It was mid-February 2020. Covid was spreading. The world was closing borders. Indeed, Australia had already closed our borders to China.
Yet more than 100 of Australia’s leaders of business and industry joined me, as the then trade minister, in traveling to India, for the first Australia India Business Exchange.
From the resources sector focused on the earth beneath us, to a space industry looking to the sky above … along with businesses in agriculture, education, technology, tourism, infrastructure or investment … it was a tour de force on deepening the economic ties between our nations.
And it was a tangible demonstration, at the most sensitive of times, of our commitment to deeper and stronger Australia-India ties.
As many of you will have heard before, the incredible wordsmith Mark Twain described India as “the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human history, the grandmother of legend, and the great-grandmother of tradition.”
His praise was correct, yet falls short.
In 2025 India is also a growing giant of influence, a fast moving driver of prosperity, and a critical anchor to security.
Australia is fortunate to call India a friend and partner. We are even more fortunate to share common strategic interests in securing the peace and stability of our shared Indo-Pacific Region.
Together, we have benefited enormously from being in the world’s most dynamic region.
Home to more than half of the world’s population and nearly two thirds of the global economy, our Indo-Pacific region has been the engine room of global growth.
Growth matters because it delivers real outcomes: it lifts people out of poverty, it extends educational attainment, it improves living standards.
India’s growth has not just improved prosperity for her own people, but across our region.
Australia looks to India as a driver of further growth, to our benefit as well as to India’s.
But alongside this growth in economic prosperity, so too have threats to stability grown.
MIlitary spending has surged and, with it, the proliferation of new capabilities.
Most troubling, the use of aggressive and confrontational tactics by the Chinese military has increased the risk of miscalculation or escalation.
Australia wishes to see stability, and respect for maritime laws, whether in the Western Pacific or South East Asia, or across the Indian Ocean.
More than half of Australia’s maritime exports leave our shores via Indian Ocean ports. Nations that border the Indian Ocean are critical to our trade relations.
This is why our nations, Australia and India, must continue to draw closer, to enhance our economic strength, and to deploy the tools of statecraft to deter conflict or undue control.
No lesser than Robert Menzies, Australia’s longest serving Prime Minister – and founder of the Liberal Party – stated in 1950 that the world “would be profoundly affected by what happens in India” and that our nations should “learn to think together and for the world’s peace.”
70 years later, the last Liberal Government was true to the ambitions of our founder.
The breakthroughs of our Liberal led government from 2013 to 2022, working with Prime Minister Modi’s government, give us the strong platform we share today.
We deepened the scope for cooperation across the Indo-Pacific by re-establishing the Quad, with India and our partners from Japan and the United States.
We signed the Australia India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
We secured the Australia India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement.
The Joint Declaration on a Shared Vision for Maritime Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, made by Prime Ministers Morrison and Modi, speaks to our common aspirations for peace, security, stability and prosperity.
It underscores our commitment to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
It demonstrates the primacy we place on working with ASEAN nations to secure our aspirations.
It provides another basis for our military cooperation, including through bilateral and multinational exercises.
It is from these foundations that we look to the future. And I pay tribute to our great friend, Foreign Minister Jaishankar, who has been central to so many of these breakthroughs and is such a welcome and frequent visitor to our shores.
With an election due soon in Australia, a future Liberal led government will work with our Indian partners to drive our relationship forward, as we have done at every prior opportunity.
Together, our nations have great strategic influence. We can further bolster efforts to deter conduct that could destabilise our region, while maximising engagement that furthers the economic growth we desire for all our citizens.
In trade, innovation, education and the challenges of our time, such as climate change, we can – and must – make further breakthroughs.
This gathering, the Raisina Dialogue, brings together so many of those who are central to these ambitions.
You will shortly move into panels in fields where responses to security, economic and climate challenges are intensely aligned, such as critical minerals and critical technologies.
This is where we must further integrate our supply chains, share our technologies and maintain ambition for a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement.
I look forward to hearing of your recommendations to boost two way investment growth, further our people to people exchanges, harmonise standards, embrace digital trade efficiencies, and bring our two great nations even closer together.
Thank you again for the opportunity to be with you today. I welcome, very much, your questions, in the short time available to us.
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