Indo-Pacific Strategic Partnership
Senator VAN: Thank you very much, Secretary. I note that the new Australia-India comprehensive strategic partnership was signed between Prime Ministers Modi and Morrison in June. Could you tell us how that has elevated Australia's relationship with the most populous democracy?
Mr Wiblin : Thank you for the question. The agreement to elevate the partnership to a comprehensive strategic partnership has cemented India at the front rank of our partners in delivering on our Indo-Pacific strategy. We are committing to working together across the broad range of issues between the two countries. It's demonstrated that our relationship has never been so important, in particular under the pressure caused by COVID-19. With the elevation, the comprehensive strategic partnership was underpinned by a series of other memoranda of understanding as well as other agreements. These covered defence, critical minerals, cyber and technology, and maritime as well as other areas such as skills and governance. From this, we are continuing to work very closely to enact these various agreements. In the budget, the Australian government dedicated an extra $62 million towards these programs to elevate the relationship and deepen the relationship.
Senator VAN: Thank you very much for that. Given that [inaudible] Can you hear me okay?
Mr Wiblin : Yes, can I hear you, Senator.
Senator VAN: Sorry, I was reading your face. That's all I can see from here. Forgive me. India has had the second-highest number of COVID infections and like many countries is facing a severe economic downturn. What does it say about the strength of the bilateral relationship that Australia and India are prioritising diplomatic resources and efforts on increased cooperation in the context of the pandemic?
Mr Wiblin : It underlines the importance of India to Australia and Australia to India in achieving our Indo-Pacific objectives. Undoubtedly India has been very affected by COVID. As you said, it has the second-largest number of cases. It acted very quickly early on to address these cases and subsequently will have some quite significant economic affects from this. But, regardless, India's trajectory is very positive. We see great value in the economic relationship going forward, but also the commonalities between our views on the Indo-Pacific—for an open and prosperous and stable region—are such that the importance of deepening the relationship has taken on even more importance.
Ms Adamson : Could I add briefly to that, because you make an important point about the number of cases that India is dealing with, as the world's second most populous nation. Not only have we seen a very strong desire on the part of India to engage bilaterally with us—and the foreign minister can speak to that, if she wishes to as well—but we've also seen a very noticeable engagement by India in its own immediate region, including through the provision of development assistance and through very regular dialogue, consultation and cooperation with a range of Indo-Pacific partners, mostly like-minded democracies like Australia, but not solely. We've also seen India advancing cooperation through the Quad.
Whichever way you look at it, India is very much engaged in its own region, as we are. This was very evident in the virtual summit between the leaders, Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Morrison. I had the pleasure of being in the room with Prime Minister Morrison for that. There was a very clear commitment to a peaceful, prosperous Indo-Pacific region—and I referred to this in my opening statement—where differences and disputes are settled in accordance with international law. India has always had a strong commitment to what their senior leaders, my counterparts and the foreign minister's counterparts, call the 'character of the region'. I just wanted to put it in that slightly broader context.
Senator VAN: I appreciate that very much, Ms Adamson. What key areas of cooperation does the CSP and its associated MOUs cover?
Mr Wiblin : As mentioned, the intent of the CSP is extremely broad. The idea is it's comprehensive. It covers everything from defence, strategic, security and cyber, through to people-to-people links and the economy as well. As I said, we have a joint statement on maritime cooperation, looking at how Australia and India can work together in the region on maritime domain awareness, on maritime security and on the blue economy and the environment. We have a framework arrangement on cyber and critical technologies, which again sees where Australia and India can work on these very new and very important issues to do with cyber and critical, including working within the region together. We are have critical minerals—an emerging focus; an emerging important—where, again, there is a lot of potential for cooperation and mutually beneficial work.
Senator VAN: Can you place on record how much the government will spend to implement and progress the CSP?
Mr Wiblin : In the budget papers there was $62.2 million allocated to the government to progress the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
Senator VAN: My last question on this line is: what other countries have secured 2+2 foreign and defence meetings with India?
Mr Wiblin : If you'll just excuse me—
CHAIR: If you need to take it on notice, you can.
Mr Wiblin : I will have to come back on that. I just have to find it.
Ms Adamson : From my knowledge, Senator, it's the United States and Russia. Anyway, we are in very good company—with less than a handful. It's not something that India typically does and it will be a real asset as we develop our relationship further to the absolute top rank, as Mr Wiblin has said.
Senator VAN: I now want to turn to Indonesia.
CHAIR: We can no longer hear you, Senator Van. There was some static that we heard before you went off air. We can still see you, but not hear you.
Ms Adamson : He did say that he wanted to ask questions about Indonesia. I'm not sure if my lip-reading is very good! We can talk about Indonesia.
CHAIR: I'm sorry, Senator Van, but we can't hear you. We might need to come back.
Senator VAN: Is that any better?
CHAIR: That's a lot better. We can now see and hear you—we've got the double!
Senator VAN: I don't know what changed in that short space of time. My question about Indonesia goes to: how has Australia assisted Indonesia as it combats the health, economic and social impacts of COVID-19?
Mr Connor : We've had extensive contact with Indonesia over the past months. Indeed, one could say it was rather serendipitous when, as you would recall, the visit of the President of Indonesia, President Jokowi, took place in February. At that visit, COVID was hitting us all. There were extensive discussions at the time between President Jokowi and the Prime Minister on the issue and what may be happening to all of us, even though those were early days.
Indonesia's been quite severely hit by COVID. It's a difficult country to deal with, it being the largest archipelagic state in the world. There are a number of problems that it's been dealing with from the early part of the onset of the pandemic in Indonesia. We assisted them in the first instance with the provision of PPE and respirators. There have been a couple of consignments of those going to Indonesia. We've also been very focused on helping Indonesia deal with the systemic problems caused in Indonesia. I think if you go to the DFAT website now you'll see on that website the Indonesia COVID-19 Development Response Plan, which has a rather detailed outline of all activities that Australia has been undertaking in connection with Indonesia.
Like all the countries of South-East Asia, the department has from that period been pivoting its development assistance program to deal entirely with COVID matters. We took early action to scale up our humanitarian and economic response plans. We've got a very long-standing cooperative program with Indonesia called the Prospera program, under which Australian officials and other experts give advice to Indonesia on economic matters. It involves the positioning within the Indonesian government of Australian and Indonesian advisers, in some cases giving direct economic advice to ministers. That program, in particular, swung around to dealing with COVID response efforts and handling what the Indonesian government would do to respond to that issue. We were very lucky, also, that we had just concluded our Australia-Indonesia Partnership in Disaster Risk Management with BNPB, in its new role in handling the response. We've provided $21 million in new initiatives to support Indonesia's immediate health plans through the Red Cross, the WHO and UNICEF. Basically, as I said before, the entire program has been swung around to reorient to help Indonesia. Whatever we do these days in any of the programs we deal with, it all has a COVID aspect.
Senator VAN: I have a question for the minister, if I may. Minister, have you spoken to your counterpart, Foreign Minister Marsudi, during this crisis?
Senator Payne: Yes. Minister Marsudi and I have been in regular contact—all virtually, of course, given the current circumstances—by video conference and teleconference. The other thing that we were able to do, particularly in the early part of the pandemic, was to do some work together as female foreign ministers in the region, as part of some of the initiatives around the engagement on the impact on women in developing countries in particular, particularly the health and education impacts. We have also done some work in the context of women, peace and security—UN Security Council resolution 1325. The anniversary of that coming is up this year.
Then, in the bilateral context as well, on a number of occasions, there were early discussions around supplies for Indonesia in the context of both PPE and medical equipment, and the challenges that Indonesia has been dealing with, particularly with increasing transmission in recent months. There were also a couple of other less formal and more personal matters, including her joy at having her grandson stuck with her in Jakarta because he wasn't able to go back to Singapore because there were no flights!
Senator VAN: Thank you, minister. You may or may not be able to answer this, but do you know if there's been much contact between Prime Minister Morrison and President Jokowi?
Senator Payne: There have been a couple of direct phone calls between the Prime Minister and the President, in particular. I think that Mr Connor referred to the IA-CEPA and it's coming into being. That was an important step, which was marked in discussions. There were also discussions around the regional response, particularly, and the work that Australia has done in terms of the pivot of our engagement to focus on COVID response and recovery in the region as well.
Ms Adamson : I would perhaps just add that its natural in this committee, obviously, to focus on contacts between foreign ministers—and, of course, leader level engagement is very important. But I should also note that, across the board, there has been very strong engagement by Australian ministers with their Indonesian counterparts on a wide range of matters going to Indonesia's health response, economic response and the regional response, just because we are neighbours and we have a lot that we need to talk about.
In terms of pursuing our broader interests in South-East Asia, the relationship with Indonesia, of course, is vital. From my perspective, it's been very well tended across the board at officials level and ministerial level during this period, and I would expect that to continue to be the case when actual visits can resume—and I'm sure they will. But we have been making effective use of this period when it's not been possible.
Senator VAN: Thank you very much, Madam Secretary. Just in the interests of time, I might go to the multilateral audit rather than the Pacific.
Dr Lee : I'm happy to talk about the multilateral audit.
Senator VAN: Thank you, Mr Lee. Last October, the Prime Minister commissioned DFAT to undertake an audit of our multilateral engagement. In light of the stressors that COVID is imposing on the international system, how timely and important was this audit?
Dr Lee : It was extremely timely. The audit we conducted had already been conducting from the time that the Prime Minister announced it and it was concluded earlier this year. I think the most important findings of the audit were the vital interests that multilateral organisations provide to Australia, both to our economic prosperity and our security, and their role in dealing with the global challenges, and obviously COVID-19 has been a very significant global challenge. We've got many interests across the multilateral system, from international peace and security to international law, environment, health and pandemics. But what the audit really focused on, which we identified as important, was the role of UN specialised agencies and technical agencies, recognising that the world is dealing with many global challenges, including many emerging issues. Regarding the UN specialised agencies and other technical agencies—not all in the United Nations, like the International Standards Organisation—we identified that they played an extremely important role in dealing with those global challenges and those emerging issues.
Within the context of the audit, we identified that we would continue our multilateral engagement broadly, but we also needed to put more effort into having an awareness of what was occurring in those agencies. Many of those agencies we have dealt with at a technical level. Many of them are dealt with by other Australian government agencies or industry representatives. The challenge for us going forward is how we increase our awareness and coordination across government to make sure that our national interests are being pursued across those agencies. The World Health Organisation is, of course, one of the UN specialised agencies and has a key role in responding to COVID-19. It was very timely and very relevant to look not just at the role that the World Health Organisation had been playing but also at the full range of UN specialised agencies in dealing with the range of global challenges and emerging issues that we're encountering at the moment.
Senator VAN: Thank you very much. You mentioned that we're working across government to increase participation in those multilateral bodies. I assume you meant DFAT is leading that. Is a more strategic approach being taken in that work?
Dr Lee : Very much. We are continuing a strategic approach. Obviously, with shifts in global power as well, we have to make sure that Australian interests and values are supported with those shifts in global powers. That requires a strategic understanding of the shifts in global power. We have to not only work across Australian government agencies but also work with other countries that are like-minded on these issues to protect the rules, norms, standards and values that have served us well until now and which we think continue to be important. It's certainly very strategic in terms of having an understanding of those global shifts, and not just internally within our own government but working with other governments as well.
Senator VAN: Thank you. How would you say COVID-19 is impacting the way in which those multilateral institutions operate? And how is Australia adapting and responding to those challenges with regard to virtual negotiations, discussions and the way we protect, in advance, Australia's national interests?
Dr Lee : It's certainly been very challenging. There's no consistent method of operation across the different international institutions and organisations. It's dependent on the organisation to some degree and it's dependent on where they are located and what sorts of COVID measures have been introduced in the specific location. I would say that most institutions are operating to a very busy schedule, and that has kept our posts, particularly in the multilateral context, in New York, Geneva and other places, very busy. Most organisations are now operating under a combination of hybrid and in-person meetings within the UN itself throughout. They have continued to negotiate resolutions. They were doing that via silence procedures. Now they have gone back to more regular in-person meetings as well. Voting on certain resolutions has been challenging. That hasn't always been able to be done in person, so our embassies are continuing to try and make sure that the business of these institutions continues and continues in a way that allows us to negotiate and allows us to have impact.
Senator VAN: Thank you very much, Dr Lee. Thank you very much, Chair. I will leave it there.
