Thank you, Ambassador Suzuki, and thank you to the Federation of Japan Chambers of Commerce and Industry in Australia for the invitation to join you this evening.

It’s always good to be here at the Embassy. The food’s better, the company’s sharper, and the debates are a lot calmer than the ones a kilometre up the road. 

Before I begin, I’d like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people, the Traditional Owners of the land on which we meet today, and pay my respects to their Elders past and present.

I extend that respect to all First Nations peoples here with us today.

It’s been nearly seventy years since Japan and Australia signed that landmark Commerce Agreement. 

It was a bold act of diplomacy by two countries who knew that mutual prosperity had to be built on trade, trust and interdependence.

Australian exports helped fuel Japan’s growth to become a leading global steel manufacturer and technology leader. We are proud of our role in supporting Japan’s economic and industrial development to become a marvel of the industrial world. 

Japanese investment and expertise, in turn, helped modernise Australia’s industries and develop, in particular, our great industrial regions.

This exchange was the genesis of the strategic trust between Australia and Japan today. 

Our relationship today is about so much more than commerce and prosperity. It’s about security, people to people exchange, culture and common values in our region and a shared sense of the region we must work to develop in the interests of both of our countries and the wider community. 

Bilateral trade flows between our nations amounted to $107.8 billion[1] last year – you are our third-largest trading partner, while total Japanese FDI was worth a record $141.1 billion.[2]

When Australian resources and skills are combined with Japanese technologies, capital and demand, the result is a durable partnership of real consequence for the whole region. 

That matters now more than ever, with growing economic and geostrategic competition in this region. 

The free and fair trade of the post-Cold War period, which brought prosperity to so many countries and lifted millions out of poverty, is under enormous pressure. 

Domestic capabilities and reliable regional supply chains in areas like clean energy technology, critical minerals processing and IT manufacturing will be more critical than ever for economic security. 

National economic resilience will also depend increasingly on stronger cybersecurity to keep information and data safe.  

Australia and Japan will both be stronger for our interdependence and collaboration in all of these vital areas. 

This means every transaction, every contract, every new project and every joint venture that Australian and Japanese partners enter into over the next few years will be serving key national interest goals as well. 

I want to see more two-way investment, and more collaboration in vital supply chains. 

There is so much of that already happening in key industries. 

Like the Hydrogen Energy Supply Chain project in Victoria, where Kawasaki Heavy Industries is working alongside Australian scientists and tradespeople to commercialise liquefied hydrogen transport – a first-of-its-kind effort. 

At Gladstone in Queensland, Sumitomo Corporation is working to develop a Hydrogen Calcination Pilot Demonstration project that could see hydrogen fill the role currently played by gas in the alumina refining sector’s industrial processes. I look forward to visiting that project soon. 

The Mogami-class frigates, manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, will serve as the preferred platform for the Royal Australian Navy’s future fleet of general-purpose frigates. 

And in the $8.5 billion critical minerals agreement struck between Australia and the United States, just a few weeks ago, the first key project is the Alcoa-Sojitz Gallium Project at Wagerup in WA, which will extract gallium from the alumina byproducts at that refinery, and in which Japan is a crucial partner. 

These are not one-way investments. They’re partnerships that exchange know-how, confidence, and culture.

Partnerships that are serious and catalyse long-term commitments in Australia’s capacity. 

There are many advantages that we bring to bear as a government that has recently been re-elected with a very strong mandate from the Australian people. 

That is a responsibility that we take very humbly and very seriously. Prime Minister Albanese is a prime minister who wants to see a government in Australia that is long-term and governs from the centre of Australian politics. 

He and I and all of our cabinet colleagues take our responsibility in this most consequential decade very seriously – to rebuild the industrial capability that we require in order to deliver economic resilience and higher levels of security for not only Australia but for our partners in the region.  

And that means stable government offers, for your firms, an enormous opportunity, long-term credibility for decision-making, certainty for the investment community, projects that are imaginative but deliverable, and are carefully calculated to operate in the national interest for both of our countries. 

We have no intention to compete with low-cost business environments – we are an advanced and growing economy with demographics on our side – factors that will help entrench Japan’s influence in this region. 

Australia’s geography, our proximity to the fastest growing region of the world, and the capacity and ambition of our regional partners, means a Future Made in Australia is necessarily a future made in the region together. 

That spirit of partnership runs through the government’s Future Made in Australia agenda. 

This is not about Australia turning inwards. This is an ambitious agenda to secure foreign investment in Australia and two-way investment in our national interest for industrial capability, to rebuild manufacturing strength, sharpen innovation, and make the most of the clean energy transformation and industrial transition. 

I believe the Future Made in Australia strategy has a strong complementary with Japan’s own Green Transformation strategy. 

Both plans will drive investment into clean energy, more sustainable low-carbon metals production, and advanced manufacturing. Along with AI and quantum, these will be the real drivers of 21^st century economic and industrial growth. 

Together, Australia and Japan can decarbonise industrial and energy supply chains in this part of the world; set the standards for the Indo-Pacific’s clean-energy future; unlock new scientific and technological breakthroughs that benefit industries in both countries; and support one another’s economic security and industrial resilience.

So to all of you, our Japanese friends – to the investors, the innovators, the workers, and the diplomats whose efforts give this relationship its real substance – thank you for all of the important work you do. 

When Japan is stronger, Australia is stronger. 

 

END NOTES

[1] https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/japan/japan-country-brief

[2] https://crawford.anu.edu.au/ajrc/content-centre/article/news/japan-australia-investment-report-2024-record-breaking-investment#:~:text=Inbound%20Japanese%20M%26A%20saw%20a,to%20a%20record%20%24141.1%20billion.