Opening Remarks, Australia-Philippines Defence Ministers' Meeting

SUBJECT: Australia-Philippines Defence Relationship. 

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER: Gilberto, welcome. It is fantastic to have you here in Darwin. Last night we had dinner and we were remarking that we're kind of roughly halfway between Canberra and Manila here, and so it's a little bit of a reminder of the fact that we are neighbours and how close the Philippines is. Of course, you've been visiting your personnel who have been participating in Exercise Pitch Black. I'm advised it's the biggest air deployment that you have done overseas this year, and we've just concluded an army exercise in Townsville, which I think is the largest land component that you've seen overseas this year, which again speaks to the closeness of the relationship. And I think as we commence our meeting today, we feel like the bilateral relationship between Australia and the Philippines has never been at a higher watermark than it is now. We deeply value the relationship, Gilberto, and I deeply value my personal relationship with you. We are seeing, as these exercises indicate, a much higher tempo of exercises between our two countries, a much greater footprint of Filipino personnel here, but Australian personnel in the Philippines. This is really important given the very challenging strategic landscape that we face. We are working more together in terms of our cooperative activities in and around the Philippines, which is really important in terms of asserting the rules-based order and which is so profoundly important to both of our countries. So we really look forward to the conversation that we’ll have today, taking a lot of those issues further, and you could not be more welcome in Australia.

GILBERTO TEODORO JR., PHILIPPINES SECRETARY OF NATIONAL DEFENSE: Thank you very much Richard and Admiral Hammond for welcoming myself and my team here. And this, for me, is the second time as Secretary of Defense. As the Deputy Prime Minister had said, our relations bilaterally, from when we began intensifying it about three years ago, has come at a very, very fast pace. And the Deputy Prime Minister detailed part of the activities we do together and we do with others. These activities have the desired effect of bringing more regional peace and stability, because we get to work with each other, and we get to uphold values of international law and UNCLOS. And last night, it was a wake-up call on how much complexity and detail goes into a very complex operation and our Philippine troops here have had an invaluable occasion to really learn, practice, and to work with others. And last night's engagement was a total pf 80 aircraft at one time – some supersonic, some not, and silent. So that's how far we've come. In the maritime domain, we had the largest Balikatan, we had the largest Alon in the Philippines. And as we will talk today, we see more convergence points for not only defence, but for synergies in order to provide the security planning for other activities that we need, which both Australia and the Philippines need to keep its population sustainable, to keep its population supported. And in this, together with the all-important HADR, we need to really develop deep roots. That means going on a more granular level down the lines– from us down the lines, constantly, so that the interaction and interoperability is always there. So thank you once again for welcoming us, Richard, and we look forward to the next phase and the next faster pace of our bilateral and multilateral relations with others. Thank you.

ENDS