Speech to the The Australian Member Committee of the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (AUS-CSCAP)

Regional Security Issues Forum

Melbourne University, 5 September 2008

Thank you, Professor Milner, for that introduction. 

Thanks also to Asialink and the Australian Secretariat of the Council  for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) for giving me the opportunity to speak to you about Australia's comprehensive and active security engagement in the Asia-Pacific region.

National security in the Asia-Pacific Century

These days national security is a broad and malleable concept. The traditional approach focuses narrowly on individual nation states and their conventional military assets and threats. In a modern, globalised world, this approach only represents one dimension of the challenge and does not encompass a range of factors relevant to a nation's security in the twenty first century.

Today, there is no doubt that international terrorism, weapons proliferation, transnational crime, environmental degradation, energy security, health pandemics, or even just plain old fashioned poverty and inequality as a cause of instability, are all key factors affecting Australia's security.

More broadly, these factors also apply to security in our region, the Asia-Pacific. 

This century, global economic and strategic influence is inexorably shifting to the Asia Pacific. 

Within Asia we have the world's two most populous countries, two of the top three economies, the largest democracy in the world, and the country with the largest muslim population in the world.

China and India are adding their enormous energy to the already considerable economic strength embodied in Japan and Korea.

By 2020, it is forecast that Asia will account for around 45 per cent of global GDP, one-third of global trade, and more than half of the increase in global energy consumption.

By 2020, 56 per cent of the world's nearly 8 billion people will live in Asia. 

The shift, however, is not just economic or demographic.  It is also strategic.

Three of the world's five largest military forces, China, India and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, are located in Asia.  The other two, the United States and Russia, have very substantial military forces in the Pacific theatre.

East Asian military spending alone is now equivalent to that of all the European NATO countries combined.

With this transfer of economic and strategic influence comes an expectation of, and the actual exercise of, greater political influence.

Our security and prosperity will hinge to a significant degree on the political and economic development of our friends and neighbours in Asia. 

Shaping security architecture in region

Since our own prosperity and security is linked to that of the Asia-Pacific, we have a responsibility to help shape the way in which the region adjusts to the power shifts now taking place. 

We have a responsibility to be part of regional and international responses to non-traditional security threats, like pandemics and terrorism, which can damage or undermine social and state cohesion. 

Securing common approaches to threats of this kind requires agreement at government to government level, both bilateral and on a regional basis. 

Australia's alliance with the United States, a key pillar of Australia's foreign policy, continues to be vital to our pursuit of our regional security interests. 

At this year's AUSMIN, Australia and the United States agreed to cooperate on further regional work on maritime transport security and terrorist financing. 

We also made specific progress on elements of enhanced defence cooperation, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief.

Our cooperation with ASEAN also embraces defence and security.

The ASEAN Regional Forum, founded in 1994, remains the region's primary multilateral security forum. It contributes positively to counter-terrorism, non-proliferation and maritime security capacity building.  

It also fosters military to military and civilian-military security cooperation.  Both of these are crucial in the delivery of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, as the tragic events in Burma have shown. It is important that the ASEAN Regional Forum develop practical capabilities in this area. We look forward to collaborating with ASEAN Regional Forum partners in practical regional security initiatives, so the region becomes more responsive to its security challenges.

In July, when I traveled to Singapore to take part in the annual series of ASEAN-related Foreign Ministers' meetings, I foreshadowed that Australia would be appointing its first Ambassador to ASEAN. 

Today I announce that Ms Gillian Bird, a Deputy Secretary in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, will be our ASEAN Ambassador, based in Canberra.  All those of you who've worked with her will know that she'll bring immense skill and experience to this important task.

The appointment underlines the critical importance the Australian Government places on its relationship with ASEAN.  The appointment will enhance our ability to work closely with ASEAN to address key regional issues and promote regional prosperity and stability. 

In addition to the regional security-related work we do with ASEAN, Australia contributes to regional security bilaterally with ASEAN member states. 

Australia has defence relationships with most ASEAN countries. 

Close cooperation with ASEAN and its member states is essential for combating the terrorist threat in South-East Asia.

We signed the ASEAN-Australia Joint Declaration for Cooperation to Combat International Terrorism in July 2004, and finalised the Work Programme to Implement the Joint Declaration in June 2007. 

Australia and the Philippines signed a Status of Visiting Forces Agreement in May 2007.

The Lombok Treaty, the historic Agreement on the Framework for Security Cooperation between Australia and Indonesia, came into force in Perth on 7 February 2008.

We have concluded counter-terrorism MOUs with Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Brunei.

While APEC does not formally consider security matters, APEC meetings provide a significant forum for Foreign Ministers and Leaders to meet regularly.

The APEC Summit will be held in Lima, Peru this year reflecting the important contribution of Latin American states to the economic, trade and investment environment of the Asia Pacific.

The Asia Pacific Community debate

Consistent with our commitment of comprehensive engagement with the Asia-Pacific region, the Prime Minister recently announced an Asia Pacific community initiative.

Shaping our evolving regional architecture in ways that suit the diverse nation states of our region is a challenging task, but it's a task which the Government believes Australia must be engaged in.

The Prime Minister's initiative has started a conversation with our friends and neighbours about how the Asia Pacific regional architecture might evolve to meet future strategic, security, economic and political challenges and opportunities.

It's about what regional architecture might prepare us for these emerging regional and global challenges.

The Asia Pacific community initiative encourages a debate about where we want to be in 2020, as world economic and political influence continues its inexorable shift to Asia.

Australia and the region have a great opportunity to create something that would for the first time:

• span the Asia- Pacific, and include the US, Japan, China, India, Indonesia and other States in the region;
• engage in the full spectrum of dialogue, cooperation and action on strategic, security, economic and political matters;
• encourage the development of a genuine and comprehensive sense of community, whose primary operating principle was cooperation.

This conversation doesn't diminish any of the existing regional bodies. On the contrary, they will continue to play their essential roles. 

There could be a new piece of architecture, as ASEAN and APEC once were.  Or it could evolve and emerge from and through the existing architecture, as the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asia Summit have.

As currently configured, none of the current architecture is comprehensive in membership, scope or purpose.

India is not a part of APEC. The United States is not part of the East Asia Summit. We don't have a single piece of architecture where all of the key regional players can be in the same room at the same time talking about both economic and strategic matters.

The Prime Minister has appointed a special envoy, Richard Woolcott, to engage with the region's political and intellectual leaders and pursue this conversation.  Mr Woolcott started his consultations in the region this week.

And I certainly look forward to continuing this conversation with various of my counterparts in the region.

Security at the operational level

As important as regional institutions are to the discussion of security, some of the most effective work on security in the region is done at the practical, operational level, under our agreements with ASEAN and bilaterally with ASEAN states. 

Experience has taught us the critical importance of routine investigative work in, for example, the fight against terrorism.  Most of the success we've witnessed in recent years is the result of painstaking, diligent work at the operational level.

It's at the practical, day-to-day level of police and security operations that so much of the most effective work on counter-terrorism is done.

On a recent visit to Bangkok, I visited the Royal Thai Police Bomb Data Centre, a joint project opened in September 2007, which reinforces the cooperation between the Australian Federal Police and the Royal Thai Police.

This facility is one of a number of Regional Bomb Data Centres, including centres in the Philippines and Indonesia, that link up with existing centres in Singapore and, of course, Australia. 

The Regional Bomb Data Centres focus on gathering pre- and post-blast technical material relating to improvised explosive devices, and collaborate by sharing data, expertise, and technical assistance.

They conduct comparative analysis on components in an endeavour to identify characteristics in the devices as well as operational methodologies, to help authorities conduct counter-terrorism operations.

Australia places great value on the highly productive counter-terrorism relationships we've developed within the region. 

A leading example of the outcome of these relationships is the establishment of the Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation (JCLEC).

JCLEC is internationally recognised as a regional centre of excellence in the provision of development and training opportunities to law enforcement officials.

It is an excellent example of the joint commitment and partnership between the governments of Indonesia and Australia to enhancing the regional capability of law enforcement to combat transnational crime, particularly terrorism.

This is being achieved through the delivery of specialised training programs, combined with a learning environment which encourages cooperative and collaborative partnerships between law enforcement agencies throughout the region. 

Countries further afield are looking to JCLEC for training and development opportunities, in addition to it being a model for law enforcement cooperation within the region.

Since its inception in 2004, JCLEC has trained more than 3000 participants in counter-terrorism-related police capacities.

The centre has also provided courses in subjects as diverse as Islamic Law and Politics, Security Risk Management and Disaster Victim Identification to a range of participants, including law enforcement, security and anti-corruption agencies.

Close cooperation between the Australian Federal Police and the Indonesian National Police on counter-terrorism is central to our national counter-terrorism policy, and squarely in our national interest.

The Indonesian National Police have over the last ten years emerged as a highly capable and independent law enforcement agency.

Through initiatives such as the Regional Cooperation Teams in Jakarta and Manila, and the Multi National Operations Support Team, the AFP makes a vital contribution to the excellent relationship we enjoy with all our regional partners in law enforcement.

There's now a growing recognition that strategically, counter-terrorism investigations and the ability to prevent terrorist activity can be greatly enhanced by a sound community engagement strategy.

Australian police services are implementing community engagement strategies to build on the positive relationships developed between law enforcement and community members.

Through the network of Regional Cooperation Teams established within Southeast Asia, they promote activities that forge links and partnerships with local communities, which continue to be particularly important given continuing terrorist threat in Southeast Asia.

It helps to encourage regional police forces down this path, because strong law enforcement and community engagement aids in increasing the communities' resilience and their trust in law enforcement. 

Effective counter terrorism efforts by regional partners in South-East Asia have helped lead to a much less favourable environment for terrorists in recent years.  However, the terrorist threat in the region remains persistent and there can be no room for complacency. 

The position of the Ambassador for Counter-Terrorism reflects the high priority the Government attaches to countering the ongoing threat of violent extremism and international terrorism.  The position was established in March 2003 and has played a critical role coordinating and promoting Australia's international counter-terrorism.  

Today I announce that Mr William (Bill) Paterson, recently returned from Bangkok as Ambassador to Thailand, will be Australia's new Ambassador for Counter-Terrorism. 

Mr Paterson will take up his position, based in Canberra, immediately.

Community resilience also assists in reducing the likelihood of acceptance of violence as a means to achieve social and political change. 

A good example of this work is the Timor-Leste Police Development Program, now managed by the AFP.

It works closely with the Government of East Timor and the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) to strengthen the police service and compliment UNMIT training programs.

It's focused on developing an ethical, well-trained and capable police service, and to improve their support systems, procedures and policy. And it will raise their awareness of, and respect for, human rights.

Building capacity of this nature is time-consuming and resource-intensive, but has security benefits both for Australians and for Australian interests in the region.

Australia's assistance in the domain of building practical, operational security capabilities can also be seen at work throughout the Pacific.

In Papua New Guinea, under the Strongim Gavman Program, previously known as the Enhanced Cooperation Program, Australian officials are working in border management and transport security agencies, providing advice and helping build capacity.

Australian and PNG law enforcement agencies undertake regular joint cross-border patrols in the Torres Strait area.

Separate from the Strongim Gavman Program, twenty AFP officers will later this month begin working in Papua New Guinea as advisers in the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary. 

In the Solomon Islands, the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, or RAMSI, has since 2003 helped restore law and order, removed guns from the community, and assisted in reconstituting the Solomon Islands Police Force.  The RAMSI Participating Police Force, some two thirds of whom are Australian, continues to provide assistance to and capacity training for the Solomon Islands Police Force.

Security at the community level

There is another vital aspect of security, and that is meeting the needs of people at the local, community level.

It's here that much can be done to strengthen the social fabric and create resilience to change and upheaval.  It's an element of the security equation which the Government is strongly focused on.  

Building economic security is very much the context in which Australia's development assistance programs are delivered.

In 2008-09, Australia's total Official Development Assistance expenditure for the East Asia region will be nearly $1 billion, most of it for ASEAN member countries. 

That makes us one of ASEAN's major development assistance partners.

This assistance is both bilateral and regional, and designed to address transnational threats such as people trafficking, illicit drugs, terrorism, infectious diseases and regional economic integration.

Australia is the first ASEAN dialogue partner to take a partnership approach to its development assistance program with ASEAN by placing an AusAID official directly into the ASEAN Secretariat to work with Secretariat officials.

The importance of education

Recently I had the opportunity to see at first hand how our assistance works in Indonesia.

In July, I joined Dr Wirajuda for the opening of a school in Makassar that marked the halfway mark of an ambitious project, under the Australia-Indonesia Partnership, to build or expand 2000 high schools across 20 provinces by the end of 2009.

Australia is funding this program to help Indonesia fulfil its vision that all young Indonesians will have nine years of basic education by 2010. 

Our construction alone will create some 330,000 new places in junior high schools, including in some of the Indonesia's poorest and remote areas.

Australia is also funding training for teachers so they are better qualified to help their students achieve better results.

School principals, education officials and school committees are being trained to improve the way schools are managed and assistance has been provided to improve the national curriculum and examination system.

We're also strengthening our education partnership through a new program to bring together Australian schools and Indonesian schools, classroom to classroom, to help young Australians better understand Indonesia, and vice versa.

This will occur through teacher exchanges and internet-based contact between teachers and students.

The cooperative work we're doing in education is of fundamental importance, not just to support Indonesia's development but to ensure future generations of Australians and Indonesians know and understand each other better. 

The 300 Australian Government development scholarships awarded to Indonesian students each year do more than help them enhance their qualifications. 

They're an investment in greater mutual understanding between our societies.  These alumni of Australian universities make a substantial contribution to their countries on their return. 

From Australia's perspective they are our Ambassadors for life.

Of almost 2400 holders of Australian Government development scholarships currently studying in Australia, 700 are from Indonesia.  Another 330 are from Vietnam, with over 100 each from Laos and the Philippines.

I'd like to give you two more brief examples, from the Philippines and Solomon Islands, respectively, of how Australia is working to improve community access to critical basic services such education and health.

In the Philippines, Australia is helping to improve the quality of basic education and education management, through the Basic Education Assistance for Mindanao, or BEAM, Program. 

This has a strong focus on increasing the access of disadvantaged groups, particularly indigenous peoples, remote communities and Muslim communities, to formal and non-formal education.

Since 2002, nearly 30,000 people have benefited from BEAM's Access programs.  Around 170 Community Learning Centres have been established in remote communities to serve as classrooms for Distance Learning (School of the Air). 

In response to a request from the Philippines' Government to help integrate education for Muslim children into public schools, the BEAM program has since 2005 expanded its assistance to Islamic education. 

In Solomon Islands, our development assistance is contributing to a more robust, representative and capable civil society and encouraging improved standards of governance.

AusAID's Community Sector Program has a budget of A$32 million for the period 2005-10.  It has provided over 50 communities with water and sanitation, and has improved income generation opportunities.

It has also focused on increasing women's roles in decision making, conflict prevention and peace building training within the communities.  Involving women in conflict prevention and peace building has proven to be extremely effective in other areas of conflict.

The Program has also rehabilitated some 200km of roads and 20 bridges, thereby providing a double benefit of improving access to markets for village produce and better access to health facilities.

Youth Ambassadors

Local community need also drives the Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development Program. 

This program sends young Australians to work with local people on community-designed projects. 

They not only make an important contribution to development, but also develop life-long relationships with people from the Asia-Pacific region.

Almost two and a half thousand young Australians have participated in the program since its inception, and we continue to benefit from their experience long after their assignments finish. 

Many return to the country that hosted their placement.  Many commence, or recommence, careers in the development sector. 

Regardless of what path they follow, they all play an important role in raising public awareness of the development issues that confront the countries of our neighbourhood.

In the context of discussing how we go about tangibly demonstrating our commitment to development in the Asia-Pacific, and promoting values which we think reflect what our country has to offer, I must mention the excellent work done by Radio Australia and the Australia Network. 

They represent some of the best forms of cultural outreach. 

They provide audiences with independent content, including English lessons, information about Australia and objective, accurate regional news and current affairs.

Conclusion

The Government is pursuing Australia's security engagement with the region at different levels, from the strategic to the local.

In so doing, we are giving practical expression to our commitment to help shape the region's future for the better.

We're doing so in partnership with our neighbours.

Helping to create the right structures for the future, or helping them emerge from existing ones, is not a process we can afford to watch from the sidelines.

It's in the best tradition of Australian foreign policy that we do this in a way that reflects our values and virtues as a country and as a people.

Thank you.