Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

And so these sorts of covering mandates allow the bureaucracies in each country to crack on with cooperation.

And the final recommendation that I want to highlight here is one that will raise the little hairs on the backs of all our DFAT colleagues, which is greater cooperation between defence ministry officials or even, ideally, eventually, ministers.

So there are already well-established defense consultations bilaterally between Australia and India, obviously between Australia and the U.S., but also between Japan, India, Japan, Australia, India, U.S., And there are even two plus two mechanisms, et cetera.

But what we're arguing for is that when it comes to a complex environment like the Indian Ocean with multiple like-minded partners, we really need to step up a synchronization across multiple partners in the defense pillar.

I mean, just to point out that the DSR was mentioned before, and Pete had a big role to play on that.

And it talks about a kind of whole of government approach to national defence.

And We've got to be talking about things like how does defence work with DFAT? How does defence work with other arms of government to have an integrated approach to these issues? Yeah,

thank you.

for more Sporting Action and this episode was produced on the lands of the Gadigal people.

This program has been funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

And then there was a teacher at the school that I was placed at.

It was a DFAT, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade School, a supported school.

There was a teacher sick or something like that.

And they said, oh, Matt, could you cover an English class? And I go, oh, yeah, I could do this.

So we flew to our Minhad and got a briefing at the headquarters on the 16th of August.

And on the afternoon of the 17th, it was me, my boss, Richard Rogers, another fellow from DFAT, a guy from Home Affairs, and about a dozen very fit young men from Perth, got into a back of a Hercules and arrived in Kuala Lumpur National Airport as part of a sort of advanced team of a mission to extract visa and passport holders from the city.

And, you know, when we flew in that night, we thought there'd be a couple of hundred would be evacuees with the right paperwork waiting to fly home.

But in the event, they're only about 30 ready to meet us there because there's a problem.

And in some cases, it is replacing traditional travel research because it's fast and personalized as well.

So research from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade found that 30% of Gen Z travellers use AI to plan overseas trips.

But while it can be a great starting point, quickly suggesting destinations, activities and travel plans based on your interest, budgets and timing, you do need to be careful and check that the information is correct.

that is giving you is actually correct.

But Graeme's experience extends well beyond his time as ambassador.

He twice headed DFAT's North Asia Division, led the Australian negotiating team that concluded the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement in 2014.

He served as the deputy head of mission in Washington, and earlier worked on South Pacific policy, including heading the inter-agency task force that launched the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, RAMSI.

His final government role was as Deputy Secretary, International and Security in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

Yes, we did.

Look, it was a very s- it was a much smaller operation there, about a quarter of the size of what we've got now.

Our DFAT political and economic staff were just a handful of people.

One person did the economy.

Well, obviously, it was in Victoria, but the same thing.

I had French and Japanese and came to law with that idea that perhaps I could use my languages and maybe it would be diplomacy or maybe it would be DFAT or the UN.

I actually had this mission to learn all six UN languages because I thought that's where I would end up.

If I'd lived in Canberra, I think exposure to those organizations and the opportunities might have meant that I did end up going that way more so.

And I ended up not studying any languages at uni.

I did more political science.

So I was still thinking, oh, maybe I'll still go into DFAT or just do something policy-based or something a bit different.

I wasn't committed to doing hard law at that stage.