2014 Australia Day Speech
Speech (abridged: check against delivery)
Liveable Australia
Melbourne, the world’s most liveable city.
Our theme for this year’s national day event in Taiwan celebrates Australia as “the world’s most liveable country”. This year all five of Australia’s largest cities were ranked by the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2013 Global Liveability Survey within the top 20 cities in the world, with Melbourne named the world’s most liveable city for the third year in a row. The Economist’s index ranks liveability according to a city’s stability, its health care system, culture and environment, and its education and infrastructure. Top cities on the scale are politically stable, with a low crime rate, a publicly funded health system and quality education.
As many of you here know, the wooden horse that marks this year in the Chinese calendar is associated with the admirable qualities of warmth, generosity, cooperation and idealism. These are values Australians embrace, and which make our cities liveable.
Taiwan continues to be an important partner for Australia, and a significant source of students and working holiday makers and I’m happy to celebrate today that our shared horizons look broader and brighter than ever.
Taiwan and Australia continue to develop strong and lasting people-to-people links with the Working Holiday Makers Program, whose popularity has seen the unprecedented number of over 100,000 Taiwanese visit Australia over just nine years.
We expect that number to continue to grow on both sides as our youth recognizes the potential to expand their horizons in accordance with the purpose for which this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity was created.
Taiwanese visiting Australia have made a valuable contribution to the Australia-Taiwan relationship and have developed a reputation for themselves as conscientious workers and responsible travellers. We would welcome steps by the Taiwan authorities to encourage more young Australians to visit Taiwan under the reciprocal WHM scheme.
We also look forward to Australia being granted 90 days visa free entry to Taiwan to match the 3 months provided to Taiwan travellers to Australia. Both these steps would benefit both Australia and especially Taiwan.
We have been making great strides in developing links over a range of sectors as well as in young people’s exchange. To date my predecessors and I have signed off on ambitious collaborative projects and Memoranda of Understanding to boost cooperation in the sciences, research, information exchange, education and training. The Australian Office has 38 memoranda with Taiwan partners, I believe second only to the AIT. These arrangements bear fruit. Last year we saw the commencement of a sixteen-month collaborative vocational training program between Australian and Taiwanese institutions. This developed from a Memorandum of Understanding, which we signed with Taiwan in December 2011.
Australia is currently the second-most-preferred overseas destination for Taiwanese students. The Australian Government has taken steps to encourage future students by implementing streamlined visa processing and launching a host of generous scholarship programs such as the Australia Awards initiative, the Endeavour Scholarships and the New Colombo Plan. Such scholarships provide valuable opportunities for Taiwanese to undertake study, research and professional development in Australia and for Australians to do the same overseas.
We have also been happy to see the development of ties through our Sister Cities, with Brisbane co-hosting the 2013 Asia Pacific Cities Summit in sister city Kaohsiung. We look forward to Brisbane hosting this year’s G20 Summit and the City of Perth’s celebration of its 15th year of sister-city relations with Taipei.
Cultural links feature prominently in the Australia-Taiwan relationship and we are excited to see such popular feedback toward new events and artistic exchange, especially in performing and contemporary indigenous arts. The Message Stick Indigenous Contemporary Art Exhibition in Taidong, or the upcoming tour by a duo named Microwave Jenny. I hope many of you will have a chance to hear them. I would like to add too that Australia Network, widely available on cable here, is a great resource to stay in touch with Australia and our take on regional and world affairs.
In proposing a toast, I note that both of our peoples exhibit the qualities of resilience and determination. The Australian writer Robert Hughes said that ‘a determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop’.
May we all find determination and draw inspiration from our shared values: democracy, resilience, a pioneering spirit. May these values continue to draw our peoples closer.
Kevin Magee
Representative of the Australian Office
21 March 2014
Representative of the Australian Taipei, Kevin Magee.