Building Australia's Future in a Changing World

In this country we enjoy a good debate on issues of foreign policy and foreign affairs - a much more robust debate than in many other countries. Sometimes I follow our debate with disappointment, occasionally with a touch of anger. On other occasions I greatly approve. The point here is that our robust debate is important. It reflects the type of country Australia is: not only a robust democracy but also a genuinely significant country that plays a positive role in the region and the world.

There have been other watersheds during my time as the Foreign Minister but the biggest single change came on the eleventh of September 2001. The world changed on that day. Terrorism had issued a challenge not only to the United States but also to the western world and the moderate Islamic world.

And we've seen the consequences: The attacks in Bali where 88 Australians and over 200 people were killed, the recent attack on the Australian Embassy in Jakarta and the Beslan attack. The slaughter of those children was terrorism that broached new boundaries of barbarism. And there have been many other attacks around the world.

Australia’s robust debate on terrorism tends not to go far enough. Terrorism is linked to current conflicts such as Iraq, and it’s often stated that the Palestinian-Israeli question is a key issue. But I think that is a misunderstanding of what organisations like al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiah are ultimately about. If we are to understand the national and international dynamics of terrorism and to work out what to do about it, it's fundamentally important to understand what the real issue is. What do these people really want?

Put simply, they want to drive the western world and its influence out of the Islamic world. They want to overthrow the moderate governments of the Islamic world and replace them with Islamic extremist dictatorships, Taliban-style.

These people, of course, don't want Australian, American, European or Japanese influence in Indonesia or the Middle East. But equally they don't want the House of Saud, and they don't want free elections in the emerging democracy of Indonesia. They don’t want democracy in Malaysia. They want to wipe all that out. That is the truth about their ultimate objective. Much of the debate about terrorism is insufficiently sophisticated because it doesn’t take that objective into account.

Let me emphasise that this is a regional problem. But it is much more than that. It is a global problem. For some time there have been significant links between the Islamic extremist terrorist organisation Jemaah Islamiah and al-Qaeda. Those links mean we have to understand this as a global problem with a regional dimension.

So the question for our country, with its heritage of making strong contributions to a better world, is, “What should we be doing about this?” The answer is that, so far, we have been contributing very substantially both regionally and globally.

It has been put out, particularly by the Labor Party, that we devote too many resources to the global effort against terrorism, working through the American alliance and helping the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq - but we don't do enough regionally. So I'll start with what is actually happening and the work we are doing in our own region.

I haven't heard Mr Latham mention that Australia has signed Memoranda of Understanding on Counter-Terrorism with nine countries in our own region, from east to west, from Fiji to India and with ASEAN. Importantly, in February 2002, well before the Bali bombings, we signed Memorandum of Understanding on Counter-Terrorism with Indonesia. Under the auspices of these Memoranda there have been an enormous amount of detailed, technical and important work to assist these countries’ intelligence services and police.

The best way to deal with terrorism is to invest significant resources in intelligence and policing. Domestically, we have very substantially increased this investment. As one example, over the last eight years we have doubled the budget for the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, ASIS.

Regionally we've invested very substantially in helping to improve policing and intelligence capabilities. As examples:

• In the Philippines, we've been helping them deal with questions of border security and port security.
• With the Indonesians we've reinstituted joint air patrols so that both of our countries can have a better idea of movements within our own region.
• Also in Indonesia, we’ve invested $36 million over the next five years to establish the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation, designed to help countries in the region build up their capacity to fight terrorism.
• We have set up substantial and successful joint investigations with the Indonesians following Bali, the Marriott bombing, and the recent attempted bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.
• And we have worked to shift the focus of the Five Power defence arrangements with New Zealand, Britain, and significantly in this context, Malaysia and Singapore, toward counter-terrorism. Next month there will be exercises by those countries in South East Asia.

We have been investing so heavily, and doing so much in the region, it astonishes me to hear Mr Latham and some of his colleagues suggest we should do more.

Our co-operation with countries of the region has to be handled sensitively because they do not want Australia to be seen to be moving in and taking control of their intelligence or their police. (I'm sure Australia wouldn't want that in reverse either.) So, obviously, we don't boast about it too loudly or too often.

The Labor Party has said we should be out there doing joint maritime patrols in the Malacca Straits and other sensitive waterways in the region. But the whole question of maritime surveillance is actually a very sensitive issue in South East Asia. We have discussed it with them at some length. The governments of these countries insist on taking primary responsibility for maritime security. They are happy to receive assistance and we’re giving it to them - but they don't want us to take over maritime security and surveillance in their own part of the world. They are very sensitive about that. The cooperation with us on counter-terrorism has been enormous, but we do have to handle it with appropriate dexterity and sensitivity.

Terrorism isn't just a regional issue - it's a global issue. We need the co-operation of countries beyond South East Asia, the South Pacific and South Asia if we are to defeat terrorism. And there is no country on earth that can bring more resources to fighting terrorism than the United States of America.

The alliance we have with the US is not just fundamental to border security, it is fundamental to our capacity to wage war successfully against terrorists. And if we were to downgrade the alliance with America, that would downgrade our capacity to fight terrorism - including in our own region.

The greatest resource the US has in this region is its intelligence capability. Five days before the bombing at the Australian Embassy we upgraded our travel advisory. That upgrade came from intelligence we received about a possible attack on western-style hotels. That intelligence came from the Americans. They collect and pass on to us an enormous amount of intelligence in South East Asia and elsewhere. This is a massive force multiplier for us. We do have our own intelligence, but these American resources are critically important.

The US also carries enormous diplomatic weight, borne out of America's economy and its military capabilities. And if worse comes to worst, the United States has defence resources that can't be matched by anyone else on earth.

In the context of not only the traditional security threats but also today’s asymmetrical security threats - in particular the war against terrorism - our alliance with the United States is fundamental to our own security. We will gain nothing by downgrading that alliance relationship for the sake of politics.

As Foreign Minister I’m also deeply committed to expanding and developing our relations with our regional neighbours. We've achieved an enormous amount in South East and North Asia. And over the next few years I look forward to exciting developments building on what we've already done. We already have free trade agreements with Thailand and Singapore. Now we’re entering into negotiations with Malaysia about a possible free trade agreement.

Negotiations will be launched very soon to create an Australia, New Zealand, ASEAN free trade area. It’s something I have wanted for a very long time and it will be an enormously important development for Australia - economically, but also politically, in terms of our engagement with the region. That will happen at a summit on November 30th this year, a great day in Australian diplomatic history.

I'm enormously excited about the way our relationship with China is expanding. There are all sorts of contentious issues around a free trade agreement with China - issues to be debated within Australia as well as between us and China - and an agreement will be difficult to negotiate.  But the strength of the relationship is illustrated by the fact that we’re accelerating our scoping study. That study may conclude March next year, when we may well move into negotiation.

And there is the exciting growth in the number of students who come here from Asia and regional cultural exchanges, for example, Australia Week at the Shanghai Festival two years ago.

As Foreign Minister I've also put an enormous amount of energy into Australia’s key role in the South Pacific. For example:

• With New Zealand, we played an important role in ending the civil war in Bougainville.
• We have helped the Solomon Islands through the Regional Assistance Mission in the Solomon Islands (RAMSI).
• We’re now deploying our police and public servants into Papua New Guinea under the auspices of the enhanced cooperation program.

Elsewhere in the Pacific we're working on improving law and order and on improving governance.

It's core business for Australia - the South Pacific. We've done great things and we've just got to keep the momentum of this work in the South Pacific going. I'm immensely proud of what we've done to solve some of the festering sores of the region, but there is a lot of work still to be done. Incidentally, the Labor Party want to downgrade responsibility for the South Pacific to a junior minister. That’s regrettable.

As Foreign Minister I’ve been through some tough and controversial issues over the years. Some extraordinary allegations have been made against our government; that we're not interested in Asia; that we neglect the Pacific. People can say what they like - but it’s breathtaking.

What we've done has been tremendously exciting for this country and I hope after October 9th we'll be able to continue with this exciting work.