00:01Brunei is a country that's only the size of Newcastle or Canberra but through an
00:06accident of geography it is the petrostate on our doorstep. It supplies
00:12about 9% of our diesel and 11% of our urea for fertiliser. Now we've had a
00:18long relationship with Brunei, for example, they'll be visiting the war
00:24memorial where Australian soldiers fought, including my grandfather. But in
00:30recent years there's been a real push to up the relationship. There's been a
00:34Minister for Defence visit, a new defence attache and we've signed a strategic
00:40partnership with Brunei and this visit will really be drawing off those bases
00:45to talk about the current fuel and fertiliser crisis. And it's a two-way trade
00:49relationship, is that right? Australia is a major exporter of food products to
00:54Brunei. Do you think Anthony Albanese will be leaning on that as he heads into
00:58these discussions? Absolutely. And I think that's what all of these visits are about.
01:02It's the same with Malaysia, for example, which supplies one of the, well, one of
01:07the biggest refiners in the region and again supplies about 10% of our fertiliser.
01:14But we supply 95% of Malaysia's liquid natural gas and the same in Singapore,
01:23say 40%. So if you look, it's not so much about pushing, we need, you know, we need
01:31special deals. It's about let's keep global trade open. That when we are selling to each
01:38other, when we are keeping to our commitments, we're all better off.
01:43This follows the Prime Minister's trip to Singapore last week. That resulted in an agreement to make
01:48maximum effort to meet each other's fuel and gas needs, but not a legally binding deal.
01:54What do you think the Prime Minister is seeking to achieve on this trip? What would success look
01:58like for him? Look, I think a lot of it is just good diplomacy. It's being there. It's having the
02:05head of
02:05our country visit with His Highness the Sultan of Brunei, showing we care, showing those relationships
02:12matter. There are in a way, you know, legally binding agreements. Those are in fact the contracts
02:18that various suppliers have signed with each other. What we're trying to do is reassure each other that
02:24we're not going to back out of those contracts. Okay. So the worst possible result would be if
02:30countries started to say, we've got to keep this at home. You know, so if Australia said, we're going to
02:34keep all of our gas at home, we would then find that other countries will keep all of their fuel
02:39and trade will stop. From our perspective, life is better when we trade with each other. You know,
02:45if you ask an Australian, what would your life look like without anything made overseas or anything
02:50that even has a component made overseas, we don't want global trade to stop. So this is as much about
02:57reassurance to each other and to tell our domestic publics how important it is that we
03:04keep to what we've agreed in global trade and not enter into this poor makes poorer world.
03:10And the Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, is also on this trip. Why do you think it was important for
03:16her to be there as well? And what do you think her priorities will be?
03:20Well, she's been a real source of a lot of the push in upgrading our Southeast Asia relations. So, I
03:26mean,
03:26it's been a long time. We've been 50 years a dialogue partner of ASEAN, the Association of Southeast
03:31Asian nations. But just recently, we became the first comprehensive strategic partner of ASEAN.
03:38And we've had similar things. So with Malaysia, we're now a comprehensive strategic partner.
03:42And I think the Foreign Minister has been really pushing this, the idea of how important our region
03:50is to Australia. In this new world we live in, I think in many ways, it's not so much about
03:56our
03:57government systems or our ideology. It's about whether we're a great power who thinks that they
04:03can break rules and thinks that they can manage by themselves, or whether you're a small or middle power,
04:09like Australia, like Brunei, like Malaysia, which relies on rules and relies on open trade. And if that stops,
04:17that's a terrible thing for all of us. So we have a common interest. And I think a very strong
04:22sense,
04:23thanks to the Foreign Minister, of that common future being tied together.
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