 Good evening everyone and welcome to the 2022 Wilson dialogue. I am Professor Brian Schmidt, the Vice Chancellor of the Australian National University here in Canberra. We're joined this evening by Nambri Nanowal Kastodian, Paul House, who will welcome us to country before we begin. Thank you Paul. Good evening gentlemen, young men, young women distinguished guests, the Honourable Tim Watts MP, Mrs Anna Patton, Mr Daniel MP and Professor Brian Schmidt, Vice Chancellor A&U. You and you, Paul Geroa House, Nadoo, Marei Biddingo, Murundurai Nuran Gujigang, Nambri Nuremao. My name is Paul Geroa House, I was born here on Nambri country at the Old Canberra Hospital. Nadi Injamali Bala Nama Dr Matilda Williams House, my respects to my mother Dr Matilda Williams House and Nambri Elder. We honour our matriarchs and patriarchs because of them we can. Nadi Injamali, Nambri Gumao Walgulu Wala Balawa, Nunovo Ngaraga Werajri, Mujigang Yanangbejayanga, my respects to Nambri Gumao Walgulu Wala Balawa Nunovo Ngaraga Werajri Elders Past and Present. Nadoo Injamarago, Mujigangu Nuremajigo, Nini Yiridu, my respects to all elders and people from all nations here today. Injamali Bala, Gagumara Wala, Gujigang Nungayalara Dalani, my respect is in the people and the government embracing voice, treaty and truth telling. Nadoo Wurigabili, Bala Bambu Gugu, Bala Givang Gugu, Nguliala Murawai Marambu. We listen to our old people, our ancestors and they show us the right path, the straight path. Nguliala Wala Mali now, they protect us. Yama Mali now, they help us. Belangali now, they take care of us. Mambu Wara Naminigo, Wurigabili, Wurigarago, Nini Yiridu, looking to see, listening to hear, and learning to understand. Injamara Injamali, respect, be gentle, be polite, be patient, give honor, take responsibility. Injamara Widenbida, Marindul Gugu, Yiragugu, Yandul Gugu, respect is taking responsibility for the now, the past, the present, the future. This welcome to the country is made in the spirit of peace and a desire for harmony for all people of modern Australia and surrounds. And the main aim as local custodians is to establish an atmosphere of mutual respect through the acknowledgement of our ancestors and the recognition of our right to declare a special place in the pre and post history of the Canberra region. Murunguginya Injamara, Murunguru Widenbida Dara, a respectful way of life, cares for country. Injamara Bala, mother now, Wijingayina Wangara Dhaaganda, Baba Yirinigo, respect is in how our matriarchs did for yams in Mother Earth. Injamara Mother Giri Bidinga, Bhaugangudirnda, Injamara Bala, Bidadabina Bina, Wurrawan, Uwilewul, Nurembangu Dara, respect we found in the journey of the Bhaugang moths in the mountains. In the rivers and the breeze, quietly moving through country. Injamara Bala, Walaam, Wanda Dabu, Murungudin Dabu, Bama Yirukurangam, Bidadabina, respect is in the grinding stones and the carved trees made long ago on country. Injamara Yamawan, Murunguginya Bura Dura, respect everything, living and growing. Murangala Dhal, Walaam, Mayan, Mayan Dhalam, hold fast to each other, empower the people. Walaam Gunmalah, Bura Gura Marai, be brave, make change. Dira Yawana, Murawara, Nawan Bira, get up, stand up, show up. In conclusion, I say Injamara, Muramara, Nya Nya Nya, get Amara Maranya, respect shapes us and lifts up the people. Maran Bang Malang, Nya Goy Malang, it's wonderful, it's fabulous. We have the share, our language. I welcome the country with everyone here this evening. Goyambana, Mandangu, Wura Gowari. Welcome and thank you. Thank you, Paul, for welcoming us to country. And I, too, am on Nambri Nunawal land and I acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands and airwaves we are all meeting on this evening and pay my respects to elders past and present. So this year's Wilson dialogue, the Wilson dialogue examines how we can better use diplomacy to support our national interest and shape the world we want to live in. This is an issue in sharp focus since the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic, which exposed and accelerated issues of rising inequality, political polarization and disinformation. And over the last few years, we have seen increased global tensions emerging, particularly in our region, but well beyond. Our strategic environment is shifting fast. And as a result, we need to be able to actively shape the international environment in our interests. Maximizing our influence means it means using all of the knowledge and expertise we have available. These are not new ideas. First Nations people have been engaging in diplomacy for millennia. Australia's foreign policy must incorporate First Nations perspective and practices and engaging with and applying indigenous world views to our foreign policy approach can change the way Australia sees the world and provide new perspectives on how to interact with our neighbors. We all know the economic shock of the pandemic has been profound and has highlighted the need to build economic resilience and recovery in our region. We need to work with our partners in the Indo-Pacific to preserve a region that is stable, prosperous and respectful of sovereignty, where nations are able to make choices for themselves, free from coercion. ANU is uniquely placed to support these endeavors and in doing so supports our national interests. Our purpose is to serve society through transformational research and education and the work we do here benefits the nation and well beyond our shores. The ANU Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs is recognized as one of the world's best in research for excellence and policy analysis and the political, societal, diplomatic, security and strategic dimensions of international and Asia-Pacific Affairs. The National Security College is a joint initiative of the Commonwealth Government and ANU and it lifts national capacity and helps deepen debate about emerging security challenges and policy responses. Now in its second decade, the college works in Australia's national interest develop whole of government and whole of nation security capabilities to foster a skilled national network and communities of practice among Australian security professionals and to facilitate debate and policy contestability on national security. I am proud that ANU researchers and experts are often called upon to interpret and analyze global events. As Australia's national university, we do have a responsibility to the nation to address the big issues and we continue to help make sure that we provide a platform for meaningful discussions. This includes, for example, hosting the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in August. Tens of thousands of people turned in from around the country to hear President Zelensky reflect on what he sees as the heroism of his people amid the atrocities of war in his country. And as a national university, we gave students from our university and 20 other universities the chance to engage directly with the president. While we have much to do, we are fortunate to have access to some of the best thinkers, such as our distinguished speaker and panel here this evening. Tonight, our speakers will focus on the issues including growing strategic competition on stable global economic circumstances and national capability. So I'd like to welcome our guest speaker this evening, the Honorable Tim Watts. Thank you for making time to be here Tim, and it is nice to welcome you here to our campus, albeit virtually. Now, after his keynote, Tim will join Zoe Daniel MP, the independent member for Goldstein, and Suzanna Patton, director of the Southeast Asia Program at Lowy Institute for a panel discussion. I will also welcome ABC Foreign Affairs reporter, Stephen Jedgets, who will chair the panel discussion. Thank you all for making time here to be tonight. So without further ado, let's get started with the keynote address. The Honorable Tim Watts is the assistant minister for Foreign Affairs. Tim is the federal member for Gallagrand and Melbourne's West, one of the most diverse and dynamic areas of Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Laws, honors from Bond University, a master of public policy from Monash, and a master of science and politics and communications from the London School of Economics. Before entering Parliament, Tim worked in the technology sector for almost a decade, as a senior manager at Telstra, and as a solicitor at Malison, Stephen Jedgets, working on issues such as the roll out of the National Broadband Network, NBN, the radio communication spectrum auctions, and network pricing regulation. He also worked as the deputy chief of staff for the Minister for Communications, and a senior advisor to the Victorian Premier. He was selected to the House of Reps and Gallagrand, Victoria in 2013. In opposition, he served as shadow assistant minister for cybersecurity and communications. Throughout his time in Parliament, Tim has been an active participant in a range of 1.5 track dialogues, including a conference of Australian and Indonesian youth, the Australian-China youth dialogue, the Australian-India Youth Dialogue, and the Australian-American Young Leaders Dialogue, and the Australian-American West Coast Dialogue, the Australian Regional Leadership Initiative, the Asia-Links Leaders Program, and the Asia 21 Young Leaders Initiative. So real focus on connecting, obviously, to the youth, which is great to see. So thank you once again, Tim. Really appreciate you being with us today and to the rest of the panel. I look forward to listening to your address and conversation thereafter. Thank you, Vice Chancellor. It's a pleasure to be back at another wonderful ANU event. The privilege of attending the address by Vladimir Zelinsky at the ANU recently. It was an outstanding landmark event for the ANU. It's a high bar to meet tonight. I fear the audience may be somewhat smaller than the thousands that we're tuning in from around the world for that address. But I begin my comments tonight by acknowledging the traditional line as the land on which I'm broadcasting to you from, the Boonirong people, and pay my respects to their elders past and present. I also acknowledge any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people in the audience tonight and reaffirm the government's commitment to the full implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, Voice, Treaty and Truth. I acknowledge Mr Paul Howes, Nunnawal Nambri Custodian, who welcomed us earlier today, Professor Brian Schmidt, the Vice Chancellor of ANU, my co-panelists tonight, and members of the academic community and public service. I'm honored to be with you here today to deliver the keynote address at the Sir Roland Wilson Dialogue. The topic of this year's dialogue, the case for diplomacy, is timely. Our current strategic circumstances are among the most challenging we've seen, certainly in the time since Sir Roland Wilson emerged as one of Australia's most esteemed public servants in the middle of the 20th century. Competition amongst great powers is intensifying and reshaping the region in which we live. The rules-based international order that has delivered an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity for our country is being challenged. Climate change and the lingering effects of the pandemic are causing substantial and ongoing economic and social upheaval. And the pressure this is placing on our international system and the nations operating within it risk escalation into conflict. We are already seeing this in Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, and we're also seeing it in the potential for escalation in our own region. The challenges we face as a nation in this difficult international environment would have felt familiar to Sir Roland Wilson. Sir Roland died in 1996, aged 92, which meant he lived through just about every event of the 20th century from the War War I to the fall of the Berlin Wall. A country boy from rural Tasmania, he was the Secretary of Treasury from the beginnings of the Korea War to the escalation of the Vietnam War. And Wilson was, to borrow a phrase from one of the world's great diplomats, Dean Acheson, present at the creation of the New World Order that was crafted by the world's statesmen and diplomats after World War II. He saw firsthand the case for diplomacy and why Australia's national interest compels us to not simply be bystanders to international events, but to use the craft of diplomacy to seek to actively shape the international environment in which Australia operates. Sir Roland Wilson played a key role in the engine room of diplomacy in the governments of Labor Prime Ministers, John Curtin and Ben Schiffen. He was on the front lines of the pursuit of the positive approach, Australia's diplomatic strategy in the post-war environment. As a senior public servant, he saw the positive approach in action toward the most consequential international conferences in world history, the United Nations Conference at San Francisco and at Bretton Woods. These conferences built the architecture of the post-war international security and economic orders. They laid down the rules-based system within which Australia would enjoy sustained peace and prosperity for decades to come. Australia came to the San Francisco Conference with a clear vision for the international order that it wanted to see prevail in the wake of the Second World War, an order in which all states, large and small, enjoyed collective security under international law and an order in which economic stability underpinned strategic security. The Australian delegation insisted that the Agency of Smaller Nations should be protected in this new international order, but the Fire Minister, Doc Evert, telling Parliament, quote, No sovereign state, however small, will wish to think that its destiny had been handed over to another power, however great. A successful world organisation requires an enthusiastic contribution from smaller powers, both in council and material support. Australia pursued a similar approach at Bretton Woods, the conference that established the IMF, the World Bank and what would later become the WTO. The Australian government had a clear vision and our diplomats pursued it with vigor, persistence and creativity, building new coalitions of nations with similar interests to pursue their cause. They weren't always successful, but they achieved real diplomatic wins, disproportionate to Australia's size at the time. Indeed, the efforts of the Australian delegation at the San Francisco Conference shaped the operation of the UN's General Assembly in ways that continue to give voice to smaller nations in our international system to this day. Chifley and Curtin saw the imperative of Australia showing up when the international order was being contested and seeking to influence the outcome. They saw the case for diplomacy. Decades later, as the international order fundamentally reshaped itself once again as the Cold War drew to a close, the Hawk Keating governments again set about using diplomacy to shape the way the world worked beyond our borders in Australia's interests. As the centre of gravity in the international economy shifted towards the Asia Pacific in the wake of the Cold War, Australia had a strong interest in fostering greater economic integration across economies of our region. It was a formidable challenge, but one that the government set out to meet with what Hawk declared in a speech in Seoul in 1989 would be a substantial and concerted diplomatic effort. It tasked Australian diplomats around the region with the task of first listening, gauging the perspectives and opinions of nations in the region, and then with influencing, reflecting back a vision for a regional architecture in which these nations could see themselves. A number of nations, including the US and Japan, had mooted the prospect of deepening Asia Pacific ties through an intergovernmental forum, free trade area or coalition. But it was Australian diplomacy that galvanised the support of the region, starting with ASEAN economies. And on the back of these efforts, the first APEC ministerial meeting was held in Canberra in November 1989. Keating would take the initiative a step further. Remarkably, at the end of the Cold War, there was no international institution where the leaders of China and the United States would regularly meet. And upon becoming Prime Minister, Keating took the initiative to again deploy persistent, creative Australian diplomacy to make it happen in the form of a regular APEC leaders meeting. For decades, APEC was the key economic forum in the region, fostering practical cooperation and serving as an incubator of new ideas and initiatives that fostered regional prosperity and stability. It was a boon for our nation, and Australian diplomacy made it happen. This kind of active, creative Australian diplomacy characterised the Hawke Keating government during the formative time for the post-Cold War international order. Initiatives like the Cairns Group of Agricultural Fair Traders, the Cambodian Peace Accords, the Convention on the Regulation of Antarctic Mineral Resource Activity, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Regime. The Hawke Keating governments actively looked for opportunities for Australian diplomacy to be influential on issues of national interest. After the Second World War and after the Cold War, Australia's political leaders and diplomats showed up to shape a rapidly evolving and contested international environment in Australia's national interest. Today, in a rapidly evolving and contested international environment, the case for diplomacy to again shape the international order in our interests is compelling. Unfortunately, we've got some catching up to do in this regard. It's no secret that the previous government deep prioritised and disregarded diplomacy as a tool of Australian statecraft. DFAT's role in navigating our way through this complex world was sadly diminished. We saw it in the way entire regions of the world were denied the most basic levels of engagement. We saw it in the way short-term domestic political interests were allowed to trump our long-term national interests on important international issues. We saw it in Scott Morrison's negative globalism nonsense. Years were wasted when we could at least afford them. Now we need to make up for this lost time. As Foreign Minister Wong has described it, we are in a race for influence and need to use every instrument of national power, strategic, diplomatic, economic and social in this task. The times again call for creative, active diplomacy to shape Australia's international environment during a period of transition. The Albanese government has set out an ambitious foreign policy agenda. In Southeast Asia, we share a region and a future, so we're seeking to support a strategic equilibrium in the region in which all nations are free to make their own choices underpinned by ASEAN centrality. In the Pacific, we want to be the partner of choice on economic development and security, listening carefully to the priorities of members of the Pacific family and making a uniquely Australian contribution to the realisation of their ambitions. While we're not a global superpower, we know that Australia has global interests and we will actively work inside multilateral forums to support the rules-based international order and to respond to global challenges like climate change. We're pursuing this agenda with new resources and new energy, including the creation of my role as Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs to bolster our Foreign Affairs team in the ministry. We're also seeking to maximise our influence in the pursuit of this agenda through creative, new diplomatic agendas. One area where we're already deploying additional resources is in Australia's official development assistance. ODA is one tool of Australian diplomacy that has been particularly neglected during the past decade. When deployed effectively, ODA strengthens the ties on the ground between the Australian government and recipient countries. It builds on people-to-people links between governments, communities and organisations. We've already seen what happens when Australia doesn't turn up. Others are ready to step up and fill the void. The Albanese government is increasing Australia's ODA to the Pacific and Southeast Asia by 900 million over four years to support the region's development and resilience. We're listening to the priorities of members of the Pacific family and deploying our resources accordingly, particularly in promoting economic development and building resilience to climate change. We're also deploying additional resources to the task of multilateral engagement. Part of the reason for the creation of my role was to enable Australia to have a ministerial presence in more multilateral forums and more parts of the world. Under the previous government, Australia wasn't engaging enough in regions beyond our immediate neighbourhood, regions like South America, Africa and the Middle East. Yet as we've seen in the recent UN votes on Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, Australia needs to work with nations from across the world to support the rules-based international order that is currently under so much pressure. I've already made the first Australian ministerial visit to South America since 2018 and I'll soon make similar trips to Africa and the Middle East. But I've also made a point of listening to and engaging with the heads of missions of these nations based in Australia and I can assure you it's already been warmly welcomed. We'll continue this responsible multilateral engagement in support of the rules-based international order as we seek a seat on the UN Security Council for 2029-2030. We're committed to the United Nations as a mechanism for peace and stability and we understand that to influence and protect these rules and norms, Australia needs to have a seat at the table. In addition to deploying additional resources in the cause of Australian diplomacy, we're also developing creative new tools of international engagement. One way we're doing this is by seeking to activate the commonalities of modern Australia with the global community. More than 70 nations are home to Indigenous peoples and in this context we're elevating the role of First Nations Australians and ensuring that their perspectives and their story are at the heart of the story that we tell about Australia through our First Nations foreign policy. The government will soon appoint an ambassador for First Nations people who will head an office of First Nations engagement within DFAT. First Nations peoples were our first diplomats interacting and trading with the cultures around them for more than 60,000 years. There's much we can learn from their experience and approach and many bonds of commonality that we can forge around the world through their perspectives. Australia's modern multicultural identity connects Australia with the world in a different way. Home to more than 300 cultural ethnicities where half of our population was either born overseas or has a parent born overseas, there's not a corner of the world that modern Australia isn't directly connected to. Projecting this modern multicultural Australian identity back to the world gives us a point of commonality with next to everyone that we seek to engage with. In the past though cultural diversity was all too often perceived as an exception to Australian identity rather than representative of it. And national symbols and institutions have all too often projected and outdated monocultural image of Australia beyond our borders. It's part of why I remain a committed supporter of an Australian Republic, but it's also why I've been a passionate about ensuring our institutions reflect the diversity of the communities that they represent. Thankfully we're starting to make progress on this front. Half of the new members of the Albanese Labour government have either a multicultural heritage or indigenous Australians. The new Australian parliament includes Australians with Vietnamese, Afghan, Sri Lankan, Tamil, Fijian, Pakistani, Kenyan, Goan, Chinese Malaysian and Chinese Laotian heritage to name just a few. Senator Fatima Payman has become the first person ever to wear a hijab in Australia's parliament. This diversity is a rich source of cultural insight and expertise for our national parliament and our government. The challenge for Australian diplomacy is projecting this story of modern Australia to the world. We've got a little bit to learn on this front. Communication is key to diplomacy. It's an enabling tool, but it's also core to the work. It's the way that we make a case for our positions because despite the commitment of our diplomats, diplomacy no longer speaks for itself. How we communicate what we're doing is nearly as important as doing the things themselves. The modern information environment is crowded and it's contested. Many nations are pushing competing narratives and some are happy to deploy disinformation in service of their cause. For example, Putin's Russia absurdly calls Russia's invasion of Ukraine a special operation and Ukraine's Jewish president a Nazi. It pins the blame for its unilateral, unprovoked, illegal invasion of a sovereign country on NATO encroachment. It's the kind of false narrative that's increasingly common today and can't be allowed to prevail uncontested. It's also an example of why we can't afford to consider public messaging as an optional add-on or some kind of nice-to-do window dressing after the real work has been done. Getting our messages out strategically and effectively is the task of Australian diplomacy. It's core to whether Australian diplomacy will achieve the objectives of our foreign policy that I set out earlier. Communicating in this new environment requires new skills and capabilities, expertise in visual production, narrative storytelling. Speaking in the many languages of the Australian community. Technology has enabled and way of communicating that wasn't available to us even a decade ago. It's allowed us to do diplomacy differently. Let me give you an example. My mate Sam Lim was born in Malaysia but moved to Australia where he became the 2020 West Australia police officer of the year and at the last election, a member of the federal parliament. When Sam gave his first speech in parliament, he wanted to thank everyone who had helped him along the way. So he gave his thank yous in English, Mandarin and Malay with even a bit of hockey thrown in as well. I tweeted out a snippet of this remarkable moment and within hours I was having a conversation via Twitter with thousands of Malaysians including Malaysia's Prime Minister. The tweet has been retweeted thousands of times and viewed more than 1.2 million times. Through social media I could shape how thousands of Malaysians including Malaysia's Prime Minister saw Australia as the modern diverse country that it is. It's an example of the power that every part of Australia's diplomatic network now has to tell Australia's story to the world. To communicate effectively in the modern environment we need to use tech savviness in combination with the remarkable local knowledge and good judgment of our network of diplomats around the world. Doing this effectively means that we must engage sensibly with risk, acknowledging we won't always get things right. We will need to be creative, learning lessons from others as we go. But in the changing media environment all too often, the alternative will be that Australia's story isn't hurt at all. Since being appointed to this role, I've had the privilege of seeing our diplomats and officials doing what they are trained to do, advancing our interests overseas. I've seen the sacrifices Australian diplomats make. I've seen what they endured during COVID-19, being isolated from family, far from home, serving our nations in countries that suffered far more from the pandemic than we did in Australia. I've seen the personal price they paid for rushing to the scene of disasters where Australian lies are at risk, most recently at the 20th anniversary commemoration of the Bali bomb. I've seen Australian diplomats mastering complex political and cultural contexts to provide the insights, ideas and strategic advice Australia needs to be influential in countries and across regions. I felt privileged to be able to work with them. Australia has always had some of the most capable, most creative, most resilient diplomats in the world. People like Sir Roland Wilson and the many outstanding diplomats and officials who have followed him. Former Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Secretary and now Governor of South Australia, Frances Adams, and put it well, and she said that Australian officials are seen as, quote, people who are willing to roll up their sleeves and get things done. Being Australian diplomats, it's sort of a can-do approach, a problem-solving approach, a convening approach. You've got to be able to convene through the quality of your ideas and the ability to build bridges between people. We have some of the most skilled, committed and practical diplomats in the world. What we haven't always had is governments who've valued the role of diplomacy. During those periods where the capability of our diplomats has been combined with the government leadership that understands the power of diplomacy, Australia has shown that it's capable of doing big things, doing important things to shape the international context to our advantage. And as we again find ourselves facing some of the most significant international challenges our nation has confronted, Australia must again harness the power of diplomacy to influence the world in which we live. That's what the Albanese Labor government is committed to doing. There's never been a more important time for it. There's never been a clearer case for diplomacy. Thank you. I really appreciate you taking the time and giving that address. Hi, everyone. Welcome to this discussion. My name is Steven Jedgets. I'm a reporter covering Foreign Affairs for ABC News based in Parliament House. And it's my pleasure to be hosting a bit of a panel discussion with the Assistant Minister and two guests to try and canvas some of the ideas that we heard Tim lay out just there. Look, I'll just introduce them briefly. They may be already known to some of you. Susanna Patton is with us here. Susanna is currently director of the Southeast Asia program at the Lowy Institute. And her research on Southeast Asia is largely focused on quote strategic alignment dynamics, which is one of my favorite phrases and the roles of external powers, including the US, China and Australia. She's been doing some great work writing some really sharp pieces and doing some great research at Lowy. Thanks for joining us. And then of course Zoe Daniel, formerly of the ABC, my colleague, who's now the federal member for Goldstein Goldstein. She's an Australian journalist, politician, columnist and broadcaster. And she spent four years, of course, which I remember very well in the USA and at the White House covering the election of Donald Trump, a seismic event which is of course still shaping the US and global politics as we speak. So look, I was I was going to ask Tim a couple of questions first up, but we're running a little bit late. So I might just throw it straight, I think to the panel and bring all three in straight away. Tim, I will start with you and then ask Susanna and Zoe for a couple of thoughts. You talked a bit there about multilateralism, disproportionate wins, which is a nice phrase and the uses of creative diplomacy. But of course, as many people have observed, multilateralism is in deep trouble at the moment. You've got a UN Security Council, which is totally gridlocked and predictably split. You've got the WTA, WTO appellate body in ruins as well as other parts of the multilateral system really stuttering in this environment. Can you see why it's understandable that some people argue that multilateralism perhaps isn't worth the candle and we should just focus on bilateral or minilateral groupings that have become so prominent. Why, in your view, is it still worth Australian diplomats and Australian ministers investing time and effort in multilateral organisations? Sure. Well, there's there's two reasons, Stephen. The first is that some problems are genuinely global on scale and require global multilateral response. I mean, the most obvious example of that is climate change. We won't be able to respond to the challenge of climate change successfully if we can't make the cop process work. So Australia needs to turn up in these forums. The second reason is that, well, what's the alternative? If Australia doesn't turn up in these forums, I can assure you that others will. Others with different visions of the way that the international order ought to work. And, you know, you flag some international institutions that are confronting problems at the moment. I can tell you that in my background working in technology, some of the most contested multilateral forums are in the standard settings bodies of the world, you know, setting the rules of the road for the way that the internet and the underlying technologies that support it operate. If we don't turn up in those forums, others will and will shake those outcomes. And I might want to point out that in the latest ITU elections, you know, Australia and the forces of good and inverted commons achieved a very significant win, an overwhelming win in terms of getting a candidate who supports our view of the way that these systems and these standards ought to operate work. So we need to keep continuing to turn up because the alternative is far worse. I might go to you now. You've talked, this is slightly related. You've talked about just how rapidly Australia's foreign policy settings have changed over the coming decade, over the last decade, sorry. And you've talked in particular about how Australia's security role is becoming more prominent in the region. Now, you could argue that Australia has done a middling job at best at explaining what's behind the shift and what's driving it. What do you think Australia needs to do in this space to articulate perhaps a little bit more persuasively what it's trying to achieve and the focus that we've increasingly seen on mini lateral and bilateral relationships? Thanks very much, Stephen. And there's a lot in that question. I think it's easy to underestimate from an Australian perspective just how fast our strategic policy settings have changed over the past 10 years. If you consider that it was only a decade ago that the Gila government released the Australia in the Asian Sanctuary White Paper, which was very much focused on engagement with China. We are much quite a downplaying of the security dimensions that the region was facing. To go from that to some of the statements that we've had from, say, the previous government, the 2020 defense strategic update, which painted a very dark picture of the region, there has been a significant change. Likewise, we've had this week the announcement of the B-52 bomber rotational presence in Australia. That's only just over a decade since the original US sports posture initiative in Australia. And likewise, the emergence of multiple new institutions and mini lateral groupings like the Quad and Orcus. And all of these things have their rationale and their logic. And ultimately, you know, I think the view in Australia is that it's China that's changing the weather in Asia and these things are a response. But it's very easy, I think, as a result to underestimate just how fast and how dramatic some of these changes can appear to our neighbours, especially in Southeast Asia and things that we may take for granted or that may seem intuitive to us about the nature of these arrangements are absolutely not evident to our neighbours. And I very much welcome Assistant Minister Watts' emphasis on public communications as a form of diplomacy, because I think that can be very powerful in establishing a baseline and some common understandings about what is the underlying logic of Australian policy. Because I think at the moment, Australia is more emphasising the private conversations, private reassurance to our neighbours, which is absolutely needed and very welcome. But it has to be complemented, I think, by a public approach, which really makes the case for why Australia is pursuing the policies that it is. So do you think that elites in Southeast Asia in particular need to be persuaded or is this really more about persuading everyday people in Southeast Asia who might not be privy to some of those quiet conversations that you're alluding to? Well, I think when it comes to foreign policy, you know, it's generally an elite preoccupation. The results of the Lowe Institute Indonesia poll from earlier in the year showed that very few people in Indonesia were aware of initiatives like Orcas of the Quad. But I think at the elite level, even at the elite level, public communication can actually be powerful because it means that it reaches everyone. You can't assume that if you have a conversation with one minister that that will reach all parts of the government. And so the public communications have a really important reinforcing role there. Yeah, I might go to you now. When we look at multilateralism, of course, one of the one of the organizations that we often look at is ASEAN. And of course, there's no bigger problem for ASEAN at the moment than what's happening in Myanmar. You've been quite vocal on this in terms of the Australian government's response. I believe you see there's a fairly limp one so far. Can I ask you to reflect on a couple of things first? What can Australia usefully do at the moment, given the scale of the problem that we face in Myanmar and the fact that ASEAN hasn't yet been able to master an effective response? And do you feel that ASEAN's response so far when you look at it to the wicked problems in Myanmar? Does it say anything compelling to you about the state of multilateralism more broadly? Or is Myanmar perhaps a uniquely difficult problem? There's quite a lot to drill down into there. I think that, you know, my perspective on Myanmar as far as stronger action in many ways reflects what other countries have already done. Australia is something of an outlier in terms of its lack of sanctions on Myanmar and recent history. The last sanctions were in response to the Rohingya crisis and many other nations have sanctioned Myanmar in various ways since the more recent coup. I think the issue in Myanmar specifically is that there are a couple of state-run organisations through which revenue is flowing and that revenue is being used to in effect fund a war against civilians and particularly a war that involves airstrikes on villages. And in recent weeks we saw an airstrike on a festival that killed upwards of 80 people and injured a couple of hundred people. And these are innocent civilians who should not be caught up in this kind of conflict. I do understand the Australian government's caution around this and there are good reasons for that. But that said, the only way I think of reducing the impact on civilians in Myanmar currently is to start to block those sources of revenue and particularly in regard to things like aviation fuel. So there are actions that we can take and the actions that I've advocated for and so have others. I think in relation to ASEAN's efforts when it comes to Myanmar, efforts have been made, time has been spent and that effort has been thus far unsuccessful. So from the perspective of the Myanmar diaspora in Australia, but also people in Myanmar who want to see Australia leading on this, there's a sense of frustration around the lack of Australian action. How it relates to the sort of broader context of multilateralism. Well, look, I would only say that plainly the previous government reduced the level of Australian interaction, genuine interaction with the ASEAN nations. And I don't think that that was helpful. I welcome the Foreign Minister's increased engagement with Southeast Asia. I think that's a very positive thing. But I also think that when it comes to a situation like that unfolding in Myanmar and I think many Australians wouldn't even realise that there are upwards of a million displaced people inside the country and around a million refugees who have fled out of Myanmar in the last couple of years and that's happening right on our doorstep. So I think that we need to be shining a light on that. For you an opportunity to respond specifically there on the point about what Australia should be doing. But can I also ask you some regional politicians including Singapore's Foreign Minister have essentially said that what's happening in Myanmar represents almost an existential crisis for ASEAN. If it can't do something effective or useful when it comes to Myanmar, a crisis at this scale, then it's going to lose legitimacy perhaps forever. What are your thoughts on both those points? Just from the outset, let me say that it is a humanitarian catastrophe what is happening in that country. I have many members of that, me and my diaspora in my own electorate in Melbourne's west. I've met with them many times before. Before the change of government I visited Myanmar as a back venture, travelled down through the Rakhine state, down through Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, following where many people have moved through this region. And I've spoken to people firsthand about the horrific suffering that they've experienced. So this is a pressing issue for our region and ASEAN has dedicated very significant attention to it. I know that the lack of progress in Myanmar is a source of enormous frustration to many members of ASEAN. Australia has committed to engaging with Southeast Asia by putting ASEAN centrality at the heart of our approach because we know that that is the best way to be influential in the region. But when we talk to other countries in the region that's how they ask us to engage. So we've sought to do that on Myanmar. We've pushed hard internally with ASEAN members for full action on this. But more broadly, we continue to consider sanctions actively in response to that humanitarian catastrophe. Clearly we wouldn't forward signal any actions we're going to take for very good reason there. But this is a topic that's attracted very significant attention not just from the Australian government but from countries across ASEAN. Talked about creative diplomacy earlier. Is there something more that Australia could do in that space, something creative to try and push some sort of resolution? Or is it likely in your mind, given the enormous sensitivities there and the delicacy of these issues, do you think it's likely to simply be counterproductive? And that's why we're giving ASEAN as much room publicly as possible. It's a really laudable thing about the Australian character that we see a problem and we want to jump in and fix it. But in foreign affairs, you need to listen carefully to people in the immediate region about the best way that you can be influential and the best way that you can have an impact. I haven't heard people in the region asking for Australia to jump in in the way that you describe or perhaps in the way that we did in the Cambodian peace processes in a previous generation. So, you know, we're being careful to listen actively in the region about the best way that we can be influential. It's a very serious issue and it's this issue that is attracting enormous Australian attention. But that's not something that I've heard people in the region asking for. Look, I might go to some of the questions that we're getting from people who have very kindly joined us. First one that I've got here, we've got a question with Australia prioritising increasing military capabilities, obviously through August. To what extent can Australia also use diplomacy to contribute to reducing regional tensions? Can we do both? It's an interesting way of framing it. Susanna, I might go to you there. Obviously, reduced tensions would be a welcome thing, but can Australia move the dial in any sort of useful way in that regard? Well, I think Australia has to do both, right? Australia will do both. But sort of the objective of reducing tensions, I think for me, I would rather frame it our objective in terms of shaping a region that is going to be favourable to our interests. It's possible to come up with a long list of things that Australia and many other countries could do that would reduce tensions, for example, by accommodating China, but that would lead to a region that was absolutely not one that would be in our interests. So I think Australia needs to continue to pursue very active diplomatic engagement with all its neighbours as it is doing. But I think it's undeniable that there is a tension there with the sort of deterrent focus of our strategic policy. I think there are tensions between deterrents and engagement on the one hand, as we were discussing before, between broad inclusive multilateral groupings and between minilateral groupings. But to me, this is the consequence of the fact that we live in a region which has these very big challenges. It means that our foreign policy and our diplomacy will need to have, we won't be simply one thing or the other. We will need to manage these at times competing and conflicting priorities. I bring you in there on a slightly sort of ancillary point. You've been a bit critical of, in particular, the previous government, the tone of a lot of its communications when it comes to China. Do you think, though, that both major parties have the broad policy settings basically right and that it's simply a question of tone as much as anything else? Or do you believe that there are other ways that Australia could actually meaningfully seek a rapprochement with China without, in some ways, seriously undermining our national interest? Yeah, well, I think that we need to be careful to ensure that the sort of broader nature of domestic politics, which tends to be partisan and combative, doesn't seep into our foreign policy. And in many ways, I feel that that is what's happened, not only in regard to China, but the stance in recent history has become combative, defensive in some ways, rather than involving genuine engagement. You know, we are an experiment of a nation in many ways, being a Western nation in Asia, together with New Zealand to a lesser degree. And we need to actually learn to embrace our position in the region, in my mind. And that involves having genuine conversations with the nations around us without being pushed around. Being able to stand our ground, not allowing ourselves to be bullied, not allowing our national security to be compromised, but also being able to have genuine interactions on the issues that we need to. My view strongly is, and I said this previously, that I don't agree with megaphone diplomacy on the front pages of newspapers. And I am a proponent of more traditional diplomacy. As a foreign correspondent, I spend a lot of time around diplomats. And I know that many of them have been somewhat frustrated in recent years around their lack of capacity to actually do their work. In many ways, part of the government's role is to help foster that work by skilled people to allow us to navigate what are increasingly complex relationships in our region. And I mean, the other thing that I would add, Stephen, in regard to the relationship with China is that, you know, I sit here in an electorate in Bayside, Melbourne, where people, Chinese Australians speak to me about the way that they've been treated in our community and the impact that it's had on them as Chinese Australians. The relationship between our governments has made the existence or the lives of Chinese people living in Australia in many ways quite complex. And also people who do business with China, who've started to find that very challenging. So these are the things that we need to navigate together with those national security questions, human rights questions that also feed into the way that we interact with the nations around us. Let's go to another question here. So, slightly, slightly left field one, but I look quite like it. It's, do you believe an Oceanean Union, similar to the European Union, which includes Australia and New Zealand, would be beneficial to bolstering regional diplomacy and securing the region. And I don't think an OU would be embraced by by many Pacific Island nations, that's just a personal opinion. But of course, we have had a lot of talk about, you know, perhaps some sort of compact with Australia and perhaps smaller Pacific Island states, a number of people from Kevin Rudd and others have have floated this idea. It's traditionally been regarded pretty suspiciously by many people in the Pacific who understandably guard their sovereignty very jealously. But in the spirit of that question, Tim, I'll come to you. How seriously has this been contemplated in government? I know it's been kicked around DFAT, but is it pie in the sky sort of dreaming or is it something that this government or perhaps future Australian governments may need to contemplate, particularly as some of these countries, as we know, face increasingly existential risks to their very existence as climate change increases? Stephen, I don't know about that particular institutional architecture, but what I would say is that the clearly, you know, a Pacific family is stronger when it's united. We share common interests across the Pacific, and we have a greater clout when we can act collectively on issues like economic development, on security issues, but then crucially on issues like climate change. That's why we want to elevate Pacific Island voices, not just in the Pacific, not just by listening to our partners in the Pacific Islands Forum, but by elevating Pacific voices in all of the forums that Australia operates in. Not least of which, in our endeavours to host a future cop round with our Pacific Islands family. So, I mean, I don't know that we'd be in the business of imposing an institutional structure, but we do want to listen carefully and elevate Pacific voices in every institution that Australia engages. Susanna, I might bring you in. There's sort of been a feeling that Australia's relentless focus on the Pacific over the last couple of years has perhaps distracted it from the groundwork of face to face diplomacy in Southeast Asia. What's your assessment of how Southeast Asian countries regard Australian statecraft and diplomacy and our broad policy settings. I know you've written a bit about this. There's obviously a level of unease from some countries about August and the prospect of Australia gathering nuclear powered submarines. But then, of course, we're told that the militaries in many of those countries that have voiced concerns, including Indonesia and Malaysia, are actually quite happy about the arrangement. And it's just the foreign ministries that are unhappy. What's what's your assessment about how Australia is regarded in Southeast Asia and how Southeast Asia has regarded this shift that you alluded to earlier? Yeah, well, first of all, foreign ministries absolutely matter. And I often hear this said that all the defence ministries are okay. So everything's tickety boo, but that is definitely not the case. I think a few things about Australia's role that are important to say, I think the first one is that sometimes in Australia, we forget that the changing economic relatives between us and our neighbours in Asia means that we are no longer as important as we once were. And often that is sort of lamented in the sense that Australia is not exercising the influence that it should. But part of that is quite natural. But it does mean that sometimes we can't take the ground to the fact that other countries are going to be willing to accommodate our preferences or give us the deference that we might want once have expected. I think the second point that I would make that is sort of complementary to the idea that our defence and strategic policies have become much more hard-edged over the past 10 years is that much of Australia's soft power influence. So I'm talking about linkages through education, linkages through economics and trade have actually atrophied. And I really welcome the fact that the new government has decided to pursue an economic strategy for Southeast Asia. Because I think if we continue on the path that we're on, then we face the prospect that our personality as a country will be very different to the one that we assume will be less important than we think we are and will have an imbalanced focus on security and defence rather than presenting a kind of comprehensive personality to our neighbours. And of course with the United States and Southeast Asia, as I know you've written about before this perception that the United States is still a security partner, a very important one for many Southeast Asian nations, but the economic leg of the school, of the stool is woefully underdeveloped. Here's a question also on Southeast Asia. It's for Susanna. I might go to the others after that. Is there a way to close the gap between how we and the rest of Southeast Asia see strategic competition playing out in our region? Susanna. The kind of short answer is no. We can't change other countries' perceptions to make them see the world as we do, which is very frustrating and disappointing at times. I think it means that the solution is really to focus on the whole range of issues, which is genuinely true, don't depend on having strategic alignment on the China question. And there are a lot of those. How do you think countries, when you have conversations with your counterparts, senior officials in Southeast Asia, I mean they're not blind obviously to the way that China has changed in particular over the last eight years or so. But is there a level of anxiety in those countries about Australia's trajectory on this front? Do they see Australian diplomacy as unnecessarily hard-edged? Are they pressing you for answers about what we're doing in terms of closer military cooperation with the US? Or are they largely quite happy to see Australia take the role that it has? Well, Stephen, I mean, when asked about Australia's approach in Southeast Asia in these changing strategic times, the point that I make in the region is that Australia is trying to support strategic equilibrium in Southeast Asia. We're using all of the tools of statecraft to do that. Economic, as Susanna was saying, through our Southeast Asian economic strategy and through our Southeast Asian envoy. You know, diplomatic, you might have noticed there has been a flotilla of Australian ministerial visits to Southeast Asia since the election. But also defence. And when you look at Australian defence policy and look at the AUKUS agreement, for example, you know, one of the things we emphasise is that's not a new alliance framework. That's a military capability agreement. And it's a capability that we're acquiring through that agreement that is already possessed by others in our region. So we are seeking to acquire that capability to bolster strategic equilibrium in the region. So, you know, Australia's approach in the region is joined up across all of those levers of statecraft. That phrase, strategic equilibrium, which has been used by yourself and the foreign minister, obviously, it's obviously now firmly ensconced in every DFAT talking point. Very good idea, Steve. When you say equilibrium, is that just a sort of slightly different way of talking about a balance of power? Can you expand on exactly what equilibrium means in this context? Well, what we want to create is an order in the – well, what we want to support is an order in the region where countries are able to make decisions about what to do for themselves. You know, they – in order to have that agency, you do need all the levers of statecraft, I think. You know, it's not just diplomatic, it's military as well. And that's certainly the way that we engage through the region. We're not, you know, committing ourselves to, you know, military alliances or anything in that way in any new sense. You know, in the defence side, they're capability acquisition arrangements that are designed to bolster our agency as an independent nation. Susanna, what do you make of the idea of a strategic equilibrium? And what do you think the government is saying publicly and thinking privately when it comes up with that term? I think it's a smart kind of sidestepping of the more sort of overtly competitive language, which I think definitely makes sense. I suppose my question, which I think I sort of mentioned earlier, is just sometimes when we talk in this kind of language, it can still leave a lot of questions unanswered. And so I think something like the strategic equilibrium works really well in the public messaging. But then I also hope that we're having the much franker conversations about how Australia sees the need to have a balance of power, a balance of military forces, how Orcas will contribute to that and the kind of the detailed sort of strategic underpinning of what we're doing to complement that. Because otherwise, it may not really change. It's a nice message, but I'm not sure how much it will change. And I should add, if any of you ever want to weigh in on what someone else has said, please don't wait for the green light, just barge on in there. All right, I've got another question here from the audience. How can Australia be non combative in nature when faced with she's Wolf Warrior diplomacy, which is by definition combative? The question sort of I guess seems to imply that to some extent it's it's it's necessary for Australia to take a pretty publicly muscular approach, given we've been the butt of pretty constant abuse from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and others. Zoe, I mean, that's a it's a it's a fair point that's been made there. China's approach has been tonally aggressive as well as economically coercive. What role can Australian diplomacy really realistically play when faced not only by a China which seems determined to assert its position in the region, but also by the broader sort of grinding forces of strategic competition, which often leave little room for medium sized players like Australia. Yes, well, I don't entirely disagree with it to the extent that you know the the muscular approach as you describe it has been necessary to some extent. I guess the question though is that if you continue to take only a muscular approach, what does that lead to? It's not a very sustainable position over time, particularly when the opponent, if I could describe it as that is China. So not being bullied and being able to stand strong for Australian values and the Australian position when it comes to both national security and economics, I think it's important. But there also have to be ways of having conversations in order to try to retain a relationship. And I think we got to the point over the last decade where the relationship was so frayed that there wasn't one. And that's a very problematic position to be in. I mean, to speak to the sort of idea of strategic equilibrium, it's acceptable, I think, to say that's something that we need to get back to. The Foreign Minister has spoken about stabilisation of the relationship and that makes perfect sense. I guess the next question though is what happens next? Do you try to in some way improve that relationship and do you try to develop that relationship and how do you do that with the clash of positions between what is a mighty power? And a country like Australia, which is not only keen to but must retain its national security and economic security in the region. So this is the position in which we find ourselves. And that's the situation that all of those diplomats and also Tim and the Foreign Minister are currently navigating, I think, with new eyes. And I think that's a good thing. It would be very hard for you to say anything remotely contentious. And I'm not mocking that. I know it's a serious issue and it needs to be handled with care. But obviously we've had a couple of meetings now with the Foreign Minister. I've also had the Defence Minister's meeting, a speculation that we may have a meeting between the Prime Minister and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20. You're a few months in now, six months in or so. Do you feel any more optimistic at this point that the new government can find a way to create a more stable relationship with China? Can that needle be threaded? Look, it is going to take some time, Stephen. As Zoe was saying, the Foreign Minister said that it's in the interest of both sides, Australia and China, to stabilise the relationship in comparison to recent times. We've said that while the Australian government has changed, our fundamental national interests haven't changed. But we have said that we'll be calm and consistent in our engagement with China. So we'll cooperate where we can, particularly I think there are opportunities on things like climate change. But we'll continue to disagree where we must. So on consular issues, for example, on the trade blockages that we want to see lifted. There aren't any quick fixes here. As you say, Foreign Minister Wang and Wang Yi have met twice now. Those have been productive conversations with listening on both sides. But they are the first steps of what we all need to have many steps in order to stabilise their relationship. Most analysts sort of nominate trade as the most obvious way forward. Finding a way, for example, to settle one of those number of disputes on the sidelines of the WTO rather than pushing forward with the formal appeal. Does that strike you as the most plausible way to perhaps find a way forward? We think all of those trade blockages should be lifted. And if there are offers from the Chinese side to lift those trade blockages outside formal WTO processes, that would be an excellent way to help stabilise the relationship because they're not justified in international law, or the rules of the international trading system. I should say Australian producers have been extraordinarily resilient, I think, in the face of these trade blockages. That doesn't make them right though. We need them lifted. This is a good one. How should the foreign policy community be making the case for diplomacy with those parts of Australia and the APS that focus on domestic issues, particularly when those domestic issues are shaped by decisions happening in the international sphere, which is a very good point because of course that boundary is increasingly a dissolved one. Susanna, it's hard perhaps for an organisation like DFAT to make the case. It doesn't have many natural conduits back to the Australian community to do that or even perhaps the broader APS. But are there ways for people in the system or perhaps analysts like yourself to try and make that case a little bit more broadly? I think it's definitely a difficult issue. One area that I've been looking at in my own research recently is the area of education. This is a classic area where so much of Australia's influence in our own region comes from education. Our education system, our scholarships from the Department of Education side, if you like, have not been managed with a view to how do you improve the bilateral relationships with countries in our region. They've been managed with a view very much to domestic issues. I do think that this is an issue where you have to have ultimately a Prime Minister who is going to say that this question around foreign policy and our regional engagement is so important that agencies that traditionally would prefer to focus on domestic issues will also bring an international lens to what they're doing because what we saw under the previous government in this space, for example, was that Australia's only purely merit-based international scholarship, the Endeavour Awards, was scrapped and replaced with a scheme that was really mostly about boosting regional universities in Australia. That is just the kind of example of, I think, short-sighted decision-making that ultimately a foreign ministry can't do anything about, but which has massive implications for our long-term influence. So those are the kind of areas where I really think the high-level mandate from government to set clear priorities, especially in terms of the countries and the bilateral relationships that we need to emphasise are super important. And, of course, education is just one example. There are so many others. I think on that. Does some of those silos need to come crashing down a bit? It is hard to think of an area of government policy that isn't fundamentally shaped by international forces these days. For my lifetime, at least Australia has been an open economy and open society. What goes on beyond our borders fundamentally shapes outcomes in Australia. The education one is a really interesting one because when I think about the needs of regions that are important to us, the Pacific Islands, Indonesia, India, Africa, they're all really young regions with enormous youth cohorts coming down the pipes. And what are those young people need? Well, they need jobs and they need education. We can do some of the job story through the working holiday visa program, through programs like the Pacific Island Labor Migration Scheme. But the education task is going to be fundamentally different than the international education task of the last 20 years in my view. The scale of it is just so much greater than the scale we faced in the past. And similarly, the call for vocational education as part of that international program is just infinitely stronger. And to deliver at scale and to deliver those vocational programs, we need Australian diplomacy creating the permission structures to deliver education services in country or in third countries. Monash has got a new university running in Indonesia under the ISEPA arrangement. I know that Curtin University has a, you can think of it as a third country university running out of Mauritius where a lot of African students come to study in a third country, not coming all the way to Australia, but coming halfway across the Indian Ocean. We can only explore these new models of international education with creative, effective Australian diplomacy opening the doors to that very important export industry for our country. There was a feeling, I know you talked about DFAT and diplomacy being sidelined, but there was also a feeling under the former government that DFAT wasn't making the case energetically enough in, you know, inside government that it couldn't always present a compelling case internally. Nobody has made that proposal for anyone. Right. I'll take that as a comment, as Tony Jones said. Look, I might go to Zoe on another question of the way that domestic and international policy collide and that's of course climate policy because Australia's domestic policy settings obviously have big foreign policy consequences, nowhere greater than in the Pacific where we've come under pretty withering fire in recent years. Zoe, what's your view? Do you feel like Australia's reputation and standing in the Pacific has been damaged over the last decade or so because of basically our inability to come up with a credible climate policy? Do you believe it's shifting under the current government and if it is, is it shifting enough? Well, yes and yes to the first two questions. So yes, there was damage and yes, I think there's a sense of optimism. But I think that those that I'm speaking to among the Pacific leaders are still waiting to see the proof of action rather than talk. And I think that, you know, we can say all we like about wanting to protect the Pacific from climate change to the extent that we can, but then the only proof will be in the actions that we take. So legislating 43% under the Climate Change Act, for example, it's a start. It's a good start for a country like ours that's been stalled for so long, but it won't be adequate for those countries that are on the front lines of this. And you already have substantial impact in the Pacific nations from climate change, clearly. And this is a much bigger issue, obviously, than just the environment. I mean, this will become a potential national security issue for Australia. We already have this issue where we're having to deploy our defence force to deal with natural disasters, so-called natural disasters in our own country. But we may well end up having to support more and more of those kinds of disasters in the Pacific as well. So it's a looming and fast approaching problem. And I think that, you know, the engagement has to be more than just engagement. It's a genuine friendship. It's interaction. It's problem-solving. It's, you know, what can we do together collectively with Pacific nations to make the difference. And some of the things that you just talked about, and I, you know, in many ways I see soft diplomacy as a sort of a cynical term, but it's to do with actually integrating ourselves into the Pacific and in Southeast Asia through things like education, trade, sharing of workforces, the arts, all sorts of areas where we could be working to increase the links between our countries. Just quickly to you on that before we get to a final question on Russia, which I want to get to. But I mean, the consensus, obviously, there's been a fair amount of warmth towards the new government's policies on climate publicly. But privately, a lot of Pacific Island officials are saying that the next thing they're going to broach is the question of new coal and gas. So can the new government credibly claim to be doing everything it can for Pacific nations facing an existential threat while it continues to approve new projects? Well, Stephen, the new Australian government fundamentally, we're turning up, we're listening. So Pat Connery, our new member for the Minister for the Pacific Islands has been instructed to get out and visit every Pacific Island this year, and he is halfway through that. We've seen the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister also camping out there. So we're listening to Pacific Island's concerns. And that's why we are acting on climate change is why we're putting new nationally determined contributions into the COP. That's also why we've expanded the funding for official development assistance through programs like the Australian infrastructure financing facility for the Pacific to build climate resilience. We're listening to our Pacific partners on climate and we want to elevate their voices by helping to provide a platform for them in hosting a future round of the COP. But they're the kinds of practical things that we are hearing so far and now Minister to Minister leader to leader engagement with Pacific Islands. I'd like to spend more time on that, but I'm conscious we've only got a few minutes left. Let's go last to the question of Russia and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. A question here, why is Australia reluctant to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism? And it's a succession of questions, but I'll go to the final one as well, which is a bigger influence or a threat to Australia, Russia or China might rephrase that that one slightly. Tim, I'll go to you quickly on that first, first on that the question of designation, although it's a complex question. How profound a threat is Russia? I mean, obviously the threat to Ukraine is real. It's not a threat. It's devastation. But to what extent do you think that Russia poses a broader destabilizing influence across the entire region in the Pacific in the world, as opposed to its own, the countries near it? Well, Stephen, I mean, Russia's illegal, moral, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is a profound challenge to the international order and to the assumptions about the security arrangements that have underpinned the rules based international order for many, many decades. It's such a fundamental challenge. It just cannot be allowed to stand that a member of the Security Council, a large nation could invade a small nation neighbor. I mean, the signal that that sends around the world, not just in the immediate region in Europe is something that just cannot be tolerated. I mean, that is why Australia has been involved very actively in multilateral forums in condemning Russia's actions. But it's also why we have provided a very, very substantial direct military assistance to Ukraine to enable them to help resist this challenge to the rules based order. I'm sorry to interrupt you just because we're short on time. I just go quickly to Susanna on that. Southeast Asia, of course, has had a pretty vexed approach to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Susanna, or a very mixed approach. What's your assessment on the latest thinking about the best way to respond in various Southeast Asian capitals? And how do they regard Australia's more forward-leaning approach? I'm not sure there's a strong impression about Australia's approach. Obviously, the approach in Asia has been quite varied with countries like Japan and Singapore having a very strong approach. But for others, unfortunately, they have been very concerned about sanctions, almost more so than about the invasion itself, and quite inclined for a variety of reasons to be quite susceptible to the sort of the view that NATO and the United States have caused this crisis, which I think is deeply worrying when we think about other future scenarios in our own region. We've just done that finally before we go to the last comments. Do you think there's anything Australian diplomacy can do to nudge that attitude in Southeast Asia or do you think it's largely beyond our control? Well, it's not going to happen quickly. I don't think you can create a change of mentality overnight, given the length of time between really genuine engagement with Southeast Asia. But I think it's that rebuilding of trust in many ways with Southeast Asia that will make the difference. We mustn't forget the various global alliances that are underpinning the Russian invasion of Ukraine and how that affects our own region as well, and keep an eye on that on a broader level. Look, we're almost out of time. I might just ask if any of you have any final remarks you'd like to deliver about. I know we've covered a very wide range of topics at a furious pace. But starting with Tim and then Susanna and Zoe, are there any other final observations you'd like to make? The only thing I'd say on the topic of the dialogue, Stephen, is that since coming into this portfolio, I've had an opportunity of seeing Australian diplomats at work overseas and they make me so proud. We've got an enormous capability, practical, talented, resilient. These are people advancing our national interests in really difficult circumstances and with a government with a vision to let them loose, they can achieve great things. And that's what we're on about in the Albanese Labour government. Susanna, did you have any final reflections either on Australian diplomacy or what we need to do in the region? I think Australia has a real challenge on its hands. And I think it's great that we have a new government that is focused on our region, on the Pacific and on Southeast Asia. But I think we shouldn't underestimate the degree to which we have a challenge in communicating who we are and what we're doing. Questions from you? Well, I'd only say, Stephen, that as a former foreign correspondent, I think having Australian eyes and ears and brains in the countries around our region is critically important. And I really am very supportive of the work of our diplomats and also indeed our journalists in the region because they deliver information to us in various ways through Australian eyes, underpinned by the Australian context. And that's very different to the way information will be otherwise delivered. So I do think that that's critically important. Well, amen to that. Look, thank you so much, all of you for joining us. Thank you, Assistant Minister for your speech. Thank you, Zoe and Susanna for your really insightful remarks. It's been a very wide-ranging discussion, but I hope everyone has listened in and thank you for logging in. We really appreciate it. I hope you've all found it entertaining and enlightening, hopefully in equal measures. Look, I'll sign off there with one final thanks to the guests and thanks also to the Roland Wilson Foundation for putting this on. It's been a real pleasure and I can't think of a more important topic for us to discuss. So thanks everyone for coming and have a great evening.