Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the House I welcome, as guests, the President of the Senate and honourable senators to this sitting of the House of Representatives to hear an address by the Rt Hon. Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada. Serjeant-at-Arms, please escort our guest to the chamber.

The Rt Hon. Mark Carney having been announced and escorted into the chamber—

Prime Minister, I welcome you to the House of Representatives. Your address today is a significant occasion in the history of this House.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My friend, Prime Minister Carney, and Madame Fox Carney, it is my great honour and an absolute pleasure to welcome you and all the members of your delegation to our parliament on behalf of the people of Australia. I know that I speak for every member of this place when I say we are very much looking forward to your address.

It may help you to know that, back in 1839, Britain sentenced 58 French Canadians involved in the rebellion in Quebec to be transported to New South Wales and put to work widening Parramatta Road, which goes through my local electorate in Sydney and past Canada Bay in the electorate of the member for Reid. In 1854, it was a Canadian, Henry Ross, who stood in the centre of the Eureka Stockade at Ballarat and raised a new flag—the iconic Southern Cross, a symbol of the miners' struggle for justice. In other words, Prime Minister, Canadian rebels with bold ideas have always been welcome here in Australia—there's always a context—and that is because our countries have always recognised something of ourselves in each other. We are two societies enriched by indigenous cultures and their love of and connection to the beauty of our lands and our waters; Commonwealth countries that have forged unique, proud and independent identities; democracies that did not just adopt the Westminster system—we made it fairer, stronger and our own; and two nations that are at our very best when we look over our wide horizons, when we look out to the world and bring our values with us as we engage with it.

The first Australian prime minister to address a joint sitting of the Canadian parliament was our great, wartime Labor leader John Curtin, standing in your House of Commons on 1 June 1944, just five days before Australians would help Canadians take and hold Juno Beach. Curtin looked to the future those brave men were fighting for, to how to secure a lasting peace worth the winning, to how to build an economy and society worthy of the service, sacrifice and suffering of those who had kept it free and to the role that Australia and Canada had to play in this. Curtin said this:

In a world where none of us is strong enough to stand alone, we shall discover how—and by what means—we can best stand with and for each other.

More than eight decades on, even in a new world order, that old test endures. Technology is changing the nature of conflict and heightening the risk and cost of escalation. And, if ever nations such as ours had the luxury of imagining that distance alone kept us safe, those days are certainly gone. The same Iranian regime launching indiscriminate attacks on nations across the Middle East orchestrated antisemitic terrorist attacks on a synagogue and a small business here in Australia in 2024. For us, as two democracies in an age of polarisation, as two dynamic trading nations in a time of disrupted supply chains and as two middle powers in an era of strategic competition, Australia and Canada must seek and create new ways to stand with and for each other.

Prime Minister, for all the comfortable ties of old affection, what makes the friendship between Australia and Canada noteworthy is what we do not share. We do not share a border, a region, a hemisphere or any market smaller than the global one. Yet this makes the connection between our countries more meaningful, not less, because our cooperation, our partnership, is a positive choice, not a necessity. When we work together, it is on the basis of our shared convictions, not mutual convenience. When we do, when we stand in solidarity with the brave people of Ukraine, when we work together to seize the economic opportunities of clean energy, when we strengthen our defence industry cooperation—including through Australia's biggest ever defence export, the world leading over-the-horizon radar technology—and when we face up to the urgent global challenge of climate change—because we know what it means for our unique environments, for our farmers, growers and producers and for our firefighters, who, for decades, have travelled between our nations to help each other in the toughest of times and now face the prospect of their fire seasons overlapping because of climate change—when we act together, we demonstrate to our citizens that government is not a passive institution; it is an instrument for positive change. What's more, when we send a message to all those nations that look to us as equals, as peers, as neighbours and as leaders, they too have a choice, agency and a part to play because peace, security and prosperity are not the preserve of the great powers alone; they are our common cause and our collective responsibility.

Prime Minister, Australia and Canada are middle powers in a world that is changing. We cannot change it back, but we can back ourselves, back our citizens and back each other. Your visit reflects our shared ambition for Australia and Canada to do more together at a deeper level and to build on our shared strengths, from our resources and critical minerals to defence technology and the investing power of our superannuation and pension funds. Prime Minister, in this decade, where nearly every single challenge is indeed a global one, the distance between our two nations has never mattered less and the closeness of our values has never mattered more. Together, let us seize the opportunities that the world holds for us. You are very welcome here in our parliament today. I thank you for your ongoing friendship and our regular dialogue. You'll be welcome in Australia always.

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to 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.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Prime Minister Carney, it gives me great pleasure to invite you to address the House of Representatives.

Rt Hon. MARK CARNEY (Prime Minister of Canada) (10:48): Prime Minister Albanese, thank you—and to Jodie—for this warm welcome and for this great honour. Leader of the Opposition Taylor, thank you for reminding me of the importance of beer and competition! In terms of 'deflating the palms', I would recall our meeting with Prime Minister Starmer, our trilateral, at a time of great consequence, where it was around drinks, and Prime Minister Albanese brought four of Australia's finest tins—which just happened to bear his name.

Mr Speaker, President, honourable members and senators, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for this warm welcome of me, my wife and my colleagues to Australia. Let me also thank the Australian firefighters who are here in this chamber today. They came to my home province of Alberta when we faced record wildfires last summer. It is all too common, but what is also common is that action, that heroism. It is just as Australian firefighters have done for Canadians over the years. This is just one of the many testaments to the profound and practical friendship between our two nations.

Friends, it is a distinct honour and privilege to address this parliament, one of the world's great chambers of democracy and a testament, as both previous speakers indicated, to our shared Commonwealth heritage. Allow me a few words in Canada's other official language.

The Prime Minister of Canada then spoke French—

Canada and Australia are great friends, and have been for a very long time. Trust is the central cornerstone of our relationship. When Canada and Australia act in unison, we make a big difference. In these times of rupture, our collaboration is even more strategic. We can each reinforce our sovereignty and, in doing so, deliver tangible results for our citizens, all of them, as well as for our economies [end translation].

Mr Speaker, the last time a Canadian prime minister stood here, it was a different era with different challenges. It was 2007, the eve the global financial crisis—a crisis through which Australia and Canada sailed. We sailed through that storm because of the soundness of our banks, the probity of our public finances and the resourcefulness of our people. While much has changed since then, these qualities endure, as does the friendship between our nations. Although we could not be further physically apart, Canada and Australia are strategic cousins. We may look to different skies—the North Star in our hemisphere, the Southern Cross in yours—but we have the same orientation. We share a common heritage, have developed a common perspective and can build a common future together—two sovereign nations, two proud democracies: the true north and land down under—navigating with the same values.

As the Prime Minister indicated, what makes our relationship rare is that it was not built by geography or by great-power design. It was chosen repeatedly over centuries. In the mud of Flanders, on the shores of Normandy, in the hills of Korea and the valleys of Kandahar, Canadians and Australians have stood by each other when the hour was darkest and victory most in doubt. We have done so because we believe that people everywhere deserve to live freely, to govern themselves and to determine their own futures and that these values are worth defending, even at great cost.

Together, we helped to build the post-war international system, to draft the UN charter and to create a global economic order that brought prosperity to our peoples. We helped write its rules, from Basile to Brisbane. We were at the table when the G20 was formed, when the Trans-Pacific Partnership was negotiated and when the standards governing trade, finance and security were all set. Yes, that system wasn't perfect, but it functioned—keeping sea lanes open, resolving disputes, growing trade and investment and narrowing the gaps between rich and poor across the world. With that global architecture now breaking down from consecutive crises I've come to Australia, at your invitation, to reaffirm our alliance and to suggest where it can go next, because it's my fundamental belief as a result of optimism I've picked up from people from this great country that from this rupture we can build something better, more prosperous, more resilient and more just.

It's often observed that we have much in common: the Westminster system, federalism, common law, the Crown. Yet the foundations of our relationship go much deeper. We intuitively understand how each other's systems work, how power is constrained, how our institutions function and the values that underpin them. This is the product of decades, centuries, of parallel development, common inheritance and continuous exchange between our peoples. It's not something that can be replicated by a treaty or sustained by rhetoric. On this common foundation, we have built civic nations and societies held together not by blood or soil and not by a single faith or culture but by something more demanding and durable: a shared commitment to live together, to accommodate our differences and to pursue the common good.

Canada's founding insight is that unity does not require uniformity, that we can share a country without conforming to a single identity and that our differences, honestly acknowledged and respectfully navigated, are a source of strength. Australia arrived at the same destination by its own path. Let us remember that Australia was the first nation in the world to give women the right to vote and to stand for parliament. Your example has inspired the world ever since, and that act of democratic extension—choosing to widen the circle rather than guard its edges—is the fundamental instinct that drives our common civic nationalism. Our two nations were built by risk-takers, by voyageurs, by drovers, by adventurers and by people whose families left everything behind to start again. They crossed oceans with uncertain prospects to bet on themselves and bet on each other. That commitment to building something together rather than resting on something inherited is bred in the bone of our national characters.

Of course, we are both nations still in the making. The important work of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples is ongoing. We continue to strive so that everyone has equal opportunities regardless of gender, race, sexual orientation or starting point in their lives. This work is not the sign of weakness; rather, it is the product of a confidence and honesty that acknowledges when we fall short and relentlessly strives to do better. The institutional depth we share, our friendship forged by shared values and common battles, creates a trust. It is also a strategic asset. It is a source of power, and the question today for middle powers like us is whether we establish the conventions and help write the new rules that will determine our security and prosperity or let the hegemons dictate outcomes.

In the new global environment, the ability to form effective coalitions is becoming a central strategic capability. Great powers can compel, but compulsion comes with costs, both reputational and financial. Middle powers can convene, but not everyone can. In the post-rupture world, the nations that are trusted and can work together will be quicker to the punch, more effective in their responses and more proactive in shaping outcomes, and ultimately those countries will be more secure and prosperous. Middle powers like Australia and Canada hold this rare convening power because others know we mean what we say and we will match our values with our actions. This has been earned by those before us throughout our history.

The question is now: what do we do with it? Canada is choosing to create a dense web of connections to build our resilience. We've adopted a new framework for engaging the world—variable geometry, creating different coalitions for different issues based on common values and interests for those issues. This is not a retreat from multilateralism; it is its evolution. To be clear, Canada's support for the United Nations, Bretton Woods institutions and the multilateral system is, like Australia's, unwavering. But, while we are committed to reforms of these institutions in order to better reflect today's world, we need coalitions now to address immediate challenges. As those coalitions work, they will help demonstrate the power of multilateralism and reinvigorate it.

The fact is, right now, many countries are concluding that they must develop greater strategic autonomy. This impulse is understandable. When the rules no longer protect you, you must defend yourself. A country that can't feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself has few options. But, in the 21st century, the requirements for the economic security and prosperity of our countries extend far beyond food, conventional energy and defence, as important as these are. Today, sovereignty requires reliable access to space based communications and storage, vaccines, semiconductors, payment systems and capital. Because governments and businesses went for decades prioritising efficiency over resilience, we've developed supply chains and trading relationships that create dependencies on the great powers, sometimes even individual corporations, all of these affecting essential elements of our sovereignty. As that integration is weaponised, this creates fundamental vulnerabilities. In response, Canada's strategic imperative is to build sovereign capabilities in these critical sectors at home and in coalition with trusted, reliable partners, like Australia, to ensure that integration is never again the source of our subordination.

Let me, in the spirit of the Leader of the Opposition, move from the theoretical to the practical. I'll give five examples of this variable geometry in practice. The first is in critical minerals. Canada and Australia are the world's two most reliable and like-minded mining giants. We are both committed to sustainability. We have each developed the most advanced extractive ecosystems, all of which range from prospecting to engineering, logistics and capital markets. We're blessed with abundance of foundational metals that power the batteries, the EVs, the smartphones and the AI systems of this century. Together, we produce one-third of global lithium, one-third of global uranium and 40 per cent of iron ore. In fairness, that's largely you—but we'll take credit for it! We have a combined war chest right now of $25 billion to fast-track global projects. Globally, we're 1 and 2 as the most attractive mining investment jurisdictions in the world. We are the world's critical mineral superpowers.

In the old world—and even, to a degree, today—the temptation would be to see each other as competitors. In the New World, we should, as Prime Minister Albanese has suggested, be strategic collaborators to boost investments, accelerate technological cooperation, enhance supply chain resilience, expand our domestic processing abilities and reinforce each of our strategic autonomies, which is why, earlier today, we signed a series of new agreements on critical minerals, including with respect to the G7 critical minerals alliance—an alliance Prime Minister Albanese helped to launch in Kananaskis in June. This is the largest group of trusted democracies with critical minerals reserves in the world.

The second area is in defence. Both our countries are building up our capabilities so the next generation of drones, surveillance aircraft, cyber and artificial intelligence is created in Adelaide and Alberta. Canada has just announced our first ever defence industrial strategy. It will catalyse half a trillion dollars of investment in our security and resilience over the course of the next decade. This creates enormous opportunities for cooperation between our countries. As the Prime Minister rightly referenced, we are already cooperating with Australia on your world-leading over-the-horizon radar. We're actively exploring new opportunities to protect our vast territories together.

Australia and Canada are core members of the coalition of the willing, which provides vital military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine in response to Russia's illegal, horrific war. The outcome of this war is not in doubt, although its duration is still uncertain. When peace comes—and it will come—the coalition, including Canada and Australia, will provide robust security guarantees to support a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and Europe. As we have seen in this war in Ukraine, satellite communications are now a fundamental requirement for security. A Canadian based constellation of LEO satellites will launch next year, providing reliable and secure global communications. We're working with other like-minded partners, who possess similar capabilities, to build out a deep, resilient sovereign system that we can all share and we can each control in our territories.

Artificial intelligence is my third example. As AI begins to transform our economies and our lives, strategic autonomy will require sovereign intelligence infrastructure, including secure clouds, data, LLMs and enterprise applications. Canada can contribute here as well, in partnership. We're the No. 1 global destination for master's and doctoral students. We produce some of the world's most renowned AI developers in our home for the leading AI institutes and many of the startups. But we know that is not sufficient. We know we must work with others who share our values to build sovereign AI capabilities so we are not caught between the hyperscalers and the hegemons. We're partnering with like-minded nations in Europe, and we look forward to today's agreements to work more closely in partnership with Australia, and, as well, building on the announcement at the APEC summit in our trilateral AI initiative, with India.

Fourth, on trade, our two nations are championing efforts to build a bridge between the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the European Union. Canada is already a member of both trading blocs. I hope, soon, you will be as well. Both of us know that the value of this is a global public good. Yes, it's market access, but it's a global public good because this is a bloc of 1½ billion people grounded in common standards and shared values and is capable of anchoring a new rules based trading system, even as the old one falters. To be clear, this is an ad hoc coalition, a variable geometry of middle powers that has a larger GDP than the United States, three times the trade flow of China, the largest combined financial balance sheets in the world, over 60 of the world's top universities and the largest source of cultural exports globally.

It might not surprise you, given my background, that my final example is capital. Over the past two decades, access to capital has become increasingly weaponised, and in the coming period of global volatility our financial systems will likely be tested once again. Canada and Australia retain the advantages of sound banking systems, the most sophisticated and reliable financial structure. We have the ability that others might think they have but don't. We have the ability to sustain openness to cross-border capital flows. Our pension funds and your supers constitute one of the largest pools, soon to be the largest pools, of capital in the world. At present, there is nearly $7 trillion under management. This is a strategic asset for our citizens and future generations, particularly in a riskier world where it will increasingly matter who owes whom and who owns what. The fact is that we are currently underinvested in each other's economies, and it's high time to modernise our bilateral tax and investment treaty, and I welcome today's agreement to do exactly that.

These new connections between Australia and Canada are greater than the sum of their parts. This is an alliance reaffirmed, a friendship strengthened and a partnership to build greater prosperity and security in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. The fact is Australia and Canada have never waited for others to write our futures. We've written it ourselves through a century of choices, standing together in the darkest hours, building the post-war order with optimism and purpose and now helping to create what comes next. Yes, the world will always be driven by great powers, but it can also be shaped by middle powers that trust each other and act with speed and purpose. Australia and Canada have demonstrated that trust again this week. Every agreement signed, every coalition deepened and every commitment made is variable geometry in practice, and we do so because we both understand the scale of the task ahead and because we have travelled together on this road before.

Canada could not have a better partner than Australia, and as one of my predecessors Pierre Trudeau said in the seventies, 'Australia is a self-possessed and confident nation that believes in the future of mankind.' We are two nations under different skies with the same orientation, a friendship built over a century that is ready to build the century that awaits. Thank you very much for this honour.

Members and senators rising and applauding .

Prime Minister, on behalf of the House. I wish you and Madame Fox Carney a successful and enjoyable stay in Australia. I thank the President of the Senate and senators for their attendance. I now invite the Prime Minister to escort our guests from the chamber.

Sittings suspended 11: 28 to 12 : 30