Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Recently I have been fortunate to do a bit of travelling—indeed, some rather extensive travelling in the Asia-Pacific—and it has caused me reflect upon the nature of our country, Australia, and how much it has changed in the last generation, and how much the relationship between Australia and the Asia-Pacific has changed, because it has changed so very much.

The Australia where I was born, grew up and went to school and university was a great country but always a bit sleepy back then. It was somewhat insular—prosperous and comfortable—but not always self-confident and not always self-assured. Industries were protected and prices, particularly for imported goods, were very high. Overseas travel then was a luxury. In many ways the country was still feasting off the glories of yesteryear. If it was not riding on the sheep's back then it was lounging very comfortably on its fleece. We were in the region, but we were not really of the region. Memories of war and colonial experience were still fresh and still coloured views and relations from both sides.

But you cannot say that today. What happened? What changed over, let us say, the last 25 years? There is no doubt that transport and the communication revolution helped to finally subdue what Geoffrey Blainey described as 'the tyranny of distance'. Sure, mobile phones and the internet have helped enormously to subdue the tyranny of distance. But we should not forget that it was the reforms of successive Australian governments over the course of the past three decades that transformed Australia into the much more open, much more confident and much more successful nation that it is today.

In the 1980s—I know we are going back 30 years here—both Labor and the coalition realised that the old institutional arrangements that had really carried Australia since Federation had outlived their usefulness and were no longer enough to guarantee Australia's place in the sun. Those guarantees were diminishing and in some cases they were over. Reforming the economy, opening Australia to the world and liberalising trade and investment were initiated largely by the Labor government—and they should be acknowledged for that—but supported in a bipartisan spirit by the Liberal and National coalition, which understood it was in the national interest that changes be made lest Australia be left behind in the Asia-Pacific, which was then itself just starting to emerge from slumber.

We laugh and we shake our heads now, but how well I recall the then Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Kwan Yew, make his observation about Australia in 1980. He said Australia was destined to become 'the poor white trash of Asia'. That is what Mr Lee said in 1980. And he was wrong. He is still alive today and he acknowledges that he was wrong. But if Australia had not changed, if we had not embarked on serious reform, today we would be the world's largest trailer park. We would be second rate and a second-rate country. Sadly, the bipartisan spirit of economic reform was rarely apparent as the Howard government continued the reform agenda. Over the past years of the Rudd, Gillard and then Rudd governments, the reform instinct has largely disappeared from public policy as Labor confused tax increases for economic reform.

But in the same way as Australia continues to survive natural disasters, we have survived Labor governments. I am confident that the new Abbott government will progress the national interest in a steadfast and appropriate way. In the meantime, Australia continues to enjoy the fruits of visionary work and tough decisions of past governments which have set our country on a new and better course. Australians today enjoy a higher standard of living than they did when I was growing up. It is a much higher standard of living. We have far more opportunities in education, in work and in life generally. We can buy a lot more things and we can buy them more cheaply. We can travel and communicate much more easily. When I look back to the 1970s and 1980s, I sometimes have to pinch myself when I see how far Australia has come. This is not said in any partisan fashion at all. Australia has been one of the most successful nations on earth over the last 30 years.

Let us face it, that is because of a bipartisan spirit of economic reform. It has changed this country enormously. We can go to the world, but also, the world can come to us much more readily. We export not just wool and coal, but highly sought after products, talent and ideas. We are much more at ease with the world because we are much more comfortable in our own skin. When I was growing up, my friends would always tug their forelock to Europe or the United States or somewhere else. They always wanted to be somewhere else, never in Australia. But today, that is far less apparent. Australians tug their forelocks to no-one. It is precisely because we are now economically confident and socially confident that we can progress initiatives like the New Colombo Plan, which is one of the flagship programs of the Abbott government.

You will be aware that the New Colombo Plan aims to provide young Australian undergraduate students at university the opportunity to study and work in the Asia-Pacific. It is a wonderful opportunity for young Australians. I studied overseas more than 25 years ago now. In my generation, nearly everyone who was lucky enough to study overseas went to the United Kingdom, to the United States or perhaps to Canada. You were somewhat quirky if you went somewhere else. Certainly, if you went to a university in the Asia-Pacific, that was considered quite unusual. But haven't things changed? That is no longer the case. Whereas I saw my future, my opportunities, bound up—it seems strange now, but bound up—with Britain, with the United States or more broadly with Europe, most young Australians today see the future bound up much more in their region, whether it is China, India or the Asia-Pacific more generally. That is an enormous change in just 25 years.

The New Colombo Plan heralds a new age of discovery. Much of Australian historical opinion, if not hagiography, commonly credits Mr Whitlam and Mr Keating with having discovered Asia. But as I like to remind this chamber, not surprisingly not many people realise that the original pioneers of Australia's rendezvous with our region were liberal politicians such as Sir Robert Menzies, Sir Paul Hasluck and, later, Lord Casey. Their efforts predate the involvement of those two Labor prime ministers. The coalition continues to build on that very important legacy. The New Colombo Plan is another sign that under a coalition government Australia is determined to have a mature, respectful and productive relationship with our neighbours. It is different today; the world is different. In 2013, such a relationship needs to be based on reciprocity and mutuality.

For centuries, for about 500 years since the days of Marco Polo and Vasco de Gama, the West had met the East largely to possess its treasures, initially through trade and then through colonisation. Spices, tea, silk, porcelain and later rubber, oil and cheap electronics flowed to satisfy the West's appetite for the exotic. This subsequently fuelled the Industrial Revolution and later a mass-consumption society. That was the initial relationship between East and West. Where the goods went, people soon followed. Just as hardworking Asian labourers had crossed the oceans to build American railways, extract Australian gold and fill English textile factories so had the continent's young and ambitious sought the benefits of Western education and Western opportunities. This included the tens of thousands who took advantage of Australia's original Colombo Plan, and the millions who have studied in Australia ever since.

But today, this traffic is no longer one way. The coalition's New Colombo Plan is animated, and this is a big change. It is animated by the acknowledgement that the playing field has now evened out and that Asia and the West, including Australia, are equal partners in building the future. We can learn from one another and benefit from one another, which is why the key aspect of the relationship is exchange and two-way mobility.

No longer is it a matter of the West teaching all to the East. It is now a matter of trading perspectives and learning from each other. As I said before, it is only because as a nation we are more comfortable in our own skin, more confident and therefore more at ease with the world, that we can truly engage with Asia. We have changed so much in just 25 years. The New Colombo Plan aims to lift knowledge of the Asia-Pacific region in Australia, and strengthen our people-to-people and institutional relationships through studying internships undertaken by Australian undergraduate students in the region.

Our country is one of the great providers of tertiary education to many countries across the world. In fact, Australia continues to educate more students from overseas per head of population than any other nation on earth. In terms of sheer numbers, Australia teaches the third highest number of students from overseas in our tertiary institutions right now and we also do it very, very well. We will continue to do that, but we also want to see our undergraduate students consider studying overseas for part of their course, becoming familiar with our neighbours' languages and their cultures and benefiting with work experience opportunities on the ground. As foreign minister Julie Bishop has said, the government wants to see study in the Asia-Pacific region become a 'right of passage' for Australian undergraduate students and an endeavour that is highly valued right across the Australian community.

Funded by $100 million, the New Colombo Plan will commence in 2015 after a pilot phase in 2014. Japan, Indonesia, Singapore as well as Hong Kong are being invited to participate in the pilot phase. The success of this program will rely on close cooperation between governments, universities and businesses in Australia and throughout the region. The new architecture of these regional agreements can no longer just be government to government; it has to be now government to government, bureaucrats to bureaucrats, universities to universities, business to business and non-government organisations to non-government organisations, and so forth. It has to have many streams because governments cannot make this work; it will take the cooperation of many.

The New Colombo Plan is a good illustration of the coalition government's focus on Asia. As the Prime Minister said during the election campaign:

Decisions which impact on our national interests will be made in Jakarta, in Beijing, in Tokyo, in Seoul, as much as they will be made in Washington.

As Australia continues to welcome hundreds of thousands of international students, and I hope we always will continue to, it is time that the Marco Polos and Vasco da Gamas of our generation Y venture out from our friendly ports and into the wide world, this time not to look for spices and silk but for knowledge and work.

A few weeks ago I was lucky enough to visit Japan, where I spoke to government officials and business leaders about the New Colombo Plan. I can tell you they are very excited about it; they liked the idea. They want to see more young Australians in Japan because they too understand that Japan needs to become more open to the world. As Japan helps Australian students become more Asia ready, Australian students will help Japan become better prepared to truly embrace the globalised world. The approach of the Abe government is much more outward looking for a Japanese government, and that dovetails very nicely with the New Colombo Plan and our idea of sending undergraduate students to Japan. So the Japanese government was particularly enthusiastic about it. I know that the enthusiasm is equally great in the other three pilot countries: Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia. I know from speaking with government officials in other Asia-Pacific countries that they are also very keen to come on board in 2015 and subsequent years.

In three decades, thanks to the political courage and wisdom of a number of politicians from both sides of politics, Australia went from the verge of becoming the poor white trash of Asia to one of the region's great success stories and a much desired partner for our neighbours in trade, investment, energy, education, tourism, culture and many other spheres of life—all within about a generation and not much more. I believe the New Colombo Plan will build on the success we have had in remaking our country and will go towards securing our shared future in the Asia-Pacific.

As this is my first chance to speak in the 44th Parliament, I thought I would say something positive. I believe that over the last 30 years there was very much a bipartisan approach in many areas of economic reform and there is no doubt that that set Australia on a course for sustainable growth, and that that is one of the principal reasons Australia is now one of the great success stories in the world. It is not something that any Australian should ever forget. We are a much, much better country than we were in 1980 and that is really thanks to decisions taken by governments of both stripes, often against the public will. Sometimes governments need to lead and let us just hope that the Abbott government can.