Australia needs to be actively engaged in international efforts to meet the global challenges that affect us all.
By engaging in international policy making processes and making sure our voice is heard, we can help secure the best outcomes for Australia and Australians.
That is why the Australian Government has taken an active role in international efforts to respond to the global financial crisis, to tackle climate change, and to help build a better future for Afghanistan.
The Australian Government has:
- Rebuilt Australia’s engagement with the world in the face of rapidly evolving international events as global economic and strategic weight shifts to the Asia-Pacific.
- Strengthened our ties with our ally the United States, with key regional partners in Asia and the Pacific and with the wider world.
- Re-engaged with the United Nations in recognition of the fact that supporting a strong multilateral system is not just the right thing to do, but it is in our national interest to do so.
- Moved to ensure the security of our nation through long-term planning for Defence.
Strengthening Australia in a changing world requires building our Defence Forces and engaging actively in regional and global affairs.
The defence and security of our nation, its people and their interests is the first priority of government. To ensure that we can deliver this, we have undertaken long-term planning for the defence and security of our nation, including through developing a Defence White Paper to chart a strategic way forward to deliver Force 2030. We are committed to recognising and supporting the efforts of all our men and women in uniform.
We are also working to secure Australia’s future through re-energised regional and global engagement. We are committed to building on the Labor tradition of active contribution to the world beyond our shores. And we committed to an activist middle power diplomacy that delivers the best outcomes for Australia and Australians.
This engagement is both about principles and the interests of our nation and its people. In our globalised world, we need our voice to be heard in global councils that are crafting the solutions to the challenges we face. The government has made sure this is happening.
Major Achievements
Despite the challenges we have confronted in responding to the global economic crisis, we have injected new life into our foreign policy, allowing Australia to once again be recognised as an important and constructive regional player, and as a source of ideas and a key contributor to finding solutions to global challenges:
- Protecting Australia’s interests in the global economic crisis: We recognised the early dangers of the global financial crisis, and ensured that Australia was a key driver of the international response through the G20 process.
- The declaration of the G20 as the premier forum for international economic cooperation represents the most significant shift in global governance in decades.
- We used creative, active middle power diplomacy to help shape the international response to the crisis and ensure that the G20 has become the new body for tackling global economic challenges. Australia now has a permanent seat at the head table.
- Defence White Paper: We have delivered the first Defence White Paper in nearly a decade, which sets out a comprehensive plan for Australia’s Defence out to 2030.
- To implement the Defence White Paper we delivered the first Defence Capability Plan since 2006, which set out over $60 billion of projects that will form the building blocks of Force 2030.
- Our actions will ensure that Australia has the Defence Force it needs to meet the challenges of the future - and that our defence interests are properly planned for and budgeted. Our approach also includes a targeted Strategic Reform Program that will deliver efficiencies in the way Defence carries out its roles.
- Making a contribution to international security: We have strengthened our deployments in Afghanistan, and play our part by contributing to the International Security Assistance Force, helping with reconstruction efforts and training of the Afghan National Army. We have continued to contribute to stability in our near neighbourhood through our military deployments to East Timor and the Solomon Islands.
- Strengthening our alliance with the United States: We have established strong connections with the new US Administration, and built strong working relationships in areas of common involvement, such as Afghanistan.
- Engaging with our region: We have injected new vigour into our key regional relationships – with China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, South Korea, and Singapore to name just a few.
- We concluded negotiations for the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement – Australia’s largest FTA that will reduce or eliminate tariffs across a region of 600 million people with an annual GDP of $3.2 billion; and we began participating in negotiations for a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement which includes the US, New Zealand, Vietnam, Brunei, Chile Singapore and Peru.
- We have initiated discussion about the shape of our future regional architecture through the vision for an Asia-Pacific community – drawing on the Labor tradition of driving discussion and innovation in our engagement with our region.
- Increasing Overseas Aid and recasting our relations with the Pacific island states: We have recast our relations with the Pacific island states to be based on mutual respect and mutual responsibility. We hosted the Pacific Islands Forum leaders’ meeting in Cairns – the first time Australia has hosted in 15 years.
- We have maintained our commitment to increase aid to the Pacific region and beyond.
- We have launched PACER Plus with our South Pacific partners to help build economic resilience and sustainability in the region.
Other achievements
- Establishing the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament to develop new ideas on strengthening the existing nuclear non-proliferation regime and making progress towards the ultimate goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.
Renewed commitment to the United Nations, and as an expression of that commitment, actively seeking a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for the 2013-14 term.- Actively pursuing trade policy through high quality Free Trade Agreements that increase market access for Australian exporters, as well as through a leadership role in the hard slog of World Trade Organisation negotiations.
- Strengthening border security through a tough, targeted approach, including through closer cooperation with our regional partners.
- Ensuring that we meet all of our international obligations, including in the way we manage asylum seekers.
- Demonstrating that we are a committed member of the Commonwealth through being selected to host the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth in 2011.
- New engagement with Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.
- Securing membership of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM).
