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

I thank the member for his question. Today the Prime Minister is in Kuala Lumpur, attending the ASEAN leaders meeting and the East Asia Summit, and later in the week he will be in Korea attending APEC. East Asia and South-East Asia are very important to Australia's national security, but it is utterly evident that the Asia-Pacific region and South-East Asia, specifically, are completely central to Australia's modern economic story. What we see in terms of activity is that East Asia is the fastest growing area in the world. ASEAN, on its own, by 2040 will be the fourth-largest economy on the planet, and three-quarters of Australia's trade is derived from the APEC region. When our prime minister is over there, he is fighting for Australian jobs right here.

That is what he was doing last week when he met with President Trump, where the closeness and the trust in our relationship with America were so palpable. We have a deep economic relationship with the United States. America remains our largest two-way investment partner. Today, Australia has the lowest American tariff of any country in the world. That's why all of this should be above partisan politics. In turn, it is why, when Labor have been in opposition, we have always wanted the coalition government of the day to succeed. Historically, that's actually been the case for the coalition as well—until now, where it has been absolutely obvious that those opposite have been completely desperate for our government to fail in the management of our relationship with the United States.

That is now their prerogative, but those in the gallery should understand that what this represents is a historic departure for any major party of government in this country in terms of its support for the Australia-United States relationship. There have been some voices of maturity on the other side, but that definitely does not include the Leader of the Opposition. This is one of the clearest demonstrations that, right now, the Liberals are just broken. Australia deserves better. So, while those opposite are busy eating themselves, we will get on with the serious business of managing these critical relations which are central to our economic prosperity and which help keep Australia safe.

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