 Okay, thank you very much. I would like to begin our second session now to introduce our distinguished political keynote speaker Senator Brett Mason. We are delighted to welcome Professor Ian Young, Vice Chancellor of the ANU. We thank him sincerely for his time and support for the Japan update. Please join me in welcoming Professor Ian Young. Well thank you Simon. Ladies and gentlemen could I begin by acknowledging the first Australians on whose traditional land we meet and paying my respects to the elders of the Ngunnawal people past and present. Ambassador Aki Motou, Ambassador Murray McLean my great privilege here this morning at this second Japan update is to introduce Senator the Honourable Brett Mason. This year is an important year for Australia-Japan relations Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited Japan in April and Prime Minister Abe visited Australia in July. During his visit Prime Minister Abe delivered an important speech to the joint sitting of parliament in English and at which we were also delighted that after that we were able to host him here at ANU. While in Australia Prime Minister Abe endorsed the ANU's Australia-Japan Research Centre as the nation's national centre on thinking on Japan and the centre was highlighted in the joint statements by both Prime Ministers. ANU has long played a role in research on Japan and Japanese studies and in influencing policy. Let me just indulge for a moment and just mention a couple of significant elements around that. Just looking across ANU today we have established the Japan Institute which is the umbrella institution that brings together all of the Japan related researches and activities from right across this institution. We're fortunate at present time to in fact have two Japan specialists in executive roles within the university. Professor Jenny Corbett is the Vice-Chancellor of Research and Research Training and Professor Veronica Taylor is the Dean of the ANU College of Asia and Pacific. I think it's quite unusual to be in a situation where we have two Japan specialists in those particular roles. And indeed just earlier this week Emeritus Professor Peter Drysdale and Peter's here, his longstanding contributions were recognised in being awarded the Japan Foundation award. He's only the third Australian to win and I have to say with some pride that both of the others were also from ANU. You use every opportunity you get, don't you? But look, enough boasting, enough boasting, that's the Vice-Chancellor of South Wasting. I'm very happy here to see in fact another great product of ANU in Senator Mason, of course an alum of this university we're always delighted when Senator Mason returns to ANU. He was in fact here back in November to launch a program around the G20 at the Crawford School which was hosted also with the Brookings Institution so we're delighted to see him back again. Senator Mason is the Parliamentary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Senator for Queensland. On this occasion he is officially representing the honourable Tony Abbott MP Prime Minister of Australia. In the past he has held the various positions in the shadow education portfolio in particular with a particular responsibility for universities and I know we've interacted with him quite a lot at that particular time. And before entering Parliament of course he also has a relationship with universities having previously served in criminology at QUT and also served as a Commonwealth prosecutor. Ladies and gentlemen please join me in welcoming the honourable Senator Brett Mason. Ian thank you so much ladies and gentlemen a good morning. I don't mind admitting ladies and gentlemen that when I have the opportunity to come to the Australian National University this wonderful set of learning, my heart does skip a beat at times. It reminds me when I was very young and you're right here. I am a proud graduate of this university but I'm also a very grateful one. I think I've had a fortunate life and there is no question that without the impulse for me and you I would not have had the fortunate life I've had so I want to thank you Ian on behalf of the university for what this great institution has done for me and the ANU also should thank E-Twice Chancellor. You have a creative, a very energetic and one of the most respected educationalists in Australia has to administer this wonderful university and he does a terrific job so thank you everyone for having me here this morning. I'm Dr. Armstrong co-director of the Australia-Japan Research Center Vice-Peter Drysdale, the head of the East Asian Bureau of Economic Research and East Asia Forum, distinguished guests from Australia and Japan including my friend Ambassador Akamoto good morning sir and Ambassador Murray McLean ladies and gentlemen there's an old saying, an old Japanese proverb that says when the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends. On that basis Japan and Australia are two very fine and upstanding countries for all the differences and of course there are differences in our culture and our history. There are many factors that have been drawing our two countries ever closer together both Japan and Australia to sit off the Asian mainland. We're happily part of the region but we're also capable of a somewhat detached or outsider's perspective even though Australia is really a small continent we like to think of ourselves as just a big island so our two countries share an island mentality and a very strong maritime outlook. We face outwards into the world trade and commerce are our lifeblood and indeed our lifeline. Furthermore we're both large developed capitalist economies. One could say we are the pioneers of the market economy in a region which really has only started catching up over the past quarter of the century to the idea that socialism doesn't really work. Last but not least we're both strong, vibrant people and democracies committed to freedom and liberty at home and peace and stability abroad. Again this has sometimes been a lonely and unpopular place for us for both of us to be. I won't revisit and re-examine our mutual history today our Prime Ministers, Mr Rabbit and Mr Ravey have done so extensively and frankly and in a spirit of great mutual respect during Prime Minister Ravey's historic visit to Australia just a few months ago. Let me just observe that the ties between Australia and Japan are growing ladies and gentlemen even stronger. Once more they've also become more diverse becoming more diverse, a testament to the quality and the breadth of our bilateral relationship. The strong rapport between our two leaders I've heard some Australians describe it as a romance. I don't know how that's translated into Japanese in that sense. It was a personal reflection of that. I had the great pleasure of meeting Prime Minister Ravey in Tokyo last year and of course I've known Tony Abbott for many years and I watched them with great interest when they were in camera in July. Leaders tend to be infallibly polite with each other, well usually during these sorts of top meetings but it was very clear that there was more than just that formality of protocol present. There was a lot more than that present. I know there was a genuine liking and connection. I think our Prime Ministers got each other and they understood each other. I'm very pleased that our leaders reaffirmed, dear I borrow from the Anglo-Australian history, the special relationship between Australia and Japan and confirmed that they would meet annually. This is a bonus this is icing on the cake because the strength and the closeness of the relationship between Australia and Japan does not really rely on the interpersonal relationship at the top of government. It's more solid and it's more comprehensive than that. I'd like just to briefly touch on some contemporary aspects of that relationship. Economy or trade investment clearly is the bedrock of our relationship and has been so right from the very beginning. Although Australians and Australian businesses have at times developed heightened interests in other countries and in other markets, this has never been accompanied by a corresponding decline in interest in Japan not at all. There's no better evidence for that than the recently concluded Japan-Australian Economic Partnership Agreement. It's the highest quality free trade agreement Japan has ever signed and it is one of the most important free trade agreements Australia has ever signed. I suspect ever will sign. I remember growing up in the 1970s Japan was certainly Australia's number one trading partner in Asia then but if someone had said to me, if someone had said that Australia and Japan would one day have a free trade agreement in the 1970s they would have been laughed out of town. A lot has changed in our two countries since then and for the better thanks to many reforming and forward-looking leaders of whom Prime Minister Arbe and Prime Minister Abba are the most recent exemplars. On the strategic and political level Japan is a key regional player in the Indo-Pacific and so is Australia. We've been working closely during the past 70 years now, it's a long time, 70 years to overcome historical legacies and create a regional environment where both our countries can flourish together as can all others. I won't bore you ladies and gentlemen with the alphabet suit of acronyms but whether it's the East Asia Summit, APEC, Trans-Pacific Partnership or the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership we have been working together for greater cooperation and for free trade throughout our region and I note with satisfaction that our Prime Ministers have also agreed to commence work on a coordinated Pacific Strategy of Development, Defence and Diplomatic Activities as well. Outside of our immediate region I can't think of any significant international issue of concern where Japan and Australia have not been on the same wavelength and working side by side that's whether it's the search for Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 or dealing with the aftermath of the other Malaysian air tragedy in Ukraine, the Syrian crisis in the Middle East or indeed the Ebola crisis in Africa. We also continue to be engaged with members of the G20 and we work closely together in the UN World Trade Organization and in other fora where our shared interests in a rules based international order meet and join. Speaking of the G20 it'll be great to post Prime Minister Abe once again this time in my hometown of Brisbane. I know that the great state of Queensland with its magnificent beaches and lifestyle and Gold Coast in particular has always been a great favourite of the Japanese people. So all in all the special relationship between Japan and Australia is increasingly not just a regional partnership but of course a global partnership. It's also increasingly multifaceted. The Defence Science and Technology Agreement finalised recently will facilitate deeper defence science technology and material cooperation. This is another example of cooperation between Japan and Australia that not many people would have foreseen just a few years ago. Last but not least is a whole gamut of interpersonal links including in the area of education and as you know the Australian Government has commenced its new Colombo Plan to give Australian undergraduates, many have come from this great university an opportunity to study and gain work experience right throughout the Asia Pacific region. We want our young people to become Asia Literate and embrace their future here in our region. Japan of course is one of the first four pilot countries for the program and when I was lucky enough to visit Japan late last year everyone I spoke to, everyone I spoke to, whether they were business people, academics, officials, people from Government they're all excited about welcoming Australian students. I know that the Japanese Government is working on a similar scheme to send Japanese students overseas and we're equally excited about that here in Australia. Ladies and gentlemen the Abbott Government has afforded the Japan Relationship a new emphasis since its election about a year ago. The Japan Relationship is one that has struggled treasures and it gives comfort to us that we have such a friend when we are faced with troubling and let's face it, at very uncertain times at present. It might be unsophisticated and perhaps I am even though I'm an ANU graduate, it might be unsophisticated but I can't have to claim that there's a special bond that liberal free market democracy share with each other. If it is unsophisticated well, it will all so be it. But I don't think there's a better example of that bond in our region than the friendship between our two countries. On our finish, mindful of another, a very old Japanese proverb that says the inarticulate speak the longest. It gives me great pleasure to officially launch the current issue of the East Asia Forum quarterly. The issue about a Japan that can say yes. A Japan that can say yes to the future. A Japan that can say yes to the world. And when Japan says yes to Australia, Australia will always be there to say yes to Japan. Thank you.