PA/03/16 25 January 2016
Australia-India relations at a high point
Australian High Commissioner Patrick Suckling – who finishes his term as Australia’s most senior representative in India on 26 January, 2016 – today said he was glad to be able to leave Australia-India relations at a high point.
Over his three year term, the relationship between India and Australia has gone from strength-to-strength, including the finalisation of a Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement, paving the way for commercial exports of uranium from Australia to India.
“The relationship between Australia and India has never been better – though I realise people expect me to say that,” Mr Suckling said.
“More importantly, it’s what the President said to our Governor-General when they last met and what the Foreign Minister said to me just days ago. This relationship has hit a sweet spot and, what’s more, there are still immense opportunities awaiting us.”
Mr Suckling has appreciated his three years in this “vibrant, beautiful and complex country” and the chance to meet people across the length and breadth of the land.
“I do have a very strong affinity with India,” he said. “It’s been a country that I’ve been coming to for 30 years – as a student, I did my first posting as a junior diplomat to India in the 1990s, my first child was ‘made in India’, I’ve worked on most major strategies to do with India throughout my career in Government.”
While the latter half of the 20th Century was marked by tepid relations between the two countries, Mr Suckling said, after being on different trajectories for decades, Australian and Indian interests had begun to converge in the last 15 years.
“When your interests start to converge, there’s a greater focus to working together and more room for discussion,” he said.
Now, Australian and Indian interests align in a wide variety of areas across the spectrum of trade and investment, geo-strategic interests and people-to-people links.
“Prime Minister Modi summed it up perfectly during his speech to the Australian Parliament when he said that in every area of national priority for India, he sees Australia as a natural partner,” Mr Suckling said.
“Australia and India are natural economic partners, particularly in areas such as energy security, agriculture, infrastructure, skills development and education.”
Mr Suckling said energy security was critical for India to meet its growth potential.
“We therefore come much more sharply into focus for India, because Australia has enormous reserves of energy and a very small population,” he said. “We also have one of the most advanced mining sectors in the world and we can work with India to share that expertise.”
Geo-strategic engagement was important to the longer-term prosperity and security for both Australia and India as they worked with regional partners to maintain stability in their shared Indo-Pacific neighbourhood.
Mr Suckling said Defence cooperation was a good example of the progress in relations.
“Australia and India took part in their first bilateral military exercises last year. At an officials level, our armies meet, our navies meet, our air forces meet, and there is strong ministerial engagement,” he said.
“That’s a world away of where it was when I was here 20 years ago. We had none of that framework, that bilateral architecture in place to talk and define and drive where we want to go together and also manage differences where they occur.
“The strategic, the security side of the relationship has moved ahead in leaps and bounds.”
Mr Suckling said the connection between the people of India and Australia was fundamental to the depth and breadth of the relationship.
“There are nearly five lakh people of Indian origin living in Australia, in-bound and out-bound tourism is on the rise and our student numbers are going from strength-to-strength. This is increasingly two-way engagement - we now have about 500 Australian students studying in India as part of the New Colombo Plan,” he said.
“When a relationship is in the hands of the people, then I think you know it’s pretty assured – the people keep driving it forward. I think the relationship between Australia and India is in exactly the place it needs to be and it has a very bright future.”