Remarks, Quad Leaders Meeting - Washington DC, USA

Prime Minister: Thank you very much Prime Minister, thank you Mr President. It is a great honour to be here with you, here in this magnificent place, and I thank you for your leadership in bringing us together - in person this time - and to join our great friends, Prime Minister Modi and Prime Minister Suga, and Secretary Blinken, it’s good to be here with you also.

 

We are liberal democracies and believe in a world order that favours freedom and we believe in a free and open Indo-Pacific because we know that’s what delivers a strong, stable and prosperous region so our citizens, our people, can realise their hopes and dreams for their futures in a liberal, free society.

 

The Quad is about demonstrating how democracies such as ours - as you said Mr President - can get things done, they can deal with the big challenges that we face in the very complex and changing world.

And there is no part of the world that is more dynamic than the Indo-Pacific at this time.

 

A region that has extraordinary opportunity, wide diversity, great wealth, but many challenges that must be overcome.

 

And we see the role of our nations, we see our home in the Indo-Pacific as the place that we wish to focus on to ensure that our peoples can realise everything they would have for themselves.

 

So, as we gather here together again, as a Quad, in person for the first time in just six months from our last meeting so much has already been accomplished and we come together with great hope for what’s ahead.

 

670 million - at least - safe and effective doses of vaccines already out there, a billion is our goal, Mr President, and we will add more to that today.

 

Using our national strengths collectively to manufacture and distribute these vaccines, to have the doses but also to ensure they go that last mile, to ensure they are administered in all parts of the region.

 

Working together on low emissions technologies that will indeed change the world and take the world to a net-zero economy, a new energy economy.

 

We are working to make cyberspace and emerging and critical technologies trusted and secure, in open societies, solving problems, and addressing the supply chain challenges that in many ways hold the keys to our security and our prosperity and our environment in the 21st century.

 

So, we stand here, together, in the Indo-Pacific region, a region that we wish to be always be free from coercion, where the sovereign rights of all nations are respected and where disputes are settled peacefully and [in]accordance with international law.

 

We come together in collective strength, with mutual respect, transparently and importantly as one.

 

So, thank you again Mr President for joining us together as Quad Leaders at this meeting, on behalf of the Australian people can I thank all of the leaders of the Quad who share this great forum for their leadership in our region.

 

I am in no doubt that together our coordinations multiply many times over the forces of hope for a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific. And with that I’m delighted to hand over to my dear friend the Prime Minister of Japan, Prime Minister Suga.