Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the sixth annual Australia India Leadership Dialogue of 2023.
It is my pleasure to be before you today welcoming you to the opening of our dialogue.
To our Indian Delegates + Observers, welcome to the vibrant city of Melbourne. To our Australian Delegates + Observers joining us from all over the country, welcome.
First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands in which we gather upon today, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and pay my deepest respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.
The Australia India Institute is Australia’s leading Think Tank dedicated to enhancing Australia-India relations.
We aim to increase the policy and public importance of India as a crucial partner in Australia’s future, and of Australia as a crucial partner in India’s future. We do this through partnerships with government, business and civil society both here in India and Australia.
This year holds special significance for us as it marks the first time we host the AILD on Australian soil since the challenging times brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.
It follows from a successful Dialogue we held in New Delhi last year, and today, we eagerly anticipate building on that momentum.
I am excited about our partnership with Australian founded tech company Atlassian who are our principal corporate partner for the Dialogue for the second consecutive year. We are thrilled to work with their brilliant team, and I will hand over shortly to Avani Prabhakar, Global Head of Talent and HR at Atlassian who is Co-chairing this year’s Dialogue.
Their partnership with the Institute on this Dialogue demonstrates that Atlassian are leading the way in their commitment to the Australia-India relationship.
Atlassian’s ambition to harness the skills and talent of young Indians to be part of the Atlassian story and build its presence in India is inspiring and gives this one-day event a distinctive future-facing trajectory.
I would also like to acknowledge our supporting partners for this year’s Dialogue, the Victorian Government, (TCS) Tata Consultancy Services, Air India, the University of Melbourne and (CII) the Confederation of Indian Industry.
To our Distinguished Guests:
- I would like to acknowledge and thank Her Excellency Professor the Hon Margaret Gardner AC, the esteemed Governor for hosting the opening reception at Government House, setting a warm and welcoming tone for today’s discussions.
- I would also like thank The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Prof Duncan Maskell for delivering his address yesterday at Government House.
- Australia’s Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, The Hon Tim Watts
- Member for Lalor in the Australian House of Representatives, The Hon. Joanne Ryan on behalf of Minister for Trade and Tourism, Don Farell
- Australia’s High Commissioner to India, His Excellency Phillip Green
- India’s High Commissioner to Australia, His Excellency Manpreet Vohra
- Australia’s Shadow Foreign Minister, The Hon Simon Birmingham MP
- Australia’s Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, and former Trade Minister, The Hon Dan Tehan MP
- The State of Tamil Nadu’s Minister of Information Technology and Digital Services, Shri Palanivel Thiagarajan (PTR)
- The State of Victoria’s Minister for Jobs and Industry, Treaty and First People’s and Women, The Hon Natalie Hutchins
Last year’s AILD conversation focused on protecting against new threats in the cyberspace, exploring new opportunities in the clean energy sector, harnessing the extraordinary skills capabilities and talent in our respective countries to drive new waves of economic growth, and channeling technology to drive deeper cultural connections between our two nations.
The Dialogue will build on that foundation and discuss all the ways Australia and India are using and can use technology to significantly deepen their cooperation.
2023 has been a remarkable year for India: hosting the G20, demonstrating its growing prominence as a global leader and voice of the global south. India also became just the fourth country through its Chandrayan 3 mission to accomplish landing on the moon.
Not only for India, these past 12 months have been filled with rapid momentum for the Australia-India bilateral relationship, highlighted by our Prime Ministers meeting seven times this year alone.
We have grown closer as trusted strategic partners to make the most of the opportunities that strengthen Australia-India bilateral relations and tackle shared challenges to promote peace and prosperity in our shared region.
Australia and India’s futures lie in enhanced mutual cooperation with each other to address the challenges we face as two nations working towards achieving our shared interests.
In the Indo-Pacific region that we are both a part of, where economic vitality thrives—housing two-thirds of the global economy, three-fifths of the world’s population, and facilitating over 60% of global maritime trade—we also face intricate security and strategic challenges.
These strategic challenges are growing due to contested geographical boundaries and international norms, and increased military build-ups along with greater competition over regional economic integration.
Beyond traditional strategic challenges, we grapple with non-traditional challenges—from piracy and illegal fishing to the adverse impacts of climate change and the emergence of climate refugees—demanding a comprehensive approach to regional stability.
As the convenor of bilateral dialogues such as this one, the Institute is committed to facilitating open discourse between leaders in Australia and India to find solutions to such major problems.
Our Kolkata Dialogue in September brought together security experts from Australia and India to discuss how Australia and India can work together to help strengthen island states in the Indo-Pacific from the threats they are vulnerable to such as climate change, damaging resource extraction, economic coercion, and disinformation.
The challenges faced by our region currently are why the Leadership Dialogue is so important. It enables us to enhance our shared framework for regional security, promote business and commercial opportunities, and strengthen our people-to-people links.
On that note, I warmly welcome you to the AILD 2023, and I will now hand over to Global Head of Talent and HR at Atlassian, Ms. Avani Prabhakar.