 Alright, well, thanks Julianne, I would appreciate that introduction and I'm sorry that John Richardson couldn't be here today. Yes. Unwell. That's a shame, but I really appreciate the opportunity that you've visited InterPost to come out and create some members of the state governments, business communities, universities and so on. So I have been on a six city tour if you like and this is my last stop. So I've been on the road for a couple of weeks, engaging with a whole range of different government departments in the states, whole range of businesses and also peak bodies and of course educational and cultural organisations that have some sort of involvement with the South China region. And what I'm trying to do as part of my visit this time is really to highlight why I think, well why DFAT thinks and the government thinks that South China matters much more than ever before to Australia. And we have a vision for engaging the South China region and I want to outline that to you today and explain a few of the things that we've been doing, especially over the past year or so, to adapt our priorities in line with the changing needs and opportunities in the region. Now I don't need to convince any of you about the importance of China and I'm not going to try and do that. I know that you're already or very strongly engaged with China, but I just want to talk a little bit about South China. Julia I mentioned we look after several provinces in South China from the consulate in Guangzhou. The main one of course is Guangdong province. Guangdong being the largest province in economic terms in China. But we also look after a fair bit of provinces around the edges of Guangdong. That includes Fujian and Hunan. Hunan being the only inland province that we are responsible for. We also look after Hainan Island which some of my colleagues think is very upbeat. And we've got Guangxi and Yunnan to the west. So my observation has been over a long period of time. I want to how long of working and living in China over the years is that the South China region has been relatively, I think, misunderstood and for the most part overlooked by a lot of stakeholders in Australia, including myself for many years. And most of us probably know Guangzhou, for example, through the annual pilgrimages to the Canton Fair. Has anybody ever been to the Canton Fair? Yes, a few. But for the most part there's been a general rush to engage China through the windows of the bigger cities of Beijing and Shanghai and the eastern seaport. But my view is that Guangzhou and South China in general, while it was probably aptly described as a bit of an ugly duckling in the past, is really blossoming into a pretty good looking swamp these days. And all you have to do is look at the way the Australian government is increasing its resources in the South China region. We are expanding. It's one of the few places in the world where we are increasing our resources in line with the opportunities and the challenges there. And now Guangzhou, Australia, Australia and Guangzhou is now the second largest mission out of about 45 consular missions in that area. Now I don't want to give you too many statistics as that gets a bit boring, but I do want to put some of this in context and give you a sense of the scale for those of you who aren't as familiar with the Southern China region. If you take those six provinces that I was talking about, they account for a quarter of the whole population of China. And they also make up about 17% of our bilateral trade. Now Guangzhou province itself has the highest GDP of any province, or of any provincial economy. It's a bit over 900 billion US dollars, which I think based on recent statistics might be a near equivalent of a country like Indonesia. So the scale is enormous. Other provinces are getting pretty close and they're breathing down Guangzhou's neck, if you like. But the province still produces about a quarter of China's exports. Uninviably, it has the widest gap between the rich and poor of any province. So it's not all good. There's also pockets of poverty there. Talking about wealth, if you look at the state-owned enterprise sector in Guangzhou, the assets of that sector alone in that province are worth something like around a trillion Australian dollars. So I just want to also not just dwell on the economic, but briefly mention the fact that there are very substantial people ties that we have with that region. Of course, South China migrants have been coming here for more than 150 years. These days we tend to process something like 100,000 visas a year for people from South China who wish to visit Australia. At the same time, there are about the same number of visits from Australians into Guangzhou each year. So we're on a pretty even keel there. The number of Australians that are living in our consular district has increased by about 40% since the last election. So there's substantial growth in interest by Australians in coming to that part of the world to live, to work, to study. There are more students also from Guangdong, more Chinese students from Guangdong than from any other province in China coming into Australia to study. So they are a major source of student base for our educational institutions. At the moment we believe there's more than 800 Australian business entities registered in Guangdong problems, but we think the real number of Australian decent people working there is much higher than that. There are of course many businesses being run by Australians. So that gives you a bit of a flavour and just moving on to talking a bit about the economy, because I know that's always in the papers and it's always in front of mind for us. Just looking out from the window of South China, what's really happening in the trade and investment relationship with Australia? Well I think that this is a complex time for South China's economic managers. Of course we've still got ongoing weakness in the global economy and that's contributed in that region to struggling exports, slow down of GDP, asset bubbles and of course social tensions that we see from the rising wealth gap. But the effects of the most recent economic downturn I think have been much more nuanced and much more varied in South China. And that compares to just a few years earlier during the global financial crisis when there was a general downturn across industries in China. But now what we see is that certain areas of the country are growing while others are perhaps standing still or still in downturn. There's also a marked difference that we see between different sectors and industries. So there's a lot of grey in there now, it's not really as black and white as it used to be. Now for example just to give you a bit of a flavour of one of our provinces, the south-east and coastal province of Fujian. I don't know whether or not you've visited Fujian before, but it's traditionally been seen as a bit of a backwater and a bit of a favourite spot for the smuggling trade. But I was really interested to read recently that the high-tech industry out in Fujian last year exceeded 1 trillion RMB and that was an expansion of something like 15% and it made up for about 20% of the Fujian economy. So that was pretty interesting. And in Guangdong province there's a definite refocus of policy, of economic policy that we're seeing towards this much-talked-about economic rebalancing. That's also happening as a natural reaction to the weakness in export markets that's happening across China. The South Chinese are pretty well known for being innovative and adaptable and that's partly because provinces like Guangdong and Fujian rely a lot more heavily on the private sector, on the private economy than other parts of China. And I think in the next few years there are predictions that the private sector will make up something like 45% of Guangdong's economy. So it's quite substantial and a big change. There are of course a handful of major companies, global Fortune 500 companies in South China and it's also a hub for SMEs including many Australian SMEs. Because of this structure of the economy during the GFC there was a lot of blood on the factory floor, so to speak and including in the private sector. They really did have a very bad year in 2012 and there have been significant problems in the economic sector. The companies that are surviving or that did survive these lean times we think seem to have emerged towards recovery much faster than perhaps other regions. And they've re-emerged with more efficient operating models because, as I said, they tend to be very innovative and adaptable in South China. So while the business sector in South China really, really took it on the chin I think they've been able to get up again faster. And to give you an example, I want to talk about Dongguan. Has anyone heard of Dongguan or been there? Okay, I thought some of you might have been there because of course the then Premier of Victoria was in Dongguan last year and on his super trade mission. So many of you might have been involved with that. But Dongguan, for those of you who don't know, is a bit of a patchwork of factory towns. It's about halfway between Guangzhou and Hong Kong and it's been called the world's factory floor for a better part of 30 years. And for a long time it's been one of Guangzhou's most prosperous cities and if you looked back to about 10 years ago you'd see that the GDP there was approaching 20% on average each year. So super fast growth. And for a long time, most economists looked at Dongguan as a bit of a bell-lever for what was going on in the export sector in China. But I don't believe it's as black and white as that anymore. And the reason is because last year when the global economy was back in the Daldrums Dongguan's economic growth slowed to just 2.5%. That was the worst performing city in Guangdong province which is quite telling. So if you take Dongguan as your standard or as a mine canary you would have said, looking at those figures, that China was in for a pretty hard landing. And a lot of economists including Australian economists who travelled to the region to have a bit of a look around and saw what was going on drew this exact conclusion. But interestingly enough, if we fast forward to 2013 and we look at the results for Dongguan City in the first quarter of this year there's been a pretty robust and fast recovery in manufacturing with GDP up again to 8.6%. So more than 7% more than it was in the same period last year. So more importantly what we see is that the growth in investment in that city was up 32% in that period. So there's quite a bit of momentum in recovery there. This is quite a confusing picture and it's hard to see what you make of it. But what I think it might show is that the Pearl River Delta region is in transition and it's already on its way to becoming a more diverse and dynamic economy. In that province there's a very conscious policy to transition the economy and what has been a largely labour intensive model into more capital intensive higher value economy. This process is going on now. We can see they're in the middle of it. It's going to take time and we're going to see ups and downs while it's happening. So I think it's a pretty interesting situation. It doesn't mean that export processing is going to completely vanish from that region. But I think what it does mean is that we can't take the export sector or the export processing sector as the main bellweather anymore for what has become an increasingly complex regional economy. And it's reflected in the feedback that we get from all the provinces that we work with and of course that you work with in your roles as well about the sort of cooperation they're looking for from Australia. Because almost every provincial government that we speak to say to us they have a desperate need to grow their tertiary sector and to develop newly emerging areas of the economy in which Australia's got a lot of strengths. So for example in Fujian province we know they want to work with Australia to harness our food safety technologies. They're doing a lot of work in this area in Fujian and they have a big agricultural industry which they're trying to modernise. In Hainan they've shown interest in our organic farming and also in our ocean industries for obvious reasons. In Hunan province it's our environmental services agenda that's really in demand. And in Guangdong it's fair to say that Australia's very strong R&D and technological expertise is of great interest to that province as it continues to develop its advanced manufacturing. And as the largest source of Chinese students to Australia of course Guangdong is seeking closer cooperation with Australian education institutions including it hopes to get a campus in Guangdong at some stage. And in the tourism sector what we see is that direct aviation links between Australia and Guangdong have grown four times in just three years. So we've now got something like 38 direct flights a week to Guangdong from various cities around Australia. Again demonstrating the strength of our two-way tourism cooperation growing and so on and so on it goes. I think South China offers all of us a wide variety of diverse opportunities and it has a wide variety of diverse economies but it can't be all things to all people and we live in a world of limited resources. So it's really just a question I think of knowing that there are opportunities out there but they're looking for what you want to focus on and target. I'm going to talk very very briefly about something that a lot of people when they talk about China mentioned which is of course urbanisation and demographic change and of course that's one of the big tailwinds that's driving China's economy and it's driving our engagement there. So we've got factors like the declining agricultural labour force we've got an ageing population we've got a one child policy and so on and these trends are going to continue to derive in my view a demand for our traditional trade in raw materials but we all know that that's gone off the boil a little bit and so this trend, the urbanisation trend fortunately is also going to drive increasing demand for things like clean technology for South China's cities for high quality agricultural products that address people's real concerns about food safety because there are food scares almost every week and for things like energy saving design for more comfortable living which is now demanded by the middle class as well as advanced health and medical services and aged care services and not to mention of course professional services of all kinds like accountancy and finance and logistics things that people demand more and more as they move into an urbanised lifestyle. I think as a Victorian I'm happily observed that I think a lot of these sectors are obvious strengths of the Victorian economy and the federal government's been very active in supporting state government relationships with China across the southern provinces. More broadly, over the past year we've initiated a number of new projects that I believe will benefit Victorian businesses and I want to spend a little bit of time now outlining those to you. Of course you're probably aware that back in April the Trade Minister launched a new business initiative the first one ever actually with a Chinese province so it's quite significant. It's called the Australian Guangdong Business Cooperation Council so it is a special business council that we've set up with Guangdong province involving a handful of companies about 10 companies on each side that will provide a platform for businesses from both countries not just to build networks and talk about common issues but we also hope, given Guangdong's reputation for reform and innovation we hope that it's going to come up with a few runs on the board in some sectors of interest to Australia. We want to get some practical outcomes out of the council. We also want to harness a critical mass of Australian businesses in the services sector that we see as particular opportunities there and other emerging areas of opportunity and I want all of you to know about this development because perhaps you might in the future have an interest in participating in the council. The membership of this council will rotate through time and will be taking expressions of interest from businesses and from industry bodies that would like to participate. So please spread the word around to other business people that you know and other bodies that you think might be relevant will benefit from this. I'm also keen to get ideas from the business sector and from government for things that we can put on the table for the council things that have to be feasible things that have to be achievable in a place like Wondong. Following that development in April we of course know that the Prime Minister visited Highland Island for the Burwell Forum at around the same time and made a number of important announcements and I'm sure you'll know already about the lifting of our relationship to a strategic partnership the announcement about annual dialogues between leaders and senior ministers and so on. But at that time you also will be aware that the government announced direct trading between the Australian dollar and the renminbi which we hope will make it easier for Australian companies like some of you here or those who represent the business sector here to buy and sell into the Chinese market and to promote two-way investment. On this note I'd be really interested to get your feedback as those who are directly involved in doing business on how you think this is playing out here in Australia and in your business relationships. As you know Wondong is one of the biggest sources of China's investment into Australia. Investment again is another topic that's always in the news. But I think that we've taken for granted for a very long time the potential and the level of investment interest that is coming out of South China. Recently we were very fortunate to have a visit, a road show in China by the FERB and the reason why I say we've taken South China for granted is because this is the very first time that the FERB has ever conducted a road show in that part of China which is an interesting fact in itself. And it shows I think that we are now much more engaged in harnessing this potential from that part of China. Australia's still the number one destination for South China's outbound investment. I talk to investors just about every day and I really am convinced that investors that we see do see Australia as a very good proposition. They see us as an reliable supplier. They see us as a stable democracy, a well-regulated business environment, good banking systems and legal systems in place. They see us as a holistic package because we are also a very liveable environment. We're a great place for migration. We're a great place to send your kids to study. That adds up to a really good package. The visit by the FERB was a really good chance to drive that home again. But also to hear the perspectives of the business sector in all of our provinces across South China about what they don't like about Australia and what are the issues around investing in Australia. For example, the fact that we are a high-cost economy but of course the answer to that is that yes, we make no apologies for that. We are a high-cost economy but we also have very significant advantages which I think is recognised. It was a good chance to dispel a few myths, particularly about how open we are towards foreign investment. Now that was a pretty interesting discussion. China's usually regarded, if you read the newspapers in Australia, you probably think China's a really big player in our investment landscape. But looking at the figures, you'll see that its involvement is actually far lower than the general perception. Investment from China has risen something like eight times up above the past decade. Sounds pretty impressive. But still, China only ranks as the ninth-largest investor in Australia overall. It accounts for something like 1% of our total foreign investment stock and 3% of our FDI stock. So those are not terribly large figures. And I'll say it again until I'm blue in the face and I know that you've probably heard this many times, but we've never knocked back an investment proposal from China, a firm investment proposal from China. We've put conditions on a few but we've never knocked one back. And when we say this to our business constituency in South China, they sometimes open mouth because they were not aware of that. And we say consistently to the Chinese community in Guangdong and around the provinces, we want you to invest far more aggressively than you are currently doing. Please lift your game. We've got a whole range of nationally mandated priority sectors and state government priority sectors where we need capital investment. So from the national perspective of course there's things like tourism infrastructure, innovation and clean energy and other major infrastructure, the digital economy, innovation sectors and of course agricultural science and food processing and food technology. That's all I'm going to say about investment but I'm also interested in what you think about that. Lastly, I don't have time. Okay, alright. I'll try not to tell them. Lastly, I just want to talk to you about another interesting thing that we've been doing where you might be able to help us with some outreach. As we've been talking about Australia's growing business and consumer things, growing very well, overwhelmingly positive. However, in recent years what we've seen is that increased trade has resulted in a higher number of commercial disputes. So these disputes are not always just about fights between commercial giants. Often they can have a devastating effect on small companies that are doing business with China. Even with ordinary Australians buying things on the internet is something as simple as that. Small companies are relatively more exposed because they don't have deep pockets and they don't have the legal and other resources enjoyed by the bigger firms. So you might ask, why am I talking about this sort of thing? Why am I talking about commercial disputes, the negative side of trade and investment and the same breath as talking about trade and investment in South China? Well, the simple reason is that the Australian government is very concerned about this because we are frequently called upon to intervene in commercial disputes with China. But very often it is the case that we are unable to assist in any way in these sorts of private commercial matters. So, of course, we're very concerned about this trend. A couple of months ago the government launched a new commercial disputes initiative that's called Doing Business in China. I think that we've already had a presentation down here in Melbourne. I only did the ACVC. Okay. To the ACVC. There's a lot of information on our website. Yes. This is an initiative that we're doing in partnership with peak industry bodies and business organisations, POSACVC being a major partner. And the whole point of it is to help to inform Australian businesses about the opportunities, also about the potential risks of engaging in business in China and how best to manage these risks. It's something we haven't talked about a lot in the past, but now I think we really need to do so. Some of the risks that Australian businesses face in overseas business activity include things like fraud, contract breaches, intellectual property theft, and coming right down to intimidation, threats, restrictions on your movement and even in extreme cases, criminal charges. So disputes are particularly likely to involve SMEs and that's the reason for that is because the smaller companies lack experience in importing generally. They're more likely to enter into informal or thermal business arrangements, which is a complete no-no. They're less likely to inquire about the seller or the other partner that they're dealing with and they're less likely to seek professional legal advice. So what we generally advise is if you can't afford to get legal advice, you should reconsider whether or not China is a good environment for you to be doing business. So the first stage of this initiative is going to involve outreach to Australian companies through business events and seminars and so on, both in Australia and also through our network of diplomatic posts in China. So that's partly what I'd like to do today is to make you aware of that. But the second stage of the initiative will involve some promotion around arbitration options and arbitration causes and commercial contracts. Also to build awareness about the ways to prevent disputes from escalating. So as Juliet said, the Ostray website, I think the DFAT website also links to it here, has a lot of material about this and we encourage if you're interested to go and have a look at it. So essentially what we're all about with our commercial focus down in Moldova is ensuring really that Australian businesses and other players have the best possible chance of succeeding in what is an exciting but I think an increasingly complex market. So I'm going to stop there because I've talked for way too long. So I look forward to your views and if anyone would like to take my business card I'm keen to stay in touch and I'm happy to hear from you at any time and thanks again for doing that. Thank you very much.