Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I've always understood that the maintenance and support of the global rules based order has been a matter of bipartisanship between the parties of government in this country. It underpins our national interest as a global trading nation—which relies on things such as the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, freedom of navigation on the high seas, in international waters—and is the basis upon what this country does its exports and imports, the basis upon so much of the prosperity of our nation and so much of our national income. It's by virtue of that that the Royal Australian Navy does so much of its work in the South China Sea and the East China Sea to assert freedom of navigation, the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas, on the high seas so that those trade routes, which are fundamental—

See this speech in context