Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Hour by hour, sometimes. It is important when we are considering big questions like should Australia be involved in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank that we think not about the short-term politics of these questions but about what is in our interests in the decades to come. We need to have a road map to make those decisions wisely. When Labor were in government we put a lot of effort into the Asian century white paper to give us, as a nation, the sort of road map we need to think decades ahead. Sadly there has been an electronic book burning of the Asian century white paper. If the government is serious about engagement in our region and particularly about making the most of the economic benefits of being part of the fastest growing region on earth, then they need, similarly, a long-term road map—a strategy for engagement in our region which, sadly, I do not see at the moment. There needs to be a plan not for how we are responding to the politics of this week or this cabinet meeting but how are we positioning ourselves for the decades to come. Australia and China do have very complementary economies. Many people have spoken about this in the past. We have benefited greatly from China's fantastic success in raising hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. We know that the Chinese economy is changing to be more focused on consumption, and that gives us opportunities for the services industry in particular but many other economic opportunities as well. Because of the changes in the Chinese economy, it has to be part of our long-term thinking, not part of our short-term politics.

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