Well, Your Excellency, President-elect, welcome. Welcome to the Cabinet Room in the Australian Parliament to meet with all of my senior Ministers here. Once again, you are no stranger to our great country, and I have not been a stranger to your great country. I look forward to attending your inauguration in a short period of time which will be a great occasion to cement once again the friendship between our two nations. Our partnership is profoundly important for Australia. We are celebrating 75 years of diplomatic relations this year. And Australia is very proud to have been one of the earliest supporters of Indonesia’s independence. Something that, of course, my political party has been a strong supporter of for such a long period of time. We’re also celebrating 50 years of military cadet exchanges of which you and the former Governor General, His Excellency David Hurley, were the first. Our partnership is underpinned by deep and long standing ties, by mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, as enshrined in the Lombok Treaty. And by our shared commitment to a stable, a secure, a peaceful and a prosperous Indo-Pacific region. We’re keen to discuss how Australia can support your priorities as President, and we know as well that you’ll have informal discussions over lunch with the Deputy Prime Minister, and over dinner with myself and other Ministers as well this evening. Congratulations also on Indonesia’s Independence Day. Senior Cabinet Ministers are here, we are working so closely across economic issues, across our trade, across our defence ties and of course our people-to-people relations that are so important as well. So, Your Excellency, I welcome you, and I ask you to make some opening comments.
HIS EXCELLENCY GENERAL (RETD) PRABOWO SUBIANTO, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF INDONESIA: Thank you very much Prime Minister Albanese and distinguished members of the Australian Government. I would like to thank you for receiving me today, and my delegation. And thank you very much for the great honour last night I was received by your Chief of Defence Force himself. And allow me also to pass on greetings and best wishes from my President, President Joko Widodo. I reported to him that I was going to call on you and your Government and he said pass on my best regards, and then he also emphasised the importance of our relationship. So, as you know we just had our 79th celebration of our independence and we had the ceremony in our new prospective capital city. And we had the ceremony there, and of course once again I would like to emphasise that we hold very dear the memory of Australia’s support in our struggle for independence. I think Australia was one of the first to support our struggle, and we value this history and the solidarity of the Australian people in our most difficult moments. So, as you know I also am determined to continue the policies of President Joko Widodo. Especially in the field of foreign policy. As you know, we are by tradition, non-aligned. By tradition our people do not want us to be involved in any geopolitical or militarily aligned systematic groupings and I myself am determined to continue this policy. I have announced many times that we want the best of relationships with all great powers, but especially with our neighbours. And I have announced that I would like to strengthen the policy of a good neighbour. I call it the good neighbour policy. And in this respect I am very cognisant and I’m very aware of the importance of the Australia-Indonesia relationship as being neighbours, and I would like to continue this collaboration and this cooperation. And once again, Prime Minister, distinguished members of the Australian Government, I would like to assure you that I hold very, very high in my outlook the importance of this relationship and I value very much your positions and your outlook to us.
