Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Reynolds for her question and for her interest in the strategic issues, particularly around ASEAN. Indeed this week, ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, celebrates its 50th anniversary. Australia congratulates all ASEAN members on this important milestone.

Australia can be rightly proud of our history of supporting ASEAN. We became the first of their 10 dialogue partners in 1974. ASEAN has played a pivotal role in maintaining peace across South-East Asia. In fact, for over a quarter of a century, ASEAN has been free of major interstate conflict. That stability and prosperity hasn't happened by chance. It's a result of concerted and sustained effort to set and to live by the rules that govern economic integration and security cooperation.

The ASEAN Regional Forum was founded in 1994, and it remains the region's largest multilateral security forum, and the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting—the ADMM-Plus, as it is known—framework was formed in 2010 and has had great success in fostering practical military cooperation.

As we stated in the 2016 Defence White Paper, Australia strongly supports the contribution of the ASEAN-led regional security architecture for both security and stability in South-East Asia. In March next year, Australia will host the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit in Sydney. That summit will include a counterterrorism conference. This will be an historic opportunity to strengthen Australia's strategic partnership with ASEAN and deliver tangible, economic and security benefits to Australia. Counterterrorism efforts within the region are matters on which the Attorney-General, myself, the foreign minister and the Prime Minister are particularly focused, and the conference will provide a very special opportunity to pursue that.