How Australia can regain positive influence and respect in the South Pacific

The second step we need to take with urgency is to adopt and implement the excellent recommendations of the Australian Parliament's Trade Sub-Committee report, titled "One Region, One Family, One Future". The Committee was chaired by the LNP Member for Fairfax, Ted O'Brien, and its members were drawn from the Government and Opposition in both the House and the Senate.

The report makes some excellent and comprehensive recommendations on how Australia can strengthen links with our immediate region.

The recommendations centre around building sporting links – coaching, regional competitions, visits to Australia to compete in team and individual sports. But it also recommends a greater engagement with the regions churches, women's groups and community organisations.

The federal government needs to engage immediately with the nation's major sporting organisations – the AFL, NRL, Rugby Australia, Soccer Australia, as well as leaders from Netball Basketball and cricket – to develop this initiative, and provide significant funding and personnel. It needs to equally support men's sport, women's sport, and sport involving school students and youth.

The report is thorough and balanced. It must not be pigeon holed!

The opportunities soft diplomacy offers Australia are enormous – but it needs the federal government to drive and fund them.

In conclusion, despite the platitudes that the Chinese Foreign Ministers statement offers about co-operation in sporting fields, and even "religions", Australia has the capacity to make a real difference in our people-to-people engagement with our neighbours in a way China simply cannot.

It makes sense, in these most challenging times, for more effective diplomatic representation and some targeted "soft diplomacy" sporting and community engagement to go right to the top of our regional priorities!