movement of people, drugs, weapons and capital across borders is accelerating.
There is also growing sense of grievance among some who believe that they have not had full access to the benefits of globalisation, or that they are simply worse off as a result of globalisation.
Even in states which have benefited unambiguously from globalisation, there is often a backlash against it when economic times get tough.
These economic realities have important strategic consequences.
A third major international change is the evolution of the concept of ‘national security'.
Clearly, the traditional concept of the term endures - that is, the security of one nation in relation to another.
But the concept has broadened to include the threats to international and national security posed by non-state actors who facilitate the global reach of terrorism.
National security is broadening even further in the outlook of some states to include food security, water security and energy security as well as security from the threat of health pandemics.
Climate change will lead to changed rainfall patterns and, therefore, to changes in agricultural production that will have an impact on food security.
Severe weather events will occur more frequently in some regions, making it more important that nations are ready to respond to natural disasters within and beyond their borders.
Competition for increasingly scarce energy resources will make it more important than ever for nations to manage territorial disputes.
These are all evolving concepts of national security that have significant strategic consequences.
We need to ensure that our international organisations are capable of producing real results in all areas - from human rights to trade liberalisation and climate change.
Policy Responses
As governments, the complex challenge we face is to craft policy responses to this rapidly changing region and world.
The new Australian Government is committed to ensuring that we are strong at home.
We are committed to enhancing our national security.
That is why the Government is building a more secure Australia by strengthening our defence for the future, building on the US alliance, and tackling new national security challenges, including long-term energy security.
We are also committed to strengthening the Australian economy.
Australia like other nations faces tough economic times ahead because of the state of the global economy.
That is why the Government is building a stronger Australia through responsible economic management to put downward pressure on inflation and implementing a major economic reform agenda to strengthen our long-term competitiveness and to invest in the industries of the future.
We are also committed to an activist diplomacy aimed at enhancing regional security and an open global economy enhanced by effective institutional and regulatory arrangements.
To achieve this we must act in concert with other states - both regionally and globally.
Singapore's Achievements
Australia - like Singapore - is naturally an outward-looking country.
We both understand the fundamental truth that our future can only be as nations fully engaged in global and regional affairs.
Singapore has demonstrated a remarkable global reach well beyond the physical size of this island republic.
This is equally remarkable given that Singapore is such a new nation state.
Only 45 years ago, Singapore joined with Malaysia.
And then two years later embarked on its own independent course.
In the 43 years since, Singapore has exhibited a significant record of achievement.
For a state to establish itself following the turmoil of independence is no easy task.
Entire national structures must be built.
The institutions of a national economy have to be developed from the ground up.
And Singapore's international personality had to be established.
In all of these things, and against any comparable global measure, Singapore has been a unique success story.
Singapore has become a major centre of regional and global trade.
Singapore has become a global transport centre.
Singapore has become a global financial centre.
Singapore has also maintained a peaceful multi-ethnic society in a region where ethnic tensions have been, from time to time, acute.
There is therefore great potential for our two countries to work creatively together to respond to the great challenges of our region and our world.
ASEAN
Singapore already has a long track record of positive regional activism through ASEAN.
At the height of the Cold War, 41 years ago, the leaders of five South East Asian nations got together to form ASEAN.
Singapore was one of the nations that helped to chart the future course for ASEAN as a founding member.
The world has changed a lot in the intervening 41 years, but ASEAN has endured.
In fact, ASEAN has done more than just endure, it has grown and it has matured.
During Singapore's Chairmanship of ASEAN over the past 12 months, the ASEAN Charter was signed - a new milestone in ASEAN's evolution.
I think that ASEAN's most impressive achievement - and one that is often under-appreciated - is building a sense of regional identity, a sense of community, and a sense of neighbourhood.
The countries of South East Asia have diverse histories, political systems, religious beliefs, social systems and cultural backgrounds.
But a real sense of community has been forged where there had been historically few substantive ties.
In fact when ASEAN was formed, the member states themselves had been riven by conflict then raging through Indochina.
Forty years later, by absolute contrast, the habits of cooperation have crafted a sense of genuine community.
It is a community that defaults first towards dialogue rather than confrontation.
It is a neighbourhood whose residents seek, first and foremost, to cooperate more closely with each other.
In this sense, ASEAN represents an outstanding essay in institutional success for which member states, including Singapore, should be congratulated.
Some criticise ASEAN for being insufficiently activist.
I argue that this criticism is misplaced because it fails to appreciate that ASEAN's great success has been to avoid conflict among member states and allow economic development to progress unimpeded by intra-regional security concerns.
That is why I argue that ASEAN has been a remarkable success story.
ASEAN in turn has given rise to other elements of the wider regional architecture including the East Asia Summit (EAS), the Asia Europe Meeting (AEM) and the ASEAN Regional Forum.
Australia is therefore proud that it was ASEAN's first Dialogue Partner in 1974.
APEC
Of course, another example of cooperation is the one with the broadest membership in our region - and that is APEC.
Once described by Gareth Evans as “four adjectives in search of a noun”, APEC has become a noun in its own right nowadays.
APEC has shown that its model of cooperation and dialogue can deliver practical results across the wider region.
Much of the day-to-day work of APEC on harmonisation of customs regulations and similar topics may not shape the global terrain.
But they do make a practical difference to businesses.
They make it easier to conduct business across international boundaries and that helps to drive economic growth by the lowering of the costs of transactions.
If we can take forward APEC's idea for a Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (as recommended by the United States), it would be a significant boost to regional prosperity.
APEC also works in the important area of regional disaster response - a field in which the ASEAN Regional Forum also plays a role.
If you look around our region over the past decade, the cost of natural disasters has been staggering.
Last year, according to the Red Cross, 241 disasters across Asia resulted in more than 15,000 deaths.
And this year the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China have reminded us of the power of nature - more than 150,000 lost their lives and so many hundreds of thousands more have been seriously affected.
And these events have reminded us of the need to be able to react quickly.
What is more, they have reminded us that responding to large-scale natural disasters is often beyond the power of even the largest states.
But, if we pool our resources and if we coordinate our assets, we can do more and we can get better results.
In responding to a crisis, the first 24, 48 or 72 hours are critical.
So, we need regional mechanisms that facilitate a quick response.
Australia and Indonesia are going to take a proposal to the APEC Leaders Meeting in Lima, Peru, this year about regional disaster management coordination.
Next year Singapore will host APEC - and I know that Singapore is already working hard to make sure that next year's agenda will be ambitious.
Australia is committed to working closely with Singapore in the lead-up to APEC next year.
Just as we will work with Japan and the United States over the following two years when they will host the APEC Leaders' Meeting.
APEC has a record of helping shape regional responses to challenges like trade liberalisation, trade facilitation, as well as providing a regular forum for meetings of regional heads of government including those of China and the United States.
The Concept of an Asia Pacific Community
Over the years, our regional architecture has evolved.
It is not static.
It has changed greatly since the first steps were taken to establish ASEAN forty-one years ago.
Our region has benefited greatly from the regional architecture that has emerged.
The founders of ASEAN, of APEC and of the East Asia Summit did us a great favour in establishing these organisations.
These institutions have made, do make and will continue to make a great contribution to our security, stability and prosperity.
Earlier I outlined the key drivers of global change.
In twenty years time, the global terrain may well be unrecognisable as a result of deep forces currently reshaping our world.
As governments, I believe we have a responsibility to think about the future and to plan for it.
The alternative is to sit idly by and let our world and our region to be simply reshaped by events - as if we were passive by-standers.
My view is simple, either we shape the future, or the future shapes us.
We need to prepare our countries for the future, and we need to prepare our region for the future.
It is for this reason that two months ago in Sydney I highlighted the advantages for the wider Asia-Pacific region in engaging in a conversation about the future of our regional architecture.
And further that that conversation would be usefully directed at how we could develop a concept of an Asia Pacific Community.
Of course, we want a stable region that is secure, open and prosperous.
Our region should be one that opens channels between countries, not one that erects barriers between them.
But how do we ensure that we get that sort of region?
How do we avoid any accidental slide into complacency, competition or even conflict, rather than engrain the habits of cooperation?
One constructive way would be to have a regional discussion about the sort of regional architecture we want to see in the next 20 years.
Open dialogue and discussion is the first step in planning where we want to be.
Inevitably, there will be differing views on this question.
That is a healthy thing.
But it is important to have a conversation that explores the options.
We need to make sure that all of the major players are engaged in an open conversation about the region's future - the United States, China, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and others - including India.
And we need to be able to conduct continuous dialogue on any and every challenge we might face - from climate change to economic liberalisation, to security cooperation to natural disaster management.
Because as I noted at the outset of this Singapore Lecture, the challenges we face no longer fit neatly within the boundaries of politics, economics, environmental or security concerns.
They cross over these boundaries.
And they eventually cross over national boundaries.
Furthermore, let us be clear about what an Asia Pacific Community is not.
It is not an economic union.
It is not a monetary union.
It is not at this stage a customs union.
And it is certainly not a political union.
All of our existing regional mechanisms have a critical role to play both now and into the future - including ASEAN, APEC and the EAS.
But, at the same time, we need to begin our conversation about where our wider region goes from here.
And this is where the wider region needs to learn from ASEAN's success - how to build the institutions, habits and practices of cooperation across the policy spectrum and across historically uncomfortable national divides.
Australia and Singapore have a long history of cooperating on effective regional architecture.
And so we look forward to engaging with Singapore as an influential participant in that discussion.
Australia remains open to the suggestions of our regional partners as this discussion unfolds.
Because by definition, an APC by 2020 is very much a long-term project for the future.
Global Challenges
Beyond the region, the long-term capacity of our global institutions to deal with the new generation of global challenges we face also demands debate.
The United Nations remains in need of reform given that many of the challenges to the global system today were not envisaged in 1945.
The International Financial Institutions also remain in need of reform - including a new role for the IMF to deal with global financial crises of a type not envisaged at the time of Bretton Woods in 1944.
The failure of the WTO to deliver the Doha Round also reminds us that the political will of the membership is crucial to the success of international bodies.
Climate change also looms as a major new challenge to the global system. The strength of the global community on this challenge will be critically tested at Copenhagen.
And then there is the continuing challenge of non-proliferation for which the next global challenge looms at the point of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in 2010.
The Australian Government has established an International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.
It will be co-chaired by former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans and former Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi.
The Commission has a big task in front of it.
The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty has done a good job over the past 40 years in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.
But some states have sought to challenge the NPT.
North Korea has developed a nuclear program - although we welcome the recent progress towards solving the question of this program.
Other states, such as Iran, have defied the International Atomic Energy Agency and, in doing so, have undermined the Treaty.
With the next five-yearly review of the Treaty due in 2010, we need to look at how we can strengthen support for the Treaty.
We need to strengthen support for safeguards so that nuclear material is strictly controlled.
And we need to develop new thinking about how we work towards the goal of the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.
It is crucial that we build wide spread support for the Treaty, across regions and between those states with nuclear weapons and those without.
The Commission's task is to help build that support.
Going Forward
For Australia, an important element in all of these challenges is our ongoing cooperation with Singapore, the broader ASEAN membership, and the wider region.
Australia's future will also depend on our ability to engage constructively and effectively with the countries of the Asia Pacific.
That is why I am committed to making Australia the most Asia-literate country in the collective West.
By investing in Asian languages and cultural education in Australia's schools, my vision is for the next generation of Australians - businessmen and women, economists, accountants, lawyers, architects, artists, film-makers and performers - to develop language skills which open their region to them.
This is part of our long-term vision for a fully regionally engaged Australian nation in this Asia-Pacific century that now unfolds before us.
And in Australia, that process has already begun.
Conclusion
I began this lecture by addressing the drivers of global strategic change.
I want to conclude by saying that to deal with the challenges that arise from these changes, we need effective global institutions, we need effective regional institutions and we need close cooperation with reliable partners.
For Australia, one such partner is Singapore.
We will not always agree.
Nor should we.
That is inevitable for tough-minded nation states like ours.
But because of the common history we share, our many common interests, and our common awareness of the challenges we face, the potential for us to do more together in the region, and in the world for the common good is very great indeed.