LAWRENCE WONG, ACTING PRIME MINISTER OF SINGAPORE: I want to start by welcoming Prime Minister Albanese and his delegation to Singapore. This is the Prime Minister's first official visit to Singapore so we are delighted that you are here. I want to convey greetings from Prime Minister Lee who unfortunately couldn’t be here because of a COVID rebound. He had been looking forward to meeting all of you again since the last meeting in Canberra in October. But nevertheless, we are glad that we can continue with this annual leaders' meeting today, particularly since our officials have been working hard with all of the preparation. The relationship between our two countries is underpinned by our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. It has made significant progress since it was incepted. It's jointly completed more than 110 initiatives across six pillars of cooperation. We have added 'Green Economy' and right now we're working on bilateral supply chains, so many initiatives that will continue to ensure that we take our relationship forward. So we welcome the Prime Minister once again, and we look forward to a fruitful discussion on how we can strengthen the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between our two countries, especially as we approach the 10th anniversary in 2025.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA: Thank you very much to the Acting Prime Minister and we are very pleased and honoured that you're greeting us. We, of course, are sad that Prime Minister Lee - when he rang me yesterday, he himself expressed his disappointment that we weren’t able to reengage our friendship that’s developed over a long period of time with Singapore. I’m very proud to be here as the Australian Prime Minister. The acting Prime Minister Lawrence informed me that this was my 16th visit to Singapore, they keep track. But I thought it might even be more. My first visit here was in 1986 when I came as a young advisor to - I did have longer hair and I might even have had an earring way back then - but I came with my mentor Tom Uren back then and spent many days here as well engaging. And since then I've been back many times, both personally but also professionally as well, including in 2017 when I was a beneficiary of the Lee Kuan Yew Exchange Fellowship for a week. That was really a chance to engage in a very deep way for a week across the areas of co-operation. There is no closer friend that we have in the region than Singapore. Australia regards the centrality of ASEAN as being critical for our regional engagement. And Singapore, of course, has been a leader for such a long period of time, based upon the fact that we share values. And in the discussion, one-on-one that we're just having, we were talking about some areas of common interest that we have. Both want a secure, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. We're both maritime nations. We're both aviation nations. We're nations that are multicultural. We're nations that understand the importance of education to our prosperity going forward. This bilateral cooperation is very broad and it is deep: defence and security, trade and investment, building the industries of the future. In our comprehensive partnership across those six areas by adding, as we did last year with the agreement signed with Prime Minister Lee, the Green Economy. That just shows how the relationship continues to develop, to diversify, and to get ahead of where we need to be together going forward. I'm very honoured to be delivering the keynote address at the Shangri-La Dialogue. The fact that the most serious conference and gathering in the Indo-Pacific on defence and security and foreign affairs is held here in Singapore says a lot about the way that Singapore is seen in the region and indeed in the world as well. And it will be a great honour for me this evening. I thank you for stepping into the breach. It is an important signal, I think, of the seriousness we take to this relationship as well that you have. This is the first time I've been overseas with the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister both together. Normally he has to stay home and look after the shop if I'm away. We both wanted to show how significant we think this invitation is. Thank you so much for the warmth of the welcome that I received.