00:00Well, look, it brings together Australia with our ally, the US, our long-term friend, Japan,
00:06and our newest friend, India, to try to get a common view of security issues in the Indo-Pacific.
00:12It is particularly important that it keeps meeting at foreign ministers' level because,
00:17as you say, it has been hard to meet at leaders' level recently.
00:22President Biden had to cancel coming to the Quad leaders' meeting in Sydney, and India
00:26wasn't able to get him out to India earlier this year, and we're now, of course, in US
00:31election season.
00:32So, it's important that foreign ministers come together and keep working on what is
00:36a very ambitious list of projects that the Quad is trying to pursue.
00:40Oh, give us a flavour of what some of them are, then, this ambitious list.
00:44Well, at various points, the Quad has looked at all issues of Indo-Pacific security, whether
00:50that's climate change, whether that's technology and supply chains, connectivity, whether it's
00:57tensions in the maritime areas of the region.
01:02At the moment, I think there's a big focus on new technologies and the way that the four
01:08countries in the Quad can work together on those.
01:10Yeah, we've already heard that Australia will be giving about $18 million towards what's
01:18being labelled cable connectivity and resilience.
01:22Where does that money go exactly?
01:24Look, it's a very exciting initiative.
01:26So this new centre looks at cable resilience, and what we mean by that is undersea cables.
01:32So those highways of information that are absolutely crucial for modern economies, but
01:39which are quite vulnerable, which are vulnerable to natural disaster, vulnerable to accident,
01:43and vulnerable to deliberate sabotage.
01:46So the $18 million will be spent setting up a new centre.
01:51It'll be a whole-of-government initiative, but housed in Department of Foreign Affairs
01:55and Trade, and it'll work with countries in the region on the technical side, regulation,
02:00governance, et cetera, to make sure that those cables are safe and secure.
02:05And I find it interesting that these days it really does show this all-tools-of-statecraft,
02:10whole-of-nation type approach.
02:12We see a security problem, but often the answer to that particular security problem isn't
02:17specifically defence.
02:19It's bringing together the whole range of tools and capacities that we have in Australia,
02:24and helping bring those to bear on the problem.
02:27So it's a very interesting example of that newer idea of all-tools-of-statecraft.
02:30OK.
02:31Melissa, how much is cybersecurity and intelligence sharing part of this quad group?
02:38It is to some extent.
02:40Clearly India comes from a very different foreign policy tradition.
02:44And so one of the things that the quad is trying to do is to socialise India into working
02:49with the three existing partners, Australia, Japan, and the US, and try to get more of
02:57a common view on some of these issues.
02:59Now both India, both Japan, care a lot about some of these cyber and security issues.
03:05So they are very high on the agenda.
03:07OK.
03:08We sometimes fall into this trap when a group of countries like this meets to say it's to
03:13stave off the ever-present threats of China's influence in various regions.
03:19Is that the case here?
03:22The quad members would never say that that was the case.
03:25Certainly that is China's perception, and I think it's the perception of many countries
03:29in the region.
03:32That however doesn't have to be seen as conflict.
03:35It could be seen as healthy competition.
03:39That it is in everybody's interest that this region not be dominated by any one power,
03:46on whatever front that is, whether that's economically, security, in cyber and infrastructure.
03:52And what the quad does is tries to build public goods for the whole region, giving other choices
03:59to the countries than just the Chinese offering.
04:02Just one final word about climate resilience and climate change.
04:07We're told that that will be on the agenda.
04:10Very much so, and it has to be all the time.
04:13I think it's interesting.
04:14It will have been on the agenda all week.
04:15So Foreign Minister Wong is in Japan after attending the Japan Pacific Island leaders
04:22meeting.
04:23So talking about how Australia and Japan can work with Pacific Island leaders, and they
04:27will be talking a lot about climate change.
04:29And she's also attending the Foreign Ministers of ASEAN meeting, the East Asia Forum, and
04:37going to Korea.
04:38So a lot into the trip, and climate will be part of all of those discussions.
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