After twenty years in Australia's parliament, including service as Treasurer of the Commonwealth,
Joe Hockey resigned from his seat last September. In January of this year, he arrived in Washington as Australia's Ambassador to the United States. Last Friday, May 20, he was the keynote speaker at the Global Business Dialogue's spring conference on
Pacific Arrangements: Trade and Trade Agreements in Asia and the Pacific.
It was a remarkable speech. We have done an informal transcript, which you can read
here, and we expect to post the audio recording soon. The line we have chosen for today's featured quote is not one of the flashier ones. For us, it's more like a Euclidian axiom than a bumper sticker. It may not be sexy, but it expresses a fundamental truth, one you keep coming back to.
We don't know how much intellectual tapestry was already on his loom when Ambassador Hockey was at the lectern and how much weaving he did from there. We can say that the result was a real speech - not a collection of sound bites but a tapestry of ideas that made a complete statement on a complicated set of issues. That doesn't mean one can't pull out segments, and we shall.
The speech began and ended with references to Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points, those famous principles which were embodied in an address to Congress in January 1918. For the sake of a rather whimsical symmetry, here are 14 call-outs from the Ambassador's presentation.
FOURTEEN POINTS FROM MAY 20
1.
The Australian Economy: "We haven't had a recession for 25 years. If that continues this year, it will be the longest continuous period of economic growth of any developed nation in history."
2.
The Roots of Prosperity: "Our prosperity has come in large part from the fact that we are a trading nation."
3.
Freedom of the Seas (Security). At the beginning of his remarks, Ambassador Hockey quoted from Item 2 of Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points:
"Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas." Ambassador Hockey called this second Wilsonian point "a timely reminder in the face of what's happening in the Asia Pacific Region." We took that as a clear, if muted, reference to China's actions in the South China Sea.
4.
An Appeal to Shared Goals. Ambassador Hockey read out for the audience the full text of President Wilson's third point:
"The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance."5.
The Dynamism of Asia. "By any measure of economic growth, the Asian region is undergoing phenomenal transformation. At the heart of this transformation is a growing consumer-driven middle class of around 500 million people, growing to 3 billion people by 2030." And then:
6.
On China and the Chinese Economy. "Modern China is a remarkable story, a $10 trillion economy, with 6 to 7 percent annual growth. ... [To illustrate,] "For the last three years, more than 40,000 new businesses have been set up in China every day."
7.
Asia and Trade Agreements. "Trade agreements play a critical role for connectivity in the Asian region."
8.
Australia's Trade Agreements. "In the past eighteen months we've seen, as a nation, Australia's bilateral agreement process go into hyper-drive. We have signed over the last two years new trade agreements with Korea, Japan, and China.... They are our first, second and fourth largest trading partners."
9.
Services and the China Agreement. "Our trade agreement with China means that health service providers [from Australia] can, for the first time, in a relatively unregulated manner, access the massive growth in the Chinese market associated with the huge demographic bubble of an aging population and a young community that is looking for the very best quality healthcare."
10.
The Importance of TPP. "
[TPP] is a fundamental opener of doors for trade in Asia. It is a remarkable achievement. It is the most comprehensive, ambitious and wealth creating agreement in over 20 years."
11.
RCEP, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership "brings together the economic powerhouses in Asia and Asia alone. ... Together the 16 countries negotiating RCEP represent almost half the world's population, a quarter of the world's exports, and 30 percent of the world's GDP. We want RCEP to be concluded."
12.
Actions on TPP. "Advocating in support of the TPP, both here and further afield, has been and will continue to be my highest priority." ... [But]
"There is no re-opening of an agreement. 13.
The Importance of U.S. Ratification. "By ratifying the TPP the United States will ensure that it continues to have a major leadership role in the Asia Pacific Region.
The cost of failure may well be too great to imagine." And
14
An Unworkable Pattern. "When countries enter into negotiations, they do so in good faith that the government of another country speaks for that country. If your parliament consistently vetoes agreements agreed to by other governments, what sort of negotiating environment is that for future agreements?"
***
We have left a lot out - including his discussion of the security component of TPP and Australia's long history as a steadfast ally of the United States. You will want to read the full speech for yourself.
