Well, thank you very much Mr Burt, to Minister, your Excellencies, the Australian High Commissioner, Mr Warner, ladies and gentlemen. Necessarily focussed as my visit has been on a number of the important bilateral issues between Australia and Papua New Guinea, it s also a visit that takes place at a time when, as you rightly said in your introduction, the rest of the world is forming judgements about the capacity of Papua New Guinea to grapple with significant economic challenges and problems. And in this sense, Papua New Guinea is no different from any other country. We are all subject to international adjudication these days.
Nobody is exempt from the scepticism of a global financial community.
No country, however developed or whatever stage of development it may be, can imagine any more than it can seal itself off from the rest of the world, put some kind of barrier around its economic behaviour and then pretend that what the rest of the world says doesn t matter. We ve been painfully aware of that on various occasions in Australia. And so it applies with equal force and particular force at the present time to Papua New Guinea. You are all aware of the long friendship and the very deep and close association between Australia and Papua New Guinea. And therefore it is an important part of the foreign policy and security policy projection of any Australian government and any Australian Prime Minister that we have good and friendly relations with the government and the people of Papua New Guinea.