 Okay, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name is Simon Avinal, I'm director of the Japan Institute here at the ANU, and on behalf of my co-organizers, Shiro Armstrong and Ipe Fujiwara, I'd like to warmly welcome you to the Japan Update 2016. Our theme this year is reinventing Japan. As part of our reconciliation action plan at the ANU, we're going to begin all public events with an important acknowledgement of the traditional owners of the land we're utilizing, and I would like to begin proceedings in that way today. We acknowledge and celebrate the first Australians on whose traditional lands we meet and pay our respects to the elders of the Nagano people past and present. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the Japan Update is the flagship event for those of us working on Japan-related issues here at the ANU. It's an opportunity for us to bring together leading experts on Japan to offer their insights and analysis on some of the most important issues facing Japan today. Issues, of course, which are of great relevance to we here in Australia on multiple levels. Today our keynote lectures, panels and discussions will focus on four key areas. Japanese politics, women's involvement and participation, new economic challenges and Japan's security and foreign policy. As you'll see from the program, we have an absolutely stellar lineup of speakers for you today and we genuinely thank each and every one of them for taking the time to be with us. We sincerely hope that the day is informative and thought-provoking for you. I strongly encourage you, the audience, to become actively involved in the debates and discussions that will unfold throughout the day. Related to that, we also see the Japan Update as a great opportunity for people from a variety of backgrounds who are interested in Japan to come together for networking in the exchange of ideas and hopefully you will be able to do so in the various opportunities that we've set up between panels and presentations. It's been another fascinating year in Japan with numerous lively debates about constitutional reform and economic restructuring not to mention ongoing geopolitical challenges in Northeast Asia. Most recently, Prime Minister Abe met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, once again raising hopes about the fate of four Russian held islands off the north of Japan. Prime Minister Abe also recently met our Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull in Laos, at which time both reaffirmed their Shed stance that all parties exercise restraint in the South China Sea. And on Monday this week Mr Abe met with US Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. I guess they agreed to disagree on the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement but reiterated their Shed desire for maritime security in East Asia and interestingly discussed the issue of women's empowerment which we will be discussing today. Back home, recently the Japanese Emperor, uncharacteristically I might say, stimulated another debate by expressing a desire to abdicate due to his advanced age and deteriorating health. The Imperial Household Law of course does not provide for accession by abdication so law makers are faced with a number of legal issues needless to say. Of course those of us who know pre-modern history will be aware that Imperial abdication was a common practice throughout Japanese history prior to the modern period. So there are definitely precedents to this and also there are precedents for female emperors as well. On top of this anybody who has been in Japan recently will know that the Japanese media has been awash with reporting on the Olympics and I'm sure this will continue for the next four years. It was quite fascinating in fact to watch Mr Abe's appearance as the famed Nintendo character Mario at the closing ceremony of the games in Rio. I guess evidencing how Japan's leaders are finally catching on to the global influence of Japan's popular culture industries highlighted most recently of course by the rise of Pokemon Go. I would note that Pokemon is now actually included in the spell check function of Microsoft Word so you can check that later. Mr Abe was accompanied of course by the newly elected Governor of Tokyo Koike Yuriko and in that connection I think it's particularly timely that we'll be discussing women participation in Japan today. Just a few days ago the politician Murata Renho was elected leader of Japan's major opposition party, the Democratic Party. Her election as leader I think is interesting not only because she is the first female leader of the party but also because of her Taiwanese background which has stimulated some extremely fascinating debates about the issue of citizenship and ethnicity in Japan. Increasing internationalization in Japan particularly since the 1980s has produced a new generation of multi-ethnic individuals with one Japanese parent and one foreign parent. Spanning two or more cultures such individuals are clearly a valuable resource for Japan so at some stage Japan may need to reconsider the issue of dual nationality if it is to retain these multicultural and multi-ethnic individuals into the future and I guess hopefully individuals such as Renho can contribute to a broadening of the definition of who can be considered Japanese and not to mention to the public recognition of women leaders in the country. On the topic of female leadership as I just mentioned only a month ago a month or so ago the residents of Tokyo elected their first female governor Koike Yuriko by a landslide. She was elected in spite of the lack of endorsement and did I might say open hostility from many within her own party the Liberal Democratic Party who supported another candidate who I guess we might say failed miserably. Governor Koike of course comes to office in the wake of two previous Tokyo governors forced to declare over misuse of public money and abuse of privileges. She has a strong mandate to clean up politics in the capital and also to deliver a successful Olympics in four years time so she has a lot on her plate. Over the past four weeks Governor Koike has herself been embroiled in a controversy over the relocation of Japan's famed fish markets, reading the news a couple of days ago it seems that ground contaminants have been detected in the foundations of the new fish market location in Toyosu. So the new governor has her work cut out for her I think over the coming year. I might also mention that Governor Koike was a presenter here at the Japan update in 2013 and today we're fortunate to have another female politician with us now Mikoshi who is mayor of Otsu City in Shiga prefecture. It seems that female Japanese politicians who present at the ANU Japan update move on to bigger and better things. So I can guarantee you a wonderful future in politics. So all in all there are many fascinating issues for us to consider today and I'm really excited that we have so many wonderful presenters to provide their expert opinions. Before ending I would just like to make special mention of our generous sponsors the Australia Japan Foundation, the Japan Foundation and also the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific. Without the support the Japan update would simply not happen. So on behalf of my co-organizers Shira Armstrong and Ipefujewara I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude for that generous support. Okay so before I invite our dean of Veronica Taylor to introduce our first keynote speaker just a few organizational and housekeeping matters. Firstly please let me advise that today's proceedings are being video recorded. In that connection during the Q&A sessions we'll be using microphones so please do wait until our microphone runners reach you. For those of you who would like to use Wi-Fi the login details are contained in the program and the network that you should use is ANU Secure and morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea will be served outside so please do join us for those. So without further ado please let me once again offer my warmest welcome to one and all. I hope that you'll leave today fully updated on some of the most significant challenging and fascinating aspects of contemporary Japan. So I'd now like to invite Professor Veronica Taylor, dean of the ANU College of Asia in the Pacific to introduce our first keynote speaker. Please join me in welcoming Veronica. Thanks so much Simon. On behalf of the ANU and the College of Asia in the Pacific let me warmly welcome you all to this year's Japan update. It's my great pleasure to introduce the speaker who will open the update this year, Mr Jason Hayes. Jason is the leader of PWC's Asia Pacific Japan practice. He's well known here in Australia as the lead author of PWC's Japan Rebooted series and also as a regular commentator in the media on Japanese trade and investment in Australia. He has extensive experience in Japan and has spent the past eight years on assignment for PWC in Japan. He's also a very active member of the Australia-Japan Business Cooperation Committee. We were speaking last night and Jason expressed a little bit of hesitation as a business person joining us here amongst a plethora of academic and policymaker speakers and contributors to the update. But I assured him that we were very much looking forward to his real-world perspective on Japan. He brings a very welcome business sensibility to these proceedings and I can assure you that he won't disappoint. Jason welcome and the podium is yours. Thank you for the very kind warm welcome. His Excellency Sakasan, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name is Jason Hayes, partner of PWC based in Australia and delighted to be here with you today for such a tremendous event. I'd also like to wish my great appreciation to Dr. Shira Armstrong and Ipe Fujiwara of the Australia-Japan Research Centre and Dr. Simon Avernal of the Japan Institute for inviting me to speak with you this morning. My name is Jason Hayes, partner of PWC based in Australia and delighted to be here with you today for such a tremendous event. I'd also like to wish my great appreciation to Dr. Shira Armstrong and Ipe Fujiwara of the Australia-Japan Research Centre and Dr. Simon Avernal of the Japan Institute for inviting me to speak with you today. I'd also like to wish my great appreciation to Dr. Shira Armstrong and Ipe Fujiwara of the Japan Institute for inviting me to speak with you today for such a tremendous event. I'd also like to wish my great appreciation to Dr. Shira Armstrong and Ipe Fujiwara of the Japan Institute for inviting me to speak with you today for such a tremendous event. I'd also like to wish my great appreciation to Dr. Shira Armstrong and Ipe Fujiwara of the Japan Institute for inviting me to speak with you today for such a tremendous event. So, as Veronica mentioned, partner of PWC, I manage our Japanese business practice across Asia excluding Japan. I joined PWC Australia's Japan Desk in 1991 I was very fortunate to be seconded to our Tokyo office in 2004, whereas Veronica mentioned I stayed with the firm there for a period of eight years. Went for two years, enjoyed it so much, decided to stick around and stay longer. During my last few months in Japan, I was at the privilege of speaking to the School of Government at Kyoto University about the globalization of corporate Japan. And now I'm thrilled to be here at the ANU to speak with you about the current and future state of Australia's economic relationship with Japan. Firstly, let me pay my respect to ANU, who have been doing an outstanding job to continue to strengthen the Australia-Japan relations over the past 60 years or more. In my view, ANU, together with their current group of Japan specialists, are giving Professor Jerry Curtis and his collection of stars at Columbia University a run for their money as the biggest and most influential group outside of Japan. Equally, I'd like to congratulate ANU on continuing to invest in this core group of Japan specialists and a warm congratulations to my namesake, Carol Hayes and Peter Hendricks for being awarded the Japanese Foreign Minister's Commendation this year, truly an outstanding achievement. PWC is very pleased to be helping Australia-Japan research centre's outreach to the Australian business community outside of Canberra. We have hosted two Yoichi Funabashi book launches last year in which Shira Armstrong and Peter Drysdale contributed chapters. And last year and this year, we are hosting sessions in Sydney and Melbourne, aimed at re-examining Japan's role in the global economy. Turning our attention to Australia's relationship with Japan. Well, as we know, this year marks the 40th anniversary of the Basic Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation or the Nara Treaty between Australia and Japan. The Nara Treaty was the first treaty of friendship and amity signed between Australia and any other country. Importantly, the treaty presented Australia and Japan with most favoured nation status or non-discriminatory treatment beyond trade to all commercial dealings between our countries, which included investment and migration. It was a framework agreement that established a comprehensive basis of equality and fairness in economic and political relations, but interestingly is frequently seen as symbolic and not having had any substantial economic impact on the relationship. The empirical analysis completed by Professor Drysdale in 2006 argues otherwise. It demonstrated that the Nara Treaty had a large and measurable effect on the intensity of investment flows and suggests that it had similar effects on the movement of people between the two countries. I trust many of you in the room will participate in the festivities surrounding the anniversary of this important milestone over the coming months. Now continuing along these lines, next year in 2017 marks the 70th anniversary of the signing in 1957 of the Japan-Australia Commerce Agreement. The treaty signed by Prime Minister Robert Menzies and Prime Minister Nobusuke Akishi, the grandfather of the current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, triggered a period of extraordinary growth in economic relations as a consequence of opening up trading relations with Australia, granting most favoured nation status and treating Japan as an equal best trader so soon after the war. And finally, last year marked the official commencement of the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, or JAPA, another milestone agreement, which I'll touch on again briefly in a moment. It's important to point out that the ANU through Sir John Crawford played an important role in bringing about the 1957 Commerce Agreement and then later the origins of the Nara Treaty. Also came from the ANU, thanks to John Crawford and Peter Drystad. Tremendous contribution indeed. Shifting our focus firstly to Japan. The globalization of Japan is the number one mega trend impacting Japan over the past five years. We've observed corporate Japan undergoing tremendous change against the backdrop of new government policies and reforms designed to stimulate growth in the Japanese economy. With change comes many challenges. Japan continues to play an important role in helping shape the global economy with its current financial wealth, its leading edge technologies, workforce dedication, and standards for quality. This continues to allow Japan to maintain a position that many other countries envy. But to sustain this position, the actions of companies and business leaders will be critical to ensure Japan can adapt to the increasingly complex and volatile business landscape. Equally, we recognize the solution for individual companies will vary and will require careful consideration and external input. But in general, the way forward for many Japanese companies requires risk taking, flexibility, adaptability, embedding change into strategies and continuing to diversify investment portfolios in markets that will deliver sustainable, profitable growth. Japanese business leaders need to address strategic and operational challenges by embracing new attitudes towards governance, innovation, talent management, and diversity. I know some of today's speakers will spend some more time on this topic, but Japanese companies like society as a whole will have to address female participation in the executive ranks as well as in the makeup of the general workforce. Another topic that Japanese companies must carefully consider is their efforts to establish new and fresh approaches to addressing the cultural challenges facing Japanese businesses that is preventing them from realising the untapped potential, value of investments being made, not only in the future, but also in relation to investments made in the past. Japan's track record for successfully integrating newly acquired foreign businesses is low. This is due to a variety of reasons, but in part it's a consequence of corporate Japan's decision to withdraw much of its expatriate workforce from its overseas subsidiaries in the mid to late 90s, leaving them today with gaps in their internationally experienced workforce. In the absence of such international expertise, business leaders will need to prioritise their efforts to achieve cultural alignment with foreign management teams in order to succeed in global markets. This transformational journey will be imperative to future-proof corporate Japan and to open the path towards the achievement of economic growth. Although many of Japan's best companies are striving, and in some cases succeeding with their globalisation efforts, many other companies continue to lag behind. In a report that PWC released two years ago, we noted that only 1% of Japanese small to medium-sized businesses have an operation outside of Japan. Just 1% of Japanese SMEs in a domestic market that has been staggered for more than 20 years. This will clearly need to change. M&A activity among Japanese companies has been relatively mild since the onset of Abinomics in 2012, with analysts blaming the volatility of the yen. Global or cross-border acquisitions announced by Japanese companies have decreased from the 152 billion US recorded in 2012 down to 85 billion US in 2013 and 78 billion US in 2014. What did this trend mean for Australia? Well, it was a positive story. Foreign investment from Japan into Australia actually increased consistently over the same period since 2012. Australia is the fifth largest single investment destination for Japan. In 2015, Japan was the largest investor in Australia with 14.7 billion, roughly 50% more than the US with 10 billion, and almost three times more than China with just three billion. This poses an interesting comparison of investment trends between Japan and Australia. Based on historical foreign direct investment flows, Japan is a net exporter of capital, whereas Australia is a net importer of capital. If we take a moment to consider Japan's investment agenda, Japan FDI is focused on the country's security mandates, such as resources, food and energy alongside entering into growth markets. By comparison, Australia owes much of its recent economic prosperity to our rich endowment of natural resources, covering iron ore, coal, a wide variety of agricultural products, uranium, oil, LNG, to mention others. Thus representing investment appeal, not just for Japan, but many other countries in Asia, including China, Korea and India. Japan remains the largest Asian investor in Australia, and in 2015 moved past the UK to become the second largest overall behind the US with 86 billion in FDI through 2015, which is truly remarkable when you think of much of Japan's investment into Australia occurred in the second half of the 20th century, whereas the UK have been here since Federation and the US shortly thereafter. Japanese investors were recently responsible for some of the largest investments in Australia's history, with Japan post-recent acquisition of toll holdings, a transportation logistics provider with a strong presence in Asia, along with Kirin's acquisition of national foods, Lion Nathan and dairy farmers, Daichi Life's acquisition of Tower Australia, one of Australia's largest insurance providers. Other notable investments of significance have included Nippon Life's announced acquisition of NAB's wealth management business, as well as INPEX's Ithises LNG project, which is expected to become one of INPEX's largest investment projects globally. Japan's historical investment in Australia has been heavily skewed towards direct investment in energy, mineral resource development and agriculture, which is consistent with the country's lack of such natural resources. But this is in contrast to Japan's global investment portfolio, which is more evenly balanced across all industries. What has been particularly interesting to us over the past 18 months or so has been our observations of Japanese investment in Australia starting to reach into new sectors away from energy and resources, new areas such as financial services, infrastructure, IT, property, food and services. A trend that we expect to continue and clearly to the benefit of the Australian economy. Now this comes as no surprise to us. Australia still maintains a leading position in Asia that many other countries envy. We have one of the healthiest economies amongst developed countries since the Lehman shock, an economy that has observed consecutive annual growth over the past 25 years. We have a stable political system. Our financial markets continue to offer relatively high rates of return. The Australian population is growing at a steady rate and is a high GDP per capita. We sit on the doorstep of Southeast Asia and we're very fortunate to have an internationally talented and diverse workforce. We at PWC believe that each of these attributes form an important part of corporate Japan's M&A checklist and will no doubt benefit corporate Japan's plans to accelerate further investment in Australia, noting that corporate Japan remain very well positioned to pursue further M&A. Japan's top 225 companies sit on almost 1.5 trillion dollars of cash with minimal debt. Together with a very long list of Japanese companies with operations only in the Japanese domestic market, both of these groups will be looking to market such as Australia to pursue future sustainable profitable growth. My ask of the Australian government is to consider introducing new initiatives that are aimed at proactively promoting the strategic appeal of the Australian market to Japanese investors in a world that is increasingly spending more and more effort to lure Japanese investment away from Australia. Equally, more workers needed to encourage and guide Australian businesses towards investment in Japan. The Abe government is undertaking reforms and opening up sectors in Japan to make it easier for foreign investors to enter the Japanese market and private sector leadership will also be important in this regard. For Australian companies to move forward and enter the Japanese market, it will require a nationalistic approach that involves government, corporates and academia working together to develop an approach to market entry that positions Australian businesses for success. Entry into the Japanese market can be achieved despite our woeful foreign direct investment track record in Asia. The recently concluded Japan-Australian Economic Partnership Agreement is expected to provide a boost in two-way investment and trade between our two countries. A stimulus that many critics view as rivalling that triggered by the 1957 Commerce Agreement. Australian agribusiness, manufacturers and service providers need to make the most of these opportunities and take advantage of the head start we have with our second largest trading partner before the Trans-Pacific Partnership and Japan-EU free trade agreements are finalised. My concern is that a significant number of Australian and Japanese companies are yet to take advantage of the benefits on offer under the JIPER. This situation has not gone unnoticed by both governments who are working hard in both home and host markets to educate and encourage businesses to take the necessary steps to apply for the entitlements that are on offer. Beyond the bilateral corridor, it's important for the market opportunities arising from the JIPER in Japan are broadened and extended to other countries to give momentum to Japan's structural reforms. In doing so, Australia may lose its preferential access in Japan, but it's in ours and everyone's interest that Japan's economy is more dynamic and its markets contestable and competitive. So the introduction of the JIPER and the changing direction of profile of investment from Japan into Australia represent new green shoots of advancements in our economic relationship. But there are other interesting developments that are having a positive impact on our respective economies, which I will cover just a few. Last year, Japan signed up to the Asia Funds Passport, which was no doubt helped in our view by the delegation of Australian business leaders from our financial services sector that went to Japan in June 2015, led by the Financial Services Council and Austria. Tourism, since late last year, we've observed double digit growth in the number of Australians flocking to Japan, and on the flip side, there's been positive growth in Japanese tourists coming to Australia. It's pleasing to see A&A, Japan's second largest carrier, returning to the Tokyo Sydney flight path after almost 17 years in the wilderness. Sport has been another developing headline. Australia and Japan's relationship with football or soccer continues to shine bright. Our club teams play each other together in the Asian Champions League, the A-League and the J-League, which are the sports governing bodies, recently signed an alliance to help promote each other's games in their respective markets, which is a remarkable accomplishment. And of course, we all know that Australia will host Japan in the next World Cup qualifier in Melbourne on October 11th. Following on from Japan's success at the last Rugby World Cup, we've seen the introduction of the Sun Walls to Supe 18 Rugby, and with Japan hosting the next Rugby World Cup in 2019, not to mention Tokyo hosting the Olympics in 2020, I encourage you to watch this space as we see a lot more between our two countries within the sporting arena over the coming years. I predict that we will soon see more business activities arising specific to the development and promotion by these sporting codes at both national and grass root levels, which in essence will support our continuing broadening economic relationship. Next there is the new Colombo Plan. And within just a few years, we've seen Japan become one of the top three locations with just under 1,000 Australian scholarship recipients and mobility students going to Japan. And the interest in Japan continues to accelerate. This development has been noted by many corporates, including PWC, looking to attract this talent. Mitsui and Co-Australia has been an outstanding organization in this regard. It's already made outstanding contributions in the area of student learnings that has included sponsoring more than 340 Australian students to visit Japan on a three-week study tour since 1971. And since the introduction of the government's new Colombo Plan in 2014, they have facilitated a growing number of internships and scholarships supported by Mitsui headquarters in Japan. Now, while the success of the new Colombo Plan has benefited our bilateral relationship with Japan, it is disappointing that the number of students studying Japanese language at school continues to decline. About 40% of students studied a foreign language in the 60s, but recent studies have shown that this number is now closer to 10%. For Japanese, the number reached their peak in around 2000. So that's for Japanese language and have been in steady decline ever since. This trend must be reversed, along with similar trends with other Asian languages in order to position Australia for growth in Asia for the longer term. As a country looking to Asia as the next frontier, we drastically need to improve our Asian literacy as well. Strategically, Australia would benefit from attracting more Japanese companies looking to access Asian markets to use Australia as the location to support the development of their future businesses in Asia, with the recent acquisition of toll holdings by Japan Post as a good example. However, more will need to be undertaken to stimulate and agitate businesses to look to one another to identify and establish these type of alliances or joint ventures, a role that government will most likely need to champion. Whilst the raft of new free trade agreements put in place with South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, China and others will eventually boost investment in Asia, I would argue that partnering with Japanese companies in the ASEAN region may offer a lower risk path to success. To quote Professor Drysdale, the Japanese market is a market no longer confined to Japan itself. It is a huge international market, generated by the activities of Japanese businesses and investors, especially via production networks in Asia. To realise the new potential of the Japan relationship, Australia needs to develop its national and corporate commercial strategies through partnerships with Japan in Asia. My view is finding the perfect opportunity is less important than knowing that the time for Australian businesses to act is now. In conclusion, the deepening economic and strategic ties between Australia and Japan has been tremendously interesting development over the past two years. And so is both countries' efforts to future-proofing our respective domestic economies. I'm excited that our bilateral relationship will continue to evolve as we take greater advantage of what's on offer under the JAPA to see us coming closer together in the sporting world, the continued uplift in educational exchanges, more tourism growth and to see the next level of engagement around science, technology and innovation. So what does the immediate future look like specific to our relationship with Japan? Well, what's to follow is hopefully a ramp-up in focus on collaboration between our countries in the area of science, technology, innovation. As our prime ministers agree, we'll deliver the next wave of economic prosperity. Our current prime ministers are also in agreement on the importance our countries play in the Asian region in support of security, stability, economic growth and regional integration. We are all aware of the vast opportunities that exist in Southeast Asia. We see an opportunity for Australia and Japan to partner together to succeed in this vast growing region. In a recent PwC report, we highlighted that only 9% of Australian businesses are currently operating in Asia. But we strongly believe that Australia could capitalise on the toehold Japan has in the ASEAN in a way that would benefit both countries. Australia's skills and experience in project management, engineering, public-private partnerships and our young, educated and more globally savvy workforce could complement Japan's deficiencies in these area. Japanese companies also point to Australia's clean image and well-developed financial services firms and retirement savings as things it could offer to any joint venture that is focused on the ASEAN region. Japan, on the other hand, has an unparalleled level of goodwill capital in the ASEAN region that was brought about through the significant level of overseas development assistance that Japan has contributed to the region since 1960s, more than double that from the US. In addition, Japan has well-classed technology in many fields, proven expertise in product development, cheap debt for expansion and extensive government support to bring to the table. Despite the developments in our trade and investment relationship, I believe all of this could eventually be surpassed by what is an even bigger story, which is what Australia and Japan could do together in Southeast Asia and beyond. I use the word could because for Australia and Japanese companies to team up successfully, it will require far more courage than they have ever shown before. Now finally, ladies and gentlemen, I have the great pleasure in launching the latest edition of the East Asia Forum Quarterly, which I think everybody has a copy. It's an outstanding thought leadership publication focused on economics, politics and public policy in East Asia and the Pacific. Well done to Dr. Shiram Strong and his team for another world-class thought leadership publication. My congratulations again to the Australia-Japan Research Centre and the ANU Japan Institute for your continued valuable contributions to our relationship with Japan. Thank you. Many thanks, Jason, for that terrific opening. I think all of you will agree that it was expert-balanced but also gently provocative. We have time for a couple of questions for Jason. The style in which we do this for the updates is to ask you to identify yourself by name and your affiliation and we'll take a couple of questions as a cluster. Questions or comments? I'd also ask you to keep the question brief so that we can optimise conversation amongst this informed group. Mr. Shiram? Thank you, Jason, for a great speech, a great discussion of the Australia-Japan relationship and a reality check from business. I share your worries about Australian investment in Asia, being so low, but maybe I could tease you out a bit on Australian investment in Japan, where the problems lie, do you think? Are they at the Australian end in the lack of Japan-capable business leaders or in the business community more generally? Are we doing a poor job training up the next generation here at ANU and elsewhere or is the problem at the Japan end? I don't think language is an issue, but is it protectionism? Is it too much regulation? Maybe you could share your views on that. Thanks. Thanks, Sarah. Probably two points. I think the problem lies in both countries. I think in Australia, as a consequence of the report we released, the passing of the spy, which confirmed that Australia's track record in Asia is woeful. Whilst we trade well with Asia, our investment record is incredibly low. I think part of the reason is most Australian companies are driven by short-term results, that term short-termism seems to be the pinpoint of the problems preventing Australian companies from marching into Asia and countries like Japan, as opposed to trying to take a balanced view, continuing to focus on the short-term but developing that longer-term narrative. Something that Japanese companies are very good at, which is developing that long-term view. Possibly don't have the shorter-term narrative, but it's something that I think Australia could learn from Japan and vice versa. I think on the Japan side, look, the perception of investing into the Japanese market is that it's a very complex, sophisticated market to enter. I don't believe language is an obstacle. I think perception is very much centred to the issues that the Japanese government face. Our interactions with the Japanese governments over the past few years has sort of identified and acknowledged that Japan does view the fact that they have not done a lot to stimulate or attract foreign investment. I think Japan, being incredibly successful for a very long period of time, has been very focused on its own market and trying to get corporate Japan moving forward without a lot of focus on trying to attract foreign investment. They are now taking steps and introducing new initiatives to try and open up investment into the market. I think that will eventually connect with the demands and the needs of the Australian market. Hopefully, we'll see more activity. Many thanks. Penendren. Thank you very much. My name is Punendra Jain from Adred University. My question you mentioned about the possibility of Australia and Japan working together in Southeast Asian nations. And you said, cool. I was wondering whether there has been any conversation about this between Australia and Japan to work together in Southeast Asia and if that's the case, what are the areas? Well, good question. I think a lot of forums such as this have consistently been promoting this idea of Australia and Japan working together in third markets easily over the past five to 10 years. Something that Professor Drysdale and Manuel Panagia-Toppels have been consistently promoting as well. The reality is we have very few case studies or very few examples of where Australia and Japanese companies have come together. Nippon Steel and Blue Scope Steel is one of the few examples. Japan Post, of course, acquiring tolls is another good example. But as I mentioned in my remarks, I do think it will take more. I think it will take a trisector approach. I think we need academia and government to step forward to be able to help guide. And support these conversations between our two countries. So that we can help make these alliances and these joint ventures come to life. I think it's that trisector approach that will make the difference. Many thanks. I know that there are more questions waiting, but we are at time. And so I would invite you to join with me in thanking Jason Hayes for such a stimulating start.