 It is great to be here. When you read out the list of conferences and events that I knew of which I've spoken I thought maybe I'd better you know tone it down a little. I hadn't actually done listen to the the whole list but you really are an important institution in the Australian democracy but particularly the leadership the thought leadership and the debate that you're engaged in is so important. Well the title of my speech is looking forward and looking back Australia and the Asian century. I know that people like to say Indo-Pacific yes Michael I know but I'm a politician who speaks to people outside of the foreign policy enterprise as well and it's something they understand. They also understand why 360 degrees is important and what I'd say to you is a 360 degree scan is as important in taking one's policy bearings as it is in determining one's geospatial position. Recognising where we've been is a vital part of knowing where where we are and both are essential if we're going to chart where we need to go. It's almost five years since my friend Julia Gillard as Prime Minister of Australia launched her groundbreaking white paper Australia in the Asian century. Australia in the Asian century began with a stark observation. Predicting the future is fraught with risk but the greater risk is in failing to plan for our destiny. As a nation we face a choice to drift into our future or to actively shape it. Our nation should actively plan for and shape our national future. Only by doing so can we realise our vision of being a land of increased opportunity prosperity and fairness. This is precisely what I meant when I said a couple of times this year that planning and shaping is what will give Australia first mover advantage. Australia in the Asian century identified contemporary issues that government needed to address such as the decline in the teaching of Asian languages in our schools and complacency in our attitudes towards Asia. But more importantly Australia in the Asian century was aspirational. It provided a roadmap to the future. It proposed a five pronged approach to realising Australia's opportunities in an increasingly prosperous and vibrant Asia. First build on our strengths reinforcing the foundations of our fair society and our prosperous open and resilient economy and bolstering the areas where we already perform well in order to extend our comparative advantage. Critical to this is ongoing reform and investment across the five drivers of productivity. Skills in education, innovation, infrastructure, tax reform and regulatory reform. Second invest in our people. Invest in our people through skills and education that improve Australia's productivity performance and broaden and deepen our understanding of Asian cultures and languages in order to ensure we become more Asia literate. Third support innovative competitive Australian firms and institutions in creating collaborative relationships with others in the region. Developing new business models and new mindsets often the hardest thing to do. Change changing mindsets to operate and connect with Asian markets. Fourth accept that we are irrevocably tied to the stability and security of our region and have much to offer through cooperation with other nations to build sustainable regional security. Work to build trust and cooperation bilaterally and through existing regional mechanisms recognising that Asian countries deserve a greater role in promulgating rules based regional and global order than they currently have. Fifth strengthen our deep and broad relationships across the region at every level. These links are social and cultural as much as they are political and economic. While we need more active diplomacy across Asia, unions, community groups, educational and cultural institutions and many others also play an important role. Stronger relationships will lead to more Australians having a deeper understanding of what is happening in Asia and more of our neighbours in the region will know us better than they do today. So this is a broad outline of the themes of the White Paper and it articulates the regional policy agenda which remains relevant. It not only recognises the need for mutuality in constructing our place in the consciousness of Asia but it also emphasises the need for engagement across the board. What former Prime Minister Bob Hawke called enmeshment. Julia Gillards Australia in the Asian century also acknowledges the complexity of the task. This complexity is in part at least due to the fact that the term Asia is a descriptor that covers cultures, religions, languages, ethnicities and societies that are deeply and fundamentally different from one another. But of course Asia is much more than a melting pot, a cultural linguistic and ethnic melting pot. It is also a confluence of each of the great religious traditions of the world. Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism and countless animistic cults as well as the great civilising traditions of Confucianism and Taoism. To Australia's western north lie landmass and a series of archipelagos bounded by the great cultural influences, China and India. And that landmass is afforded even greater complexity in character by the economic powerhouses of Japan and South Korea and of course a group of 10 nations, the members of ASEAN that have invested continuously for over half a century, for over half a century in the stability and prosperity of the South East Asian and Indo-Chinese regions. Australia is indeed lucky to occupy the continent that underpins Asia. We are indeed the lucky country as Donald Horne reminded us with characteristic irony. Over 50 years ago, remember what he said, Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. Donald Horne was writing at the peak of the Menzies era, distinguished by its complacency, introspection and risk aversion. The correction to the mediocrity of which Horne wrote was the arrival of the Whitlam government with its imagination, innovation, flair and yes, its flaws. Whitlam broke with complacency. He broke with mediocrity and he broke with the past. But it was more than a break with the past. It was an enthusiastic acceptance of a different future. This is golf speaking at the Singapore Press Club in 1974. It is a mistake to see our policies only as a break with the past, for four reasons. To do so ignores much that continues. Secondly, it ignores the steadiness of the Australian people and any elected Australian government ignores at its peril the determination of the Australian people to protect their reputation for reliability and dependability. Thirdly, it ignores the consistency of policy formulation within the Australian Labor Party. And fourthly and more importantly, it ignores the fundamental fact that our policies are directed towards the future and not against the past. We are not merely repairing the past. We are preparing for the future. And this goes to the core of Labor's approach. This goes to the core of Labor's approach to our foreign policy, consistency, constancy and preparation for the future. The electorate punished Labor at the 1975 election, but it didn't take the Australian people long to reject the Fraser government in 1983, inaugurating the Hawking Keating governments that put in place the groundwork for over a quarter century of economic growth and national prosperity. And more than that, the Australian electorate voted in the architects of Labor's foreign policy that allowed Gareth Evans in particular to bring new energy and imagination to a certain Australia's place in the world. And notwithstanding the decade of complacency and risk aversion that marked the Howard era, the Rudd and Gillard governments rejuvenated our ability to build a new and confident future. It was Kevin Rudd who secured a place on the UN Security Council and it was Julie Gillard who gave us a comprehensive plan for our future in her White Paper Australia in the Asian Century. So where are we now? Well, the current government is running a very different foreign policy agenda from that of the previous Labor government. First of all, it doesn't appear to have a plan. For reasons I will explain in a moment. Julie Gillard's Australia in the Asian Century has effectively been relegated to the not invented here basket. The constant preoccupation of the conservative side of Australian politics with a retreat to the past has distracted the government from the disruptive challenges Australia currently faces. Where Prime Minister Abbott sought to entrench systemic inequality, witnessed the 2014 budget, soundly rejected by the Australian people. Prime Minister Turnbull wants to turn Australia back some 70 years by rediscovering a men's and liberalism as though the 1960s were some sort of golden age. I do feel some sympathy for my counterpart Julie Bishop who is not backward looking prejudiced or particularly conservative in my view. She is a hardworking and well-intentioned minister. She was an effective representative in the Security Council position that Prime Minister Rudd bequeathed her. But her world is one of frantic will spinning running on the spot and gesture politics and it's no wonder because there is a ignoring emptiness at what passes for the heart of the Turnbull government. The sad truth is this, you can't steer the ship of state if you don't know where you're going. And this is true in the domains of economic policy, health policy, education policy, age care policy, we might add marriage equality and defence policy as it is in the domain of foreign policy. As I said, the government lacks a plan. Can I give a couple of illustrative examples? The lack of any kind of narrative sees our relationships with China, Japan and ASEAN drifting at a time when purpose and clarity of direction are essential. Without a plan for these key relationships and a better road map in Asia, Australia will not be able to manage the disruption currently facing contemporary international relationships. And the lack of a plan has hampered the ability of the Abaddon Turnbull governments to build a deeper and comprehensive relationship with Indonesia. Similarly, Prime Minister Abbott's offered a shirt front President Putin at the 2014 G20 meeting in Brisbane was an exercise in self-humiliation. It also made Australia look stupid on the world stage. The election of President Trump took many international leaders by surprise and there was certainly considerable uncertainty surrounding the policies of the administration towards the Asia Pacific region. Well, Japan's Prime Minister Abe was quick out of the blocks, making his way to Washington to meet with Japan's principal ally barely a month after the inauguration. In contrast, we have been flat forwarded waiting five months before the Prime Minister met our principal ally. There is never a good time for complacency but in a time of disruption complacency becomes dangerous. The disruption that currently confronts us represents a challenge that the global community has not previously had to face. But beyond its unfamiliarity, there are no obvious nor agreed diplomatic tools for dealing with it. Our historical experience has been grounded in the convergence of strategic and economic power. We are now seeing geo-economic power such as that which China is amassing diverging from the geo-strategic power that has defined the global role of the US for the past 70 years. I'm not sure this is going to be that interesting for you, my dear. Sorry. Is this where I give him my watch to play with? That's what I do with my daughters. The disrupted times in which we live also reflect a situation where economic and strategic power offer divergent ways of jostling for preeminence. The emergence of geo-economic power as an alternative to geo- strategic power rather than simply as its complement challenges traditional mindsets and traditional ways of doing business. Comfortable assumptions at military strength constrains global ambition are challenged by the way in which economic power is being both focused and organised. And remember it's not just China and India who are arguing for new and different rules. The US wants new rules as the rejection of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the threat to repudiate NAFTA suggest. Britain wants new rules as demonstrated by Brexit. Russia along with Hungary and Poland wants new rules and a number of groups in Europe want new rules as the popularity of Le Pen in France, France and Petrie in Germany suggests. This dissatisfaction is in part a reaction to the effects of globalisation where either actual inequality or perceptions of inequality erode the political consensus as the result of offshoring of manufacturing jobs in Europe and North America. It is also in part a reaction to a spreading loss of confidence in the West at least that democracy remains a credible and viable form of political participation into the future. So to tackle the disruptive forces currently at play we need to be measured, confident and deeply engaged with our neighbours and to do that we need to know who we are, what we stand for and what our interests are. It's for this reason I've recently put on the public record how a shortened labour government would approach the values underpinning labour's foreign policy and the national interests that would establish the direction of that foreign policy. Can I contrast Goff Whitlam's Singapore speech that I mentioned earlier with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's speech to the IISS in Singapore in March of this year. Where Goff looked forward to a world to come. The Foreign Minister displayed nostalgia for a world that no longer exists if it ever did and she failed to address the two central concerns in central contemporary foreign policy. First how do we address the disruption that characterises the present global environment? How should we understand it? How should we respond to it? How do we contemplate the divergence between economic and military power as determinants of strategic power? And second what options does Australia have? If we're to rise above the purely transactional something must be said by our leaders about vision and about direction. For Australia to be successful in a time of disruption we need to remember what works best for progressive and prosperous democracies like Australia and to invest analytical and diplomatic capital in representing our values and realising our interests. Our economic and security interests are best realised in a global world distinguished by an open training system and a set of agreed rules whereby the international community does its business. But open training systems and an agreed international rules based order don't just happen. They come about as a result of sustained and focused work, work that is both constructive and inclusive. And while all nations are obliged to play by the rules the hard reality is that some nations claim that there is insufficient inducement for them to adhere to rules based order they're not part of constructing. So supporters of a workable international rules based system need to recognise that the world has changed and that new powers are on the rise. The present government displays a complacency and risk aversion that keeps too much of our national policy buried in the past. Despite our own best efforts or perhaps because of our worst ones we remain as Donald Horne said the lucky country. So where to? Well I say to you that a shortened Labor government would build on Labor's long and proud legacy in foreign policy. A legacy that includes the wartime leadership of Curtin and his turn to America at a time of existential crisis for the nation. It includes the deep engagement of Chifley and Everett in forging a new international architecture in the aftermath of World War II. It includes Whitlam's expansive optimistic outward looking view of Australia's place in the world, his opening to China and his activist approach towards international treaties and conventions. It includes Prime Minister's Hawks and Keating's recognition of the importance of Asia, the formation of APEC and the development of deeper bilateral relations in the region. It includes Gareth Evans for middable contributions both intellectual and practical over the years. And in the most recent period of Labor government it includes the work of Prime Minister's Rudd and Gillard in elevating the G20s role, advancing our traditional relations with countries like the US and our developing relationships with countries like China and India, supporting international action on climate change and significantly increasing Australia's aid budget. To channel Goff Whitlam's remarks in Singapore all those years ago, it is Labor's preference to maintain continuity where policy is appropriate and pertinent and to change it where it's not. I'm not one who supports bipartisanship for its own sake but I am a strong supporter of sound public policy that attracts bipartisan support. And I would like to think that the White Paper Minister of Bishop has commissioned can attract bipartisan support. It was in that spirit that I offered a few suggestions when I addressed the DFAT heads of mission in March and I also offered the drafters of the forthcoming White Paper a gentle warning or a bit of advice. I reminded them that in the time of disruption in which we presently live reflects in part at least a grown dissatisfaction with the rules based international order that has been part of the fabric of international economic and foreign policy since World War II. As the government's White Paper comes closer to completion I continue to recommend that it build on the sound policy initiatives that the White Paper Australia in the Asian Century advocated. I outlined them at the beginning of this presentation. I believe we need an Asia policy more in tune with a confident and optimistic approach of the White Paper than one which is diminished by trepidation or a preoccupation with the more transactional features of day-to-day diplomacy. And if this White Paper fails to build in the themes identified by Julia Gillard's White Paper it will simply fail as a guide to a transformational foreign policy. And if first mover advantage indeed lies with whoever sets the agenda there are some additional items which need to be considered. First there must be renewed energy and vigor in negotiating and supporting international agreements to address the consequences of climate change. This has to be based on clear and evidence based policy. As the global community becomes increasingly aware of the security dimension to changes in our climate Australia needs to work with insight and determination if our own long term security interests are to be protected. Second we need a China policy that begins with what China actually is rather than looking through the lens of risk management. And we need a policy that looks to the Belt and Road Initiative with an eye to identifying points of mutual interest and complementarity rather than reflexive negativity. We should be prepared to look at individual initiatives under the BRI and we're determined on a case-by-case basis to pursue those that accord with our national interests. Third we need an alliance policy build around shared interests in global stability peace and security. Our relationship with the United States is off paramount important to us and we need to ensure that it is both sensitive to the changes underway in our region and conducive also to creating a more confident, vibrant and robust regional security dialogue. And finally we need to revisit our aid policy. Re-establishing development assistance programs that deliver real benefits to a nation, to nations that are struggling especially in our own region. A transformational foreign policy is unachievable for so long as complacency, introspection and risk aversion remain the rallying points of the present government's policy. Mediocrity, the comfort zone of the second rate people of Donald Horne's lament is the enemy of imagination and innovation. Our nation has a bright future in Asia, but only if we are confident, constructive, collaborative and most importantly comprehending. Comprehending of the remarkable diversity of Asia that is of itself such a positive and powerful generator of opportunity. So a 360 degree scan reminds us that from the energies of Chifley and Everett in assisting at the birth of the United Nations to the foresight of Julia Gillard in charting a course for Australia in the Asian century, Labor has always approached the task of building and delivering Australia's foreign policy future with confidence and with imagination. And you can rely on the fact that a shortened government would maintain that Labor tradition of an engaged and proactive foreign policy. Thank you very much. I wish you well for your discussions. Thank you very much.