ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA: Can I begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging.
Can I welcome very much Prime Minister Kishida and his delegation here today.
You are a great friend of Australia.
There are some state premiers around the country who will wonder why it is that we've met more often than I've met them in my five months as Prime Minister.
This is our fourth meeting. I, of course, have visited Japan twice.
Today, we had an important discussion and signed some significant agreements going forward.
And we did it here in the great global city of Perth.
It was a very conscious decision to invite the Prime Minister to have our bilateral meeting here in Perth, Western Australia. Because Western Australia is, of course, such an important state for the trading relationship with Japan, in resources, in energy, and also in further economic cooperation that we will have going forward as well.
It was very fitting that Tokyo was my first destination as Prime Minister.
As you know, I was elected on the 21st of May. And by the 23rd of May, I was in Tokyo.
The fastest ever swearing in of any Prime Minister since Federation here in Australia. But also, I think it's fair to say, the fastest ever international engagement when I attended the Quad Leaders' meeting.
But it was important that we hit the ground running and not waste a day. And my Government has hit the ground running.
One of the things that we have done is to ensure that our international relations are advanced, that we become even closer with our close friends, but that we reengage in the Indo-Pacific.
And today, in the discussions that we had, we talked about the closeness of our relationship based not just upon our economic relations and the fact that our economies are complementary. We have a lot of what Japan needs, which benefits both Australia and Japan. But it's also a relationship based upon our shared values.
The values of democracy, the values of security, the values of the rule of law. Values that have developed since 1958, I think, when we first did the agreement between Australia and Japan about an economic relationship. The values of human rights.
And the Quad Leaders' meeting is an important one.
And next year, Australia will be the host of Quad. And I can only hope that we do as good a job as Japan did earlier this year in hosting the Quad meeting in Tokyo.
But it's also the case that Prime Minister Kishida and myself will be seeing a lot of each other next month at the meetings of the East Asia Summit, the G20 and APEC.
And at those meetings, we will be cooperating. We'll be talking about what our common interests are and how we spread that commonality throughout the region.
Because both countries hope to provide leadership in security and peace and stability in the region.
And that means defence issues.
And we advanced our defence cooperation agreements today.
But it also means support for free markets and proper trade. It means support for movement in terms of our skills and labour and cooperation.
It also means that when we talk about the Indo-Pacific, we know that we live in an era of strategic competition in our region.
And that is the context for Australia's engagement with Japan, and increased cooperation across the board.
We know that, historically, we've been important providers of LNG, coal and other resources. We remain a secure partner.
Australia can be relied upon to always honour contracts and honour agreements.
We believe that this is just the way that we do business.
And we're also open to investment. And I know INPEX is here. And other businesses have been such important investors here in Australia for common and mutual interest.
But of course, we are moving forward in a changing global economy.
And what that means is how do we put into practice our shared commitment to move to net zero by 2050?
And one of the things that we talked about today was, and we signed an agreement for critical minerals going forward as well, Australia has everything that goes into the battery, we have everything that goes into a whole lot of the technology of which there'll be more demand for in the future.
And when we talk about national security issues, we have to look beyond these days in 2022, beyond tanks and weaponry. We have to look at climate change and the threat that it represents to national security. We have to look at how resilient our economy is.
Because one of the things that happened during the global pandemic was that it exposed some of Australia's vulnerabilities. We need to make more things here.
Japan needs to make more things in Japan. They have been great.
We can cooperate in areas so that we aren't reliant upon resources and technologies that leaves us very vulnerable, potentially, for future shocks.
And we know that those shocks can represent many things.
It could be another pandemic, it can be cyber issues, as we have been talking about in the last fortnight in Australia, but it could also be, of course, tragically, it could be also issues relating to the strategic competition that we're seeing in our region.
So, we need to be vigilant.
We need to make sure that the vision that our Government has, you'll see reflected in the Budget next Tuesday night, is one of a country that continues to export and be a reliable partner, is one that invests appropriately in our defence and security issues, is one that takes the challenge of climate change seriously, but sees it as an opportunity.
An opportunity to build more things here, to take advantage of becoming a renewable energy superpower for the world.
And engagement with new industries like hydrogen and others that are emerging is important as well.
After this lunch, we'll be going down to BHP's Nickel West Refinery in Kwinana, where I've visited before.
We'll see some of the cooperation that is already underway between Australian and Japanese companies to support the renewable energy supply chain.
The refinery makes nickel sulphate for EV batteries, including for Toyota. It's just one example of what's going on here in WA.
And I want to finish by thanking Mark McGowan, my friend, the Premier of WA, for jointly hosting this luncheon for his Ministers who are here.
I believe that it was appropriate, when we came up with the idea of where we're going to have the bilateral, instead of doing everything in Canberra and Sydney and Melbourne, guess what?
You've got a Prime Minister who knows where Perth is.
I had my campaign launch here, not by accident.
I'll bring other world leaders here, not by accident.
Because this is an engine room of the Australian economy.
And if you're going to represent the entire nation, as I intend to do, you've got to visit it, you've got to be engaged in it, you've got to participate in and you've got to have a presence here.
Hence, this occasion here over what is a four-day visit on this occasion to coincide with the Telethon as well that will be held, of course, tonight.
And I know Kerry Stokes and others who are here who are playing such an important role in that.
It gives you a sense of what a great community it is here in WA as well.
I always feel very welcomed here, Prime Minister.
And I assure you, Prime Minister, you are such a welcomed guest here.
I look forward to welcoming you back next year.
I look forward to you at the Quad Leaders' meeting that I'll be hosting.
And I look forward to our continued engagement and building on, not just the relationship between our two countries, but a friendship between its two leaders.