Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia
JOINT STATEMENT
THE MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND
THE DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER AND MINISTER FOR TRADE
FA72
4 August 1996
White Paper on Foreign and Trade Policy Announced
The Federal Government has put in train one of its most significant long-term
election promises - the production of Australia's first-ever comprehensive
vision statement on foreign affairs and trade.
Announcing the commissioning of the White Paper, the Minister for Foreign
Affairs, Alexander Downer, and the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for
Trade, Tim Fischer, said it would be a comprehensive review of Australia's
foreign and trade policy.
"The White Paper will identify Australia's interests, examine the international
environment in which Australia will pursue these interests in the future
and recommend appropriate strategies for advancing those interests,"
Mr Downer said.
"We are now looking well forward in trade policy through bodies such
as APEC, where we are formulating trade liberalisation out to the years
2010 and 2020," Mr Fischer said.
"I will look to the White paper to suggest ways of ensuring Australia
gets a better share of the rapidly growing Asian markets, and of improving
our position in traditional markets like the US and Europe, as well as taking
advantage of opportunities in new markets in South America, the Middle East
and South Asia."
The White Paper, which was foreshadowed in the Coalition's foreign policy
document A Confident Australia, will:
- examine the range of strategic, economic and political developments
which are likely to shape the international environment in which Australia
will be working to pursue its national interests over the period;
- assess the means available to Australia to advance its interests in
the changinginternational environment, and the principal opportunities and
obstacles to it achieving its objectives;
- recommend policy approaches to ensure that our key national interests
are advanced; and
- assess the implications of these considerations for the operations of
the Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio.
While the White Paper will touch on aid policy issues affecting foreign
and trade policy, a Review of the Aid Program is being undertaken separately.
The White Paper will be prepared with the assistance of an Advisory Panel
that will provide advice to ministers. Mr Downer will chair meetings of
the panel. (Details below.)
The panel will inject business and community perspectives into our consideration
of likely medium and long-term developments in regional and global affairs,
the policies needed to secure Australia's future and how they should be
implemented.
Mr Downer and Mr Fischer expect to table the White Paper in the autumn session
of parliament next year. It will be a statement of Australia's foreign and
trade policies that reflects the needs of today and positions us for the
realities of the next century.
Media Contact:
Greg Hunt (Mr Downer's office)06 277 7500 /
David Kelly (Mr Fischer's Office)06 277 7420 / 018 691 178
Peter Varghese (DFAT)06 261 3678/015 484898
WHITE PAPER ADVISORY PANEL
Geoff Allen
Chairman of the Allen Consulting Group Pty Ltd
Member of the Trade Policy Advisory Council since 1992
Former Chairman, Trade Negotiations Advisory Group (Uruguay Round)
Director, Pasminco Limited
Kym Anderson
Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for International Economic
Studies, University of Adelaide
Counsellor, Economic Research, GATT Secretariat 1990-1992
Robin Ashwin
Master, St Mark's College, Adelaide
Former Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Germany and Egypt
Harold Clough, AO OBE
Chairman, Clough Limited
Past President of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (1995)
Rawdon Dalrymple, AO
Chairman of the ASEAN Focus Group and Visiting Professor in the Department
of Government at the University of Sydney
President of the Australian Centre for American Studies
Former Ambassador to Japan, the United States, Indonesia and Israel
Malcolm Fraser, AC CH
Chairman of CARE Australia
Formerly Prime Minister of Australia
Meredith Hellicar
Managing Director, TNT Logistics Asia
Director, James Hardie Industries
Former Executive Director, NSW Coal Association
Admiral Mike Hudson
Former Chief of the Naval Staff and Member of the Chiefs of Staff Committee
Chairman of the Antarctic Cooperative Research Centre
Bruce R. Kean, AM
Chairman of the Business Council of Australia's International Relations
and Trade Committee
Director of the AMP Society
Formerly Managing Director of Boral Ltd and Chairman of Oil Company of Australia
Chairman of Trustees, Committee for the Economic Development of Australia
Graham Kraehe
Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Southcorp Holdings Limited
National President of the Metal Trades Industry Association
Member of the Business Council of Australia
Formerly Chief Executive of Pacific BBA Ltd
Alister Maitland
Executive Director of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited
and member of the Trade Policy Advisory Council
Donald McGauchie
President of the National Farmers' Federation
Board member of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research
Board member of VIC Grains Pty Ltd
Formerly President of the Grains Council of Australia
Helen Nugent
Director of Strategy, Westpac Banking Corporation and Deputy Chairman of
the Australian Opera
Formerly Professor of Management and Director of the MBA Programme at the
Australian Graduate School of Management and
Partner with McKinsey & Company
Robert O'Neill, AO
Chichele Professor of the History of War, All Souls College, Oxford University
Formerly Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies,
London, and the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Canberra
John Rose
Director of the Melbourne Business School at the University of Melbourne
Adviser to the Prime Minister 1977 to 1983
Richard Woolcott, AC
Chairman, Australia-Indonesia Institute
Former Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Former Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and
Australia's representative to the Security Council
Mr Woolcott was posted to four Southeast Asian countries (Malaysia, Singapore,
Indonesia and the Philippines), three as Ambassador or High Commissioner
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