 Today, on the Our Ambassadors series, we're joined by Australia's Ambassador to the United States, Mr Kim Beasley. Welcome Kim. Very good to be with you. I wanted to open our discussion by talking about how your interest in the US first developed. Oddly enough it came out of the Vietnam War. It was a huge debate when I was young and it involved us as a generation very directly with conscription and participation in the war. And so we seem to be there as a result of our alliance with the United States and our friendship with the United States. So we began to look at many of us kids at what sort of country the United States was. As I got interested in that from that angle, I went much broader and much deeper, got an appreciation of the immense value of the relationship with the United States to Australia through the century. In terms of the people-to-people links and also how the relationships evolved, how would you describe that? So Australia's founded because of the United States' War of Independence. It's in World War I, the first time American troops engaged in fighting. It was under command of General Monash at Hamel. And then of course we come to World War II. That's really what most people would identify as the point at which a very substantial relationship was developed between the two countries with something like a million American service personnel passing through Australia during the war. And that led to an interest in the Australian government and moving away, at least in part, from a 100% British alignment to looking at the creation of an alliance relationship with the U.S., which came to fruition in 1951 with ANZAS. And on the basis of ANZAS, just an awful lot of agreements, security agreements have been built. As you've just outlined, the defence relationship is very important, but could you please talk to us about other aspects of the relationship with the United States that are key? The defence relationship is critical, as you say. And we have a plethora of agreements, deals with intelligence, deals with some major joint facilities that are of enormous importance to the United States, deals with exercises, acquisition of equipment, all sorts of things. That really in many ways is the heart of the practicalities of the American alliance. You can't just put defence aside in that regard, but there's an interesting new dimension that is becoming increasingly a dominant feature of the relationship. And that is investment. We now have a situation where there's over a trillion dollars' worth of mutual investment. Australian in the United States, U.S. and Australia, about 630 billion United States in Australia, 430 billion the other way, both sides rising rapidly. And we are the most important investment partner, or the U.S. is the most important investment partner for us. What would you say to Australians looking to visit the United States? Look, my advice to anyone, any Australian visiting anywhere, is to go to smarttraveller.gov.au. That's the DFAT website. Register with it and take advantage of it. That's the best way you can inform yourself and to safely travel when you make your travel decision. So when you come here and you get this advice on the smart traveller site, take out insurance. Travel insurance and health-related travel insurance. You've got to be smart about that. The other thing coming to the U.S. is, particularly since 9-11, the U.S. is pretty strict in the way in which it enforces the rules associated with travel. You've got to make sure your documentation's right. You've got to make sure that you are coming for the purpose that you indicated originally. If you're coming for a visit, then you've got to visit WAVA scheme for 90 days. If you're coming to work, you actually need a proper work visa to do that. And when you come here, by the laws, have fun, but make sure that you have the fullest possible information to ensure that your trip is unadulteratedly joyous. How would you, just in closing, how would you encapsulate the relationship? This really is our closest relationship when all boils down to it. And it's a relationship driven partly by officialdom and defence connections and the like, but really it's more than that. It's not much of a challenge to understand the U.S. We're educated in that regard effectively from birth, by Sesame Street and everything else. So we would be as understanding a country, a knowing a country of the United States as any other country on earth. And they've got a pretty fair idea about us. They're very aware of massive Australian cultural penetration of Hollywood there. You know, it's not any longer around here an assumption that Australia is about beaches and barbies. Can you give a personal note, what's been your most memorable moment so far as Australia's ambassador? Well, I've had lots of memorable moments. Perhaps the most memorable one is falling down on black ice and snapping the patella tendon behind both knees, which meant that I went in to see the president to present my credentials in a wheelchair. But that is memorable for bad reasons. For good reasons, there's, you know, these seeing through Congress the Defence Trade Cooperation Treaty. That was a memorable moment. But I think probably the most memorable moments are around American politics. Going to the president's second inaugural. That was absolutely outstanding. Going to State of the Union speeches in Congress. Going to the Democrat and Republican conventions for nominating their presidential candidates. Seeing the Australian Prime Minister stand up in the House of Representatives and deliver a speech to a joint sitting of the Congress, they're all in their various ways, very special moments. Thank you for your time today, Kim. Good to be with you.