 big issues. We've got lots of them. On this panel we're going to deal with four. We're going to deal with the South China Sea. We're going to deal with Indonesia under President Jokowi. We're going to talk about the conflict in the southern Philippines around a town called Marawi and we're going to talk about climate change and geopolitics in the Pacific. Four big issues. You probably thought we were tough on our speakers this morning. They had six minutes. This crew, they've got four. What we're going to do here is we're going to hustle and bustle and we'll take our inspiration from all of those ghosts that circulate in a building like this, condemned to their broom cupboard officers but who worked seriously hard to get things done to grapple with the big issues of the day and the big issues of the day for us are many and varied. We'd like to do our very best to boil them down, to think through the implications for Australia and of course to develop a conversation with all of you. Our first mini presentation is going to come from Dr Greg Raymond and he worked for many years in important and senior roles in the Australian government particularly in the Department of Defence. Nowadays he is a research fellow in our strategic and defence study centre in the Bell School where he focuses on Southeast Asian security, regional military affairs and Australian defence policy. Greg, you've got your four minutes. Okay. South China Sea, over to you. Thanks Nick. I just quickly want to talk about three points, the military developments in the South China Sea. I want to talk a little bit about the historical frameworks that we're using to try and look at what's happening there and finally I just want to finish on a couple of points about Australia's own policy on the South China Sea. Now, beginning with military capability developments, we cannot deny that there are significant developments in the past year or the past two years. China has now three islands that have been converted effectively into air bases, Farry Cross Reef, Mischief Reef and one other reef. Those are significant developments. We need to factor that in. What scenarios might they be used in? They could be used for example in a scenario where China wishes to exert dominance against the regional country. They could also be used in a scenario where there is a Taiwan contingency and the US wishes to intervene. We shouldn't overplay their significance, resupplying an island. Any air operation is a very intensive operation in terms of logistics resupply. Islands are particularly vulnerable in that sense or ineffective in that sense. But nonetheless they could take US assets out of play if US assets were required to neutralize those islands. So we shouldn't either underplay or oversell the significance of these military developments. Historical frameworks. There's a tendency to look at what's happening with the South China Sea in terms of bigger frameworks such as I guess our power transition that is occurring between the United States and China. There are analogies made with ancient Greece and the Peloponnesian wars, the rise of Athens in relation to Sparta. We also have been looking at this some in public discourse that there's a decline or a deterioration in the rules based global order. I do think that we need to continually supplement and look through several different historical lenses at what's happening. Now I will talk about briefly that I do think that there's an issue with portraying the southern China, South China Sea issue as a breakdown the rules based global order for two reasons. We've seen statistically much less conflict, much less violence globally and worldwide since the end of the Cold War but we had a lot during the Cold War. The second point to remember when we talk about is there a fraying of the rules based global order is that most great powers indulge periodically in transgressing rules and international law. We saw that with the United States in 1986 in the Nicaragua case, France in 1972 with its atomic testing in the Pacific. We saw that with many countries in 2003 with the launch of a war in Iraq without a UN Security Council resolution. So we need to look at frameworks, other frameworks such as what's happened with colonialism and neocolonialism, how has that fed into China's view of the South China Sea, its view of its need to protect its near seas. We need to factor that into where this particular problem set is going. We also need to look in very much greater detail at the history of the claims in the South China Sea. We see very little of the work of the historians of the South China Sea, people like Bill Hayton and looking at the claims and counter claims and where the truth might lie. We need more of that in the public discourse. I'll just finish up on Australia's policy on the South China Sea. I think roughly at the moment we've got a Goldilocks policy, it's not too hot, it's not too cold, it's about right. We have registered our support, for example, on the arbitral tribunal finding on the Nine Dash Line. We are continuing to conduct an operation which is called Operation Gateway, which is essentially a kind of freedom of navigation operation. We've had that operation for 30 years. We haven't stopped, but I think it's roughly sending a signal, and I think we're roughly on the right track in expressing support for the rules based global order, but not launching a program which could be seen as trying to contain China. I'll finish there. Thanks very much, Greg. Round of applause. It's not easy, this four minutes caper. Next up is Eve Warburton, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Political and Social Change, another part of our Bell School. Eve's expertise deals with Indonesia and Southeast Asian politics. She writes often about natural resources, nationalism, and also identity politics. And Eve, we'd love to hear your thoughts on Indonesia under President Jokowi. Thank you. Thanks very much, Nick. So I want to talk very briefly about Indonesia's democratic fragility. So for the best part of the last 10 years, there's sort of been a bit of an analytical consensus about the state of Indonesian democracy, and that's pretty much been that the Indonesian democracy is stable, if stagnating, it's relatively liberal, and it faces no serious existential threats. But that consensus is now beginning to fall apart. And what we've seen is that leading experts in the Bell School are starting to use words like regression, deconsolidation, and fragility. And so I want to speak very briefly about three sources of Indonesia's democratic fragility. So the first one is this rise of a kind of neo-authoritarian populist politics in Indonesia. It's a form of populism that is anti-democratic. It is explicitly challenges some of Indonesia's fundamental democratic institutions, and it's accompanied by a kind of nativist xenophobic nationalism. And that politics has been expressed most clearly by Prabowo Sobianto. So he's a man who ran in the presidential elections against Indonesia's President Jokowi. He lost, but he only lost narrowly, and he remains a very important player in Indonesia's political landscape, and he'll probably run again for election in 2019, Indonesia's fourth presidential elections, direct presidential elections. So that's the first one. The second one is the rise or an upswing in sort of sectarian and Islamist mobilization in Indonesia. And many of you would have heard about this earlier this year, Indonesia made international headlines for some huge popular protests in Jakarta against Indonesia's, sorry, against Jakarta's Christian and Chinese governor. Now these protests were led by what were once considered sort of fringe radical Islamist groups, but here they were able to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people and I should add with the support of some of Indonesia's mainstream politicians. Now what we've learned from that mobilization is not necessarily that we have a huge increase in intolerant attitudes or support for Islamist agendas amongst the population, but we have an Islamist constituency that is better mobilized, better resourced, and that has the clear potential to coalesce with some of Indonesia's mainstream politicians, including the likes of Prabowo, and that is of a serious concern for Indonesia's democracy. The third and final source of Indonesia's democratic fragility actually comes from the current government, from the Jokowi administration. Now Jokowi is a president who has invested most of his financial and political capital in a sort of developmentalist agenda in Indonesia, in a sort of economic vision for Indonesia. He is demonstrably less committed to Indonesia's democratic institution, liberal democratic institutions, and human rights and civil liberties protections. Now we've seen this in a number of ways, we can talk more about it in the Q&A, but most recently the way in which the Jokowi administration has responded to the Islamist mobilizations that I've just briefly discussed has been in and of itself undemocratic. So what we've seen is a strong defense from Jokowi, or strong actions to defend Indonesia's pluralist and its secular foundations, but we shouldn't conflate defense of pluralism and secularism with defensive democracy. And in order to manage the Islamist threat, Jokowi has used or has bypassed, I should say, some of the fundamental checks and balances that we expect from a liberal democracy such as Indonesia. So I guess to raise once again a theme from Senator Penny Wong's discussion earlier today about complacency or the concern about complacency in Australia's foreign policy, I think a lot of the analysis coming out of the Bell School now would warn Australia against complacency in regards to the stability and strength of Indonesia's democracy at present. And I think I made it within four minutes actually. Thanks very much Eve, splendidly done. For those of you who are paying attention to us on Twitter, we have a hashtag, hashtag ANU Australia 360, somebody here must be tweeting away feverishly, because I just got a text suggesting that somewhere, somehow, and perhaps it's only in this postcode, hashtag ANU Australia 360 is out trending everything, including hashtag marriage equality, if you will. Okay, so please, if we want to keep up that kind of intense tweeting, means we'll need a few more phones out in this room, please do send these nuggets of wisdom and experience out to the rest of the world. Next up we have Professor Greg Feely, who formerly served the Australian government as a Southeast Asia analyst, but for many years now has been based in our Department of Political and Social Change, a department of which he is currently the head. Greg is one of the world's foremost analysts of Indonesian politics with a specific emphasis on what goes on in its various Islamist strains, and Greg today is going to be talking to us about recent events in the southern Philippines, of course an area of great concern to anybody looking at the long-term security and success of the Southeast Asian region. Greg. Thank you, Nick. On the 23rd of May this year, fighting broke out in the southern Philippine city of Marawi in the island of Mindanao, between hundreds of pro-ISIS G-hardists and the Philippine military, Philippines military and police. Extraordinarily, the fighting is still continuing 10 weeks later despite the deployment of thousands of soldiers, aerial bombing, extensive US military support, and Australian and US intelligence support. I want to talk about this particular conflict because I think the battle for Marawi has become the most significant extreme Islamist event in Southeast Asia since the 2002 Bali bombing that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians. So why is this so significant? Because it's been the biggest and most successful display of force and Jihadist intent by pro-ISIS fighters in the region. The purpose for launching this attack in Marawi was to secure territory in the name of ISIS and to stake a claim for Mindanao to become a williah, a province of ISIS. This is a much sought after status for pro-ISIS groups around the world. The sheer scale of the violence is extraordinary. The death toll is approaching 1,000, nearly 600 militants are said to have been killed. Some approaching 200 government soldiers and police are dead or missing and 1,200 wounded and there have been 120 civilians wounded, 300,000 evacuated and much of the city destroyed. It's become the Mosul of Southeast Asia. The ability of the Jihadist to resist and take a heavy toll on battle-hardened Philippine soldiers has shocked everyone. It turns out the Jihadists were very skilled at urban warfare, at putting together powerful IEDs, at sniping, regularly taking out Philippines troops, booby traps. This is unlike anything seen before in Southeast Asia and it was an utter humiliation and continuing humiliation for the Philippines armed forces and indeed the Philippines state. At the centre of the Jihadist action is the man who's been anointed the Amir or the commander of ISIS forces in Southeast Asia is Nilon HaPilon and the action that his forces have taken have been lauded by ISIS, central ISIS media and indeed ISIS has directed well over a million dollars to this conflict in the southern Philippines as well as giving technical expertise. This conflict is clearly bad news for the Philippines but even more so it has significant ramifications for the rest of Southeast Asia and indeed the world. Jihadists across the region are being excited and galvanised into action by Marawi. We see on Jihadist chat groups such as Telegram and the like rejoicing among Jihadists at their fellow Jihadists in the southern Philippines holding off the might of the infidel military of the Philippines supported as they are by US advisers and that these Jihadists have raised the ISIS flag within the region. This is inspiring both existing and would be Jihadists not only to undertake attacks in their own countries but also to go to the Philippines to join the fight. There is already a lot of information on social media about Malaysians and Indonesians departing for the Philippines or wanting to depart for the Philippines. This is part of a many decades long trend of Jihadists moving across the region but particularly southern Philippines becoming a focal point of this. So Marawi and Mindanao have become very much the magnet for regional Jihadism. Particularly is the military situation in Syria and Iraq worsens for ISIS. This becomes a much more attractive destination. The people who go there get skills, they learn things like bomb making, operating in battle situations, running COVID operations. The great risk is that these people return home and begin training others. The upshot will be a substantial increase in terrorist capacity across Southeast Asia over the next decade, much as occurred following the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and the late early 1990s. So the key point here that ISIS has come to our region in a spectacular way. It's not just terrorist operations being undertaken by small cells but rather large groups showing an ability to control territory and exposing the adequacy of regional security services. Thanks very much Greg. Our final speaker on this panel with a four minute mini presentation will be George Carter who is a doctoral candidate in the state society and governance in Melanesia program in the Bell School and George's research focuses on coalitions and diplomacy in climate change negotiations and as he's going to tell us he has a specific focus on what is required to ensure that Pacific Islands nations are well placed in such diplomatic affairs. We look forward to your comments. Thanks George. Thank you very much and thank you for the opportunity to speak here today. I think living with climate change impacts, anticipating climate change disasters is a very real reality for many Pacific Island countries. Very much so as a cross cutting priority for many governments to small village communities throughout the island region. From sea level rise impacts to low coral air tours, ocean acidification, water sanitation, salination droughts or heavy rainfall to more frequent extreme cyclone climate disasters, heaven will continue to impress the region throughout the coming decades. Well I was asked to talk on three main key points and I think I'll leave the last one towards the end which is on climate partnerships but I think the two points that I want to stress a little bit more on is on climate support or existing climate support in the region and the third one looking at Pacific agency and Pacific leadership in international forums and regional leadership initiatives. So in terms of climate support you know with 2005 and of course 2009 with climate finance opening up all around the world and climate finance being readily available it's been a hotbed issue for many it's a top priority for Pacific Island countries especially in terms of special considerations access to these funding from right throughout Australia bilaterally Australia remains the top climate change adaptation provider for the Pacific as well as Germany and Japan but what we what we have seen lately in the last since 2015 is India and China coming in very interested in sort of being part of this climate adaptation that they do not have climate adaptation programs except other than ad hoc projects which are primarily based on diplomatic requests but since 2015 to to currently India and China have been starting to come in and I've been part of one of these reports for UNDP trying to suggest recommendations for China to be more heavily engaged in the region through climate adaptation but what we do see that the trend in terms of climate finance in the region that we see a lot is in terms of multilateral funding and this is where some disagreements are starting to pop up in terms of a multilateral organization even regional organizations are finding amongst each other to be as they are the regional implementing entities instead of countries are providing direct funding through countries so we both see a lot of multilateral organizations such as World Bank UNDP even regional organizations have a strong hold in terms of the direction of which climate finance is distributed in the region in terms of Pacific Agency my research focuses on Pacific coalitions and their participation at the UNFCC and since 2015 there has been a group called Pacific Small Island Developing States which has been sort of the the main rallying point for the 14 Pacific Island countries in UNFCC of course they're very much attached to the Alliance of Small Island States least developing group the G77 big acronyms there's a whole lot more but what we do see in terms of if we look at states individually we see the leadership in terms of a small state that's with Tuvalu 2015 at COP it pushed the United States all the way to the end through a bilateral issue of loss and damage this is an example of a small state with extreme position pushing another state a bigger state that's one example of which we do not see in the media a lot but it was within conforms of negotiations another form that we do see is when small states actually are proactive and take along big countries so we hear the example of the High Ambition Coalition and the role of Republic of Marshall Islands not being sort of the direct confrontant confrontational but being the country that leads a group and of course we now see in 2017 is the leadership role taken by Fiji in terms not only by currently the president of the UN General Assembly furthermore it's also the spearheaded the Oceans Diplomacy Conference but this year is the the chair of COP 23 what this sort of sees what this trend sees in terms of a Pacific Island taking leadership is that they are maturing in the age and having a more proactive participation international forum and hopefully we'll speak more on that and through the questions thank you great thanks very much George potential war or showdowns in the South China Sea the regression of democracy in Indonesia ISIS in the southern Philippines and the conundrum of climate change for Pacific Islands nations for big issues we love your questions who'd like to get us started there'll be microphones on both sides of the room I'd love to see some hands go up and I've got some in the middle over here please if we could get a microphone in and if there's another hand up over here we'll take two in a batch yes thank you right Glenn Robinson businessman from around Asia in relation to the decay of the democracy in Indonesia we've got to remember 300 years of raven pillage under the dutch 30 years of stupidity under sahato 30 years under sorry around secano then sahato about 20 years of democracy it has to be seen as fragile then throw somebody like Prabowo Prabowo into the mix and it is a real mess the question then is how much of the christianity chinese is the influence in relation to jacquie him being him being unacceptable to many people is it because he's christian or because he's chinese or as a where's the balance lie great thanks very much glenn we'll take that question for eve and or greg and we'll go over to another question here thank you hi i'm alia i'm an undergraduate student at the coral bell school this question is also i think for eve um can we take this idea of the regression of indonesian democracy at face value when even despite the act of blasphemy trial he was engaged in that christian chinese gubernatorial candidate still won the majority of votes in the primary election in jacquada and you know islamic party is not ever winning something more than 13 percent in in the presidential elections does is the indonesian democracy is in as much danger as it seems thank you okay thank you and i'll let greg answer some of this as well a resident indonesia expert um so uh just to confirm uh so jacquie is a muslim but ahok which is that yeah is it was the governor of who was the governor of jacquada is both christian and ethnic chinese but he was a close ally of jacquie and of course he would only became governor of jacquada uh when jacquie became president he was the vice governor um so uh jacquie has actually uh been and he views himself as vulnerable to the sort of sectarian mobilization uh that we witnessed against ahok and he sees himself as vulnerable and he is vulnerable not because he's a christian but because he's seen as a relatively moderate muslim and as a defender of indonesia's um as i said secular and pluralist base and so for conservative uh and and obviously the right right wing and and radicalism as goes but also more generally for sort of the more conservative um types of of um indonesian muslims they are to an extent ambivalent about jacquie's religious credentials um and he's always been quite concerned about that um so and i think i can sort of answer both questions at once here um and that is what we saw in jacquada um and i should add that which i didn't mention in my in my talk was that that mobilization was very successful so ahok was a very popular incumbent um uh but he lost the election decisively in the second round to um to a pair uh to anis bus waden um who very much benefited from and allegedly people who supported anis bus waden mobilized the sectarian sectarian protests as well um he lost it decisively despite being a very popular incumbent and he's now in prison for for two years on blasphemy charges so you have a popular incumbent in one of the world's largest cities in one of the world's largest democracies sitting in prison for two years um now it was a very specific case of course but what it demonstrated was that even a small right wing constituency one that we thought was just a fringe radical group can be mobilized by the mainstream uh politicians in indonesia by mainstream political parties to their own political ends and while we might think that case was so specific indonesian politicians jacoi they are nervous and they can see that there might be other circumstances in which that constituency can be mobilized once again and they're all very concerned about the coalescence of that constituency with a kind of neo-authoritarian populist figure like proboel come 2019 if you want to add something thanks eve quickly from greg yep very quickly just one of the big analytical challenges with looking at what happened in the jacata gubernatorial election earlier this year is precisely this issue that eve referred to about it being one off and specifically we had a very outspoken chinese christian who was accused of blasphemy and blasphemy is always um one of the most emotional issues in islam and anywhere in the muslim world where someone is accused of blasphemy there is always a very powerful outpouring of of emotion against them and so uh yes we we had this mobilization of islam in an unprecedented way in jacata the question is will those same conditions exist in any other regional election or indeed the presidential election in 2019 on one of those who believes it's very difficult to do but there are political spin masters from the us who say we can manufacture these kinds of issues even if there's no basis in fact so um that will be the interesting thing for us all to sit back and observe over the next few years as to what the continuing mobilizing power of islam is and it may not be as big as the as those were the most negative interpretations say thanks very much Greg two more questions i can see a hand up right in the back row here let's start with you and then i'll take three we'll come down here and then over into the middle yes thank you uh good morning michael from crawford school at a new um my first question was in relation to uh jacobi's nervousness um about his islamic credentials and so forth uh in an indonesian article by a tempo uh the other day it said that he was considering guttot military hard man as his has his running mate his vice president for the 2019 elections given uh he or guttot then suspended military cooperation earlier this year with australia how do you think he as a vice president might impact or possibly damage um australia's relations with indonesia in terms of that um my second question was in relation to the um inquiries by the uh a legislative assembly into the kapeka the anti-corruption authorities do you think that is possibly a regression in indonesian's democracy considering considering the house of indonesian's democracy is now bringing serious questions against um the anti-corruption authorities in relation to their powers for investigating um serious and systemic corruption thank you thank you we'll take a question down here please sorry about this another question on indonesia miles quick miles cooper um in the discussion so far there's been almost no mention of the indonesian military um have they dealt themselves out of politics in indonesia or um within the military are there different groups which could nevertheless play a significant role thank you and then one more back here in the middle thank you uh my question is about the role of sordia arabia in what is happening in indonesia and possibly in uh the philippines as well you would be familiar with the uh recent visit of the saudi royal family the investments and even to the extent of um the islamic architecture of the mosques changing to meet the saudi uh wahabi requirement rather than the traditional indonesian architecture thank you we'll need you to be briefing your responses to these good questions yes thanks e over to you i'll respond to the question about the corruption eradication commission so um without getting into the micro details this is just the latest um of many many attempts by the indonesian parliament to try and sort of um dis empower the the corruption eradication commission and for non-indonesia watches this has been sort of one of the um i guess a flagship i guess for democratic reforms um indonesia and it's a very very popular institution and the department parliament is incredibly unpopular um and yet they continue to try and and to attack the the the capacity of the kpk um to investigate politicians um and now the question is whether the kpk will continue to withstand these attacks it has until now it's becoming a little less popular publicly it's becoming a little more prone to um accusations of bias and corruption in itself um so the question is whether it will last that you know from now until the next sort of five to ten years and that will depend hugely i think um on support from the president and and it will depend hugely on who the next president is after 2019 very briefly on guttot nomantio as as vice president um it really uh is a horrifying possibility uh i don't think the possibility of that happening is very great at all in fact i'd put it as minute um because um jacoi has very bad personal relationship with guttot after the all of the um the demonstrations and indeed the riot in jacarta late last year because guttot was seen as one of the people who was fermenting that unrest now how much of that is true uh but he certainly contributed in public to some of the anti-chinese um animus and um and he played i think a uh highly reprehensible role for someone who was the commander of the armed forces one could imagine if their marshal vince kim said something like that in australia to worsen social unrest so he sees himself as a political player um he has a very insidious effect upon the public discussion in indonesia and i think he's unfit to be vice president doesn't mean to say he would be but i think it's extraordinary and unlikely that someone like jacoi would take him as a running mate he has for example the chief of police tito kanavia and who would be um a much more congenial running mate for him um uh myles question about and for australia um guttot it was humiliation for australia to have to go and apologize to guttot over what happened in the sas base that caused the severing relations earlier this year i don't think the australian shouldn't send and angus cambal to go and apologize perhaps send ahead of the sas i think it sent all the wrong messages about australia's excessive deference towards the the indonesian military sentiment in indonesia i think that was a mistake growing a significant military role in indonesian politics i don't think so it really would be um only if you got large scale unrest on the streets and military would suddenly have a um an opportunity to to engage otherwise it's going to be individuals rather than institution the final question about the role of the saudis certainly the saudis as they are in much of the muslim world are investing many millions of dollars ascending many hundreds of preachers salafist preachers to places like indonesia and the philippines and of course kink salman visited indonesia malaysia earlier this year and it was part of a big diplomatic initiative that you know i can't really talk much about but jacobi complained about three weeks ago that he wanted 20 billion from king salman when he came to indonesia he got a promise of one billion and he complained several weeks ago the saudis haven't paid a cent or perhaps a real um to indonesia as yet and there's great skepticism that the saudis are going to be even good for that one billion dollars and so there is great skepticism about saudi promises in the region um i think it's easy to overstate the broader religio cultural significance of saudi intervention in in islamic affairs in countries like indonesia certainly there's a tiny number tiny percentage of the community who are drawn to that kind of puritanical teachings but in the mainstream not significant impact would be my response we are almost out of time unfortunately with this quick roundup of the big issues what i'm going to do is i'm going to give each of our panelists an opportunity to have a final 30 second sprint in that time i'd really like them to try and take us out of this lukewarm stupa that we got into this morning everything was lukewarm you'll recall i get the sense that some of this is not lukewarm so i'd like an impression of the temperature what are we dealing with and where is the temperature likely to go in the future if you don't mind greg we'll start with you on the south china sea just to come back to the history and the relevant history i didn't say too much about that i think it's important um that shijing ping recently gave a speech where he talked and he's setting out his credentials now for what is the closest thing to an election which is a people's assembly which will happen towards the end of this year but he said you know in his term for the past five years uh he has made china a strong power and i think you know what he's done in the south china sea is very much part of that and that certainly feeds into where china believes it it has come from where it needs to be just one little historical anecdote which is quite interesting i found out recently in world war one china made quite a significant contribution to to the allies they they wanted to integrate with the world and they sent one two hundred thousand laborers to france about two thousand those died in france they expected to get some repayment at the paris peace conference in fact they didn't even get control of the german hole protectorate in china that was a big slap in the face then so china wants to feel strong again uh having control of south china sea to some extent he's part of that historic trajectory and that's one part of the history we need to keep in mind what's the temperature greg eve the temperature please obviously i'm rather pessimistic about india's democratic fragility at the moment but i don't want to leave our audience with the impression that the islamist mobilizations or the radical islam or something of the light is the most um proximate uh source of indonesia's democratic fragility in fact it's not um what we're much more concerned about is the constant sort of debate um around fundamental democratic institutions in indonesia that are coming from mainstream uh political elites mainstream political parties including from the president's party himself and we're very concerned about the sort of degradation the protection of of civil liberties in indonesia and and for that reason i'm uh what's what's luke warm but on the cold side cool i'm feeling cool tepid i'm feeling tepid that's much better about indonesia democracy okay thanks very much eve greg uh in a flush of optimism i'm gonna try and say that warm there's warm things regarding marawi ironically terrorism has given australia diplomatic opportunities in the region that have been actually very beneficial for its regional diplomacy and it's doing a lot of helping with coordination between malaysians indonesians philippines and the like and also a very good thing australia is doing is it has a large aid program in mind now in the southern philippines it's putting a lot of money into for example improved education and welfare services there there is a great opportunity in mosul in sorry mosul in marawi to not make it like another mosul for the rebuilding of marawi which the philippines government has given the contracts to well-connected christians not to muslims those kinds of things could create problems for the future in jihadist recruitment australia could play a role in that so it continues to offer us more diplomatic opportunities if we want to take them so warm thank you greg george climate change uh pacific countries have used this in a way climate change has been a lifeline to a lot of pacific countries it's not only reinvent so they're using climate change in a way for more finance to to build up its economies as it transitions its economies to low carbon economies and it's also a way to reinvent diplomatically to show their a bit more finesse within international forums so that's what i'd say and so it's an opportunity it's a lifeline for pacific other countries to reinvent diplomatically but also use it as a way of getting financially to build economies and the weather in the pacific is always tropical