Have Your Say

TRANSCRIPT: Japanese Chamber of Commerce Address, 12 November 2019

10 November 2019

E&OE

Subjects: Australia-Japan relationship

MICHAEL MCCORMACK:

Images are important and this image behind me is very, very important because it’s the opening of the Australian Parliament way back at the turn of last century and it took place in Melbourne. Canberra back then was nothing more than a sheep station.

[Laughter]

And Canberra is, indeed, one of our great success stories for decentralisation. Australia is one of those rare countries where much of the population exists on the eastern seaboard, in our capital cities and we have a policy, indeed, a push at the moment to have more people live in inland areas, to have them see the regions as somewhere where they want to be living, working and investing. And certainly when it comes to Japan, we welcome the investment. We are open for business and we very much encourage you to look at our regions, to look at agriculture. Indeed, we are very pleased that we’ve had such great relations.

Now, back when Parliament opened all the way back in 1901, Japan and Australia were very, very good friends. In fact, we fought together in World War One and I have to say that something incredible, something remarkable happened in the late 1940s and early 1950s when our nations came together again in the spirit of cooperation, in a sense of collaboration and we were indeed blessed by the foresight of those people who reached out the hands of friendship so that we could become much better friends again. And one of the predecessors in my role, John ‘Black Jack’ McEwen, in fact was the Australian politician, the Country Party leader at the time, who took the very brave and very bold move to reach that hand of friendship out to Japan. Japan was then very much in difficult times after the Second World War. And to have been somebody from one of the regions to extend that hand of friendship at those very troubled and dark and difficult times was indeed not just a measure of the man, but I think it said something about not just our Government but indeed about the Japanese hierarchy too that we could mend those friendships, that we could return to the days of early last century. And indeed we began a trade relationship. We resumed a trade relationship that is very firm and very stable and very confident today and we want to only enlarge and expand those trade arrangements. Very, very pleased that not that long ago that our two-way trade reached $71.8 billion, $78.1 thousand million, our two-way relationship. Australia’s second largest in all of the world.

We regard you as very much near and dear friends, and the ambassador reminded me and so did Dr Parkinson in his wonderful speech – didn’t leave me much material to use – but he covered it all. But indeed at Cowra in August this year, we celebrated a very special milestone and it was a celebration as Dr Parkinson quite correctly pointed out. Many of our war service days and milestone moments we don’t talk about celebrating, we talk about commemorating, but I think the word celebration, whilst not often used, is very appropriate when we talk about the Cowra Breakout and we remember those 231 brave – and indeed they were brave – men who were interned, who did not want to be interned any longer and in the early hours of that morning they broke out. There were many more than 231, but it was 231 who lost their lives in that struggle. Four Australians also did.

But the fact is, we came together earlier this year to mark that occasion and I was unaware, but there was going to be a special moment early the next morning to mark the actual time when that bugle call was made. And the bugle was there, the original bugle which is now in our war memorial just down the road. And it was there on display and the ambassador saw it. A 99-year-old veteran, we believe the only one still from that- from those times, was there as well. And it was put to me at the wonderful dinner that perhaps I might like to come to the two o’clock event. It was- it would only take 15 minutes, they said, but I was very much unprepared for it. I wore much the same coat and cotton shirt that I have on now – probably made in Japan …

[Laughter]

… and I had no big coat, and one of my friends Ruth Fagan from Cowra, she said to me I will bring in a warm jacket for you, is there anything else you would like me to bring? And so she did, she brought the coat and there we were. And what was fascinating about it was that there was this- as we came to the site of the once-famous camp, or perhaps infamous camp, whichever way you like to look at it, there was a light shining so that we could be directed down to the place where they were doing the ceremony. And the light captured in a wonderful silhouette a guard tower that has been preserved from that day to this. And it was an amazing, amazing image. As I say, images are important.

But there we were, and the ceremony did only go for 10 or 15 minutes and after it, there was every- most sensible people would have left and gone home, back to their warm beds, but I stayed there with Ruth Fagan, and with a whole host of people I’d never met before from Japan. I will probably never meet them again. And we stayed there for a good hour and it was a wonderful hour, hour and a half and the time just flew by and it was cold. Yes, it was about nought degrees Celsius. The frost was on the ground and yet we huddled there together, very close, and remembering those who had fallen but making new friendships, making new ties. And I think that is so important and I think it says something about Australians, about Japanese and about the warmth and the friendship that is between us. You are all friends, great friends of our nation. We thank you for what you do for Australia. I thank you on behalf of the Government. I know Dr Parkinson does as well.

We are great friends of Japan. We always will be. And those bonds of friendship that were formed back in the 1950s after that terrible conflict in the 1940s, I think says something about humans and particularly about Japanese and Australian bonds of friendships. And Cowra now has a wonderful annual ceremony which takes in all nations of the world. It is a city, a town, of international understanding. But they have made the Japanese Gardens there the only, as I understand, Japanese military cemetery outside Honshu or Hokkaido or Kyushu or Shikoku. And that is a very special part, not just of Australia, but indeed of Japan. It is Japanese soil. Your warriors, your brave men, are buried there and they will be part of us as they are part of you. And we will go on making sure that that cemetery is well kept and maintained. The Japanese Gardens there have to be seen to be believed. And the Ambassador and I were talking about how our Australian Government is investing money in re-roofing the Cultural Gardens Visitor’s Centre and we’re using Japanese technology and shingles to ensure that it has- still carries that cultural significance and heritage dating back to that- those terrible times in the 1940s.

But indeed, out of adversity springs friendship and love and hope and support. And certainly, it’s- perhaps Japanese people and Australian people have much more in common than many of us would actually understand. Last week, I was at the Melbourne Cup and indeed there was a Japanese runner in the race.

[Laughter]

I backed it. It’s still running.

[Laughter]

The Rugby World Cup. I well remember not that many years ago, New Zealand beat, the All Blacks beat the Japanese team, 140 something nil.

[Laughter]

And I sat there with my two very, very young sons and I said: that is a thrashing you will never see again. And I was right [indistinct] because it wasn’t that long ago the Japanese team beat South Africa in a World Cup match.

[Applause]

South Africa of course went on and won the championship again this year. But the fact that we play rugby and that forms such strong bonds between our two nations. The fact that we enjoy horse racing, sorry, like probably no other nations. Yes, America thinks it’s got the Kentucky Derby and that’s fantastic and of course, thoroughbred racing began in England. But we know we’ve got the best and fastest thoroughbreds in the world between us, Australia and Japan, and that’s why many of our sires go to Japan and vice versa. And that’s why a couple of years ago when Japan actually won the Melbourne Cup, it really again made that bridge between our two countries, between Tokyo and Canberra, that much shorter, that distance.

And of course, we’ve had those business links, that bridge in business, and we only want to extend that. We only want to expand that. We want that bridge of friendship to be a bridge of trade. It already is. We want to grow it and we will grow it. And certainly, with our infrastructure program at the moment, $100 billion that we’re spending, I know that there is investment in that from Japan. And I know what we’re doing as far as infrastructure is concerned is going to ensure that our trade relations only grow because when you build infrastructure, whether it’s the Western Sydney Airport, whether it’s the Melbourne Airport Rail Link, whether it’s indeed that 1700 kilometre corridor from Brisbane to Melbourne that we call the Inland Rail, it’s going to get goods to port quicker. It’s going to get tourists coming in and going out of our country much faster. And we want to make sure that Australians visit Japan. We want to make sure that your people come to our country and see what we have to offer, not just in the capital cities, not just on the Gold Coast, but indeed in our regional centres.

We have so much in common, so, so much, that probably some of us don’t even realise and we want to make sure that that relationship continues because at the moment, we do face difficult international headwinds, economic headwinds. And of course, the relationship between two of the superpowers, as Dr Martin Parkinson has alluded to earlier today, does make it difficult for our two nations. But we know that despite whatever might happen between the US and China, the fact is Australia and Japan will be friends and will go on being friends, and we’ll go on making sure that our beef and our other exports go into and end up on Japanese dinner tables, end up from our farm to your plate. So we want to make sure that Japanese services and technology and all the rest come into our country as well because it is a two-way relationship. Friendships are two-way. It’s not just give, it’s not just take, it’s both.

And so I do thank you, each and every one of you. I had a wonderful meeting with your Bank of International Cooperation, Governor Maeda, just recently in Brisbane. And I do remember going to an Asian Development Bank annual meeting and I know that the hands of friendship, certainly with that particular organisation, stretch back to 1964, and that is very, very important. We want to make sure that when it comes to infrastructure, when it comes to sport, when it comes to trade that we continue to build our relationships. Meetings like today, luncheons like this one, only help and foster better relations.

Please, if you have ideas of how we can firm our relationship, if you have inspirations of how we need to use your technology, to use your infrastructure, to use your investment, I’m only an e-mail away. Our two Prime Ministers are very good friends. We’ve heard that before. Mr Abe and Mr Morrison are very, very close friends, strengthened only when Mr Abe came to the Northern Territory to lay a wreath. And I think that said really something about how he regards the Australian relationships and I know that a lot of people, who still carried in their hearts hurt from what happened all those years ago, I think when they saw Prime Minister Abe lay that wreath, I think those fears and concerns were dissolved, as they should have.

Thank you for coming today to our luncheon. Thank you for hearing Dr Parkinson. We really deeply regard our relations most highly. I am very humbled to be in your presence. I thank you for those people who’ve given me business cards. I’m happy to – as long as my chief of staff allows me – to stay around and mingle longer.

[Laughter]

Again, I say thank you for what you’re doing, for what you’ve done in the past, for what you’re doing in the here and now and certainly, what we’ll do in the future. Thank you very much.

[Applause]

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