31st OSCE Ministerial Council: National Statement of Australia
Statement by H.E Ambassador Ian Biggs, Australia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Other International Organisations in Vienna
6 December 2024
Chair, Ministers, Excellencies, distinguished delegates.
It is a great honour to represent Australia at this meeting of Ministerial Council.
Australia thanks Malta for its leadership as 2024 Chair-in-Office, at a time when the OSCE, participating States and Partners face among the most complex strategic challenges of the post-war period. We commend Malta for delivering upon its commitment to making Russia's illegal war of aggression against Ukraine its first priority.
Australia also thanks North Macedonia for its leadership as Chair of the Asian Partners for Co-operation Group. We greatly value the opportunity to work with the Asian Partners to bring an Indo-Pacific perspective to the deliberations of the OSCE.
Chair,
Australia regards the OSCE to be essential to the dialogue and cooperation that forms a critical part of the international system.
A system that has long underpinned prosperity but is under increasing pressure from states that violate international law and norms, including the UN Charter.
States that ignore legally binding rulings, use coercion or aggression over dialogue, and act with impunity rather than face accountability. States that seek to divide and set us against each other.
We continue to condemn in the strongest terms Russia’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine, which is in violation of international law and the UN Charter.
Chair,
Australia continues to strongly support Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
We have contributed important defence, economic, energy and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.
Australian support committed to date now totals more than $1.5 billion.
Russia cannot be allowed to win its illegal war, lest we signal to authoritarian regimes that aggression and conflict are effective or acceptable forms of statecraft.
Australia and our partners have expressed grave concerns regarding the deployment of North Korean troops to Russia and North Korea’s continued transfer of weapons to Russia.
These transfers undermine the global non-proliferation regime and violate United Nations Security Council resolutions, for which Russia itself voted in favour.
This deeply concerning development demonstrates the OSCE region and the Indo-Pacific are connected. Our security is inseparable. Our challenges, as well as our opportunities, are shared.
Chair,
Australia acknowledges Finland as the 2025 OSCE Chair-in-Office. We welcome Finland’s decision to make central to its agenda the resilience of the OSCE, participating States, and the OSCE region.
Hybrid and cyber-attacks, foreign interference, economic coercion, climate change and disinformation are all challenges to the integrity and resilience of our national and regional institutions and our shared future.
Australia is investing nationally and in our international partnerships, to build our collective resilience and sovereignty.
Domestically, Australia’s Foreign Arrangements Scheme, foreign investment review framework, defence export control framework and foreign influence transparency scheme are protecting the interests of Australia and our region by balancing our economic prosperity and security.
We are developing a National Resilience Framework to bolster our ability to anticipate, prevent, prepare, absorb, adapt and evolve from both natural and human-induced crises and shocks.
And we are investing our national defence and civil preparedness to ensure we can respond to changes in our geostrategic environment.
We complement international rules by working with our partners to build shared economic security and resilience.
For Australia, that includes promoting economic growth, energy transition, and new trade and investment opportunities in our region, including through our Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040.
Guided by Pacific partners and the Pacific Islands Forum, Australia is boosting our support for climate finance, policing and maritime cooperation.
The Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union embodies our approach to partnership, and includes a security guarantee to support Tuvalu in a humanitarian disaster, a pandemic or the event of attack.
Our Quad partnership with India, Japan and the United States is listening and responding to priorities of regional partners.
Through these and other investments, we are working to help our partners become more economically resilient, develop critical infrastructure and provide their own security, so they have more agency.
Chair,
This year marks 15 years since Australia became an OSCE Asian Partner for Co-operation.
We outlined at our first Ministerial Council in Astana our reasons for taking up that opportunity.
We share with the OSCE a commitment to multilateral institutions, to human rights, to the rule of law, and above all, to building and sustaining peace.
As we look towards the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act, Australia calls upon all participating OSCE states and partners for co-operation to uphold those commitments.
Australia encourages participating States and Partners to strengthen and maintain the regional and global architecture required for a world where no country dominates, and no country is dominated.
A world where differences and disputes are managed through dialogue, and according to rules, not by force or power.
Australia looks forward to continued dialogue and cooperation with participating States and Partners towards these shared goals, including by further strengthening robust and mutually complementary partnership shared by the OSCE, participating States and the Asian Partners for Co-operation.
Thank you, Chair.