Jan Adams AO PSM
Secretary
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Sir John Quick Lecture, 25 November 2025, Bendigo
Good evening, what a pleasure to be here on this gorgeous evening in this spectacular building. Let me thank Aunty Sandy for the very thoughtful and personal welcome to country.
I too would like to acknowledge and extend my appreciation to the Traditional Owners of this land, and pay respects to leaders and Elders past, present and emerging.
I really do want to thank you for the invitation to speak here this evening. A few people said to me "oh you must do this a lot" actually, I hardly do it at all. But really, it's such a great thrill to be here in this important regional centre with such a rich role in Australia's history of international engagement.
With trade and investment across many key sectors cultural ties and, of course, education and research through this vital institution, La Trobe University.
I'd also like to pass my congratulations and admiration to the winners of the prizes this evening. I remember being a law student, I remember the hours, you've really put it in, congratulations on the recognition.
For me, as a Victorian, as was mentioned, it really is quite the honour to give this lecture named for the politician, lawyer and writer, Sir John Quick, Bendigo's champion of Federation.
Now I am going to discuss diplomacy a bit, so let me start with the first principles.
Australia's engagement with the world begins with who we are. Our values shape our interests, and those interests shape our diplomacy.
It was in the 1890s that colonial Australians first saw themselves as more than subjects in six outposts of imperial Britain. They were becoming a joined-up community with aspirations for self-determination and shared progress.
Bendigo, by then, already understood the value of international engagement.
During the very famous Gold Rush, it had become a global crossroads, drawing migrants from Europe, North America and Asia - including a notable and thriving Chinese community - that left an enduring mark on its economy and culture.
Now John Quick was very much a man of his time. Before he ever worked in law or politics, he worked in the melting pot that was Bendigo's mines.
From those early experiences, he came to see the enormous potential for an independent Australia that was democratic from birth.
When he attended that famous Corowa conference of pro-federation groups in 1893, Quick famously proposed that citizens be given the opportunity to elect their representatives to the convention.
The convention thus formed would construct a federal constitution to be approved in voter referendums held in each of the colonies.
Now Quick's plan was of course adopted. The Commonwealth of Australia that came into existence in January 1901 was democratically created, with a constitution that Quick helped to write.
Imperfect, no doubt, but a foundation for our Australia. With its genesis here in Bendigo.
I think it's really remarkable though that the young Federation did not take immediate possession of all its powers.
In fact, Australia did not assume full sovereignty over our international policy until as late as 1942, when the Australian Parliament finally ratified the British Parliament's 1931 Statute of Westminster.
Well before then, however, Australia's diplomats were busy in the national interest.
In 1910, former Australian Prime Minister George Reid, another hero of Federation, was appointed High Commissioner in London.
He was Australia's first overseas diplomatic appointment of any kind.
Then as now, Australian diplomacy was about three key things:
- being principled, knowing who we are, what we value, and what we want;
- being agile and clear-eyed, dealing with the world as we find it, and;
- being proactive, spotting the opportunity for Australia's advantage, no matter the circumstances.
When George Reid stepped off the boat in London, he immediately saw an opportunity for Australian economic diplomacy in the upcoming Brussels Expo of 1910.
Reid, a big personality, was right there and busy on the ground.
He decreed that promotional pamphlets explaining Australia's excellent stock-raising and meat freezing standards should be translated into French, German and Russian.
As well as that outstanding frozen beef, the Australian pavilion included displays of butter and wool. It all looked so good, the exhibits won awards.
As for Reid then, as for DFAT today. Proactive in the nation's interest, to benefit Australia and Australians today and into the future, in our cities, our regions, the outback, and those travelling, studying and doing business around the world.
Now in a changing world, Australian diplomacy must evolve to meet the times.
As we know, the global strategic environment is changing. As Foreign Minister Penny Wong says, our world is becoming less certain and less stable.
We are seeing great power competition and geoeconomic rivalry.
Countries are using unconstrained power more often, putting internationally agreed rules and norms under great pressure. We see conflict in Sudan, Ukraine, Myanmar and elsewhere.
Increasingly, we see tactics like cyberattacks that fall short of war but nevertheless threaten the security of free and open societies.
Misinformation and disinformation is becoming more sophisticated and with the unregulated use of artificial intelligence promoting division and distrust.
In this changing strategic context Australian diplomacy has changed too. It has become more multi-layered, even more agile and deals with evermore complexity.
It involves partnering with a great many agencies here at home, and forging stronger partnerships around the world, to expand our options as a country and build greater resilience.
Our priorities can be described under four pillars. These are our region, our relationships, a rules based international order and our resilience.
So I start with the REGION.
The Indo-Pacific region is where our prosperity and security are ultimately decided.
When we work closely and respectfully with our neighbours, we build a shared capacity to defend and advance our interests.
In recent years, Australia has agreed groundbreaking treaties with four important neighbours: Indonesia, PNG, Nauru and Tuvalu; we've upgraded our partnerships with a further six; and progressed agreements with another three: Fiji, Tonga, and Vanuatu.
Now this deliberate architecture of groundbreaking agreements and upgraded relationships anchors and secures Australia in our region.
To complement these strong bilateral relationships, we also advocate the power of regionalism. We believe that ASEAN and the Pacific Islands Forum carry more weight when they speak with a united voice.
As our Foreign Minister says: "Regionalism is one of the most effective ways for smaller and medium countries to counter power asymmetries." Strength in numbers.
Economic diplomacy is also important to strengthening regional commercial connections.
The Australian Government has an economic strategy called Invested, Southeast Asia economic strategy to 2040. In this strategy we're backing Australian companies to deepen their trade and investment with Southeast Asia, including through a $2 billion infrastructure financing facility. In just two years (2023, 2024) two-way trade with these countries has increased by $6 billion.
We're also building Asia literacy, connecting the people, making the people connections, through the New Colombo Plan, giving Australian students real-world experience across our region.
I've been told that one La Trobe alumnus, Jade Bujeya, completed her Bachelor of Science here at La Trobe University, then went to Seoul to further study with an internship at the Korean Centre for Artificial Photosynthesis. How great!
In the Pacific we work with partners on projects to build resilience:
- such as strengthening law enforcement capacity through the Pacific Policing Initiative;
- deploying Cyber RAPID teams to help restore services hit by cyber-attacks;
- sharing Australia's public health and medical research expertise, and;
- addressing food security challenges, working with the CSIRO and Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research.
And of course, in the Pacific, measures to mitigate and manage climate change are central. Through our strong domestic commitments, through rejoining the Green Climate Fund and through investing in the Pacific Resilience Facility, we're addressing that existential challenge.
Now even as global aid shrinks, Australia is standing firm in our commitment to the region. Seventy-five cents of every Australian development dollar goes to the Indo Pacific.
Now the second R: Relationships. Diplomacy is fundamentally about RELATIONSHIPS.
As I've said, we are deepening all our key relationships by identifying common interest, and doing the hard work on building common purpose.
The United States is our principal ally and strategic partner. American leadership in our region remains indispensable. The alliance has delivered tremendous mutual benefit for over the last 70 years and will continue to do so.
We have AUKUS, a major partnership also with the United Kingdom, to strengthen deterrence and make a strong contribution to regional stability.
And more recently The Critical Minerals Framework that the Prime Minister and President Trump signed at the White House last month.
This will boost investment by providing the architecture for Australian and American producers to work together on financing and production.
And this work will help Australia build the critical minerals supply chain that will reduce, in time, market concentrations and strengthen our own economic resilience.
Now, just as this part of Victoria was central to the Gold Rush boom a century and a half ago, it is again playing a key role in the search for critical minerals and rare earths. And actually having a new gold rush I think as well.
Less than an hour to the east of here, the Costerfield mine is a globally significant producer of antimony; while an hour and half to the west, Australian company Astron is developing the Donald minerals sands project, which will produce rare earth elements, zircon and titanium.
As they were in the Gold Rush, the strength of our international relationships are crucial to Bendigo's ability to capitalise on this new minerals boom - connecting local resources to global markets, investment and technology.
Back to the key relationships. With China, we are pursuing a stable and constructive relationship with the world's second largest economy and our largest trading partner.
We have prioritised open communication channels between our two countries to facilitate engagement and we speak directly with the Chinese leadership about our interests and concerns.
Just today, we were pleased to host the Chairman of China's National People's Congress, Zhao Leji, in the Australian Parliament in Canberra. He's the third most senior person in the Chinese system. And his visit really does demonstrate the commitment that both countries now are demonstrating to ongoing high level dialogue and communication.
We have strengthened ties also with the United Kingdom, through AUKUS as I already mentioned, and through the Australia-UK FTA - which is one of its first major trade deals after Brexit.
With India, we have a New Roadmap on Economic Engagement, which will help businesses diversify and benefit from increased trade with India as its middle class - and its demand for premium produce - continues to grow rapidly.
We have also boosted our relationships, amongst others, with Japan, the Republic of Korea, Vietnam, Philippines, and Singapore across defence, trade and security domains.
Turning to the RULES.
It is a fundamental tenet of our diplomacy, as an ambitious middle power, that a peaceful and prosperous global order can only be maintained through adherence to agreed rules and norms.
Our ability to build coalitions for mutual benefit is even more vital, building on a long track record of success.
Coalitions to write the rules, to promote the rules and to protect the rules that deter conflict, enable free trade, and underpin our security and prosperity.
Australia was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945, we held the first Presidency of the Security Council in 1946, and today we are seeking election to the UN Security Council for the 2029 to 2030 term.
Australia is committed to reform of the multilateral system to meet today's challenges.
In 1986, when Europe, the US and Japan had such impediments to our farm exports, Australia convened the Cairns Group of Agricultural Traders.
After nine years of hard negotiations that coalition embedded free and fair agricultural trade within the global trading rules of what is now the World Trade Organisation - a major win for Australian farmers, and farmers worldwide.
Today we continue to build and diversify Australia's economic and trade partnerships within a rules-based system - all the more important as we face growing global economic uncertainty.
Australia now has 19 free trade agreements, I didn't negotiate them all, with 30 partner economies - it really is an impressive network.
Each deal we do represents an average 13 per cent lift in Australian bilateral trade with that partner. So creating a lot of growth opportunities for importers and exporters.
Australia continues to lead the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) - which is one of the largest free trade agreements in the world.
Last week Australia hosted a meeting of Ministers, the CPTPP Trade Ministers, chaired by Trade Minister Farrell in Melbourne - and those ministers, led by Australia, were united in the really important message that we are not retreating from the rules based international order - we are sticking to our trade commitments because we believe they underpin prosperity.
Export Finance Australia, which is an agency within the DFAT portfolio, is playing an increasingly important role in providing financing for strategic goals - for example, a new operation to refine gallium together with the US and Japan - an element critical to the semi-conductor and defence sectors in WA.
Exports from greater Bendigo, ranging from high grade agricultural fodder to gold, sent to more than 50 countries, are valued at about $2 billion a year. Not to mention the famous Bushmasters.
So we all benefit from global peace and security, a stable world order, and free and fair trade and investment flows.
Despite the importance of these rules and norms, we know that they are not only being challenged but also have not kept pace with emerging transnational threats - disinformation, interference, cyberattacks, economic coercion, etc.
In the face of these challenges, RESILIENCE is another priority domain for government - along with the region, relationships and the rules.
Democratic resilience, cyber resilience, economic security and supply chain resilience, and countering foreign interference - were never the traditional bread and butter of DFAT.
But today we work hand in glove with other government agencies to reinforce our resilience and that of our partners in the region.
So what does this all mean for DFAT's capability?
The ambit of Australian diplomacy has expanded in this complex modern environment. And so has our toolkit of diplomatic statecraft. We are a long way from those days when George Reid himself manned the Australian stall in Europe!
Here I want to leave with three evolving contours of our diplomacy.
Firstly, our diplomatic agenda requires us to use all tools of statecraft.
Our engagement with our partners in Southeast Asia and the Pacific embodies how we are doing that, using all of our levers of national power to reinforce our influence - economic, military, security, development, culture and sport.
It also demonstrates the range of expert skills and capabilities that today's diplomacy demands of our people for us to strengthen our relationships and our region.
We work with commercial partners to connect Pacific islands with air routes. To ensure an Australian banking presence across the region. To build a network of undersea cables that provide secure and reliable connectivity for our neighbours, as we are doing in partnership with Japan and the United States.
DFAT provides the secure Australian Government presence overseas, in an increasingly unpredictable landscape where we face cyber and espionage threats and sometimes conflict.
Our Ambassador for Cyber Affairs Jess Hunter is leading DFAT's work to deter malicious cyber actors through attributions and sanctions. And leading the deployment of those emergency expert teams to assist our regional partners respond to cyber-attacks.
Second, our people are our best asset of course.
Another area that has evolved is the composition of DFAT staff.
The DFAT of earlier years didn't always incorporate the full range of talent in this diverse country.
In this, of course, we reflected the same values expressed in the community that formed the Constitution in 1901. The traditional owners weren't recognised at all and did not have a vote. Women only had the vote in two Australian states.
Sir John Quick, like so many at the time, supported a White Australia policy; and the Chinese community here in Bendigo no doubt suffered because of it.
Today of course, the Chinese heritage here in Bendigo is one of the city's great attractions. Reflecting the fact that today we are a far more inclusive nation and all the better for it. DFAT reflects that diversity.
Today women make up about half of our senior executive management and 45 per cent or more of our heads of overseas missions.
We make a conscious effort to ensure a proportion of our graduate recruits are from regional areas.
Nearly a quarter of our officers are from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. We have First Nations staff and senior leaders, including in overseas missions, and actually I am particularly proud that the newly appointed head of the National Indigenous Australians Agency, is a DFAT Graduate, Julie-Ann Guivarra, she was an ambassador and is now head of NIAA.
As the Foreign Minister often says, to represent a modern multicultural nation that we are, you must reflect that modern multicultural nation.
It is a source of great power that Australians can see themselves reflected in the world, and the world can see itself reflected in Australia.
I can certainly say from my years' serving overseas, that our greatest asset is indeed the Australian people.
We work at home and overseas with the Australian business community, farmers, miners, NGOs, community groups, students, media, artists, cultural groups, etc.
We use all these relationships to expand our networks and ultimately to build stronger relationships in the national interest.
Third, DFAT is protecting the welfare of Australians in an uncertain world.
Now perhaps the most visible part of our work is the help we provide to Australian citizens every day, through our consular services.
Australians are great travellers. In the 12 months up to September 2025, Australians made 12.4 million international trips - that's a 10 per cent increase on the previous year.
Of course that's a great thing, contributes to a more informed and open-minded country, connected with the world.
It relies firstly on secure passports that protect your identity, and an efficient and responsive passport service - whether you're applying in Australia or overseas.
A second role for DFAT comes when Australians sometimes can find themselves in strife overseas. We have a global network of highly trained, experienced and compassionate consular officers there to help.
I think it says a lot about our commitment that DFAT's consular and passport services continue to be ranked the most trusted among government agencies.
We also want Australian travellers to be well informed about risk. The Smartraveller website is essential pre-departure reading, covering 179 destinations and issues like alcohol safety.
In times of major international crisis, the Foreign Minister and DFAT are in charge of leading the Australian Government response. We have a Crisis Centre which swings into action. It operates 24/7 around the clock and coordinates Australia's response to emergencies, natural disasters, or conflict.
We have a dedicated crisis response team that deploys overseas to provide essential humanitarian, consular and logistics support, and can help evacuate Australians where needed.
In the Middle East, for example, since the October 7 attacks, we have evacuated over 4200 Australian citizens, Permanent Residents and their family members, as well around 300 foreign nationals, mainly from Pacific neighbours.
Closer to home, when an earthquake struck Vanuatu in December 2024, our Search and Rescue team and our Australian Medical Assistance Team were on the ground fast. They made a real practical difference working side by side with the people of Vanuatu, when others were handing out giant cheques with little immediate impact.
These crises happen increasingly often, but that's the reality of the world in which we operate. We've adapted to meet the new challenges.
So in conclusion.
As the world has changed, so has Australian statecraft.
We are well aware of the significant challenges ahead.
But we are not choosing merely to adapt to a world less stable; we are seizing every opportunity to shape it for the better.
As always we will be agile, principled and proactive in meeting the moment.
We are deploying all the tools of national power to shape a peaceful, prosperous future in Australia's national interest.
Globally, we are defending rules and the multilateral system, protecting Australian citizens, and promoting Australia's interests in trade and security.
In our region, we are deepening Pacific partnerships in unprecedented ways, turbocharging our economic ties with Southeast Asia, and upgrading and diversifying all the key relationships.
John Quick's goal and that of all the Federation makers was a united, independent, fiercely democratic Australia. Ready and able to engage with the world on our own terms, in our own interests.
And that's exactly what we do. Thank you for your interest.
