E&OE
19 February 2009
Opening remarks introducing Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Dr Hassan Wirajuda, at the 20th Anniversary of the Australia-Indonesia Institute
SMITH: Thank you, Geraldine, to the Prime Minister, to the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Indonesia, Hassan Wirajuda, to our other Ministerial and Parliamentary colleagues, to our respective Ambassadors, to Tim Lindsey, the Chair of the Australia-Indonesia Institute, excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
It's my very great pleasure this evening and my very great honour to formally introduce Hassan Wirajuda to reply to the Prime Minister's remarks.
Today Hassan and I had a formal bilateral meeting. This is the eighth bilateral meeting we've had since December 2007: variously in Dili, Jakarta, Perth, Canberra, Sydney, Singapore, New York and Lima.
And that doesn't count the bilateral we had in the back of the car on the way to South Sulawesi when we opened the school together.
So I've come to know him well. Anyone you do a bilateral with, on average sort of every six or seven weeks, you come to know well and learn to appreciate values and virtues.
Hassan and I share a very strong conviction: that the Australia-Indonesia relationship has never been at a better or higher level. I think there are three reasons for that.
Firstly there are very many years of hard work and application and dedication to the relationship by many people, Australians and Indonesians, very many of them in this room. And the most recent contribution reflected by the 20th anniversary of the Australia-Indonesia Institute which we celebrate tonight and we congratulate Tim and the current members and all the past members for that contribution.
Secondly, I think was the signing of the Lombok Treaty in Perth in early 2008 and thirdly, an appreciation that there may well be things that we came at from a different perspective, issues where we might have a different view but these were things which didn't need to strike at the fundamentals of the relationship or cause us any great consternation. I think it's now that appreciation which provides the relationship with such ballast.
One of the early comments I heard from Hassan, which is such a good line, I think it's now ascribed to the President, to SBY, was this very wise, gentle, quiet contribution across the table where he said, Stephen, Indonesia and Iceland have a perfect relationship, we're so far away we have nothing in common and therefore our relationship is perfect.
The closer you get the more you have to work at it, the more the potential there is for a differing view but I think given now the state of the relationship, the solidity of the relationship through the Lombok Perth Treaty and the appreciation that there are things we can differ about if we want to, which doesn't affect adversely the relationship, is the measure of where we now are.
There are two risks when you have a relationship of that order. One is complacency, and the second is surprise.
People don't need to worry that there'll be complacency from the Government of Australia or the Government of Indonesia. This is, I think, one of those rare relationships where the government to government activity, the government to government contact, has actually gotten ahead of the people to people exchanges.
A lot of the conversations that Hassan and I would have with our counterparts are where we think the relationships government to government have fallen behind the people to people contacts, the economic and commercial exchanges, and governments need to catch up. Here we need to make sure that our people catch up, that the people to people exchanges get to the same level that our government to government relationships have and that's why this conference is so important.
It's also, I think, important that Hassan himself is here. He has been Foreign Minister of Indonesia for nearly a decade, over a period where we have seen Indonesia transform to a modern, vibrant, tolerant democracy that is now quite rightfully taking its place in the world as a strong voice: a voice that reflects values and virtues and characteristics that we admire so much.
And there'll be many people in the pages of history who are recorded as having made a substantial contribution to the development of the Republic of Indonesia and a substantial contribution to the bilateral relationship between Australia and Indonesia. Hassan, you'll be one of them and I'd like you now to come to the podium and make some remarks and reply to the Prime Minister.
Thank you
[Ends]
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