At the ASEAN-Australia Forum in May this year, I spoke about the changes that have taken place in the relationship between Australia and ASEAN over twenty successful years of dialogue and cooperation. I think we both have real cause for pride in the achievements we have recorded during the time.

In that period it has been the extraordinary growth of the ASEAN economics that has caught the eyes of the world. For our part, the emergence of ASEAN as a powerhouse of the global economy has brought home vividly to Australians the importance ASEAN has assumed for their own prosperity. But ASEAN has an equally important message for the world -- one which, perhaps, your natural modesty has tended to obscure. It is the way it has underpinned that economic success by building an environment of peace and stability, working patiently through a process of consultation and cooperation among its own members and with other countries of the region. We have seen the fruit of these efforts in the just-concluded inaugural meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum, which gives a new significance to our annual gatherings. It represents a recognition that ASEAN, with its peape and stability, is not merely the geographic heart of the Asia Pacific, but that it has shown the way to the rest of us. ASEAN is clearly enhanced, not diminished, by sharing this fruit of its long years' Tabour with others, and congratulate you on its success.

Yesterday we had the first meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum. The meeting certainly achieved the purpose of providing confidence and comfort to all members about our new institution. What was especially impressive about it, however, that it provided this comfort not by ducking the was ard issues. Rather we discussed increasingly openly the security issues that were really on our minds, and we detailed what we were going to do between now and our next Forum to address the real issues. The Senior Officials Meeting of the ARF will, therefore, over the next twelve months prepare materials for the next Ministerial Meeting. The ARF SOM should also develop into a setting for regular officials-level regional security dialogue. The growing number of semi-official and second-track security dialogues will continue to provide most valuable contributions to this process, and we see great potential for further interaction and cooperation between the two levels of dialogue. We hope, too, that over time the process will be rounded out by greater participation by military and defence planners.

As one result of all this activity, I would like to see in the future years the evolution of a strategic partnership between Australia and South East Asia. We in the Australian Government have been giving close attention to this approach and, in the 1993 Strategic Review paper which was talked in the Australian Parliament earlier this year, we identified a number of mutual benefits which could flow from it Such an approach may not come to extend to formalmultilateral defence links. But I believe it could certainly include a common strategic identity, reflected in increasing cooperation and common activities. This could certainly encompass, for example, some kind of broader political and security cooperation through the Bali Treaty, and links based on our common support.for nuclear-free zones.

There is no need for me to explain to a gathering of ASEAN, where political and security achievements have been the foundation on which economic success has been built, how growing economic inter-independence feeds back into broadly-based regional security. Australia welcomes the pivotal contribution that ASEAN has made to APEC, which we see as central to this process.

We have a direct interest in the progress of greater economic integration within ASEAN through the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA). We see possibilities for the most fruitful cooperation in a linkage between AFTA and CER as has been proposed by the Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand, Dr. Supachai. The potential attractions are obvious --the joining of dynamic groups of economies of roughly equal size to create a market of some 335 million people. The pace with which such a linkdevelops would of course be dependent on the wishes of the ASEAN countries, and we look forward to continuing our consultations in this respect.

Let me make it clear, though, that Australiawould bring to any such link an economy well prepared to contribute to our mutual advantage, The last decade of extensive restructuring by the Australian Government has so transformed our economy that partnership with our neighbours in South East Asia should now be seen by our neighbours as a very attractive proposition. We have increased international competitiveness by 30 per cent over ten years. We have reduced industrial disputes to their lowest level in over forty years. We have achieved Just about the highest rate of growth in the OECD, at 5 per cent, with manufacturing leading the recovery. And we have brought inflation down to 2 per cent.

These achievements have their counterpart inthe remarkable growth in the ASEAN-Australia economic relationship. When our dialogue relationship began, Australia's exports to ASEANwere worth A$350 million or under 6 per cent of our total export, in 1992/193, they were valued at A$8.7 billion or 14 per cent of the total -- making ASEAN our second largest regional market after North East Asia, displacing Europe and pushing North America into fourth place. Again, twenty years ago, ASEAN exports to Australia were worth A$108 million, or 2,6 per cent of our imports; in 1992/93, they were worth A$4.8 billion, or 8 per cent of the total.

The economic partnership has, of course, more to it than trade and investment, as vital as these are. As you may know, at the first ASEAN-Australia Forum in Canberra twenty years ago, Australia announced a contribution of $5 million dollars to assist joint Australia-ASEAN projects. This beganwhat eventually became the ASEAN-Australia Economic Cooperation Program - or the AAECP - the centre piece of economic relations at a govemment-to-govemment level. The new, third, phase of the Program is, of course, a major focus of our discussion today - and the Linkages Stream of Phase Three in particular reflects the evolution of the Australia-ASEAN relationship from one of donor/ recipient to that of a mature, full-fledged economic partnership.

An area which has great potential to add substance to this partnership is collaboration in industry and technology. I should record here our particular pleasure with the 1993 ASEAN-Australia Forum's decision to establish a Working Group covering this area, especially the agreement that theGroup should hold international activities.

In this context, the ever more extraordinary advances in telecommunications make cooperation in this sector between ASEAN and Australia increasingly important. Australia brings great strengths to the sector. We have internationally recognised telecommunications skills relating to network development and service delivery whichhave already won us contracts for major projects in the region. At the commercial level, we have established a Telecommunications Export Task Force to increase business links with Asia. We will also be pursuing closer links at the govemment-to government level.

I note that there has been very satisfactory progress on practical cooperation on environmental matters. Four of the six projects in the AAECP Phase Three Projects Stream concern environmental matters, with a heavy emphasis on improving the environmental safety of industrial and related processes, including waste water management and environmentally sound energy production.

Another important aspect of cooperation has been the rapid growth of collaboration in education and training, providing a personal, first hand, basis for the future expansion of the partnership. An initiative which I believe has considerable practical value here is the proposal for a directory of regional professional organisations and processes for qualifications recognition.

Finally, I would like to express my pleasure at the creation of a Working Group on Culture and Information. I reiterate the support I offered, at the most recent ASEAN-Australia Forum, for the words of one of Australia's most respected commentators on Asian affairs, Dr. Stephen Fitzgerald, when he called for "the shared discussion of principles and values and beliefs and visions and morals and ethics and education." As Dr Fitzgerald continued, "We will not need to accept (each others) views, but we must understand them and factor them into our long-term perspectives and perhaps modify our expectations and our behaviour to take account of them."

All this adds up to a new and exciting phase inASEAN-Australia relations, with ever-increasing levels of involvement and cooperation. We are entering a period when we need new structures and linkages to take forward the momentum which is building up in our political and economic dealings with each other. This does not mean we will never have differences. These are inevitable from time to time, given our widely differing backgrounds and the fact that our interests do not always coincide. But if differences do occur, they will increasingly be contained in the framework of a broader, more diverse and more mature partnership.