Remarks on India in the Australian Parliament- Australian Foreign Minister the Hon Stephen Smith MP

India

Ms OWENS (2.17 pm)—My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Would the minister advise the House what steps Australia is taking to add strength and depth to its relationship with India?

Mr STEPHEN SMITH—I thank the member for her question. I join with the House in welcoming to the floor of the chamber the Indian Minister for External Affairs, Mr Mukherjee. Can I say how appreciative the government is that at this very busy time in Indian politics he has come to Australia for a stand-alone visit to have a formal Australia-India Foreign Ministers Framework Dialogue. This is the first such framework dialogue that Australia and India have had since 2005.

The Australian government regards this framework dialogue with India as very, very important.

In the first speech I made as foreign minister I made the point that Australia needs to take its relationship with India to a new level. We need to broaden and deepen our relationship with India. Not enough appreciation has been given to the rise of India. In this century, in my view, Australia needs a new relationship with India for a new century. Coming as I do from Western Australia, we tend to look west more often. Now, just as India is looking east with its ‘look east’ foreign policy approach, so Australia must also look west.

This morning Minister Mukherjee and I have had a very, very productive framework dialogue, traversing the depth and breadth of the bilateral relationship, our engagement in regional forums and our approach internationally.

When you look at our relationship with India it covers not just economic matters. It is the case that in the last half dozen or so years our economic engagement, led by minerals resources, our trade and
our investment, has increased exponentially. This has set the scene for further developing our educational and scientific links, our biotechnology links, our people-to-people links. It has also set the scene for moving the relationship to a new level in the areas of security, strategic, defence and counter-terrorism cooperation.

One of the very good conversations we had today was about strengthening those links. So the potential is there for Australia to take its relationship with India to the front line of its international partnerships. This is something which has not occurred in the past. It is a matter of regret, I think, that over the last 30 or so years Australia has underappreciated its relationship with India. This is not something we can do for the future. We now need to take our relationship with India to the front line of our international partnerships.

In addition to the six other ministerial visits to Australia this year, the External Affairs Minister Mr Mukherjee’s visit is the seventh by a minister to Australia, and we welcome this very much. One of the meetings was between the Minister for Trade and his Indian counterpart, Mr Nath, where we agreed that we would conclude the feasibility study for a free-trade agreement by the end of this year—another important aspect of our relationship with India.

A wide-ranging communique has been published, but I just draw the attention of the House to some of the announcements effected today as part of that first framework dialogue since 2005.

Firstly, the minister and I signed formal treaties so far as extradition and legal mutual assistance are concerned.

Secondly, we agreed to step up our strategic and security dialogue by having regular annual talks between the chiefs of our defence forces.

We have agreed to strengthen our intelligence and counter-terrorism cooperation.

We have established a working group on visas, passport and consular matters, with a particular eye for the very large number of Indian students in Australia.

We have established a new Australia-India Roundtable.

We have extended our dialogue on food security and industry security matters and on effecting public sector linkages on climate change and water dialogue.

These are all significant aspects of our bilateral relationship.

So far as regional or international aspects are concerned, I again confirmed to Minister Mukherjee the Australian government’s position that when the APEC moratorium ceases in 2010 India should become a member of APEC and I again repeated, both privately to Mr Mukherjee and publicly, Australia’s very strong view that the United Nations Security Council should be reformed to reflect the modern day, not the 1940s and 1950s, and that India should be a permanent member of any such reformed Security Council.

It is absolutely essential in the course of this century that Australia takes its relationship with India to a new level, that we take our relationship with India to the front line of our international partnerships, and that is what this government, with a willing partner in the government of India, will do.

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