Japan National Press Club
9 September 2026
From Reconciliation to Special Strategic Partnership: Australia and Japan at 50, and Beyond
Good afternoon.
Thank you to the Japan National Press Club for the invitation.
It is a privilege to speak with you – particularly at such a significant moment for the Australia-Japan relationship.
The story of Australia and Japan is ultimately a story of trust. A story that transformed former adversaries into the closest of partners.
Our strategic alignment and economic complementarity – and the level of mutual trust between our countries – is unprecedented.
This was not predestined.
It took vision, energy, and sustained commitment to get us where we are today.
Only a decade after the end of the Pacific War, our countries made a choice. While it seems an obvious choice now, it was far from an easy one then.
Almost every family in Australia and in Japan was touched by the tragedy of war – mine included. The wounds were still raw.
Our leaders could have succumbed to resentment and mistrust.
But they didn’t. Instead they had the wisdom, the courage and the grace to choose the path of reconciliation, mutual trust and friendship – and the vision for our shared future that led to the history-making 1957 Australia-Japan Commerce Agreement.
In doing so they made our countries more prosperous and secure. And they transformed our region.
And then in the mid-1970s – in the midst of another period of turmoil in the Middle East and an earlier global energy crisis – another generation of leaders took the next step, signing the Australia-Japan Basic Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation whose 50th anniversary we are commemorating this year.
A Personal Journey
Australia has played a key role not only in Japan’s economic development but its successful diplomatic re-engagement with the region during the Postwar period – and in its profound strategic evolution over the past quarter century.
My own personal and professional connection with Japan has, in its small way, been part of that story.
In the year 2000 I was put in charge of the Japan desk in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The Cold War had ended, globalisation was at its peak, and 9/11 and the Global Financial Crisis were still in the future.
But it was already clear to some of us that the power structure of our region was shifting and we needed to put in place a new set of strategic partnerships.
I wrote a policy-planning paper for the government of the day recommending Australia pursue a free trade agreement with Japan and also the most substantial security relationship possible.
The department’s Japan experts scoffed and said neither would ever happen.
We worked with our Japanese and US counterparts to establish the Trilateral Strategic Dialogue, which met for the first time at senior officials’ level in 2002. The Quad would follow.
In 2005, when I was posted in Washington DC, I learned from the White House that the Dutch troops who were providing force protection for the Japanese Self Defence Force engineering contingent operating in the south of the country were leaving.
I saw an opportunity to strengthen our strategic partnership and worked with Japanese and US colleagues to advocate for Australian troops to support the JSDF.
The political trust the ensuing ADF deployment built between Prime Minister Koizumi and Prime Minister Howard – and the practical experience of operating together on the ground – played a key role in unlocking the latent potential of our strategic partnership.
It put us on the path to today’s intensifying activity between the ADF and the JSDF.
Since then I’ve worked with successive Australian prime ministers from Howard to Abbott to Morrison to Albanese to grow our relationship to cover free trade, defence industry and military interoperability, and security.
And as Australia’s intelligence chief I engaged with Japanese colleagues to strengthen our intelligence cooperation. We now welcome the newly established National Intelligence Bureau and look forward to supporting the next steps in Japan’s intelligence reforms.
An Indispensable Partnership
Today, Australia and Japan are closer than ever before.
We now cooperate across virtually every domain: trade and investment, energy and food security, science and technology, infrastructure and cyber, defence and intelligence, education and culture.
And we need each other more than ever before.
The world is becoming more uncertain, more contested and more complex – and frankly more hostile. The strategic and economic conditions that underpinned our prosperity and security for decades are changing fast.
In this environment, trusted partnerships matter more than ever. And Australia and Japan have demonstrated that we can count on each other.
When I visited Tohoku I was moved by the gratitude I encountered for Australia’s assistance after the 2011 tsunami disaster – and for Prime Minister Gillard’s visit in its immediate aftermath, the first by any foreign leader.
And Japanese firefighters have joined the line with their Aussie comrades to fight our bushfires.
Australians consistently regard Japan as our most trusted international partner: they ranked Japan as the most trusted power for the sixth consecutive year in the recent Lowy Institute Poll.
And I know Japanese see Australia in very much the same way.
Energy Security: An Enduring Foundation
Nowhere is trust more important than when it comes to energy security – as the Middle East crisis painfully reminds us.
Australia has long understood that for Japan, energy security is existential.
Australia is Japan's largest supplier of LNG and coal.
Every day, 8 hours of the electricity used across Japan is sourced from Australia.
Australian resources have powered Japanese homes, industries and communities for decades.
And we have earned Japan's trust, through reliability.
Australia has never failed to deliver an LNG shipment to Japan – notwithstanding financial crises, pandemics and periods of global instability.
And as the energy security landscape evolves, so too will our energy partnership.
Gas will remain an essential part of both Australia and Japan’s energy mix to 2050 and well beyond, supporting reliable energy supply and underpinning the renewable transition.
For Japan and the broader Indo-Pacific, energy security will depend on both reliable gas and diversification of energy sources.
Our two countries’ emerging energy partnerships in hydrogen, ammonia and renewables will support energy security in our region, as well as a low-emissions future.
Our economies remain highly complementary.
Australia brings resources.
Japan brings technology, innovation, capital and manufacturing expertise.
That powerful combination can help shape the energy systems of the future.
Security Cooperation Comes of Age
Japan’s industrial prowess was on full display yesterday when I visited Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' Nagasaki shipyard – where the first batch of upgraded Mogami-class frigates for the Royal Australian Navy will be built.
The scale is extraordinary. And Japan has been building ships there for 150 years.
In a vast hall built a century ago I watched robots welding laser-cut steel.
It was traditional Japanese craftsmanship fused with the most advanced manufacturing technologies.
Even a generation ago, few would have imagined Australia ever selecting a Japanese-designed warship.
Today it is a natural manifestation of strategic trust and alignment.
It represents the industrialisation of our strategic partnership.
And it’s just the start of a much deeper defence industrial integration – whether in uncrewed systems or guided weapons.
Last month our Defence Ministers announced a framework for Japan to access Australia’s extensive weapons ranges to test long-range strike capabilities, such as hypersonic missiles.
This is part of a wider discussion about how Japan can benefit from Australia’s strategic depth.
Australia and Japan are investing together in peace, stability and deterrence.
Not because we seek confrontation.
But because we seek to prevent it. And to keep the Indo-Pacific free and open.
The New Frontier: Technology, AI and Economic Security
Today advanced technology is a key battleground in the struggle for geopolitical supremacy.
Artificial intelligence, quantum computing, advanced semiconductors, autonomous systems and biotechnology are already reshaping economies and societies – and the character of conflict.
The question facing all of us is how to ensure these technologies enhance our prosperity and security rather than undermine them.
Australia and Japan are natural partners in answering that question.
We are already working together on AI, quantum and other advanced technologies, cyber security, and space.
We are working together to make our critical infrastructure more resilient – including the critical infrastructure of the 21st century: undersea cables, data centres, 5G and 6G, and renewable energy grids.
We are collaborating to build more secure supply chains, including for rare earths, gallium and other critical minerals.
And I have had great discussions with the leaders of Japan’s universities about how we can cooperate to strengthen research collaboration and research security.
The Next 50 Years
I’ve tried to illustrate today how we are the beneficiaries of the foresight and dedication of leaders who were the architects, engineers and builders of this remarkable partnership.
As ambassador I’m also conscious that we are stewards of that legacy.
Prime Minister Abe was clearly one of the designers.
I was present on the floor of the Australian parliament in 2014 when he made his historic address. As usual, his clarity of vision and purpose was striking.
He declared that Japan and Australia – having deepened our economic ties – would now draw on our relationship of trust, which had stood up through the trials of history, to cooperate on security.
Abe knew Australians love sport. In an apt allusion, he talked of Australia and Japan packing down together in a rugby scrum to nurture the international order and to safeguard peace.
And, as always, he had an eye to the future. He called for more youth exchanges and urged young Australians to visit and get to know Japan.
I like to think that he’d be smiling to know that last year more than 1 million Australians visited Japan – and that everywhere I travel around this marvellous country I meet keen young Australians who are traveling, working and studying, and Japanese people who have come back from working holidays in Australia to set up cafes or other businesses.
The Australia-Japan story is a remarkable one. And as Ambassador, I am passionate about making the next chapter even more remarkable than the ones that came before.
Arigato gozaimas
ENDS