 Welcome to the online version of the 2012-13 annual report of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. As Secretary, I would like to give you a quick sense of the work of the Department for the year ending 30 June 2013 and the challenges that lie ahead. Over the last year, economic and strategic power has continued to shift from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific. Asia has re-emerged as a region of first order economic and strategic significance in its own right. More than ever, Australia's future prosperity depends on its external environment and its ability to advance its national interests abroad. Accordingly, the Department focused its efforts over 2012-13 on Australia's core bilateral relationships, including the United States, China, Japan, Indonesia, India and the Republic of Korea. Of particular note, the Department led a whole of government effort to develop country strategies out to 2025 for the five countries identified in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper. With the ongoing shifts in regional power, the Department also focused diplomatic efforts on the East Asia Summit and ASEAN to nurture a culture of collaboration in the region. If Australia is to take full advantage of the opportunities of the Asian Century, we need to work harder to build and deepen our understanding of an engagement with the region. As always, Australia's immediate neighbourhood remained a priority for the Department's work. Our engagement has been and continues to be centred on a shared desire for security, stability and economic development in the Pacific. At the global level, the Department led efforts to secure Australia's election to the United Nations Security Council as a non-permanent member for 2013 and 2014. A free and open trading environment is vital for Australian exporters. So the Department led Australia's negotiations on nine bilateral free trade agreements and regional agreements such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. We narrowed down differences in FDA negotiations with Japan and Korea. We will continue these negotiations in the year ahead and with China are our most significant trading partner to open markets for Australian exporters. Australia's chairmanship of the G20 in 2014 offers an opportunity not only to advance Australia's economic prospects but also to advance our influence in a key international body. Providing Australians with high quality consular and passport services remained a significant part of the Department's work. Over the last year we assisted over 11,900 Australians in difficulty overseas and issued over 1.7 million passports. We are now developing the next generation of secure passports, the P-Series and we plan to develop a consular strategy that will focus resources on assisting those Australians most in need of help. But we also need to manage unrealistic consular expectations. Consular assistance should be an option of last resort, not the first port of call when people find themselves in difficulty. In a tight fiscal environment, the corporate challenge for the department will be to maintain an effective overseas network and an adequately staffed, camera-based operation. As resources diminish, we must look at doing less with less and shift resources from corporate to policy functions. Among all our resources, our people are our most vital asset. Without them, we simply could not represent Australia's international interests overseas.