Launch of "Australia and the Colombo Plan 1949-1957"

Part of the 'Documents on Australian Foreign Policy' series published by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.

Today it gives me great pleasure to launch Australia and the Colombo Plan, 1949-1957.

This volume is part of the series, Documents on Australian Foreign Policy, produced by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

• The second in the series so far this year - I was pleased to launch a volume on Australia and the Formation of Malaysia in Melbourne in March.

The volume being launched today demonstrates Australia's crucial role in initiating a British Commonwealth, and later international plan, to provide economic and technical assistance to developing countries in South and South-East Asia.

The volume begins in late 1949 with the official invitation to Australia to attend a meeting of British Commonwealth Foreign Ministers in Colombo, in modern Sri Lanka.

At that time, officers in the predecessor department of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra were discussing policy matters relating to Asia.

These discussions included establishment of an overseas aid program.

An Australian delegation, led by the Minister for External Affairs, Percy Spender, took the Australian plans for overseas aid forward to the British Commonwealth Foreign Ministers Meeting in Colombo, in January 1950.

The Australian ideas provided the seeds for the Commonwealth foreign ministers agreeing to establish a Commonwealth and later international plan for Co-operative Economic Development in South and South-East Asia.

The plan, although then sometimes referred to as the 'Spender Plan', came to be called the 'Colombo Plan'.

The Colombo Plan began with seven members of the British Commonwealth as members---Australia, Canada, Sri Lanka (then Ceylon), India, New Zealand, Pakistan and the United Kingdom.

By 1954 these countries had been joined by Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, the Philippines, the United States, Thailand and Malaya.

The Colombo Plan subsequently applied to the enlarged Federation of Malaysia, and to Singapore, from 1963.

The Colombo Plan occupies a prominent place in the history of Australia's relations with Asia.

It is best remembered here for sponsoring thousands of Asian students to study or train in Australian tertiary institutions.

Yet, as this volume demonstrates, it reached into almost every aspect of foreign policy, from strategic planning to diplomatic initiatives, to economic and cultural engagement.

It was deeply grounded in the belief of the Government of Robert Menzies that improved living standards would foster political stability and counter the spread of communism in the region.

Particularly noteworthy in the establishment of the Plan were two of my predecessors.

The first was Percy Spender, one of Australia's pre-eminent foreign ministers.

He championed the plan both in Australia and abroad during its formative period in 1950 and 1951.

The other was R.G. Casey, after whom this building is named.

Casey - Australia's second longest serving foreign minister - lobbied tirelessly for funds for the plan and urged on all Australians the importance to them of the countries of South and South-East Asia.

Two officials of great influence in its origins and implementation were John Burton and the late Sir Arthur Tange, both of whom were Secretaries of the then Department of External Affairs.

It is difficult to imagine today that most Australians up until the 1950s rarely encountered people from Asia nations and near neighbours in their daily lives in Australia.

Furthermore, the limited nature of people-to people exchanges between Australians and the countries of South and South-East Asia no doubt had an impact on Australian engagement with Asia at that time.

But the Colombo Plan helped to change this state of affairs by introducing students from many parts of the region into our society.

In the 35 years after 1950 some 40,000 people from Asia came to study in Australian institutions under the Colombo Plan.

The Colombo Plan was also of tremendous importance to the region.

In 1949, parts of the region were devastated by the effects of the Second World War. Others were mired in poverty.

While the Colombo Plan was by no means on the scale of the US Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Western Europe it was an important vehicle over several decades for transmitting aid and know-how from the developed countries to developing regional countries.

The prescience of the Australian originators of the Colombo Plan is now clear, given the vital importance today of engagement with the Asian region to our current and future security and prosperity.

Finally, the Colombo Plan was highly significant to Australia's political engagement with the region.

In 1949, the decolonisation process had just begun. Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Ceylon had already received their independence.

But other parts of the region remained under British or French colonial rule.

Australia had begun to establish diplomatic missions abroad in 1940, and its formal linkages with many regional countries were in their formative stages.

The Colombo Plan provided an important vehicle for Australia to engage with all the countries of South and South-East Asia whether they were fellow members of the British Commonwealth, newly independent states (like Indonesia) or countries still under colonial rule.

Ladies and gentlemen

The Colombo Plan began a process of educational engagement between Asia and Australia that would have astonished Australian policy-makers in 1949.

Since the restructuring of Australia's aid program in the 1970s the Colombo Plan has been overtaken by other means of providing developmental assistance to Asia.

Bilaterally, the Australian Government funds a program of Australia Development Scholarships to assist a range of developing nations.

As of 31 March 2005 there were 2430 students on Australian Development Scholarships studying at Australian universities and TAFEs, with the main recipient countries Indonesia, Vietnam, PNG and the Philippines.

A further example of how the Australian aid program continues to promote education assistance is contained in Australia-Indonesian Partnership for Reconstruction and Development, a new Partnership agreed with the Indonesia to assist that nation in the aftermath of the Boxing Day tsunami disaster.

During President Yudhoyono's recent visit to Australia, the Prime Minister and the President agreed the Partnership would fund up to 600 Australian Partnership Scholarships for Indonesian post-graduate students to study in Australia - effectively doubling the number of scholarships awarded to Indonesian candidates over the next two years.

Australian development assistance is playing its part alongside a booming commercially-based education services sector which involves many Australian education institutions - many providing education services here in Australia and some setting up off-shore campuses to help service the region.

Indeed, Australia has become a major supplier of international education.

• Australia's education services exports grew by 13 per cent in 2003-04 to reach $5.9 billion, are among our fastest growing exports and now our third largest export.

The demand growth in the region for these services is in itself a tribute to the enormous growth and development of the region in the period of and since the Colombo Plan.

The Asia-Pacific region remains by far the major source for international enrolments, with over three quarters of students, from the region.

Today, it is China that constitutes the largest source country for international students studying in Australia, representing over 20 per cent of total overseas student enrolments in 2004.

Other large users of our education services are students from South Korea, India and Malaysia.

Alumni networks - covering the earliest to the most recent alumni, and covering scholarship recipients and self-funded alumni alike - continue to play a role across South and South-East Asia, facilitating business and other networking.

These linkages are also important at the government-to-government level, as I know first hand as Foreign Minister.

• Alumni of Australian tertiary education institutions at the ministerial-level in the region include: Indonesia's Minister for Trade Mari Pangestu, Singapore's Second Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond Lim, a number of present and former Malaysian Ministers (Adenan Satem, Mustapa Mohamad, Maximus Ongkili), with former Minister Effendi Norwawi appointed the Malaysian Prime Minister's Special Education Envoy in 2004.

Finally, as I commend this volume Australia and the Colombo Plan to you, I want to emphasise again that it documents the story of an important period in the special relationships and links that have developed between ourselves and the countries of our region.

I thank the Secretary of my Department, Mr Michael L'Estrange and all those associated with the preparation of the volume.

And I take pleasure in declaring it launched.

ENDS