Press conference - Canberra

ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER OF AUSTRALIA: Well, thanks for joining us. I'm absolutely delighted to host my friend, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, on his first official visit to Australia as Prime Minister of Singapore. Although this is our first official meeting in Canberra, this is our fourth in-person meeting since May last year. Singapore and Australia are close partners, but we are even closer friends. This year, as we celebrate 60 years of diplomatic relations and ten years of our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, we are deepening our relationship even further. Today, Prime Minister Wong and I launched an upgraded Comprehensive Strategic Partnership that takes our cooperation to the next level. The ambitious next phase of our evolving partnership will increase defence cooperation, expand our economic partnership, including to help ensure supply chains remain resilient, support our action together on climate change, strengthen pandemic preparedness and research cooperation, boost development on AI and emerging technologies, and furthering partnerships between our public service, universities and art institutions. In addition to our upgraded partnership, Ministers have signed Memorandum of Understanding across the board. There's a new Enhanced Defence Cooperation Agreement, Economic Resilience Agreement, and another on working with our ASEAN partners. We also discussed the recent Optus emergency service outages. We had a constructive conversation. I thank very much Prime Minister Wong for his words of condolence for those who were impacted with their families. We spoke about Australia and Singapore's focus on ASEAN and its central role in this region. I thank Prime Minister Wong for his commitment to this vision. And I thank Singapore for six decades of partnership. This has been a partnership between leaders, between nations, but most importantly between peoples. And I now will hand to Prime Minister Wong before we take the questions from the media.

MR LAWRENCE WONG, PRIME MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE: Thank you, Prime Minister Albanese, for the warm welcome once again. I am pleased to be in Canberra to commemorate several significant milestones in our bilateral relationship. This year we marked 60 years of diplomatic ties. Australia was one of the very first countries to recognise Singapore's independence and establish diplomatic ties with us. We are grateful for your friendship and steadfast support over the decades. We also marked 50 years since the Singapore Armed Forces started training in Australia. Generations of our servicemen and women have benefited from your hospitality and support. In turn, Singapore has always stood ready to help in difficult times. Most recently during the Queensland floods earlier this year. Of course, this year is also the tenth anniversary of our Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. This has delivered real and tangible benefits for both countries. More than 110 initiatives, including pathfinding ones, like the world's first digital and green economy agreements. We have forged closer links between our businesses with more than 5,000 Australian companies now using Singapore as a launchpad to access opportunities in the region. And we have a significant flow of two-way travel, with people studying, working and living in our respective countries. Many have formed close ties and lifelong friendships. And these people to people ties form the foundation of our partnership.

Prime Minister Albanese and I have earlier agreed and launched the upgraded Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, one which is anchored in trust, and which will allow us to chart new frontiers together. For example, we are stepping up our security cooperation through the Enhanced Defence Cooperation MOU. We will improve our military's reciprocal access to facilities and deepen cooperation in defence, science, technology, logistics and supply chains. We are strengthening economic connectivity. We will ensure that critical goods continue flowing between our countries, even during disruptions. We will cooperate in new and emerging areas like cyber, digital space and artificial intelligence. This will enable us to shape international standards and harness the transformative potential of these new technologies. And we will enhance our Green Partnership by refreshing our Green Economy Agreement and holding a Ministerial dialogue on energy. And we will support Australia's vision to become a renewable energy superpower by connecting your abundant resources with Southeast Asia's growing demand for clean power.

Both Australia and Singapore recognise that our future security and prosperity lies in Asia. And that means we will have to work together to shape the architecture for cooperation in our region. Singapore will continue to support Australia's efforts to deepen its engagement with Southeast Asia. And we will cooperate under a new third country training program to deliver capacity building programs for Southeast Asian countries, including what will soon be ASEAN's newest member, Timor Leste.

All in all, we have a full and ambitious agenda ahead of us. Prime Minister Albanese and I have tasked our Ministers to begin implementing the CSP 2.0 in earnest and we look forward to the updates. The world today is becoming more uncertain and more unsettled, but Australia and Singapore share a common strategic perspective that is built on a deep reservoir of trust. And I'm confident that with this strong foundation, we can continue to chart new frontiers and deliver lasting benefits for both our peoples. Thank you.

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Questions.

JOURNALIST: Thank you, Prime Ministers. Prime Minister Wong, in terms of defence cooperation, how could this work in practise? Could that potentially involve an Australian presence in Singapore, rotation of troops and assets? And Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on the climate ramifications of this - are we going to need to sign more deals with countries like Singapore if we are going to make those climate targets?

PRIME MINISTER WONG: On defence cooperation, we see Australia as a resident power in Asia and your continued presence in this part of the world contributes to stability, security for all the countries in Asia. That's why we already have a strong defence partnership, but we are enhancing it further and providing more support and enhanced access to Singapore's air and naval bases. And this will enable Australia to deploy more of its forces in our part of the world. We are working out the details of what this will entail, but clearly it will mean stronger facilitation for Australia to participate in Asia, for Australia to extend its security presence in Southeast Asia and the region more generally. And we believe this will be critical and important for Asia's continued stability and security.

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Can I thank Prime Minister Wong for the engagement that's there in defence, but also on green energy. On defence, the Wallaby Exercises are taking place as we speak, and the enhanced availability of Singapore's ports and air access is obviously very important for Australia to be able to have that presence in Southeast Asia, in that region. And it is a logical next step. And I thank very much Singapore for that.

On the green economy, the Green Economy Agreement between Australia and Singapore is one of the world's first, and what we are doing is further enhancing it as well. Singapore is doing some quite extraordinary work as well in creating a grid in its region, and that is something that this morning we had really constructive discussions with the Singaporean Minister as well as the Australian Minister going forward. And I'm sure that part of what we need to do with the challenge of climate change that both of us understand is real and needs action, is we need more cooperative action towards our common goal, which is reducing emissions in order to reduce the impact of climate change.

JOURNALIST: Could you share more details on the MOU and economic resilience? This arrangement on trade in essential supplies, what form will this take? What will it cover? Are we talking about food, medical supplies and what's the scale of it? What kind of logistics is going to go into this?

PRIME MINISTER WONG: We are looking broadly at a range of essential supplies, food, medical, but it builds on importantly the experiences both our countries had during COVID, because that was a period when, remember, countries were scrambling for essential supplies. Many countries had imposed restrictions on exports, imports, and it was a very difficult time for both our countries. But because of the trust that we have between Australia and Singapore, we kept supply lines flowing between our two countries. We even had vaccine swaps to support one another. And building on that experience, we believe we can work out a framework on a continuing basis, to ensure that the supply chains continue flowing, to ensure that shipping continues between our two countries. And this will help both our countries during a time of crisis or disruption, and it will be mutually beneficial for both our people. So, the framework is in place through the MOU, but the officials will be working out further details of how exactly we will implement this.

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Thanks, Prime Minister. Yeah, I think the best example is during COVID when planes were still travelling between Australia and Singapore without people, without passengers, but in order to ensure that goods were still being traded. That shows, I think that was not happening in many parts of the world. The disruption that was occurring to the global economy was real and was having an impact. But Australia and Singapore, because of that level of trust between us, was able to continue to have that engagement.

JOURNALIST: Thank you. Prime Ministers, on the Optus network failure last month which resulted in the deaths of four Australians, was this outage discussed in your meeting today? Mr. Lawrence, has your government guaranteed anything to prevent such an outage here, especially coming into our bushfire season? And Mr. Albanese, what responsibility should the Communications Department bear for missing the two emails Optus sent to an old email address on September 18th?

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Yes, it was discussed. I raised the issue, and we had a discussion. I thank Prime Minister Wong for the condolences that he offered to the families and his support for strong follow up action.

PRIME MINISTER WONG: Indeed, I have expressed my views in an interview recently on the outage. The company Optus and its parent company Singtel, operate commercially, but we expect them to behave responsibly and to comply with domestic laws wherever they operate, as I stated. And so I have no doubt that Singtel, as the parent company of Optus in this instance, will extend its full support to the independent investigation that's happening. And I have no doubt that the company, together with the regulators and authorities here, will get to the bottom of this, identify the root cause and make sure that something like that never happens again.

JOURNALIST: Good morning, Prime Minister. In a troubled world today, how can Singapore and Australia, what concrete steps can we take to work together, be it together or through multilateral platforms, to keep multilateralism alive and effective? And for example, will Australia consider joining the FIT Partnership? Thank you.

PRIME MINISTER WONG: We are taking concrete steps. The CSP that we are launching today is an example of this, the upgraded CSP that we are launching today, because many of the initiatives that we are working with one another are not just to benefit our two countries, but potentially can serve as pathfinders for the wider world, as we have already done, because we had the world's first Digital and Green Economy Agreements, and that indeed served as pathfinders for other countries eventually to also start thinking about digital rules for the global economy, to think about how trade and climate action can come together within the WTO framework. So, when we work together like that, we are not only looking at bilateral initiatives that benefit each one of us, but also looking with a view to preserve important multilateral frameworks or strengthen multilateral frameworks that will enable us to keep the rules based global system going. Besides our bilateral initiatives, I would also add that we work very closely together in regional and multilateral platforms. So, that's another way in which we enable multilateral frameworks to be reinforced and strengthened, for example, through the CPTPP, through our ASEAN Dialogue Partnership, and through many other arrangements.

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: One of the reasons why I was so delighted to welcome Prime Minister Wong, including Mrs. Wong, joining myself and Jodie Haydon at The Lodge last night, is that when we have discussions, it's discussions based as friends and trusting. And part of our discussions, informally as well as formally, has been about the world as it is in 2025. And the world as it is today is more uncertain perhaps, than it's been in the past. There's more disruption than there's been in the past. One of the things that makes this relationship so solid is that we know where we're coming from, and we know where we're going together. We have a common worldview about the importance of multilateralism, about the importance of free and fair trade, about the importance of multilateral institutions, whether it's the United Nations or the institutions where the Prime Minister and I will gather in coming weeks ahead, ASEAN, we'll meet in Malaysia. That will be an important gathering hosted by our friend Anwar Ibrahim. Then in Korea, the APEC meeting, something that Australia played a very proud role in founding, cooperation in our economic activity in our own region. And then the G20 as well will be important. So, we very much support multilateralism as one of the pillars of our foreign policy. I do want to congratulate Singapore on the launch of the Partnership, the newest Partnership that they have launched just last month. Australia certainly supports the goals of the Partnership. We'll consider our position on the Partnership itself, but we participate across so many gatherings as well. And last March I welcomed the Prime Minister's predecessor to Melbourne. Of course, we had the ASEAN Australia commemorative meeting where the leaders of all of the ASEAN countries, with the obvious exception of Myanmar, attended there in Melbourne. That was so constructive. That said a lot about the priority that we had. And it came off the back of Nicholas Moore's work on the Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040, where we have identified the importance of more regional engagement. And that is something that this visit by the Prime Minister and his high-ranking delegation, who are all here with us today, will continue to see as a product of this visit.

JOURNALIST: Is it disappointing that Singapore has been dragged into this Triple Zero outage as a result of what Optus has done? And Prime Minister Albanese, Senate Estimates learned this morning that Optus had sent its notifications to an email within the Department that wasn't being monitored. Does the Department bear some responsibility in the delays that we saw with that outage for not checking that inbox and not, you know, becoming aware of this issue sooner?

PRIME MINISTER WONG: As I've said before, I understand fully the anger, frustration and outrage at what has happened, because if this were to have happened in Singapore, I would feel the same. So, from that point of view, we understand the sentiments. I've extended my condolences to those impacted by the outage, including the family members and loved ones of those who lost their lives, which is tragic. And all I can do is to say from a government's perspective, we expect our companies to act responsibly, and we will certainly expect Singtel and Optus to comply fully with the laws, to do whatever they can to cooperate with the investigation. I'm sure they will do so and hopefully a conclusion will come true very soon on the outcome of the investigation, what went wrong, and steps can be taken expeditiously to rectify the mistakes.

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: The independent investigation will be undertaken, and we need to make sure that the failure, by Optus in this case, doesn't happen again. It's as simple as that and we will work to ensure that that is the case.

JOURNALIST: So, back to the CSP. What are the lessons learned from the past ten years being on the CSP and how will they be taken through to CSP 2.0, especially now under new leadership? What could be done differently this time?

PRIME MINISTER WONG: The CSP 1 had resulted in many, many concrete initiatives, which I highlighted a few just now and a range of different measures, programs, initiatives that we have taken to bring our two economies closer together and to also extend Australia's engagement with Southeast Asia. And we have seen lot of progress and we've seen the fruits of it over the last ten years, and that's why we are now building on that foundation with CSP 2. I wish we were more creative in coming up with a better name, but it's not about the name of the partnership, it's the substance of what is in it. And within the CSP 2.0, we have identified, as I mentioned just now, a very ambitious agenda, across so many different domains. And the work has already started - the Ministers have been meeting, the officials have been discussing. In fact, some of them shared with us that in fleshing out the agenda for CSP 2.0, it was a very natural and smooth conversation. And that shows, that speaks to the very clear and strong in terms of the interests of two countries. And so, we look forward to the work that's ongoing over the next ten years. I'm sure that we will see even more results in bringing our two countries closer together.

PRIME MINISTER ALBANESE: Indeed. Thank you, Prime Minister. The Comprehensive Strategic Partnership has been a success, but the future will be even more successful. What this has done is build on the relationship, just as ten years ago, the original agreement brought by the two former governments built on the previous 50 years of relations between Australia and Singapore. What this has done is take the last ten years of experience, of economic cooperation, defence cooperation, cooperation in dealing with the challenge, but also the opportunities of climate change, people to people links, education, all of these issues, and say, 'okay, how can we make it even better?' That's the task that we have given our Ministers. That's something that they have embraced with enthusiasm. And so, the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership sits on top of the MOUs that have been signed today by respective Ministers and the increased engagement that will occur.

In response to a previous question, I spoke about today's uncertain world, and that is true. We can be certain of our relationship, of our values, of our history, of our understanding of each other as well. We're both Commonwealth nations, we participate in so many areas, and the people to people exchanges are very important as well. Not surprisingly, every time I meet Ministers from a Singaporean Government, someone will say, 'I'm a graduate'. In this case, it was Adelaide University. This is very common and there are currently, I think it's at least 30 Australians under the new Colombo Plan currently in Singapore. This is really important. We live in a world that is turbulent, but it's increasingly smaller in some ways as well, in terms of that engagement.

I thank very much Prime Minister Wong for his visit and his delegation, and I thank the members of the Singaporean media who've also travelled to be with us here today as part of the delegation. Thank you very much.

PRIME MINISTER WONG: Thank you.