 Look, let me start by acknowledging and celebrating the first Australians on whose lands we meet, the Ngunnawal people, and pay our respects to their elders past and present. So Ambassador Takahashi, Honourable Ms Yoko Kamikawa, welcome everybody to this year's Japan update. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Shiro Armstrong, I'm here at the Crawford School of Public Policy. I run the Australia Japan Research Centre. I'm here with my co-conveners, Fujihara Ipeh, who's also with the Australia Japan Research Centre, Lauren Richardson with the Japan Institute, and Veronica Taylor with the Japan Institute as well. It's our pleasure to welcome you to the update this year. We're holding this conference at a time of great uncertainty in regional and global affairs. We've had a backlash against globalisation, a rise in protectionism. We're dealing with an unpredictable President Trump and a more assertive China. So in the face of this uncertainty, Japan's been thrust into a leadership position. So Japan really, we're not familiar with seeing. Japan led the conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, minus the United States, the TPP. After it was left for dead with the Trump Administration withdrawing the United States from its participation. So with the CPTPP done, Japan also concluded an economic partnership agreement with the European Union and successfully completed the Osaka G20 Summit. These achievements, these were achievements of a more confident and outward looking Abe administration. But it's not all been smooth sailing. The Abe government is now embroiled in a diplomatic crisis with South Korea. That takes some of the gloss of Japan's recent diplomatic achievements. Domestically, with political stability and strong leadership, we've seen Japan now beginning to deal with one of its biggest domestic challenges, the demographic crunch of a shrinking and aging population. So Japan's opening up to foreign workers and recognising the status quo on the ground of 2.7 million foreign nationals living in Japan, of which 1.5 million are working. And that's a big focus on this year's Japan update. Next year, Japan steps out onto the world stage once again to host the Olympics and how Japan manages the expansion of migration and foreign workers and deals with its biggest domestic challenges still pose many questions. We cover these issues in the most recent issue of the East Asia Forum quarterly, which I think you all have a copy of in your pack and I forgot to get a copy to hold up, but you'll see that. The issue editors for this issue on Japan's leadership moment, Lauren Richardson and Nobihito Aizawa from Kyushu University. And many of the authors who wrote pieces in that East Asia Forum quarterly are speakers here today. So each year for the Japan update we cover the economy, politics and foreign policy, an aspect of the Australia-Japan relationship and one focus on a key social issue. And this year we're focusing on opening Japan to migration. So we're delighted to have the Honourable Miss Yoko Kamikawa who drafted the new legislation and shepherded the new laws to the diet as a Minister of Justice. So to formally introduce her I now turn to our Pro Vice-Chancellor for International Strategy, Sally Wheeler, who's also the Dean of the College of Law to introduce Miss Kamikawa. Please welcome Sally Wheeler. Your Excellency, the Honourable Miss Yoko Kamikawa, guests and colleagues, let me add my acknowledgement of country to Shiro's. So I acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we meet, the Nambu Ngunawal people. I pay my respects to the Elders past, present and emerging and I extend that respect to any Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who are here. I'm delighted to be able to introduce the opening keynote speaker for this year's Japan update. The Japan update is our flagship annual event on Japan and we're immensely proud of that here at ANU. The research, teaching and engagement on Japan has been at the forefront of our work on Asia and the Pacific and that's especially important as we are the National University and we were tasked in 1946 at our foundation with one of our core missions being to understand the region. As Shiro mentioned, Japan is undergoing huge change and a large part of that is the formal opening up to foreign workers. This is a major step forward for Japan. It has the potential to be transformational. There will be significant challenges and I hope that some lessons can be learned from Australia. Our Vice Chancellor will be in Japan in October to open a symposium there that will look at these issues for a project that the Australia Japan Research Centre is undertaking with the Asia Pacific Initiative in Tokyo. Japan's new foreign worker laws that came into effect in April this year were shepherded through Parliament by our keynote speaker when she was Minister for Justice last year and as a professor of law that's interested in corporate law and in labour flows and as someone who has recently migrated to Australia as a foreign worker from the European Union. I am delighted to hear what she has to say today. The Honourable Ms Yoko Kamakawa has an impressive track record. Before she was Justice Minister including State Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications and Minister of State for Gender Equality another issue that's close to my heart and social affairs. We are delighted that Kamakawa Asensi has travelled all this way to share her experiences jump-starting Japanese immigration reform. So please join me in welcoming her to the podium. Good morning everyone. The weather is wonderful. The second day of spring and I'm very much delighted to be here and speak in front of you. I wish to offer my gratitude for being invited to the Japan Update of 2019. It is indeed an honour for me to be given this opportunity to speak in front of so many of you who have made such extraordinary contribution to the development of the good relationship between Japan and Australia over many years. Until October of last year, I served for the second time in the position of Minister of Justice. In Japan, the Ministry of Justice is a government body responsible for the administration of immigration and as a top representative of that body, I proposed legislation for new status of residence. Hence today, I would like to address you all on the theme of the era of global movement of people, a new stage in the creation of Japanese form of cohesive multicultural society. In order to address the serious lack of human resources among various industries in Japan and to facilitate the acceptance of foreigners who possesses valuable knowledge and experience amendments were made to the law last year which established a new status of residence known as specified skilled worker. This new category took effect in April this year. In drafting this registration, I paid particular attention to the following three points. First is to develop a system that focuses on various aspects of life of foreign nationals that take into account their work-life balance, optimize employment and facilitate their integration into local communities. Second, in the new legislation, I made it the responsibility of the national government to take measures for achieving cohesive multi-cultural society that was until now led by municipal governments. As for the third point, I believed that it was important to develop a framework that would allow all relevant stakeholders to connect and cooperate with one another. Such stakeholders include the national government, regional governments, sponsoring companies, national governments sending foreign workers to Japan. Before going into the details of these three points, I would like to outline the transnational movement of people in the context of Japan by focusing on foreign nationals in Japan who have acquired mid-to-long-term resident status. Here, I would like to touch upon the examples of accepting foreigners of Japanese descent and technical intern trainees and elaborate on the principles behind approving their residency. At the end of last year, there were approximately 2.7 million foreign nationals residing in Japan on mid-to-long-term visas. Around 1.5 million of them engaged in work, which in the highest level ever recorded. Along with the globalization of economic system and the growth of transnational movement of people, Japan is entering a new era in which it has to respond to internationalization of its domestic market and take nationwide commitment based on clear policy towards achieving a cohesive malady cultural society. The general principle regarding the acceptance of foreign nationals into a labor market was to positively accept foreign nationals with specialized or technical expertise. On the other hand, the foreign nationals that don't meet such criteria, Japan has taken into account of their influence on its economy and citizens' lives and cautiously determined whether such foreigners could be accepted. Based on such general principle, Japan developed particular systems for accepting foreign workers, including the acceptance of Japanese descent and technical intern trainees. Through such processes, we have faced a number of challenges and have learned many lessons. Because the main theme of my speech today is creation of Japanese form of cohesive malady cultural society, I think it is important to elaborate on the challenges we have faced in the past and how we have struggled. Firstly, using the example of the acceptance of people of Japanese descent from the 1990s onwards, Japan began to accept people primarily from South America countries such as Brazil, their second or third generations of Japanese descent. At its peak in 2007, there were more than 300,000 people from Brazil walking in Japan. However, in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008, the work environment of these people underwent a dramatic change. At the time, since many of such Japanese descents were temporary workers and because of the unstable form of employment and their difficulty in Japanese language, many of these people could not keep their job and some of them regrettably had to leave Japan and return to their country of origin. Of course, not all people of Japanese descent choose to leave and there were people who remained in Japan. There were certain cities or communities where many foreigners of Japanese descent maintained their community especially in such areas where household appliance factories or car manufacturers hired these people. Sorry. One of such area is my hometown, the city of Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture, which is famous for Mount Fuji. Municipal governments like Hamamatsu City found that at that time, the range of problems affecting newly arrived people of Japanese descent, such as lack of Japanese language ability, meant that these people were unable to successfully integrate into the community. This then led to problems with children being absent from school or trouble with their neighbor in garbage disposal arrangements and various other issues related to education and local communities. To improve such situation, Hamamatsu City in cooperation with other municipal governments where they had community of foreign people founded the Council for Cities Concentrated of Non-Japanese Residents, through this Council, municipal governments shared information with each other and made request, including various legislative reforms to the national government. Before I became a politician, and this is going back some 20 years ago, I was a researcher at the think tank and engaged in research and study of issues concerning multicultural coexistence within Shizuoka prefecture. And since then, I thought that the problem was a lack of vision at the national government level, which putting the responsibility on the municipal government for providing assistance and promoting inclusiveness of foreigners of Japanese descent. Hence following my election to the House of Representatives in 2000, and thereafter, I continued to advocate that the national government must take responsibility for measures aimed at realizing a cohesive multicultural society. In establishing the new status of residence at the Minister of Justice, I believe that the national government should learn from such municipal governments and develop policy measures that incorporates the experience of the municipal governments that have dealt with the challenges in achieving cohesive multicultural society. In fact, these municipal governments have nearly 30 years of experience and have developed unique grassroots mutual support activities where governments cannot provide sufficient level of support. Such grassroots activities include students and young people getting involved in providing educational support or organizing summer camps for children who have difficulty learning Japanese or children of Japanese descent who have become fluent in Japanese supporting their parents in their integration. As such, I came to believe that there are a lot to learn from public-private partnership efforts at the local community level. For Japan, it was a bitter experience that many Japanese descent descendants left Japan due to the change of economic circumstances. But in order to develop Japan's cohesive multicultural society in the future, there are valuable lessons to be learned from the experience of local governments that have went through such times of difficulty. Second example that I would like to touch upon is the technical intern trainees system, which was also developed while embracing various challenges. Since its start in 1993, the technical intern trainees have been welcomed by developing countries that have sent trainees, as well as by the Japanese industries. The number of trainees accepted has continued to increase annually, and by 2018, there were more than 320,000 trainees in Japan. On the other hand, examples exist of some accepting organizations taking advantage of their trainees, putting them to work in inappropriate environments in order to secure cheap labor. There are other cases of human rights violation of trainees and instances where trainees have gone missing. Against this background, questions have been raised from the point of view of protection of trainees. In order to seriously address these problems and to take steps towards improving the situation into 2016, Japan created a new law governing the appropriate regulation and protection of foreign trainees. The government is presently engaged in various efforts aimed at appropriate implantation of the trainee system. Based on this experience in implementing the status of residence system of the past, a decision was made to introduce a new status residence, specified skilled worker. In the background to this decision lies the difficult situation facing Japan's domestic economy, while trainees' efforts have been made to reform the overall employment system in conjunction with economic recovery. Japanese society continues to age, and birth rate continues to decline. Year after year, the number of citizens of child-bearing age continues to fall. And as January last year, they dropped to only 60% of their overall population. This make Japan the front runner among developed countries in dealing with aging society. Of course, the labor market continues to see greater levels of participation from women and senior citizens, and the effective use and application of information and communication technology having explored. And yet, certain sectors of the economy continue to struggle with systematic and chronic labor shortage. Based on this state of affairs, I received a directive from Prime Minister Abe in February 2018, asking me at that time as a Minister of Justice to thoroughly explore a new system for acceptance foreign workers into Japan. The newly established status of business, known as a specified skilled worker, allows the acceptance of foreign workers into 14 sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, construction, and nursing care sectors that have been particularly affected by lack of labor resources. The new status system focuses on the acceptance of foreign workers, possessing the necessary knowledge and experience and who are ready to be employed within the specified 14 sectors. It is established at two levels of status, known as specified skilled worker level one and specified skilled worker level two, which have been established according to the necessary level of technical proficiency. I also contain measures that allow for promotion for level one to level two in accordance with developments in skill level. For those foreign workers classified under specified skilled worker level one, in order to ensure that they are able to live in Japan, examinations concerning necessary technical and Japanese language ability are conducted upon their arrival in Japan. There are then granted permission to reside in Japan for a period of up to five years. Expectations are that in the next five years around 350,000 workers will be accepted into the 14 designated sectors and since April this year, some of these sectors have already begun to accept workers. I mentioned in my introduction three key points that I paid particular attention in drafting the legislation for accepting specified skilled workers. Among the three key points, the first point was to focus on the various aspects of life of foreign people. In this connection, efforts were made to establish an acceptance system that would ensure foreign people the same levels of wages and working conditions of Japanese citizens and also to establish a framework for providing support for foreign people. In the case of providing support, the acceptance, accepting organizations needed to create their own support scheme for foreigners entering at the level one specified skilled worker and to provide support for the working life, everyday life, and social life. Such support scheme was not required in the previous system of accepting foreigners and it is based on the lessons learned from the acceptance of workers of Japanese descent as well as technical trainees. Such support scheme is introduced so that the specified skilled workers will be able to become part of their local community and make seamless transition to life in Japan. The main areas of support are as follows. Support for work life, such as complaint resolution services for any trouble that emerges in the workplace. Support for everyday life, such as orientation sessions that explain living arrangements, including rules of disposing garbage, and so forth. Support for social life, such as providing information about various administrative processes. Moreover, it is worth highlighting that in the event that these specified skilled workers have their work contract unilaterally terminated, measures have been put in place to assist their transition to another workplace. Turning to the second key point I highlighted at the beginning, the national government assumes responsibility for taking measures to cohesive cultural society. In July of last year, the government of Japan established the cabinet committee for the acceptance and inclusion of foreign workers. And at the end of last year, this committee compiled its comprehensive solutions for the acceptance and inclusion of foreign workers. As a minister of justice at that time, I served as co-chair of the committee along with the chief cabinet secretary. And compiled a range of policies whereby the national government takes responsibility for ensuring measures to achieve cohesive multicultural society. The main pillars of these solutions are aimed at creating a society where people can live in multicultural harmony. In particular, they envisaged to establish one stop service counters in approximately 100 municipal government offices to offer advice and make necessary referral arrangements for foreign workers. As I will explain later, a new organization known as Immigration Service Agency will provide local governments financial assistance and know how to operate such service counters. And the local governments will then develop frameworks to provide advice and to make appropriate referrals according to the inquiries made by foreigners. Moreover, the comprehensive solution is a package is a package of 126 policy measures for which a budget of 2.1 billion yen has been budgeted for the financial year. In June of this year, new policy measures were added, which focus on the most pressing challenges. Such measures include matching assistance for foreign workers and local companies and establishing of what many provisionally be called centers for cohesive society. As for the third key point, developing a platform for all relevant stakeholders to coordinate and cooperate a new organization, the Immigration Service Agency was established in April of this year, along with the implementation of the new status of residency. Before the establishment of Immigration Service Agency, the Immigration Bureau of the Ministry of Justice was primarily in charge of border control issues, such as immigration procedures and deportation. However, given the importance of developing the environment and improving the management of foreigners who are accepted for mid to long term residency, a decision was made to establish a new organization known as Immigration Service Agency. And in order to avoid the inconvenience of bureaucratic sectionalism, the Ministry of Justice and the Immigration Service Agency were designated to take the lead on coordination with other government's bodies. This clearly sends a message that whole government approach will be taken. Moreover, it is also necessary to ensure that governments of foreign countries from which specified skilled workers will be sourced from and they stand their commitments to ensure a smooth transition of such workers into Japanese society. To that end, progress has been made regarding the signing of memorandums of cooperation with the governments of source countries. To date, the governments of nine countries, such as the Philippines, Vietnam, and Cambodia, have signed such memorandums. And the expectations are that further memorandum will be concluded with other potential source countries. These measures are, in fact, implementation of the Goal 17 of the United Nations' sustainable development goals, achieving of targets through public and private partnership. In order to realize a cohesive multicultural society, government alone, or in other words, public assistance alone is insufficient. I strongly believe that it is necessary that the government, private sector, and local community coordinate and take policy measures that promote self-help and mutual assistance. To elaborate on this point, it is important to note that one hand, the foreign people are encouraged to participate in the local community with a sense of ownership and make their self-help effort towards integration, while on the other hand, the local community also actively takes steps to accept and facilitate their integration so that everyone can mutually support each other. The new status of residents only commenced in April of this year, and we now move to the implementation phase in order to create a cohesive multicultural society. Under this new system, the number of foreign workers accepted will be made public once in every three months. This is the management of the resident foreigners through an evidence-based approach and ensures sustainability of a new system, as well as earning trust and understanding of the Japanese citizens. However, during the course of its implementations, it may turn out that not everyone will pay out as we first envisioned. Just like Australia or other countries, Japan will face challenges in accepting foreign workers and will have to overcome those challenges. For Japan to move towards a cohesive multicultural society, I will be very important for us to take step-by-step approach to flexibly review our systems and policies as necessary. I believe that there are a couple of points or perspectives that are critically important when reviewing our system. The first point is human rights of foreign workers, and the second point is access to justice of foreign workers. I will start with the first point on human rights of foreign workers. During the course of developing a multicultural society, that accepts foreigners of diverse backgrounds, we will inevitably experience cultural friction. Of course, hate speech and discrimination against foreign workers must never be tolerated. And in order to realize the true multicultural harmony, it is particularly important to support one another by overcoming their differences in culture and religion and support one another. The level of cultural friction will be the indicator of measuring whether current system and policies are working or not. And in order to ensure steady and continuous development of a multicultural society, more effort will be required to resolve these challenges. To that end, it will be necessary to conduct surveys that will allow us to continuously monitor the situation of human rights violation of foreign people and to further strengthen awareness, raising of the general public through coordination with every relevant organizations and stakeholders. As for the second point, access to justice for foreign workers. When considering problems related to labor, employment, and living arrangements, various legal disputes may arise between Japanese citizens and foreign workers and among foreign workers themselves. To ensure sustainability of a cohesive multicultural society, these issues must be resolved in an appropriate manner. On this point, in Japan, the Japan Legal Support Center, known as Ho Terasu, has initiated a multi-lingual information service which offers information of on Japanese laws and legal systems in multiple languages from foreigners visiting or living in Japan. However, one needs to be done to further strengthen access to justice for foreign people. And in this regard, we should further explore use of online freight information and communication technology. To address these challenges against achieving cohesive multicultural society, the Liberal Democratic Party Research Commission on the Judicial System, which I serve as a chairperson, examined the issues and compiled its recommendation in June this year and made its appeal to the relevant ministers of the cabinet. To conclude, in order to fully realize a cohesive municipal multicultural society, the foreign people themselves are encouraged to contribute to the community and develop their sense of ownership. But it is even more necessary that every citizens of the community understand the importance and take action to achieve this goal. Creating a cohesive multicultural society is, in fact, realization of a society where no one is left behind. This is the philosophy behind the sustainable development goals, which emphasize diversity and inclusiveness. And it should be taken as a basis of our joint efforts. I would like to remind you that Japan is known as one of the world's safest and most stable countries. To that end, the UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice, the Kyoto Congress, will take place in Kyoto in April 2020, next year. As the host country, this will present a fine opportunity for Japan to display its safe and secure society to the world. I believe that deeply rooted rule of law and the culture of lawfulness are important assets of Japan. Accordingly, Japan will enhance its judicial affairs diplomacy to promote the universal value of rule of law to prevail globally. I hope that foreigners that come to Japan will experience for themselves a society steeped in a culture of lawfulness and become part of such society and contribute with a sense of ownership in achieving Japanese form of cohesive multi-cultural society. We are people are independent and yet supportive of each other. As a member of Japanese House of Representatives, I shall endeavor to the fullest extent to realize Japanese form of cohesive multi-cultural society which has now entered into its new age and new stage. Thank you very much for your kind attention.