 Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you very much Professor Calford for your introduction and to all of our distinguished guests, members of the Diplomatic Corps and Pacific enthusiasts one and all. Professor Calford to you and to Professor Wesley. Thank you for your invitation to this conference and for the opportunity to start my Canberra week with a beautiful morning here at ANU. It is always a great pleasure to visit such a stunning campus and to have the opportunity to engage with you. May I also acknowledge and welcome Dame Meg Taylor the Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General who has given all for the wallabies it would seem and has incurred an off-field injury in her enthusiastic support of the wallabies over the spring box on Saturday night. Fair to say it was a weekend of mixed sporting success in my family at least but for the wallabies it was nice to actually get one on the right side of the board it would be fair to say. May I also thank very much Aunty Violet and Kevin for being here this morning and for your very warm welcome to country I can understand your brief confusion. It happens to all of us. Ladies and gentlemen I was absolutely determined to be here this morning and to make some very brief introductory remarks. I know the program is very substantial but to make a few introductory observations as a demonstration both of my support to the conference and its importance and also the important work that Professor Wesley and his team are undertaking more broadly. Given it is a sitting day however I will be doing the virtual speak and run which is a habit in this job so my apologies for that in advance but it is great to be here with Michael who I've known for a very long time and many other familiar faces who are in the room here this morning. Although there is new leadership in the Australian government I want to absolutely assure you and restate that the consistent focus on the Pacific remains. This conference which is actually enabled by the government's Pacific research partnerships program is just one example of the support that the Australian government provides to the development of a more secure resilient connected and prosperous Pacific. This region is diverse and complex a clear understanding of the region's potential as well as its challenges is essential if we're going to work together to develop effective policy economic trade security and crisis response outcomes. And of course as others have observed the conference is very well timed to follow on after the 49th Pacific Islands forum concluded in Nauru last week. I was very pleased that my first international program as foreign minister was to Nauru to attend the Pacific Islands forum and I was honoured to participate in the leaders dialogue. It was at the 2016 PIF just over two years ago where Prime Minister Turnbull committed to a step change, a step up in Australia's engagement in the region. This was then as Professor Calford has referred to set out in the government's 2017 foreign policy white paper where supporting a resilient Pacific was clearly described as one of five fundamental policy priorities objectives for Australia. Indeed the 2016 defence white paper which proceeded that also committed to increasing defence's international engagement particularly with the countries of the South Pacific and South East Asia. As defence minister I pursued these commitments enthusiastically and vigorously. I was the first Australian defence minister to visit Fiji since 1985. I visited Papua New Guinea several times and hosted my counterparts here in Australia as well, as well as visiting Tonga, the Solomon Islands and New Caledonia. The opportunity to visit New Caledonia was too good to pass up. At the time of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief exercise, exercise Kwadysud which brings together not just the FONC and the ADF but so many other participants from around the region in the fundamental and valuable exercise of building capability, of building cooperation, of building collaboration particularly for crisis response preparation. The Australian Defence Force's largest joint task group Indo-Pacific Endeavour consisting of HMAS Adelaide, frigates, Army contingents and ship to shore helicopters, this year travelled right through the Pacific before and after attending exercise RIMPAC in Hawaii which finished in July. HMAS Adelaide sailed with embarked US Marines, Tongan members of his Majesty's armed forces, Sri Lankan Marines and I did notice and seeing the High Commissioner here, one Canadian officer sailed from Australia through the Pacific to RIMPAC back through the Pacific and back to Australia in a strong demonstration of regional cooperation and engagement. So I come to my new role as Foreign Minister with valuable experience of the concerns and aspirations of the Pacific built indeed over many years and I'm absolutely committed to continuing this engagement as the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I will be working closely with my colleague Senator Ann Ruston, the Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific to build on the strong foundations laid by the coalition since 2013. Stepping up in the Pacific is not an option for Australian foreign policy, it's an imperative. Our ties to the region are long-standing. History, trade, education, employment, sport, migration have brought us together and the connections continue to strengthen. We are neighbours and we are friends. A more prosperous and secure Pacific increases our mutual opportunities for trade and investment and deters potential risks from challenges such as transnational crime at its emerging threats, biosecurity problems and threats to borders and maritime exclusive economic zones. We of course live with the reality of a more strategically crowded South West Pacific. We recognise that many countries including India, China, Japan, Indonesia, Russia are more active in the Pacific. This increased attention brings opportunities for Pacific Island nations including trade and investment as well as new sources of support for finance and development. At the same time as I said last week at the Pacific Islands Forum we all want regional interactions no matter where they come from or from whom to contribute to stability, to security, to unconditional national sovereignty and to sustainable and resilient economies. Australia is very committed, strongly committed to maintaining our status as a partner of choice on regional security matters including law enforcement and the protection of rights under international law as well as crisis response. These factors remain the key drivers of Australian policy approaches to the Pacific. We must make sure that we're all focusing on partnerships not just engagement because we don't just live in the Pacific, we live with each other in the Pacific. When meeting our regional leaders last week that was one of my key messages. If something can be done differently, if there's more that we can do together, I want to know about it. Last week at the PIF I announced a number of initiatives designed to strengthen those partnerships in the Pacific. We signed Memoranda of Understanding bringing Samoa, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu into the Pacific Labor scheme. They joined Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu. The new Pacific Labor scheme which started in July of this year gives an additional 2,000 Pacific workers access to the Australian job market each year. I look forward to seeing it expand to other Pacific nations in the months ahead. I also signed Memoranda of Understanding with Samoa and Vanuatu to join five other Pacific states in the Pacific Medicines testing program. They will have access to the world class testing facilities of Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration. This will improve the quality and the safety of medicines used in the Pacific. Australia also supported the New Boy Declaration which was adopted by leaders across the region at last week's PIF after 12 months of development, building on the foundations of the 18-year-old Bikitawah Declaration. It reflects the collective forum desire to embrace an expanded sense of security including human, environmental and cyber security. To support these security aims I also announced the development of a Pacific Fusion Centre, a facility that will aggregate and analyse security information to better target responses to threats like illegal fishing like narcotics trafficking. It will comprise analysts from Australia and Pacific Island nations working side by side together to fuse information that will better equip national governments to make efficient and informed decisions. From my time as Australia's Defence Minister I have seen Fusion Centres in a number of incarnations in the Middle East, in South East Asia. I have seen the effectiveness of an operational Fusion Centre and I think this will play a very valuable role in strengthening regional security and economic sovereignty in the years ahead. I also want to stress this morning that these initiatives which stemmed from last week's PIF are part of a much larger picture. As I said earlier I am absolutely committed to increasing our engagement with the Pacific. I have already had a number of conversations with the Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Francis Adamson about further ways that we can better coordinate our whole of government efforts in this regard. I think she is thrilled by the new enthusiasm of her new Minister but it is such an important opportunity, such an important opportunity to build on our step up, to build on the initiatives out of the Pacific Island Forum that I don't want to miss that chance. So my message for this morning is that this is about dialogue and partnerships and that there is more to do. In the past two years Australia's partnerships in the Pacific have undoubtedly strengthened and as I have said that will continue. I am very, very pleased that this was my first opportunity to engage in an international program as Minister for Foreign Affairs and that it was in the Pacific and I look forward to continuing that focus in the months ahead. In November Prime Minister Morrison and I will attend APEC in Papua New Guinea where we will continue to build on these very important relationships and further strengthen our mutual bonds in the Pacific. I expect also to visit Papua New Guinea before then and several other countries in the coming months. Why is the Australian government so committed to delivering the initiatives I have outlined here this morning and others like them? We do it to deepen those partnerships. We do it to enhance the collective economic and social resilience of the region. We do it to advance the aspirations we all share for a free, prosperous and stable region where each of our nations can rely on our sovereign and collective rights set out in the rules based order. More importantly though we do it because we live with each other in our shared Pacific region and our future is much best faced together in partnership. Ladies and gentlemen I wish you all the best for a very productive and collaborative conference. I look forward to hearing the outcomes perhaps giving me some more ideas and opportunities to deliver to the Secretary of the Department that come from your discussions today. These are very practical engagements, conferences such as this. The government is very pleased to have the opportunity to support conferences such as this and encourage you to use all of the available time, all of the available opportunity to make the most of your discussions. I wish that I could in fact spend more time here than I will at Parliament House this week. But that unfortunately is not to be. So I look forward to continuing to work with you in the coming months and years to continuing to engage on the issues that are of key importance to you and have been part of my political life for very many years now. I wish you all the very best for a constructive conference and look forward to seeing you in the future. Thank you very much. Minister, thank you for such a warm and uplifting speech. It's wonderful to hear such positive sentiments from our new Minister about the importance of the Pacific to Australia. Can I also thank you and your Department Minister for the wonderful support that you provide for our Pacific research program that allows us to build and maintain such capacity on the Pacific. I'd like now to hand over the microphone to James Batley, a distinguished policy fellow at the Department of Pacific Affairs to introduce our keynote speaker. And to say thanks and farewell Minister. Okay. Good morning everyone. As Michael said my name is James Batley from the Department of Pacific Affairs and I have the honour this morning of introducing our keynote speaker to you. If you don't know Dame Meg Taylor, shame on you. But if you don't Dame Meg's from Papua New Guinea. She is a lawyer and a diplomat by trade although sometimes she can be undiplomatic for strategic purposes I think. Dame Meg studied at the University of Papua New Guinea at University of Melbourne and at Harvard University and she worked for some time for both the PNG government and in the private sector in Papua New Guinea. She went on to serve as Papua New Guinea's ambassador to the United States, Mexico and Canada and worked for the World Bank as well for a number of years. She was appointed to her current position as Secretary-General of the Pacific Islands Forum in August 2014 and was reappointed for her second term last year. As the Minister was saying of course Dame Meg has come to us from an incredibly busy period in her professional life as Secretary-General having helped to organise the the leaders meeting, the forum leaders meeting just last week in Nauru. So we're really, maybe we're really delighted and honoured that you're able to come and talk to us today. It's a very timely appearance and I don't know whether you're going to do this standing up or sitting down but please help me to welcome Dame Meg to the conference. I'm very pleased to be here. But first of all let me acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and pay my respects to their elders past and present and thank you to Auntie Violet who has gone for welcoming us to her country. Her excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, students and friends and of course the Australian National University. I would like to think that we're all here for the same reasons and that is we all want to make a contribution to realising the potential of our Pacific region and its people and not simply because of the many challenges facing our region but because we see opportunities for transforming the state of the Pacific. We are here because we know that when we work together drawing on our strengths we can achieve much for the people of the blue Pacific. Not often are we presented with an opportunity to bring together thought, political, policy and practice leaders, practitioners, researchers and officials to discuss and debate the advancement of our region. So let's make the most of the days to come. It has been a fascinating 12 months for both global and regional politics as well as domestically for some of our members. I adjourn you all this morning having just returned from the 49th Pacific Island Forum in Nauru. The government and the people of the Republic of Nauru must be commended for hosting a successful 49th forum and it was indeed uplifting to witness the spirit of the Nauruan people who came together to deliver their best for the forum and related meetings. I also acknowledge that this forum was by far one of the most challenging since assuming the role of Secretary-General. However I'm heartened and continually so by the resolve of our leaders to seek compromise and resolutions as our region again becomes a place of increasing interest by our traditional partners as well as new partners. External political and divisive influences and tensions has meant the forum has had to as a collective, contend with, confront and contest a myriad of issues. It is important that we protect the prime purpose of the Pacific Islands Forum to provide the leaders with the space and time to dialogue and reach political settlements on issues that are vitally important for our region. In turning to global politics and the continued rise of China we have witnessed a recasting of geostrategic competition and cooperation under the rubric of the Indo-Pacific with the Indian and Pacific oceans increasingly being seen by a number of our traditional partners as one single strategic space. In contrast former forum chair the Honourable Prime Minister of Samoa commented during his public lecture at the Lowy Institute delivered just two weeks ago that the renewed vigor with which a free and open Indo-Pacific strategy is being pursued leaves us with much uncertainty. For the Pacific he fears there is a real risk of privileging the Indo over the Pacific. Indeed the Pacific Islands region has been largely absent from those debates. Very little has been written and published from a Pacific Islands perspective and the Pacific Islands has rarely featured in the discussion except from a perspective of vulnerability to China's influence and therefore is a part of the Indo-Pacific that needs to be secured by and for external partners. Key questions for the forum family in the context of an emerging Indo-Pacific solidarity is how does the Pacific maintain and strengthen its own strategic autonomy? How do we ensure our regional priorities are neither undermined through the breaking of our Pacific solidarity nor appropriated by the narrative of others? Exercising stronger strategic autonomy is one blue Pacific and the continent requires being clear on who we are as the Pacific. Only once we clearly claim our collective geography, identity and resources will we be able to effectively secure the place and agency of the Pacific in the far changing global context. This challenge is indeed nothing new and builds on a rich history of thinking about the possibilities of an oceanic continent. In 1949 Albert Norman writing in the wake of the establishment of the South Pacific Commission now the Pacific community that we referred to as SPC noted the trends of powerful national policies originating outside the region beset the desire of oceanic peoples to improve their overall economy. It will be the task of the South Pacific Commission to find means of resolving such problems and to activate latent economic resources and so promote the social reclamation of the world's seventh continent and its people. Further he emphasized how colonial powers arbitrarily imposed political and geographical divisions that promoted an impression of a broken up society hopelessly separated from its essential parts. In response Norman was advocating for a reclamation project whose first step would be to overlook the divisions and restore the essential regional viewpoint and unity. Nearly five decades later Epeli Haofa echoed similar sentiments in his reflections on the dominant portrayal of Pacific Islands as small lacking in resources and isolated from centers of economic growth to ever be able to rise above their present condition of dependence. Similarly to Norman for Haofa this portrayal stems from the relatively recent creation of boundaries that crisscross an ocean that was previously boundless. In contrast to the view of Pacific Islands which denotes small areas of land dotted with vast Pacific Ocean, Haofa evokes Oceania as a sea of islands in the story of the Pacific peoples and cultures moving and mingling unhindered by boundaries of the kind erected by external powers. So fast forward to the present and many of the commitments made by the forum leaders builds in these aspirational narratives of Oceania as a solution to our structural constraints and vulnerabilities. For example 20 years after Haofa, Sumika Rehmerauta of Papua Nguni wrote in the preface to the Pacific Plan review report. The region is vulnerable and remains significantly dependent on the economies and good will of others. The process of advancing regionalism needs to deliver bigger results to be genuinely game-changing in terms of mitigating the region's vulnerabilities and dependencies which will otherwise dog its social, economic and environmental well-being. In recent years I have witnessed greater effort and commitment to building collective solidarity by the members of the forum family. In 2017 forum leaders endorsed the blue Pacific narrative which seeks to build an understanding in our own terms of the strategic value of our region and guides our political conversations towards leveraging this value to drive our development as one blue Pacific continent. In essence all of these appeals to Oceania of who we are respond to an awareness of the miss potential of our ocean continent or as Haofa describes it the way the hoped for era of autonomy following political independence has not materialized. In response they all seek to reframe the region away from the enduring narrative of small isolated and fragile to a narrative of large connected and strategically important ocean continent. It is against this backdrop that leaders welcome the theme for this year's forum meeting in Nauru, building a strong Pacific, our islands, our people, our will. The theme picks up on the issues that I have just outlined and particularly the issues of structural vulnerability, dependency and the failures of approaches to development that have been imported from outside our region. Perhaps some key questions I would like you to carry in your minds over the next few days is how these ideas can help us think through the current challenges and opportunities faced by the Pacific region. How can we build on these narratives and learn the lessons of previous attempts to realize them? What are the concrete possibilities that exist today for realizing the blue Pacific continent? Notwithstanding the Samoan Prime Minister's concerns, one thing we know with certainty is that as a result of an increased global competition we are witnessing a renewed interest and engagement in our region by both traditional and non-traditional actors. This creates both challenges and opportunities for us. In particular, it challenges us to maintain our solidarity in the face of those who seek to divide us, particularly through the aggressive pursuit of bilateral interests. However, at the same time it invites us to consider how the blue Pacific narrative offers us more than simply a foundation for solidarity, as crucial as that may be. By framing our islands as one ocean continent we can enhance the strategic autonomy of our region by identifying and leveraging the value of the Pacific, not just for us but for those seeking access to it. This value is derived from sources including our control of almost 10% of the UN votes. The world's largest ocean resource including a six billion fisheries, undervalued ecosystem services and biodiversity, our people and our rich cultural heritage, geostrategic positioning and a range of geoeconomic opportunities. Therefore, as the forum officials committee concluded recently at their meeting in Samoa, increasing the value proposition of our blue Pacific is vital to securing the well-being and potential of our islands and our people. A very concrete task in this regard is securing our maritime boundaries. The Pacific Island countries and territories manage 20% of the world's ocean in their exclusive economic zones. Of the 47 shared boundaries in the Pacific, 35 treaties have been concluded. The settlement of maritime boundaries provides certainty to the ownership of our ocean space as Pacific people take in control of our domain, which is critical to managing our own resources, biodiversity, ecosystems and data, as well as for fighting the impacts of climate change. In securing our place, we can be more assertive in leveraging our value with partners and the international community to continue crafting, strengthening and influencing regional and global agreements to help secure the vital interests of our shared blue continent. I trust that you have had a chance to review the less than a week old forum communique and related documents and I trust that you will agree with me that the priorities set by the leaders for the coming 12 months are wholly consistent with the idea of an autonomous ocean continent. Last week leaders referred, reaffirmed the blue Pacific as the basis for asserting our will, for strengthening our solidarity on the global stage and for securing the potential of our region to drive our development ambitions and aspirations. More specifically, they committed to stronger security collaboration in order to address our multifaceted vulnerability and security challenges through the boy declaration. They endorsed the Pacific Resilience Facility, which demonstrates greater responsibility by forum member countries for resilience, investment of new projects and retrofitting existing infrastructure projects to make them risk resilient. They agreed to secure the geography of our blue Pacific by concluding negotiations on and declaring all outstanding maritime boundaries, including the limits of our exclusive economic zones. They committed to ensuring strong forum engagement and advocacy of crucial positions on climate change, fisheries and biodiversity beyond national jurisdictions. And they committed to the well-being of our people by ensuring a whole of government efforts and resources to tackle childhood obesity, early childhood development and non-communicable diseases. They will continue to dialogue with Indonesia on the issue of human rights in West Papua. And what I think is particularly commendable decision, leaders approved a sustainable funding strategy that will see forum island countries increase their membership contribution from 26% to 51% for the secretariat's primary budget over a nine-year period. I'm sure many of you will have questions about last week and I along with my fellow panelists will be happy to answer them at the conclusion of my paper. But before we do that, I would like to conclude with some personal and perhaps provocative thoughts on a few issues that have dominated media in our region over the past 12 months, but on which we have variably heard the voice of the Pacific. The continued rise of China and the unconventional politics of the Trump administration in the US are creating great shifts and uncertainty. The media coverage on the rise of China in our region has framed many of our forum members in an unfavorable manner, possibly even questioning their ability to exercise their own sovereignty. Furthermore, a range of actors portrayed China's growing presence in our region as an either or predicament for the Pacific, that is insisting that the Pacific must choose sides. Such divisive politics are inconsistent with our region, which values open and genuine relationships and inclusive and enduring partnerships within our region and beyond. We all know that it has been a long term approach of the Pacific to welcome all partners who are willing to engage with us on our terms and being friends to all. As I mentioned earlier, through the Blue Pacific narrative, we are in an even stronger position to determine the terms of those engagements. I believe we need to talk more openly about what the rise of China means for our region and indeed how we can engage with all partners in a manner that advances our development, our security, prosperity and harmony. Key parts of the discussion might include the pros and cons of engaging as a region with China's Belt and Road initiative, or as I prefer to rename it for our purposes because of the reality of the Pacific is the Belt and Seaway's initiative. Closer dialogue with China and other dialogue partners over the removal of harmful fishery subsidies or how partners can work together to ensure sustainable, resilient infrastructure for the Pacific. We've seen examples of the latter already and while there's always room for improvement, such collaboration is in line with the forum's value of inclusive and enduring partnerships. Closely linked to discussions on China and our region is the issue of debt sustainability. As mentioned earlier, there is recognition of the region's dependency on the goodwill of others and a desire to begin to identify and implement ways out of these dependencies. However, in the meantime Pacific Island countries must continue to work with partners to generate necessary financing for their resilient development. While many island nations have done a relations with China for some time over the past 12 months, their relationship with China has been increasingly viewed by some to be problematic. Indeed, there have been suggestion that the leaders of the Pacific Island countries don't understand the risks of taking on loans from China. Further, the single experience of Sri Lanka is used to warn us of the threat of Chinese loans and serves as a signal to the region. However, many of the large infrastructure projects in the region are with development partners including China and the large financial institutions of our own region. While some countries seek to leverage the issue for their own geostrategic ends, I believe we need to have a more constructive dialogue on the issue. For example, we must seek to understand the underlying reasons that enable such issues to emerge in the first place. Indeed, despite all the aid received in the Pacific, we still remain economically vulnerable and when we still remain dependent on the goodwill of others. Therefore, we need to ensure that the assistance that we receive builds on the capacities of our nations to enhance their socioeconomic self-reliance and resilience. And that means investing in capacity and infrastructure. Infrastructure is crucial for growing resilient economies in the Pacific. These building blocks of growth are expensive and require long-term commitments in supporting complementary institution and policy development. This is one of the reasons why Chinese assistance is attractive to the Pacific. In response to China's growing influence, we see competing infrastructure initiatives emerging from Japan, the United States and Australia. While this could be good news for the Pacific, we must tackle the problem at its cause, rather than getting drawn into the political justing of others. Let me turn to climate change. With the endorsement of the Boyd Declaration, formerly known as the Bikitao Plus, forum leaders reaffirmed that climate change remains the single greatest threat to the security and well-being of the Pacific Island people. Therefore, forum island countries continue to strongly advocate for greater mitigation efforts for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. And are urgently required by all countries if we are to guarantee the existence of the Pacific and of our planet as we know it. Some forum member countries have used international and sub-religional fora to reproach countries, including Australia, for the continued development of fossil fuel industries. And some have also joined the powering past coal alliance during the COP23 last year. However, given the truly desperate times being faced by the region's most vulnerable nations, I believe it's time for such a conversation to take place within the forum family. I know our chair for the panel, James Batley, and I warned him of this, wrote recently that Australia's position on climate change is simply political reality. However, it is absolutely essential that we work together to move the discussion with Australia to develop a pathway that will minimise the impacts of climate change for the future of all our islands and our people, including Australia. The blue Pacific belongs to all of us and its value can only be effectively realised collectively. We cannot afford to have one or two of us acting in ways that place the wellbeing and potential of the blue Pacific continent at risk. To conclude, I believe we are at a critical juncture in the history of our region and of the forum. There has never been a more important nor opportune time to act as one blue Pacific continent. Important because the current global shifts demand a more resolute solidarity in the face of threats to our blue Pacific value and values. Opportuned because the current context provides an unprecedented opportunity for increasing and leveraging the value of the Pacific continent. This context demands a range of focus political conversations. I hope that your debates and discussions over the next couple of days will help guide and inform these conversations. We need to work together to ensure that in the years to come the stories we are telling about the state of the Pacific are ones of empowerment, self-reliance and resilience. So I wish you well in your discussions and thank you for listening.