 We might get out in a way if we could for our last panel of the day. Now, you've listened to a bunch of Australians talking about Australia for the past three sessions and we thought it might be an interesting thing to do to ask some non-Australians, some close observers of Australia who are not Australian, to reflect on how Australia is travelling in today's world. So who better to call on than members of our wonderful diplomatic community here in Canberra? Members of our community may I say that we are most grateful to at the ANU and the Coral Bell School. They are wonderful supporters of our work and wonderful interlocutors of our scholars in talking about the world. And even better, who better to think about Australia and tell us about how Australia is travelling in today's world than Australia's three closest neighbours. And so I have three excellencies here on stage with me to my immediate right is High Commissioner Chris Seed who is the New Zealander High Commissioner to Australia. To his right is His Excellency Ambassador Najib Ripat Kossima who is Indonesia's Ambassador to Australia. And to his right is His Excellency High Commissioner Charles Lepani who is Papua New Guinea's High Commissioner to Australia. Now, I've been looking forward to this session all day. In the spirit of Nick Farrelly, please do keep on tweeting away and letting people know what you think of their Excellencies judgments on Australia. Now, Excellencies, I'm going to ask each of you at the outset to give Australia a traffic light, be it a green light that Australia is doing well and getting better, be it a red light that Australia is not doing well and getting worse in travelling in today's world, or an amber light that generally we're doing okay and we're not getting much better or much worse. Now, I'd like each of you to spend a couple of minutes thinking about that and making a few remarks and then we might open up into a broader discussion. So, who would like to start? That's the Dean. Might have to be the Dean of the talk. Thanks, Chris. Mike and the distinguished participants of this gathering this afternoon. I was approached by Mike just a few days ago to participate in this gathering. Sorry about my voice. I've just risen out of the death of grass-ruff flu. So, forgive me if you can't hear me properly. Papua New Guinea and Pacific region and our relations with Australia. PNG first, we form a colony of Australia, as you know, one of the only two probably. I don't know what you can call Nauru, but Papua New Guinea was a colony, the first colony that you have attempted to colonize. Generally, I can say you did a pretty good job as colonialists in the times that you were there as Australian colonialist administrators. Things have changed, of course. I was just at high school in Charter's Towers. A class of 66 graduated in high school a long time ago, but we had a reunion and I was asked to reminisce and reflect. I said, well, first, most important highlight of my attendance school in Charter's Towers was, even some of you may not know where this place is, the Australians. But I arrived on this poker friendship flight turboprop in those days from Port Moresby to Townsville and I was scared to get out. I was the last passenger and the stewardess came and said, you have to get out here. This is where the flight terminates. I said, well, where are some black people to see me out, you know? Can't expect white people. I see white people carrying baggage, which we don't see in Papua New Guinea in those days. Manual work is for us natives. So this is Australia. You can get out and even when I was putting my steps in trepidation, feet on the steps to get out, I was wondering when the police are going to appear and arrest me for making white people work for me carrying my baggage. So that was a transformation. This was the mentality of most of us Papua New Guineans growing up in your colonial administrating days. Not all that bad, of course. Australia's colonial policy had a lot of good things about it and much of it resonates today and that is to protect our land. Only 2% of Papua New Guinea land was taken over by crown for crown purposes, crown news. So the rest of the land remains today for Papua New Guineans and that is the saving grace of our process of development, Mr. Ownland. People say, most of you development peddlers say Papua New Guinea is poor. Out of poverty, insecurity. The regional arc of insecurity is one of your famous colleagues has pronounced a decade or so ago. This instability would come to Papua New Guinea and the rest of malnition group which is the arc of instability. But there were sort of times when this approached that level but has never emerged as such that there was mass killings, mass murders, mass political instability in the country that a lot of other developing countries have gone through after independence. PNG is lucky because we have a neighbor like Australia. We achieved our independence at a time when you had period of instability in your political constitutional history. The phrase that was taken over from Gough Whitlam. But at that time, and that is one of the critical issues I want to talk about, how aid contributes to a lot of angst between our two countries, your development assistance. Even at independence, on our part, I was the head of the planning office who manages your aid and puts it into our priority development policy areas that still remain till today. Health, education, law and justice and infrastructure. They are the main ones. Of course, administration and corruption is alleviation of those issues at the part and parcel of it. But your aid, Gough Whitlam couldn't convince Treasury's stone, as he was known, to relent to continue to give us aid. His message was if we keep giving Papua New Guinea aid, even this next budget, Australia would go bankrupt, basically. That's his message. So we had dispatched our people. Ross Garneau was one of them. He was the first seasoned secretary in our Treasury. They came down with our Minister for Foreign Affairs and to discuss with Fraser, Whitlam's people, Treasury people. They said no. And the phrase was coined, we are trees, not stones, to reflect how tough your stone treasurer was behaving. But when Fraser came in, he not only extended the period of aid to three-year period cycle, but increased the amount. So as a planner, plan forward of a cycle of three years, we need to have that breathing space because your aid was contributing 60% of our budget in those days. Now it's only 5% of revenues. Now it's only 5%. But be that as in May, Fraser came and gave us this gift. When I awarded him the logo at the mission here in Canberra, I reminded Malcolm Fraser with gratitude of those days. His first words was adjust a lesson here over a lunch with everybody else I invited, including Julie Bishop. First lesson is never listen to Treasury advice. And at the time when Abbott Government came in, they were also having difficulty with Treasury. So I said in a speech I gave to Deakin University, there must be some genetic thing about liberal national coalition and Treasury relations. But given all that, we have done very well by Australia with your aid. A key cornerstone under the development cooperation treaty we signed that underpins our relationship, formally signed in 1989. And it continues till a few years ago. It still is there, but there is an economic cooperation treaty now that's supposed to indicate a reduction in your aid to Papua New Guinea but increased the flow of our trade and investment to recognize and acknowledge the maturity of our relationship rather than a dependency relationship over the years since independence. That treaty has been signed but it's like a framework arrangement. Nothing of substance have come of it for the last three years, well, two years now since Abbott and O'Neill signed, but the treaty was prepared and finalized about three years ago. So we are working to put in the meat over the bone, so to speak, as to what that all means in our relationship going forward. PASA Plus, we're told by Australian friends that you have to sign. Papua New Guinea, you have to sign, you and Fiji have to sign PASA Plus which governs our regional trade relations with Australia and New Zealand before we can move to a bilateral arrangement with access to markets in Australia for Papua New Guinea. Unfortunately, we find that a very difficult thing to swallow because why should we sign a regional arrangement that has nothing, essentially nothing for Papua New Guinea and Fiji, countries and yet you hold us to that before we can talk Turkey with you on trade and investment. I have been proposing an arrangement with Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia, a trilateral economic cooperation group for the last five years, that that should be the basis of our maturing relations, not asylum-seeker boat people. That is a transient issue. I know it's close to the hearts of many of you in Australia and in Papua New Guinea, but it's a transient issue that our Supreme Court has ruled and we're moving forward to Manus is now closed, asylum-seekers are roaming free in Manus and there will now be, there's a roadmap of how to proceed which has been approved by the Supreme Court. Now we are moving in that direction but we have a group of about four or five hundred asylum-seekers sitting in Manus. Where do they go? We can't just force them out. Those who are found to be non-serious, genuine asylum-seekers, refugees are to be deported from our countries. We're talking to our friends in diplomatic missions whose citizens are there to give them the documents to return home. But we cannot just force out the refugees that are there. That's the sticking point. Australia doesn't want to take them. The refugee commissioner he has stated that it is a difficult proposition that a refugee commission is confronted with but they will help us verify the refugee status but that's the extent of the assistance they will give us. So we are stuck with refugees in Manus. Be patient. We're working on solutions to relocate them and resettle them. But coming back to going how we should proceed and how Australia is performing, you, in terms of Papua New Guinea, as I said, there are certain things and events that have railroaded or pretty well sometimes put our relations at risk. I mentioned one, the Australian assistance and various reincarnations, development, direct budget support at independence, now it's program support and let me just make sure you understand that all your checks are signed here in Canberra. You remember the elections in 2013, income in Abbott government and politicians stood up and said Kevin Rudd was giving blank checks to Peter O'Neill. There's no such thing. And of course, people have confronted Julie Bishop on that. She admits she was just getting stuck at Kevin Rudd, not the Papua New Guinea. Peter O'Neill. Samarez shoes, issue at Brisbane airport, multi-affair, Bougainville, still an issue. PNG's election of 2012 where Bob casts threatened sanctions and of course asylum seekers, Supreme Court decision and Papua New Guinea's continuous advocacy or request to Australia to allow us to enter Australia on visa and arrival terms. We let your people come to Papua New Guinea, arrive at our airports, we stamp the passports to walk into our country, but you can't let us do that. And that's a sticky issue for us going forward. At official levels, we have institutions that deal with our bilateral relations, the annual ministerial forum, leaders meet regularly whenever they can and meant for ministerial forums and senior officials meeting. At people-to-people level, Kokoda Track Foundation does a great job. Kokoda Track is an iconic area in Papua New Guinea, reminiscent of Second World War. If you ask former Prime Minister, Labour Prime Minister after Bob Hawke, sorry, my apology, kidding, he will say Kokoda Track is more important than the Gallipoli, sorry, I was sick recently. But anyway, it's very important, iconic place for both our relations and Australia PNG Business Council and all UNGOs doing a great job in supporting Papua New Guinea's development. But as I said going forward, we should work towards trilateral arrangement with Australia PNG and Indonesia. PASA Plus we need to deal with why you can't let Papua New Guinea and Fiji bilaterally trade and the investment flows rather than wait till PASA Plus is signed. Climate change, why is Australia so obstinate about climate change issues? I want an answer from some of you today. If not from your government. Ramsey, Mike asked me to comment. Ramsey is winding down. Next year, June, they will close the operations. But as a region, we are very grateful to Australia for its support. It's a regional effort, but Australian New Zealand's grateful, we're very grateful for support in Ramsey, in Salomon's, also in Bougainville, on behalf of my government. We thank Australia and New Zealand and appreciate greatly for your efforts. Now let me close by saying how you're travelling. By bike, you're good bikers. You've won two of the France ones. Swimming, you're kind of getting there in the Olympics. By boat, I don't know. I can't live that. To and from Australia, I don't know by boat. We still have visa and arrival issues. Thank you. Thank you, Michael. Professors, ladies and gentlemen, I'm so delighted to be able to be here with you all today to talk about, well, I can say it's also about Indonesia, Australia's relations. Because if you look at Australia, where, how is Australia travelling into this world? Of course, Australia should be travelling together with their neighbours. And as one of the closest neighbours, Indonesia is one of the closest friends also of Australia. But the relations between our two countries is very unique. Indonesia and Australia is very close to each other. We are not more than 200 nautical miles away. But we are very different to each other, both historically and also culturally. We are so different. So that's why sometimes it's difficult, if you have a totally different background to discuss things, sometimes misunderstanding is always there. So that's why I think the only things to make the relations good between the two very close neighbours and very two different families is by dialogue, by talking to each other. Ladies and gentlemen, what kind of things are driving the Indonesia and Australian relations? If you look at from time to time, sometimes the people will very easily answer that the relations between the two countries is driven by the situational condition, by the tactical level or practical level situation. Because if you look at from time to time, from the independence of Indonesia up to now, so it's always up and down. You look at the confrontation. The confrontation is one of the worst relations between the two countries maybe in the early 1960s where Sukarno at that time said, well, he mentioned that no capitalism, no colonialism, he mentioned about everything is known about Western civilization at that time. And then the confrontation happens. And then we have a lot of other things like small things like Bali Nain last year. We have East Timor between 1995 to 2000 maybe. And then we have also the three bees, like both. And then we have the Bali bombings and everything. And then we have beef. That is cattle, live cattle exports. So the three bees is always trying to bring the direction of the relations to a kind of area that disputed between us. Ladies and gentlemen, we have, I think, the most important thing between Indonesia and Australia is that we make a good, not only a tactical, not only practical, not only transactional relations, but we have to make in a very good frame a policy planning that we have to face together for the future of this region. Now we have started with what's called SIPA, the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which I think is one of the most important economic negotiations between Indonesia with other countries, except ASEAN. Of course, ASEAN, we have the Asian economic community now. But with other countries, this is the first time that we will have the SIPA. And I know that we are now in the middle of the robust, open, and frank discussion and negotiation on SIPA. We are talking about the service. We are talking about trade. We are talking about investment. We are talking about the financial service. And we are talking also about the movement of Labour, for instance, from Australia to Indonesia. We try to have a very good relationship in this, not only as I said, as short-term and transactional activities, but also for the long-term. We have what's called the Lombok Treaty, the Treaty between Indonesia and Australia to discuss about the strategic things, about that we are going to the right direction. We are shoulder-to-shoulder in facing so many challenges, strategic challenges between the two countries. Our Defence Forces, for instance, they are very close to each other. The ADF and the TNI is very close to each other. They send officers. They have from tabletop exercises to the field exercise. They try to know each other. Even though maybe the level of advancement, maybe Indonesia is a little bit left behind, but we are trying to understand each other. How do we face the challenges? How do we face the threat from outside? Now, we also have now what's called the Council of Ministers for Law and Security. I think this is also very important. We are talking openly about terrorism. We are talking openly about counterterrorism. We are talking openly about the threat from extremism. We are also talking about so many things that could hamper the good relations between the two countries. That is what we are trying to do for the future. And for the challenges. I think a lot of challenges that we face together, one of the most important challenges for Indonesia and also, I think, for Australia is the pressure of demographic pressure. Indonesia now is about 250 million people. The population of Indonesia is very big. It's about 11 times of Australians. And in 15 years' time, we will be 287 million people if you see the statistic, the growing of the population growth. So the pressure will be very, very big because the resources is only that, only what we have right now. Then if you look at the land area of Indonesia, we have 17,000 islands, so many islands across Indonesia. But if you look at the land, it's only one-third of the big of the Nusantara, the Indonesian archipelagic nations. So the sources is only. So that's why President Jokowi is trying to push the what's called the maritime policy for the future of Indonesia. This is very important for Indonesia to see the future with the maritime issues. So that's why we have now trying to build the infrastructure, maritime infrastructure. We try to build new ports and to refurbish the old ports and so on. And we try to accommodate New Zealand, Papua New Genie and Australian needs to export their goods to Asia, through Indonesia. We built now at least two ports in the eastern part of Indonesia like Sorong in Papua and Makassar in Sulawesi. So there will be two international big ports in this area to accommodate the eastern ports, the eastern coastal ports of Australia, New Zealand, and also Papua New Genie. And so you will have a distribution port over there and it will be open to the 600 million population of ASEAN and 250 million population of Indonesia. That is one challenge of demography. And then the second challenge is the fast changing region. The region is changing very fastly now. If you look at the in 2030, Australia and Indonesia will be a region that is much bigger than it is now. Bigger economically because as predicted by experts that in 15 years time the household, every household of Australia which is now have about 50,000 of today will be fourfold for time become 200,000 in 2030. This will be very big economy of Australia. And the economy of Indonesia also will be bigger than of today but that's of course we should also get a new sources for the... And then for the students, we have now students in Australia about 20,000 students of Indonesian students in Australia and in 2030 there will be more because Indonesian government now give also some scholarships to the students to study here. And then how about the holiday makers? Right now we have 1.15 million holiday makers from Australia into Indonesia and I hope that there will be more Australian coming to Indonesia every year. And even if you look at the last two months, the last two months we are the tourists from Australia going to Indonesia is bigger than the tourists going to New Zealand for instance. So we are now the biggest destinations of Australian tourists going. And my turn point is the ASEAN and the Pacific Islands that Charles has mentioned. The ASEAN will be the fourth largest economy in 2045-2050. And then they need also, you know, innovations. They need also the resources of innovation. That is I think Australia can supply that for ASEAN. And I think that's the situation as a whole and I hope that within 15-20 years in the future Australia and Indonesia will have new dynamics because we will be a very big economy. As Charles said, it's very good if we have a triangular economic cooperation, maybe also with New Zealand. That will give us more freedom of collaboration for the future. And for the last things that I would like to mention about the travelling of today, maybe some misunderstanding should be discussed properly between the two countries. Some misunderstanding, sometimes unilateral actions taken by one country to another is not very good. But we have to be very, very careful on that and then we have to discuss with our neighbours because our neighbours is always there, you know, and then we can contact them anytime. And I'm very happy that now we have so many good relations from the top relations between the President and Prime Minister, for instance, and then among ministers, senior officials and also diplomats from universities. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope that the directions of Australia in Asia and Pacific will be better in the future. We are partners. We are part of the future of these regions and we have to work together very, very closely. Thank you. Thanks, Michael. Am I hooked up? I am hooked up. Well, thanks for the invitation and thanks to WESPEC for hosting this. It's been a great day and there's nothing like getting a bunch of Australians surveying the state of the nation. For a number of reasons. One, it's a reminder that no matter how tough you guys are with New Zealand, it's nothing compared to how tough you are on each other as you're sort of unpicking the challenges that face Australia. But often the role of New Zealanders and things is to sort of actually, you know, we have to be optimists in our country. And we think that Australia's actually got lots of reasons why it should be optimistic as well. And I'm not sure that the optimism piece really sort of washed through the day so much. So I just thought I'd sort of perhaps run through a couple of the points that we, where we think Australia's travelling pretty well in the world. Indeed, why you've probably got the sort of problems your government, your polity is sort of dealing with problems actually which a lot of countries wouldn't mind. They wish they were on there to do list rather than some of the things that they are sort of struggling with. And so it was really just a sort of chance to talk to that and then I had sort of two or three issues where I thought that just sort of running it at a ruler against the sorts of things that are driving an agenda in New Zealand that even if you accept some of the debate here about political gridlock could still be areas of focus for a government. Not that New Zealanders are actually in the business of sort of providing advice to the Australian government. That's one of the things they teach you on day one when you join the New Zealand Foreign Ministry. We're not in the business of providing advice particularly to Australia. It's a good way to shorten your diplomatic career. So I mean if you sort of think about it in broad terms I mean a lot of the arguments about why Australia is doing well in the world. I mean the great sort of shift from west to east of sort of geopolitical power and economic weight. I mean Australia is sort of immediately adjacent to that deeply integrated in the region. Maybe it needs to be more integrated. I mean arguments about that but nevertheless it's in a sort of a specially privileged position. It's one of the safest and most secure countries on the planet. Australia is strategically anxious. It's being described as a strategically anxious country. But the fact is you know it's a bloody big continent. No one's coming to get you. You've got enormous, you have both depth and breadth of sort of all sorts of capabilities. One of the most coherent sort of states in the world. Despite what the commentary might say you remain extremely well governed. You have enormously impressive institutions. You can talk about your banking system is extremely strong. It's such a driver for a lot of why Australia has such a future and why it's able to navigate the ups and downs of the world. One of the great outcomes. Well New Zealand is very conscious of this. One of the reasons we got through the big hit of the Christchurch earthquake. You know 9% hit on our GDP, sort of a 45 billion dollar sort of spend was because what stood behind it was actually Australian financial institutions. Our major insurance company went broke and in fact if anyone is interested in buying one I could go on to hop off. But what stood behind it actually was Australian financial institutions, the Australian Prudential System speaks to the sort of power of our single economic market but it also speaks to the strength of the Australian institutions. If you want another example about Australia's brand in the world it remains extremely strong. I mean there's never been a lot of credit in my view given to the way in which Australia was voted on to the UN Security Council and the role that it played there. What was extraordinary for New Zealanders was that you have to remember that Australia entered the race late. In fact they jumped in ahead of us so we were very conscious of that. They entered the race late. You change Prime Ministers three times. You change Foreign Ministers three times. The opposition tried to nicture all the way through and you got up on the first vote with 145. I mean that sort of speaks powerfully to the way in which not only Australia's brand in the world but their sort of capabilities and competence, not only of your foreign service but all the other elements that contributed to it. I mean there's obviously the piece about resources but it also in a world which is sort of short of protein Australia actually produces a lot of that as well so another reason why diversification in both in terms of markets and economic benefit is that you know, you know, wood and should flow to Australia. There's a reason Fonterra, you know New Zealand's largest sort of economic entity, owns 20% of your milk supply. We actually think you're quite good at it. We want to be part of that and we think that Australia will do well in that space in the world. You have a remarkable consensus here on foreign insecurity policy and you know, there's some of the sort of fundamentals you know, the frameworks for defence spend, for defence capability, ambition for your sort of international relationships is extremely strong and enduring and it's a great benefit. So anyway, those are just a few things that strike me as you sort of listen to Australians sort of talk about what might not quite be right but actually much of what you do and the way Australia acts in the world is of course for good and the world actually needs more Australia. In terms of sort of just as thinking of it as a New Zealander and the sorts of things that our country you know, has to navigate, we're very much at the sort of, you know, once described as at the, I think, at the end of the world. You know, a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica. I mean, if anyone's got to sort of think about how you organise yourself in the globe and it's New Zealand you certainly don't, we don't bring economic weight or hard power to issues and we have to navigate a, you know, a smaller, obviously a smaller population, smaller school set, thin country, you know, 3 million taxpayers, so you know, you think quite a lot about resource prioritisation and where you put effort and so when the sorts of things that even if you accept some of the challenges that Australia faces currently, there are a whole range of areas where, using a New Zealand example, you would think are ripe for continued sort of investment because essentially they go to matters of public policy rather than, you know, political, rather than legislative change or parliamentary management. I mean, one of them is around the budget, I mean, I sense that in the modern world, governments own about 25% of the economy understanding how that works where, what outcomes it's meant to deliver how you manage that budget there's enormous sort of power that rests in the government, that it doesn't require, where it doesn't require legislative authority, so there's enormous benefits to be secured by tackling issues, a whole range of issues there which don't require the approval of the parliament. The whole, the settings around how we're integrated in the region as much as for you so for New Zealand, you know, we're never going to get wealthy really selling to ourselves so thinking about how we integrate with all that sort of economic capability, all that economic upswing that's happening in our region, these are the sort of issues which require continued attention and require sort of new ways of thinking why have in Australia and New Zealand, for example sort of, what's the next thing after the ASEAN sort of CER agreement it's one of the reasons why New Zealand has always been a proponent of TPP and in fact it's why we would be one of the great beneficiaries out of TPP it's why we, along with you make the argument in Washington that it's the economic it's the other side of the pivot, the pretty pivot argument in Washington what's the counterfactual that the world that our region will be better if TPP is not signed so making those sorts of arguments on migration that's something where it seems to me there's a lot of scope for the government and here getting a more coherent narrative I guess and I think you're seeing a lot of publications now about the great change in the mix of Australia's sort of migration intake and particularly that idea about how you the increasing number of people who are coming on one sort of visa education 457 visa, temporary skill visa and then there how the country sort of manages that shift into actually people they put down routes they want to stay they want to commit to this country so how the government here is going to manage that climate change has been mentioned by others it's a great challenge certainly for my country as well as yours because of the sort of special peculiarities of our profile in New Zealand's case we already have something like 80-85% of our electricity is generated by renewables and then we have this massive other piece which is from animal emissions which sort of creates a big challenge for us in trying to lower emissions levels so anyway just those are a few observations but clearly it is navigable and the reason I say this is you can always incentivise Australians by getting them to set New Zealand can set itself up if we can do certain things surely you must put all of things just off the top of our head so what we have tried to do we have had four prime ministers in 26 years you should try it it has a lot to recommend it but not only that we have had four finance ministers in the same period and four foreign ministers so it leads to a lot of policy continuity and no one could say anything other than that our politics the architecture that we have designed requires people being able to reach across the aisle if you like the political aisle but the challenges that we face in doing that are no more than the challenges that will be in our face in the parliament here it is possible you think about the sort of the recovery issues that have been driven off Christchurch or second largest city taken out of operation that sort of big hit on GDP sort of reorganising the economy to service that you think about Australia's had 25 years I think it was the figure of economic growth we have had three recessions through that period so you are the challenges that we have had to sort of navigate that New Zealand as an example are not it can be done and out of the other side of it there is a surplus this year and in out years unemployment is currently at 5.1% workforce participation rate I saw the other day we are now fourth in the OECD for that but it is also true that what is going on here is definitely navigable and definitely manageable that is why 640,000 of us live here 12% of the population so that is a great thing to finish I guess to say there is nothing like having 12% of population to live in another country to know that there is a lot of things here that are going very well Thank you, Excellencies now ladies and gentlemen we have got a few minutes left if anyone had any questions for their Excellencies ask them a curly question get them to test out their diplomatic skills Brendan Thanks Michael good to see you again I'm sure Michael is particularly grateful that you didn't say anything about the state of Australian Robbie at present it was much appreciated my question is about your observation that Australia is a strategically anxious country I think you are right about that one of my favourite characterisations of the relationship is one by I think it was Alan Gingel who talked about Australia and New Zealand as being two countries that share the same bed but if you look at some of the statements that have been coming out of Wellington over the last 12 months about the South China Sea and also the gradual but I think quite significant warming in the New Zealand-U.S. relationship that was seen over recent years I'm wondering whether you see a gradual convergence in the New Zealand and Australian strategic outlooks and if so, if you accept that proposition of that and what are the potential limits over time to that convergence I'm not sure convergence is that the right word I think that New Zealand would run in line that we share a common strategic space with Australia that of course we have it's a formal alliance relationship it was even in the dark days of our dispute with the Americans that we discussed said that New Zealand's interests in Australia didn't end at the Blue Mountains and so we've often we work together in the world because in a sense our interests are so intertwined even if our often our approach or sometimes our approach to tackling issues or to resolving issues in third countries in other areas might be quite, you know, might be different so I think too that the way in which our two countries have thought about our big relationships with China or with the US both our cases have evolved over time and they've evolved to take account of what is changing in the world and you use the example of our relationship with the United States and one of the it was always sort of clear that in looking to improve that we also had to be sure and to take account of the effect that it had to improve in a way that Australia was comfortable with and Australia saw benefit from and I think the way in which over a long period of time New Zealand's worked deliberately at that it was born fruit with which are essentially the foundations now of the current relationship and was evident as recently as two or three weeks ago when Vice President Biden was in Auckland and announced essentially that a US and a Navy ship would go to New Zealand for the 75th anniversary of our Navy and I think again both of us have taken different roads to thinking and thinking our way through China and how we engage with China the sort of relationship that we want but New Zealand is sort of very alert to international the narrative of our partners on China we make our own decisions and we promote and prosecute our views in our own way but I don't think that there's any doubt that we in Australia have a very sort of similar view of the region and the bits of the international sort of framework which need to be applied to making that region work well be safe and be secure Do we have a last question for the ambassadors? Yeah So I'll end with asking the question I think that has become very popular probably to ask without being too flimpy what is the contingency plan of each one of your countries if Donald Trump is elected president? A contingency plan? What are you going to do if Donald Trump is elected president? I don't know if that's the right word but that's sort of well I've been following you'll be hosting him an APIC Yeah two years time I've been following that very carefully CNN for my own personal education rather than representing my countries it's difficult to say really for us who think you think from your own political perspective be different from when you put in a context of what's happening in the world and the trends of politics including Australia and Britain's Brexit and you had a few days ago Farage talking Trump's campaign personally let me tell you this I don't like Trump I don't know what my country's response would be my deputy who's a Highlander loves Trump they all like people so he said oh he's going to win so in Papua New Guinea you would have probably in the Highlands they love it at my Trump for us coastal peaceful we have a different view I'll leave it at that thank you well I think what Trump the voice of Trump's of today is the campaign of Trump to be the president of the United States he used that everything every effort for the benefit of his presidency but I think he will change this is my personal opinion and also I read some articles in Indonesian newspapers that the pessimist is no longer that pessimistic so it's a growing number also the people in Indonesia to see maybe not the positive side but the more optimist side because it's not possible for United States to bring up this voice this kind of well we can say motto which is you know which is too different to the very basic principles and philosophy of the United States and I think he will change when he become president thank you well I guess it'll be tricky it'll be tricky but part of navigating it I guess that's why people are investing time and thinking about whether you're going to be an international economist or involved in international economics or a diplomat or an investor in the defence and security commentary it certainly won't be short of business so I think that it will forces you to think about historical sense there's been these sorts of shocks before and Brendan talked about saying bed different nightmare which is another way of describing always for New Zealand the great nightmare for us is economic development which we've lived through in my professional career when you think about Britain joining the EU and some of the sort of shocks that flow from that when you think about the GFC and so the things which allow you to navigate it are the way in which you organised as a country the coherence of your sort of political narrative and the strength of your institutions the way in which you navigate it the sorts of relationships that you have the architecture which supports them the narrative which runs alongside it and the sort of personal connectivity which keeps it contemporary and you then sort of think about the way in which you use those sort of state those state resources to manage a change of that magnitude at the end of the day the US will still be the biggest economy in the world the US will still have at its heart will have so much of the energy and the drive which will be fundamental to us so part of our job will be to understand that and to manage against it it's why for example in our case when we think about our indispensable relationship with Australia how we manage we manage that in terms of the ecosystem of connectivity from political leaders to business to you know sport, media, name any part of it how all that sort of fits together we think about the way in which you make sure that it's actually focusing or dealing with with contemporary issues and you think about the sort of narrative which supports it including the work that High Commission does or government does in revaluing all the time that relationship and making the proposition about why we matter and so I think all of us will you know be doing the same thing with the US if a Trump presidency turns up Thank you all Can you all join me in thanking their Excellencies