 Thank you for coming, and it's a big day for us today at the Development Policy Centre. We have inaugural Harold Mitchell Development Policy Lecture being delivered, starting at 12.30 by Timor Finance Minister Emilia Perez. I'd like to welcome her to the ANU and to the Crawford School, and of course also we have Harold Mitchell from the, in this capacity, Harold Mitchell Foundation who is sponsoring this lecture series and who also is announcing today a very generous gift in support of the Development Policy Centre. So this is a chance to ask questions to both of these eminent guests, and I'll first call on Harold just to say a few words. Oh okay. And then the Minister. Thank you very much and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen as we often say at the working press. I'm delighted to be here and also to be with the Minister. At 12.30 today I'll be announcing the support of the grant over five years of 2.5 million to the Development Centre, and I'll be saying that there's a great need in Australia as we have so many developing countries on our near shore that we give great support. The Australian aid program is tremendous and it's headed on its way to Dublin, and that is so important for Australia and everything that we're doing with our near neighbours which we welcome in particular the Minister from East Timor. My history with East Timor is hopefully deep and goes back some time to, I think it was 12 years ago when I first met Janana Guzmau as he visited Melbourne and opened the Melbourne Festival with which I was the Chairman and I was impressed that on our doorstep I thought there was a modern day Nelson Mandela, this man who was able to speak of peace and yet he'd been through a terrifying period of the last two decades and his job ahead of him is to bring our near neighbour to a new world and he has done that. And so it's important that Australia recognises that, it gives it support and our Australian Government has done exactly that through AusAid and so that is important. At the same time Australia needs to develop all the original thinking that we can in both the United Kingdom and in the United States. There are policy centres, think takes which are imminent and so I'm happy to support Professor Stephen Howes and the ANU and the Development Policy Centre and where that's headed which is to give support and a new thinking to everything that Australia needs to do and that is what we'll be announcing today. There is each year proposed over the next five years a major presentation which will be made and it's so appropriate that the first one under the regime that we have here that that should be given by such a great nation of East Timor and I might say in its cabinet a woman and someone who has been spectacular in what she has achieved as the Finance Minister of East Timor and so that will be helping. Minister, with that can I welcome you very much and I look forward to the speech that you will be giving today which I've had the value of reading and it is absolutely appropriate and right and proper that you should be here today making that speech. So could I ask you to join me and I'll just let you say thank you for what we're doing. Thank you very much Mr Mitchell and thank you to the crew for the school for inviting me here it is actually I'm very pleased to be here to be able to actually speak a little bit about the experience that we have gone through in Timor Leste and how we can add value to the theme tankers in the world because it's all about how you get out of fragility what do you have to do are the things that you're doing are they what has been preached in the past so we need people to actually think and look again at what's happened and identify exactly the the critical things that needs to be done to get that country moving out of crisis time like we had as some five years ago and move us to the development path so it is with a lot of pleasure and honor that I am here to contribute whatever I've experienced myself as a person what my country has experienced as a country and I will also be talking a little bit more also about how we are also trying to help other countries that find themselves like us the little g7 plus which are now made up of 18 countries everybody looking for a way out of the current status which is mostly conflict or post conflict or fragility and we need to find the formula we are not fully there yet but with discussions like this we we hope to be able to actually find the right formula to help all these countries we are talking about 1.5 billion people that have more or less been left behind when we back in 2000 all the nations came together the United Nations and agreed on the Millennium Development Goals and as you know there was 15 years to implement it now this is like 12 years down the track and we've left behind 1.5 million billion people and so we are now looking for means and ways of next time around the post MDG the post 2015 Development Agenda does not leave us behind again so Mr Mitchell I'm open to questions thank you okay thank you very much minister yes so yes if Catherine anyone else has questions then would you do you want the yeah yeah I know you've got an interest in development to some extent in the aim of you why do you have that development interest as a business person what's the connection there and why have you specifically given money to the aim there both very good questions or three well firstly the review that I did was not in the way it was in it was into philanthropy arts but to go back to the question I think the real reason that it's so important that we all support what I've talked about which is the development of policy I think started with my original comments which was that it when I first met Janana Grishbaugh and I was just so impressed with the fact that he was a tiny nation that which needed such support that I started look wider than that to realize that as a the country that we are such a lucky country an incredible place that we are the 12th biggest economy although there are 50 nations that are larger in population that we and that we have on the edge of so many developing nations more than any other such nation in the world that's important that we take great care about that at the same time I'm the chairman of care in Australia and that gives me and on the worldwide board of care care international and that gives me the opportunity to look at the world where we need to help and Australia needs to do that we can afford to do it and our governments both sides at all times have been able to do that but right now the aid program has headed towards doubling which is notable and it is absolutely necessary that we do that in the proper way because in the nations that we're dealing with they are new to many things including getting a great relief and help which all of which they were so we need to do it properly and in doing that so we need to give every bit of support that we can in both inside and outside government the government is doing an outstanding job and and Ozade is one of the best in the world at doing that but I picked out the ANU because through Professor Stephen Howes has a great interest in bringing public policy to the fore in a way that we can all help and I might say also that in in the wider public life that we're going to see more of that the government can only do so much because in private enterprise we have some of the finest minds just as the Americas done exactly the same thing different parts of Europe so it will be continuing here in in that way too the Lowy Institute has showed a way in how they deal with foreign affairs and such like that and the ANU one of the two great universities in Australia not to disparage any of the others they're so competitive with each other is in is perfectly positioned to be able to add to the thinking on on what we do in those developed countries and so it was a very easy decision for me to be able to give support in that. The generosity of that philanthropy though is obviously very significant to this institution why why here when obviously a lot of people would be calling for that to be delayed and direct day somewhere? Sure well it's about thinking and planning into the future and that's as important as just the direct day they can be if you do it wrongly if that dollar is misspent it'll never be spent again and it'll be it'll be used but then abused and so it's so important that we get it right in every way and that's that's why I picked out Stephen House to be honest he brings a fine mind to it a great intellect to what what is happening and a great experience and the ANU who I've met with is given at every support in every way and this is the way that the way forward there's no doubt about that that that private private people that private wealth where that might be and public institutions come together to make it a better good and in Australia the care of our new neighbours near neighbours is just so important so it was easy for me to pick the ANU had a fine institution such a great interest in doing it and the development of the centre here to drive it forward in Canberra with a lot of the policy makers right on the doorstep it was absolutely appropriate. Can I ask the minister? Sure, the minister? Minister do you feel there is some development fatigue in western countries at the moment with the global financial crisis and do you have a message to them given that you are trying to help rewrite in a sense the way western countries approach aid? I'm not sure about from the Tiberius perspective we have not yet experienced the development fatigue because our development partners are still there and the aid or the assistance they give us has been maintained since I can compare since I became minister in fact sometimes they give a little bit more and it all depends on on what they want to do in areas where they want to help us but around the world I understand that there is less money to go around and I want to make a point because I just came back from Haiti where we had our G7 plus retreat where we welcome a new member commuters but in that retreat we came out with the declaration it's called the Haiti declaration and the G7 plus was saying that we're not actually asking for more money what we are asking is the better use of that money and in a in a more effective way and so I actually welcome the the donation that Mr. Mitchell is doing to institutions like Crawford because one of our biggest challenge is change in the mind setting of our own development partners and the only way to do it is for people to actually reflect and rethink about what has happened before why hasn't not worked why is it working and and therefore their their piece of writing will be more powerful than our voice we may say it but this is why we came together the G7 plus to make our voice stronger but with assistance from academics like them it will reinforce this because not us saying it normally people think that we just don't know how to manage etc etc but you know there are means and ways to make it better implementation of the aid and maybe become more effective and I think the two goes hand in hand