PM Morrison addresses Indian Media

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison interacted with the Indian media in Australia about his recent meeting with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi and recent upswing in Australia India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in various fields. He also talked about Quad and touched upon the coming together of AUKUS. The following are the excerpts of his address:

Prime Minister: Well, can I thank all of you for joining me this morning, and Rosa, thank you for helping us bring this together, but also to Alex Hawke, Minister Hawke, who’s joining us as well this morning. It's good to be here with him joining with you today to talk about what is one of Australia's most important relationships, our relationship with India.

It was my great pleasure to be able to meet with Prime Minister Modi last week when we were in Washington together for the Quad, and what was a very lengthy bilateral meeting. There's always plenty for Narendra and I to be discussing in what is a very warm friendship that we've been able to build up over several years now. And, that builds, of course, on the relationship that I think that Prime Minister Abbott first established. And I was very pleased that he was able to join Prime Minister Modi early this year in August as my Special Envoy in pursuing many of the issues.

It's been difficult, as we've tried on many occasions, the Prime Minister and I were joking about this, that on many occasions we've both tried to get together in person, particularly in New Delhi, and there's been a standing invitation, one that I've been quite keen to take up. And we've been frustrated by COVID on too many occasions and other events. But we are looking forward to turning that around next year, when I'm very much looking forward to going to, to New Delhi in person. And to, that will be particularly important because it marks a, the significant milestone of India's 75th year of independence. And so, Australia would very much want to be there to mark such an important milestone for such a dear and close friend.

While we were together in Washington, we agreed a number of initiatives and took forward other matters that we've been working on for some time. The most significant, I think was our agreement to go forward with a low emissions technology partnership. Australia's approach to the new energy economy, an economy that will be transitioning to net zero over the next 30 years. We want to work with our partners. We want to ensure that the technology that enables us to achieve this, but while enabling economies to continue to grow and develop and create jobs and make things, grow things, all of this, incredibly important. And that's the vision we have about how the new energy economy works, and we want that to be inclusive. This is not supposed to be just about something for advanced economies. This is supposed to be for the whole world. And the ability to take up technology at scale that is commercial is the key to successfully transitioning to the new energy economy. And India understands that. And India is going through a remarkable transformation of its own economy, and looking to actually transition its own energy economy into the future. But, to do that in a way that is patient, which is sensible, which is practical, and so, working together on technologies, I think, is one of the key partnerships that you can have to ensure that both of our countries are able to go through this transition period. But, more than that, demonstrate that this is how you do it, that this isn't just about setting targets and doing these things. It's the how that matters.

As I stressed at the Quad meeting last week, there is a great deal of enthusiasm all around the world, I have no doubt, for trying to move our economies into this new energy economy, to move it into an economy that understands the impacts of carbon emissions. That's fine. But, if you don't work out how to do it, it all gets a bit academic. And, so, that's what the Prime Minister and I are very committed to achieving, a practical energy technology partnership that enables zero carbon energy technologies and even sub-zero carbon technologies and transition technologies, that actually enable us all to get there, and we actually can achieve this. This can be done. It's been done many, many times in world history. And we share a passion on the practical when it comes to transitioning our economies. And the low emissions technology partnership will particularly look at ultra low cost solar and hydrogen supply chains linking into India. And we see that as a big opportunity for both countries.

Australia has long been an energy exporter to India and that will continue, both with our traditional resource relationships, that will continue. But, in addition to that, a whole new line will open up now, we believe, in these new energy technologies and new fuel sources. Our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership is further becoming more ambitious, and our trade ministers will be meeting. And that will see us, we have both tasked our ministers to be ambitious about where we can get to. And I think we'll be able to get a lot further in a bilateral sense with India and Australia together. And the Prime Minister and I share that objective.

And, but, this has always been a challenge. And we understand the challenges in India and the challenges in Australia in ensuring that we can get the right deal. We want the right deal for both countries. And, so we'll continue to be patient about it and take the gains where we can take them and see this as a road that we're on and we will just keep adding and adding and adding I think to the strength of that Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement that we're seeking. And this all builds off the India Economic, India Economic Strategy update that will also identify new opportunities.

Our military cooperation continues to go ahead. We engaged in joint exercises off Guam in the Bay of Bengal as part of the Exercise Malabar back in, in August of this year. I think that is a very important cooperation and shows how countries in the region are working together. We're committed to an open, a secure and resilient Indo-Pacific, and advancing our cooperation right across the Indian Ocean.

Another key matter which is very large on the global agenda is the matter of critical and emerging technologies. This will also continue to be a key part of our partnership, 5G, 6G, cybersecurity, critical minerals, space, which will deliver future security, prosperity and resilience.

The reason we were all in Washington was for the Quad Leaders’ Summit. And the Quad has moved into a new and I think, much more ambitious chapter. The Quad is a positive initiative. The Quad is about like-minded democracies, together with Japan and the United States, coming together to demonstrate that such democracies and economies can deal with the world's biggest challenges and make a positive difference, whether that be on our response to COVID, whether that be on ensuring the development and accessibility of new and critical technologies, whether that be in addressing the global challenge of climate change or indeed dealing constructively with the regional security issues that present within our region and cooperating together as likeminded democracies.

This is not an alliance. It's a practical partnership of likeminded, scaled democracies and economies that can actually bring stability and growth and prosperity to our region. All four of us live here. All four of us have our future here. All four of us understand the challenges and the changing strategic environment in which we're living in the Indo-Pacific. And, so, we've come together at a leaders’ level. And I commend President Biden for doing that as, as Prime Minister Modi has also and former Prime Minister Suga. And we look forward to Prime Minister Kishida taking up his chair within the Quad partnership.

It is a dynamic and free flowing partnership. The dialogue and the discussion we had in Washington, very similar to the one we had earlier this year in our virtual, first virtual meeting. A lot of understanding and a lot of commitment that is backing up what we're doing. We want the Quad to be a very practical partnership, not just a gathering. And the fact that we're providing and delivering significantly, 1.2 billion safe and effective vaccines, I think, is testament to that. And I particularly want to acknowledge the role that India is playing in providing and producing and making those vaccines available. Critical in that is also ensuring that our medical teams and logistics experts are helping, particularly developing countries in the region, ensure that the vaccine can get in the arm. One thing to get the doses, but you've got to be able to ensure that you're helping with the distribution system, the cold storage, the training and support of the medical professionals and health workers that are administering the vaccines, the logistical support and planning. Australia is doing a great deal in this area, particularly in the Pacific, work we're doing up in Papua New Guinea especially, supporting in Indonesia, as well as over Fiji. In Fiji, they're well over 90 per cent vaccinated. And all four of the Quad partners, particularly Australia, have played a massive role in delivering that vaccine program, which has effectively saved their fortunes there in Fiji. And I know Prime Minister Bainimarama is incredibly, incredibly thankful for the support that he's received, both from Australia and from India.

The Quad is also going deeper into critical and emerging technologies, and particularly rare earths, and the supply chain for rare earths and critical minerals that runs right across to the end, to the end user. And the manufacturing capabilities that exist within India, combined with the resource strengths of Australia in this field, provide a natural partnership. And when you link that with the advanced economies in the United States and Japan, it is a natural, a very natural partnership that is seeking to create more secure, more reliable, and more competitive supply chains in the rare earths space, through to end user products. And so, we do see this as one of the core elements of the work that the Quad is doing.

On climate, the work that needed to be done on a Quad Clean Energy Hydrogen Partnership. We're looking forward to hosting a Clean Energy Summit in Australia next year, out of what we discussed in Washington last week. And that's all about ensuring that we bring together, across the Quad countries, our scientists, our industrialists, our entrepreneurs, our professors, our manufacturers, our miners, our resources operators, our our energy economists, and putting them together and being able to map out that technology pathway over the, over the, over the decades ahead, and ensure that we are linking up our supply chains across the Quad partners, and linking in more from the Indo-Pacific region, particularly through ASEAN. We see ASEAN as as central to our Indo-Pacific vision within the Quad. And so, the Quad complements these many other partnerships, just as AUKUS indeed complements, rather than takes away, from what we're doing in those other partnerships, particularly the Quad.

So, ASEAN is central to our view when it comes to the Indo-Pacific, and I was greatly encouraged by the very free flowing and very easy and warm discussion that exists between the Quad partners. We all get it, in terms of what the challenges are in the Indo- Pacific region. We totally get it. And we know that as like-minded democracies, those who believe in freedom, that it's very important to ensure that we have a free and open Indo-Pacific for all of us not just the Quad partners but for the independence and sovereignty of all countries, because that's what we believe is in the interests of all, right across the region that Australia and India calls home. And, with that I'm happy to move to questions.

India News Chairman Dr Ram

Dr Ram Mohan: Good morning, Prime Minister. India presents growing opportunities for Australia's critical minerals, especially the nation, looks to India, looks to build its manufacturing sector, defence and space capabilities. How do we see that unfolding in the next few years? And what is the immediate potential? Can we see our lithium or minerals into our Indian cars or our Indian autos and Indian scooters and stuff like that using the critical mineral resources from Australia?

Prime Minister: Yes, is my wholehearted answer. Yes, yes and yes. And that is exactly what the partnership that we're forging is designed to do. But we're practical, we're realistic about it. And you have to have a supply chain here that can enable that and links up. Narendra has a great phrase, which I quoted at the Quad. That supply chains today are not just about cost, they're about trust. This changes how liberal market economies, I think, need to think about supply chains, and we've learnt that during COVID, we've learnt that the least cost supply chain has fragilities. It has vulnerabilities that have previously not been priced in. And it's important that supply chains are not monopolised and Australia has an opportunity to work with, particularly India and the manufacturing capability and all of the technologies you're talking about, to actually provide that secure and trusted supply chain. And it's not going to happen overnight. This is a very complicated economic task that just doesn't involve the work between governments, it involves the work between businesses and industries. And Indian manufacturers aren't going to just all of a sudden pay over the odds to do what they're going to do. They're not. We get that's not a criticism. That's just, that's a reality. And so we need to have a supply chain that is competitive. So it's a good, positive commercial choice for Indian manufacturers to be able to access what they need in this space on rare earths and critical minerals from Australia. And the same is true in the United States and in Japan.

Now, Japan is already well down this path in the work that is done with Lynas and that is an important part of their supply chain. Now, this can equally be true with India. The processing of rare earths and critical minerals also brings with it some very difficult environmental challenges. And so there's a whole range of technology that needs to be able to be commercially implemented at scale in India to that end as well. And so while the answer is yes, it's not easy yes, it's a yes that's going to require a lot of work to realise that. And that's why I said at the Quad and others said, look, we've got three things we're focused on here. The COVID response. The climate response. And the rare earth and critical minerals, critical technology supply chains. And of course, we have a regional security discussion as well. And we discussed the situation in Afghanistan at length. And Prime Minister Modi, of course, raised the very serious concerns that he has about security, most directly on India's borders. So we want to keep that really simple. And I think if we do that, Ram, then I think we'll make a lot more progress. The great risk of these groupings is they just do too much and they just end up becoming talkfests and the practical initiatives tend to fall by the wayside. So all four of us are very keen for this to be successful and we're quite jealous of its agenda and keeping it focused on the things that matter most. So the answer is yes, but it's going to take a lot of work, I think, to practically achieve it. So the manufacturer sitting in Mumbai says, yep, that works for me. I'm going with them for the next 10 years and I'm going to sign a takeoff agreement to that end because that's good for my business and makes me competitive. That's the goal.

I want to finish on another point, because it's important we want India to be a powerhouse in the manufacture of the new energy economy consumables. We really do, making solar panels, making wind turbines, making the components that go into electric vehicles. We want India to be a powerhouse in that in that space. We want Australia to be playing our role in the supply chains of that and being very successful as well. But make no mistake, but we know that India has the potential to really lift its strength in that area in the global market. And we think strategically that is a very good outcome for Australia.