Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I commend Prime Minister Albanese for his warm welcome for our guest of honour and his wife, Diana. Mr Speaker, I have a confession. I knew our guest of honour long before he became the Prime Minister of Canada. It was 1991. The Berlin Wall had fallen. The Cold War was all but over. In that atmosphere, two young, somewhat idealistic students met in an economics post-graduate course at Oxford. The bond was immediate. Both were from provincial backgrounds—Alberta, famous for its cattle, and southern New South Wales, famous for its sheep. Both were from families who cherished the value of education. Both were quietly cynical about the pompous Poms and the boisterous Yanks sauntering around Oxford. And, despite our different politics today, we both shared a healthy distaste for Soviet sympathisers.

There we were, a Canadian and an Australian, regularly sitting next to each other in class, you sporting black eyes from ice hockey and me sporting bruises and cuts from rugby. But Mark's thesis was of great interest to the professors, whereas I wrote mine on the price of beer—of far greater interest to our student friends. Back then, I don't think either of us imagined a life like this in politics. One of life's great joys is seeing old friends do well. So it gives me immense joy to see Canada led by an old friend, a man of the highest calibre, utterly devoted to his country.

Prime Minister Carney, with your presence here today we celebrate a remarkable bilateral relationship. While our eyes are on the horizon, we also take this moment to look behind us. Our democracies are the gift of British inheritance. It was the pragmatic, enlightened and accommodating nature of British stewardship that nurtured within our colonies self-identity, self-government and, ultimately, sovereign nationhood. With your presence here today, we acknowledge Canada's and Australia's mutual inheritance and two great constitutional monarchies.

Australia was fortunate to look to the example of the Canadian Confederation as we forged our own federation. Our federation debates were robust. One of our founding fathers said:

… we shall find the Canadian Constitution is about the best basis that we can select.

Another founding father had a very different view, saying:

… in no regard can we look upon the example of Canada as one to be imitated.

But, whether Australia's founding fathers praised or criticised the Canadian model, they learned from Canada and yearned for what Canadians had achieved. Prime Minister Carney, with your presence here today we say with gratitude that Canada helped shape the Australian nation. We are two great democracies that have successfully woven together the Indigenous, colonial and migrant threads of our societies.

Over the course of 125 years, our two nations have known a steadfast, stable and mutually supportive partnership. In peacetime and in wartime, in good times and in tough times, as we've just heard, our two peoples have known a deep and abiding friendship. Our partnership and friendship are testimony to the many achievements over many generations in trade and in business, in sharing intelligence and in sharing industriousness, in fighting our enemies and in fighting bushfires. Since you've become Prime Minister of Canada, I've admired many of the decisions you've taken that are grounded in economic realism: removing the consumer carbon tax, getting immigration under control and ensuring it's conducive to social cohesion, and a deregulation agenda that supports business and industry.

Your speech in Switzerland in January was a much-needed wake-up call for middle powers of the West. You, Prime Minister Carney, said we're at a turning point, and we must indeed 'stop invoking rules-based international order as though it functions as advertised'. I'd go further. The rules-based international order has been exposed as wishful thinking of a bygone and benign era, especially in these times when autocratic regimes act with impunity. I wholeheartedly agree with you; in this brave new world, middle powers cannot simply build higher walls and retreat behind them. We must work together. We must act together, closer than ever, on defence, on secure supply chains and sovereign capabilities, on maintaining free trade. As you said, the strength of our values matter and the value of our strength matters. It's that moral clarity that must guide us and protect our way of life.

Prime Minister Carney, on behalf of the coalition and the federal opposition, it's a privilege and a pleasure to welcome you to the Australian parliament—and, from one old friend to another, it's great to see you, mate.

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