Meryl Swanson (Paterson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence. What is being done to build Australia's standing in the Indo-Pacific, to play our part in protecting regional security and the rules based international order?

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

I thank the member for her question and acknowledge her commitment to the defence families of our country. On Monday I represented Australia at the inaugural Korea-Pacific leaders' summit in Seoul, which was a welcome step forward in Korea's engagement with the countries of the Pacific Island Forum. I was able to hear from and speak with most of the Pacific's leaders.

Security in the Pacific is grounded in the 2018 Boe Declaration, which has as its heart the idea that the Pacific security should come from the Pacific family itself, which is a profoundly important principle.

But of all the security threats that are faced by the countries of the Pacific, far and away the greatest is the existential threat of climate change faced by the countries of the Pacific. That is why the change in Australia's policy, under the Albanese government, of putting our country on a serious path to net zero emissions by 2050 has completely transformed our relationship with the countries of the Pacific, which is so important in terms of our own national security.

Yesterday I met with Korea's President Yoon and defence minister Jong-sup Lee. In November Korea published its own Indo-Pacific strategy, and, seen alongside the Defence Strategic Review and our government's response to it, the similarity in the way in which both of our countries are seeing the world is really remarkable. We both understand that our respective nations' security lies in the collective security of the region in which we live and the maintenance of the global rules based order within that region. We have a huge economic relationship with Korea. They are our fourth largest trading partner. So yesterday Minister Lee and I decided that the 2011 defence MOU, which underpins our defence relationship, should be revitalised but, more significantly, upgraded so that our defence partnership reflects the significance of our overall bilateral relationship. He and I will have an opportunity to meet on a number of occasions over the coming months to pursue this, the first of which will be this weekend at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore. The keynote speaker at that dialogue will be the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister and I are heading off to Singapore tomorrow.

This affirms the seriousness with which Australia is now being taken within the world. When we came to office, just over a year ago, Australia was drifting in a sea of broken relationships. But over the last 12 months all of that has changed as Australia has taken its rightful place at— (Time expired)