Address to team Canada trade mission 2025

I am really delighted that Mary has come with this giant delegation to Australia.

Mary was very kind about me, and I intend to be very kind about her as well.

I have to say that Mary Ng has been Canada's Trade Minister for a very long time, in historical terms. Six years? Six years, that's actually the longest serving, I think, Canadian Trade Minister.

The trick to being effective in these jobs, I think, is, of course, you have to have a focus on what is in the national interest of the country that you represent.

And you have to have a focus on the, sometimes arcane, detail of trade agreements, bilateral or plurilateral or multilateral agreements, and a focus on how to get to where you need to get the Canadian economy or the Australian economy to.

And you need a good team. But that only gets you so far.

It's the warmth and passion that Mary has brought to the bilateral discussions and the big room discussions, the spirit of creativity about how to approach problems and the fun, Mary, that you have brought to these things. It has made a real difference. And so, the Australia-Canada bilateral relationship is very strong.

It's the work that we do together, broadly across those multilateral fora and plurilateral fora, and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) in particular, which is the world's highest quality trade agreement. And that requires building coalitions of support for ideas rather than just prosecuting a national agenda.

This building that you stand in- this joint used to be called not the Parliament, but the "Rum Hospital," because in Australian history, the post-European arrival, the principal medium of exchange in the Australian economy, the economy of then Port Phillip Bay, was rum. You can imagine how incorruptible this arrangement was that the resident British military officers had a complete monopoly on the production of rum. And it was indeed the source of Australia's one and only coup d'etat, which happened here when Governor Bly, ancestor of one of our recent Prime Ministers, Malcolm Turnbull, was turned out by British officers.

Australia's trading history didn't start with European colonization. For centuries, First Nations Australians were trading with Indonesian Makassan seafarers. There is a strong history of trade and a relationship that reached right through Asia and indeed through supply chains, right into supplying right across the world in the previous millennia.

Of course, there is a big global conversation happening about trade at the moment. We're all focused on each of our bilateral relationships and working those issues through.

But what it does say is that we as countries here have an enormous opportunity to diversify all of our trading relationships, not just in terms of the markets that we each sell into and our trade and investment relationship with each other, but also to make sure that our engagement is purposeful. That at a bilateral level, there are enormous opportunities here in Australia for Canadian businesses. And indeed, it goes beyond just those commercial propositions. The priority industries that most of you come from, food and agriculture and agricultural technology, go to the heart of food security questions for both of our peoples.

Making sure that we that we can export effectively, our clean energy and clean energy technology capabilities and collaborate over those where in a world where, you know, put aside the ebbs and flows of regulation and the approach of governments, where 97% of Australia's trading partners have net zero targets of their own. That is not just a commercial proposition, but it is a strategic proposition for both of our countries.

I must say, as Assistant Minister for a Future Made in Australia, making sure that we back our mining sectors, not just to produce raw material to be shipped to our partners around the world. And I agree with Jack, we have some similarities, but they're complementarities, fundamentally, but that we are adding value in both of their economies and doing it in a smart way. That is what the Future Made in Australia agenda is all about, and all of that opportunity, as Mary said, in information technology, in artificial intelligence, in cyber security, with all of its applications, from defence right through to the broader economy.

These are enormous national interest concerns, as well as being commercial opportunities. And Australia is a very good place to invest for all of the reasons that have been set out for you today, and I hope all of the reasons that you discover over the next few days.

It is, as Jack says, a good place to live. Countries around the world have some of the minerals that are required for this giant industrial transformation that the globe is embarking upon. Australia has all of them, all of them in vast quantities. We have a strong, effective mining sector and all of that capability. We sit on the edge of the fastest growing region of the world in human history, with deep relationships into that region that we are very keen to partner with you, not just in terms of investment and trade in Australia, but of course, growing all of our businesses and all of our opportunity into this region, which is going to be the crucible of so much economic activity for the world. 

I am delighted that you are here. It is a cold day in Sydney. You will see, as you drive around that that the young men and women of Sydney have seen this opportunity to try on winter fashions for the first time.

My kids say, freezing. One of them said to me this morning, freezing.

So, I'm very glad that you braved these cold, chilly, chilly, chilly days and I hope that it doesn't stop you from, you know, getting down to the beach. If you don't get down to the beach, jump in the harbour. It's actually safe and a wonderful place to swim. I promise.

It's very good. Barangaroo has got a beautiful beach down there, sandstone into the water. It is wonderful— we're very proud of Sydney Harbor and our Sydney beaches. If you've got a chance to stay for longer, make sure you do.

I hope you really get everything that you need out of this delegation in a business sense and in a commercial sense and doing all of the deals and forming the relationships amongst yourselves, as much as you do with our Australian business community. But I also hope you have a wonderful time when you come back to your families.

Welcome and thank you very much.