Can I first acknowledge the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation and pay my respects to elders past and present.
And I want to acknowledge the presence here today of Allan’s family – his wife Catherine, as well as his sons Dominic and Joe and daughter-in-law Chell. Catherine, can I particularly recognise you, and your partnership with Allan for almost 60 years and over three continents. Thank you for being here to continue to honour his memory.
May I also thank the Lowy Institute not only for the service it provides to the Australian people, but for choosing Allan as its first Executive Director.
When Allan's dear friend, Ric Smith, delivered the inaugural Gyngell Lecture, he said that it was here at the Institute where Allan regained his public voice, and it was here where he was seen and heard in a way he deserved.
And we all thank the Institute for that.
But I also want to thank the Institute and the Lowy family for the contribution you make to Australia's public life. Over many years our country has benefited greatly from the wisdom of the Institute's team – and I certainly have.
And Steven, you did me a great honour in inviting me to deliver this lecture in Allan's name and I appreciate it.
Nobody played a bigger role in shaping my view on how to be a foreign minister than Allan Gyngell.
As Shadow Minister, you operate with a large deficit – without many public servants like Jan Adams giving insights into the state of the world and what you should do about it.
So you have to build a network around you. And Allan always made time. He was as generous as he was insightful.
I am glad to pay my respects to him with this lecture today, just as I was glad to have paid respect to him while he was still alive, in my first year as minister. He was my guest at the National Press Club, along with Dominic.
We knew then he was unwell, and I have always believed you should not wait to tell people what they mean to you. So this is what I told the Press Club:
"Allan has been an official and unofficial adviser to governments for decades, always in singular service of Australia's national interest.
He is the definitive historian of Australian foreign policy. He is the finest writer about Australian foreign policy. He is, frankly, the finest mind in Australian foreign policy. And possibly also the smallest ego in Australian foreign policy."
I particularly valued Allan's ability to question, to debate, to agree and to disagree with respect – with respect for those who came from a different perspective.
Allan never pretended questions were simpler in order to make the answers easier. He knew the fiendish complexity of the challenges we face in this world.
And we still miss him.
I said in the Senate after his passing, we particularly miss his commitment to contestability.
The long trend towards polarisation of public discourse has swept up foreign policy debates, and with it has gone much of the room for a constructive discussion about Australia's interests.
See, where we once asked how a conflict might be prevented or brought to an end, we are now asked only whose side we are on.
Where we once debated how to strengthen Australia's hand, we are now too often told we can only choose between a binary that might exist in an arguments, but not in the world.
And these are arguments which are often based on assertions about morals and values.
And indeed, foreign policy must be an expression of who we are, and that includes our values –equally our interests.
There are so many different ideas and concepts I could speak about that Allan contributed to Australian debate, and that continue to serve us today in how we approach the world.
As Michael mentioned, in the last lecture, Ric chose to focus on statecraft – which Allan saw as the visionary and efficient coordination of all elements of national power – which is central to my approach as Foreign Minister.
So the idea of Allan's I want to focus on today is this: that the purpose of our foreign policy is to expand the international space in which a nation can operate, to increase its options and to maximise its choices.
And I want to touch on some of the international and domestic elements of achieving that purpose.
I focus on this purpose because it is more pressing than ever, more pressing than ever in a world where it is increasingly difficult for middle powers and smaller nations to simply hold the strategic space they have, let alone expand it.
In a world where military power, economic coercion, and control of the materials and technologies the world depends on, are used too often to constrain choices.
Allan's view was that Australian governments had consistently worked towards maximising choices through three strands of Australian foreign policy – our alliance with the United States, our region, and the rules and norms of the multilateral system.
In the years since I read Allan's indispensable book, Fear of Abandonment, I had forgotten he concluded these three strands needed to be reconceived. For him, it was clear that the changes to the relative weight and domestic politics in the United States and in China, and the erosion of the multilateral system, meant that the formula was no longer sufficient.
Some of you know I separately came to the same conclusion.
And in my first term as Foreign Minister, I spoke about the need for Australia to build on the legacies of Curtin, Whitlam and Evatt, prioritising the alliance, region and rules.
In building on that legacy, I also sought to modernise that formulation – both what the pillars are, and the order in which we prioritise them.
The first priority must be the region, because this is where Australia has the most on the line – which I will say more about shortly.
The second priority is relationships. It is not enough to exclusively champion the alliance. Our priority since coming to government has been to diversify our relationships, whilst strengthening traditional partnerships with the United Kingdom and the United States.
We have always understood that President Trump envisages a different role for the United States in the world.
Even so, the United States remains the world's largest economic and military power, with daily influence over international events that have consequences for every nation, including Australia.
The alliance expands our strategic options and enables Australia to access US defence capability, technology and intelligence that we could not acquire on our own – including through our force posture cooperation and AUKUS.
This enhances our sovereignty and our agency.
The economic engagement between our countries supports more than 360,000 Australian jobs – with America being our main source of investment and second largest two-way trading partner.
All of this reinforces why being active in shaping the alliance with our most important ally and principal strategic partner is in Australia's national interest.
Yet as we approach today's global challenges we do so with more choices, because for the last four years, the Albanese Government has been doing the hard work of building common ground in more diversified relationships.
It has become fashionable to talk about middle powers, but from the day we were sworn in, amplified middle power diplomacy has been a constant for the Albanese Government.
For the past four years, we have been working harder in existing and in new coalitions.
In the Pacific Islands Forum, ASEAN, G20, APEC – in minilateral groups like CANZ – Canada, Australia, New Zealand – or what the UK coined as the ‘ABC Dialogue' of Australia, Britain and Canada.
As well as MIKTA – Mexico, Indonesia, South Korea, Türkiye and Australia – which we are chairing this year.
We have signed a Security and Defence Partnership with the EU, along with securing a landmark free trade agreement about eight years in the making.
Canada is working with us on critical minerals and artificial intelligence and has bought the radar system that is the largest defence export we have ever sold.
And we are working more closely in the Quad – with two Quad Foreign Ministers Meetings already this year – and delivering our strongest ever commitment to the Pacific through the Quad Ports of the Future Partnership.
The third priority continues to be the rules – recognising as Allan did, that while the multilateral system is declining, it has enduring value to middle powers in particular. There remains a deep need to uphold norms and shape the crucial parts of the international system that we rely on.
One way we have done this is by initiating the Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel, reaffirming the global political commitment to international humanitarian law at a time when it is being sorely tested. And this week, with the additions of Kenya, Vietnam and Guinea-Bissau, 122 countries have now signed the Declaration.
We have been resolute in our support for Ukraine –grounded in our support for the UN Charter.
And of course we always advocate for free, fair and predictable trading arrangements which are critical to both prosperity and to stability.
Last year I added a fourth priority – resilience.
Nations face weaponised supply chains, flagrant disinformation, and foreign interference that seeks to weaken us from within, as well as the challenges posed by artificial intelligence.
AI alone is an era-defining technology - reshaping economies, societies and the dimensions of national power – with benefits and risks in every domain. It is both connecting the globe, and dividing it.
And it will spread faster and disrupt more than any revolutionary technology that preceded it.
So resilience must be a priority for a foreign minister in guarding against external threats to our way of life.
It is through these four priorities that we try to achieve what Allan described as necessary. He said,
"Australia's basic objective in the uncertain times ahead should be to maximise the choices it has: to avoid cutting off options, to tend a more diverse range of markets and partners and to deepen its international engagement."
And the need for this has only become more stark since he said it.
Setting aside the changes in the approaches of the great powers, in the past decade we have seen three global crises in very different domains – the Covid-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz during the Iran war.
You can understand why Allan's word of the year in 2022 was polycrisis. He might have been too polite to suggest a word for 2026.
The benefits of having diversified our partnerships are already clear from these crises.
You may recall during the pandemic, we were critical of the fact that almost 70 countries secured access to vaccines before Australia.
When faced with a fuel crisis because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, we knew Australians could not afford to wait.
We quickly secured additional supplies from Singapore, China, Malaysia, Brunei, the Republic of Korea and Indonesia, whilst committing to support Pacific Island nations in their time of need.
Leveraging the relationships we have strengthened since 2022 and Australia's role and reputation as a reliable supplier of energy and of food.
This is what securing your future in our region looks like.
Having trusted partnerships where you can count on each other in times of need.
Knowing that our neighbours are also grappling with the imperative of maintaining strategic equilibrium - particularly at a time of increasing instability, with military buildup and China's recent ballistic missile tests in the Pacific – without the transparency the region expects.
And understanding our region is the place where Australia has the most to gain and the most to lose. Allan knew this well. He always wanted to see Australia as establishing its security in our region.
He said:
"We were the generation who went to university with the Vietnam War hanging over us and it caused you to pay close attention to the region…
…It never occurred to me that I wanted to go anywhere other than Asia. If you wanted to shape the country's future, Asia was where it was going to matter most."
You have seen the transformational breakthroughs the Albanese Government has been making to build Australia's security in our region.
The Treaty on Common Security with Indonesia, following our Defence Cooperation Agreement.
The Parseria Joint Declaration with Timor-Leste.
And we have upgraded our ties with India, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam.
And this week we received our most important Vietnamese delegation ever – when President Tô Lâm brought a group of some 100 political and business leaders to Australia.
We have signed the Ocean of Peace Alliance and Vuvale Union with Fiji.
The Pukpuk Alliance with Papua New Guinea.
The Nakamal Agreement with Vanuatu.
The Falepili Union with Tuvalu.
And the Nauru-Australia Treaty.
We know that building these relationships in our region – and acting together – gives countries like ours more weight, more influence, and more ability to shape the decisions which affect us.
These agreements help us contribute to a strategic balance of power in our region.
But we must collectively ensure the commitments in those agreements are embodied in every dimension of our relationships: in our security cooperation, in our trade and investment, and in the ties between our peoples.
These relationships must be reinforced, thoughtfully, deliberately, continuously, by every part of government, businesses and the community.
Security is everyone's responsibility.
When Allan spoke about Australia's fear of abandonment in relation to its great alliances – this was not necessarily some kind of diminution of Australia's ambition or opportunity.
To the contrary, Allan saw this fear as a driver – a driver of Australia's world view in rejecting isolationism and being active in the world to shape it, and seeing allies, friends and ad-hoc partners as the best way of doing this.
He knew that ideology and false binaries had no place in Australian foreign policy.
These would only serve to deprive us of choices and opportunity in a world where external forces are constantly trying to reduce our room to move.
So you see, denigrating our region and neglecting our partners is no way to secure Australia's interests.
Neither is encouraging some kind of retreat from the world and the institutions that go with it.
Allan and I shared a view that we had a responsibility to explain the world to Australia, and Australia to the world.
And more than twenty years ago, Allan and Michael Fullilove conceived of the Lowy Institute Poll.
Allan didn't believe that foreign policy thinking should be limited to Canberra or the Cabinet. He cared deeply about engaging the Australian public on the questions of our time.
And the Poll – now an institution in itself – is an important public service.
And this year's Poll shows that whilst social cohesion and public trust is under pressure, Australians still value democracy and multiculturalism.
I've always believed the ability of Australians to connect with people from every part of the world is a national asset.
A national asset that expands our choices in the world.
The call for a monoculture is a call for Australia to curtail our choices and to cut off our connections…
To look inwards, to have no friends to work with, no partners to trade with, and no opportunities to grow from.
It is to be lonely in a dangerous world.
But well before we could ever realise this melancholic fantasy of monoculture, there is a lot of damage that could be done.
Because Australians would be turned against each other.
Australia would be a more hostile place. Harder to be family, harder to be friend, colleague, or neighbour.
At a time where external and internal forces are seeking to divide us, turning Australians against each other makes us more vulnerable.
Division makes us easier to exploit, it does not make us stronger.
Turning Australians against each other is the opposite of patriotism.
You see, our resilience starts with how we choose to live together.
It starts with choosing to respect that while we have taken different roads, we all are worthy of a place here.
It starts with respecting that multicultural Australia is the only Australia that has ever existed.
It comes from choosing to see each other as equals with a shared stake in our nation's future.
It seems so obvious to say, but loving Australia means loving our fellow Australians…
Whether we are descended from people who have been here for tens of thousands of years, or two hundred years, or two years.
Such a true love of Australia grounds our resilience, and makes us harder to exploit.
That is the love of Australia we have always seen in this Institute's founder, Frank Lowy.
It says a great deal about Australia that a Holocaust survivor could start anew here, and build one of our most successful international companies.
Just as it says something about Australia that a Malaysian-born woman is standing here as your foreign minister.
And that Australia's World Cup campaign this year was opened by a Burundian refugee.
Immigrants have strengthened and enriched our nation.
Whether they enrich our nation by starting a business.
Or whether they help us realise the opportunity of living in the fastest growing region in the world.
Half of us were born overseas or have a parent who was.
More than a million Australians trace their families to Southeast Asia, and more again to South and North Asia.
No other country I have visited can meet this region so naturally on its own terms.
We are more prosperous because of our diversity.
And we have more choices because of it.
We are more capable in the world, and we are more able to find common ground with so many of the world's people because of it.
Our multicultural society, along with our economy and our democratic institutions, are essential elements of our resilience and their strength raises the costs for any who seek to coerce us.
So those who seek to divide us for clicks and votes should know they make us weaker at home and more vulnerable in the world.
Allan wrote:
"…Isolationism has never been a significant strand in Australian thinking. The country has not seen its security as best served by withdrawing from the world. This has generated in Australian foreign policy a practical and activist bent, a belief that it is preferable to try to shape outcomes in the world rather than wait to be shaped by them."
This has been an enduring theme of my approach to the world since I was sworn in four years ago.
There are so many reasons why I mourn not having Allan's counsel as we navigate these turbulent times, but if you'll indulge me just one.
As I said to the National Press Club, I think it's nearly three years ago, and as I repeated today: Allan was the definitive historian of Australian foreign policy.
And his book covers all of my predecessors, but I'll never get to see the chapter he would have written about these times.
Or heard his take on our way of trying to ensure that Australia has choices and options through the region, relationships, rules and resilience.
But his closest collaborator in his final years, Dr Darren Lim, who is here today, wrote last year with Hannah Nelson about my recasting of Australia's priorities as region, relationships, rules and resilience. And they said:
The four Rs look to carve out that space in a more dangerous and fluid era. Allan would surely have approved.
I'll have to take your word for it Darren, but I do hope that is true.
Thank you.