Australia shares ASEAN’s vision of success: a stable, integrating, prosperous region, where rights and freedoms are observed and differences resolved peacefully, based on the rule of law.

It is increasingly important to the world – and especially to Australia – that this diverse, dynamic region remain strong, open and engaged on its own terms with other countries and regions.

That is why my government commissioned the development of a funded roadmap for enhanced Australia-Southeast Asian relations in parallel with our new Integrated Strategic Framework, which brings together and more tightly focuses all aspects of our international relations.

In working up the Southeast Asian roadmap I’d like to recognise the extensive consultations we have had across the region with states, citizens and civil society. We have been actively listening to understand regional thinking more fully and harmonise our responses wherever possible.

On our side, I particularly recognise the leadership of Ambassador Birmingham, here in Jakarta. The bipartisan Australian support for his nomination is indicative of the heightened political priority Australia is according the region.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs and I have increased our own engagement and this has been complemented by an expanded program of parliamentary visits, including by members of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, assisted by a permanent secretariat.

The further expansion of our diplomatic network in the region – especially in Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore – will institutionally equip us both to hear local voices and views and to lift our engagement on issues and pursue joint opportunities.

If deep engagement is to be achieved it can not only be a government process.

We want to see much greater two-way tourism, cultural exchange and institutional links. Our new national language learning policy looks to greatly expand the teaching of Southeast Asian languages, in particular Indonesian.

New programs have been introduced to support and reward university study in Southeast Asia and to encourage mid-career business leaders to undertake regional assignments.

One indicator of how seriously we intend to engage, is the role that my department now plays in coordinating international relations across all other Australian government departments.

We have significantly expanded the International Division of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet to undertake this work and to drive implementation of our new Integrated Strategic Framework. Southeast Asia is unambiguously a top tier priority within that framework.

To keep us on track, the National Security Committee of Cabinet will annually review an independent strategic performance assessment to determine whether we are achieving our international goals, especially in Southeast Asia. As part of that process, the Australian National Audit Office will report on an expanded range of assessments of the effectiveness of our diplomatic, defence and development efforts.

I know that growth and development are amongst Southeast Asia’s highest priorities so that your citizens can have better lives and I commit to work with you more intensively to this end. Maintaining peace – regionally and globally – is essential for the economic expansion we seek. This requires resilience and resolve as well as a commitment to common rules, norms and values that we are collectively willing to defend.

No country wants to be bullied. The best way of avoiding being bullied is to make it clear that we will not give in to it. We are stronger together and where attempted coercion occurs, we need to support each other in resisting it. In negotiations, in dialogue, in legal processes and, where necessary, through military means.

Increasingly we need to be wary of decisions that unintentionally surrender sovereignty.

Cyber security is a major part of our new Strategic Framework because it is so integral to continued economic expansion, the exchange of information and ideas and the security of our nations. Malign actors are increasingly targeting our critical infrastructure, our electoral rolls, our political debate and our commercial dealings.

Defence against direct attacks is critical, but so too is defence against insidious infiltration including through new electronic communications and financing platforms that put citizens’ data and commercial information in the hands of those who might misuse it.

That is why we have proposed a digital “rules of the road” summit next month to establish common principles and regulatory standards.

No set of circumstances challenge the ASEAN vision more than Myanmar. We know that it is unlikely that there will be rapid progress, but all the more important that we stay the course.

Over more than 50 years Myanmar’s leaders have repeatedly made choices that have led to conflict, instability, poverty and human rights abuse. ASEAN must continue to deal resolutely with Myanmar, never normalising its behaviour and patiently searching for ways forward. We pledge to assist you as we have done in the past.

Indonesia provides a global example of how civil-military relations can be reformed. The role of the Indonesian military was modernised more than a decade ago, focussing it on defence tasks and creating additional space for civilian democratic participation.

As always, there is still work to do and remaining challenges, but the Indonesian example shows that big, hard reforms are possible with vision and leadership.

Civil-military relations can be strained when there is a lack of knowledge and understanding between these critical institutions. Differences will not magically disappear through dialogue, but by working together where there are shared interests and responsibilities, for example in disaster preparedness and response, a degree of mutual respect can be created and misunderstandings reduced.

The Regional Military/Civil Society Framework and the common training programs we have jointly developed promise not only enhanced humanitarian effectiveness, but also, potentially, more productive dialogue on other issues, including human rights.

Both COVID and climate change have helped us bring human security more to the fore in our thinking and policies. This is a welcome development that challenges all of us to think and work differently, but of course it does not mean that conventional security challenges have gone away.

I acknowledge that Australia’s emphasis on hard security has sometimes been misunderstood in the region. Our aim is to deter aggression through strength, clarity in our intentions and consistency in what we do.

I note that, like Australia, many of you are acquiring new military capability as a key means of preserving your sovereignty and strategic room to manoeuvre. This is understandable, though none of us want to see an intensifying arms race and all of us must be wary of miscalculation.

It is critical, especially now, that international tensions are reduced wherever possible through proactive diplomacy, that nations make their future intentions clear and that destabilising actions are avoided.

Australia’s regional security cooperation will continue to contribute to all of these goals.

Of course, security dialogue and defence cooperation are only part of much broader relations. To underline that, and the importance we give to human security, our new regional roadmap greatly expands engagement in several fields.

We have taken the ASEAN 2025 vision of a thriving regional community as our starting point – and our end point. An economic community that is “highly integrated, cohesive and competitive”, but also one that is “people-centred, tolerant and cooperative”.

From this base we have set our own overarching strategic objective for the region:

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This will be the fundamental goal of our international efforts in the region. 

A centrepiece is continuing to tackle the immediate and long-term legacies of COVID. 

It is not surprising that countries focused on themselves during the pandemic, but COVID is not a problem for a single country, or even a region, but a global one. It is clear that our machinery for dealing with it was inadequate. 

To protect ourselves, as well as for ethical reasons, we need a much more reliable, equitable system to get vaccines into the arms of everyone in the world during a pandemic. Vaccine charity is a wholly inadequate response, as is a focus only on vaccine production and allocation with inadequate attention to logistics, administration and personnel requirements. 

Consequently, Australia will work with ASEAN to increase regional manufacturing capability both of traditional and mRNA vaccines and to develop the systems and workforce for their delivery.

We need reliable, open supply lines that are linked to major international producers, but that can also operate separately if need be. Ramping up sovereign manufacturing capability in every nation would be a mistake that would continue to turn the world inward towards costly, inefficient solutions. 

Beyond vaccines, there is much else to do to promote greater readiness for emerging infectious diseases which we know are likely to recur. In particular, stronger surveillance and reporting is required so that we can respond faster to outbreaks. 

We understand the sensitivities of outside intervention in disease surveillance and that is why we have proposed the formation of an ASEAN-wide surveillance capability with the authority both to support local efforts, but also to undertake rapid investigations when outbreaks are detected. 

I commend ASEAN Health and Finance Ministers for commencing a joint dialogue on regional and global health system reform. I expect global health reform to consume a very large amount of time and money over the next decade 

Strengthening health security will involve many years of negotiations, institution-building and the design of new governance and financial instruments. 

Reform of the World Health Organization – especially ensuring Regional Directors are appointed on merit – will be a high priority for Australia, but by no means the only one. 

An expanded, expert, whole-of-government team is now working in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on this agenda, including through the enlarged Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security. 

A fast-growing Southeast Asia will be in the best position to manage health, climate and other threats. This is why Australia is putting renewed emphasis on helping the region deal with growth bottlenecks, infrastructure shortfalls and related policy and financing challenges. 

Our new, 10 year, $15bn Southeast Asia Economic Cooperation Program recognises our shared interests in regional economic expansion and the need for countries to avoid the ‘middle income trap’. 

It is a multi-faceted, expert-led program that will allow us to interact intensively both with national policy makers and also with international institutions such as the Asian Development Bank. To ensure the program is effective we are creating a new professional agency within the foreign affairs portfolio to manage it. 

The Program will provide direct technical advice and will also gear to enhancing support to countries undertaking major multilateral lending projects. Clean energy financing will be a major focus to address climate change in practical ways. It will also work on revenue and budgetary policy and the design and implementation of effective and affordable social infrastructure and policies. 

A key component will involve knowledge-based cooperation. Skills development and training, certainly, but also intra-regional collaboration to create knowledge and solve problems, using the capabilities of our best institutions, both public and private. 

Encouraging women’s economic, social and political participation has been an ongoing theme of Australian foreign policy for many years. We see it as a major means by which various ASEAN objectives can be realised, including economic growth, peace building and human rights observance. 

Australia will more consistently integrate gender into international policy and program design, including where opportunities have been missed in the past, for example in trade negotiations.

Some of you may be wondering why I have said relatively little about climate change. It is because I wanted to end on an issue where cooperation has turned threat to opportunity. 

Fossil fuels gave the world cheap energy for over a hundred years and billions benefitted from that, especially in the West, but the cost was passed to future generations and now the bill is due. 

We all now aspire to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, but we know if we’re to limit the costs of storms and floods, disrupted food supplies and water scarcity we cannot leave progress until the last minute. We must act now and act decisively. 

Fortunately, major advances in technology – for example in cheap reliable solar, in green hydrogen and in battery storage – have made renewable energy, not just more sustainable, but also economically efficient. 

And so, the conflicts between the short term and the long, between acting or not acting, between OECD countries that got rich on fossil fuels and developing countries that understandably want the same opportunity, have all receded. 

The task now is to look after those communities that are dependent on coal and gas and make sure they do not bear the brunt of the transition. And to organise the needed finance and technology to accelerate regional and global progress. 

That is where ASEAN-Australia cooperation on clean energy is such an inspiring symbol of our shared interests. 

Together – public and private, regional and non-regional, old industries and new – we are delivering on a plan to bring Australian renewable energy to the region as a key plank of an emerging ASEAN electricity market. 

This could not have happened without ASEAN and Australian eagerness; without commercial know-how, drawn from across the globe; and without both private and multilateral development bank financing. 

It came at just the right moment, reminding us of what can be gained, not just through open trade and investment – but through international cooperation in multiple forms. 

It is a beacon for a world in need of renewable hope as well as renewable power. 

A fitting symbol of what we can achieve together when we commit to a common cause and see it through. 

For Southeast Asia and Australia, our geography makes us neighbours, but our actions determine how productive our relations are. 

Australia is redoubling its efforts to be a be a supportive partner and a creative, proactive contributor to our shared future. 

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Thank you.