Emerging from the 2024 ASEAN-Australia Special Summit was the formation of the ASEAN-Australia Centre. Announced at the Summit by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, it has been operational since 1 July.
The Foreign Minister has appointed an Advisory Board to guide the centre’s work in shaping regional engagement. A group of eminent Australians with diverse and deep regional expertise and experience have been tasked with enabling the government to implement recommendations from Invested: Australia’s Southeast Asia Economic Strategy to 2040. The Centre replaces the decommissioned Australia-ASEAN Council
Programs supported by the Centre will traverse four strategic pillars: Southeast Asia literacy, economic linkages, education and cultural connections. The centre will bring to life the ASEAN-Australia Joint Leaders’ Vision Statement and the Melbourne Declaration that outlines a further 50 years of partnership ambition. Programs will also strengthen business and community connectivity between Australia, ASEAN Member States and, where appropriate, Timor-Leste.
Guidance from the Advisory Board will build on Australia’s long-standing regional commitment as the inaugural 1974 ASEAN dialogue partner. It is an uplift of the Australian government’s work in 2013, which committed to an Australian Mission to ASEAN in Jakarta, alongside the headquarters of the ASEAN Secretariat and ASEAN Committee of Permanent Representatives.
Appointed Advisory Board member, Vice-Chancellor and President of Monash University Professor Sharon Pickering says, in a Monash release; “as a globally connected institution, Monash University is actively contributing to Australia’s regional and global interests across education and research, facilitating collaboration, innovation, and cross-cultural understanding and exchange,” highlighting the muti-faceted nature of our educational institutions and the prominence of Australian education representation in the region.
Appointed to the Advisory Board of the ASEAN-Australia Centre are:
- Ms Louise Adams, Chief Operating Officer, Aurecon
- Professor Nicholas Farrelly, Pro Vice-Chancellor, University of Tasmania
- Professor Sango Mahanty, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australia National University
- Ms Audra Morrice, chef, author, television presenter and sustainability tourism champion in Southeast Asia and the Pacific
- Mr Tarun Nagesh, Curatorial Manager, Asian and Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art
- Ms Su-Lin Ong, Managing Director and Chief Economist, RBC Capital Markets
- Professor Sharon Pickering, Vice-Chancellor and President, Monash University
- Ms Kate Russell, Chief Executive Officer, Supply Nation
- Ms Hayley Winchcombe, Engagement Manager, Mandala
- Mr John Hopkins, (ex officio) Managing Director and CEO, Export Finance Australia
- Ms Michelle Chan, (ex officio) Deputy Secretary and Head of the Office of Southeast Asia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
A Chair will be appointed in early 2025.
This esteemed group will work alongside key ASEAN representatives, moulding Australia’s diplomatic position and regional architecture. As a bloc, ASEAN is our second largest global trading partner; as neighbours, we are deeply connected through families, communities, educational institutions and businesses. As a result, we have a rich and diverse diaspora community with ties to ASEAN member countries.
Back in October 2021, at the first leader level annual ASEAN-Australia Summit, Australia and ASEAN progressed the relationship through establishment of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP). Now in further progressing the partnership, the Centre and Advisory Board will support emerging leaders and deepen Australia’s trade and investment linkages.
Professor Pickering acknowledges that “We [Monash] are a trusted and influential partner, anchored in our communities, contributing to peace and prosperity and fostering deep understanding and connectedness.” Our Australian network of education institutions is deeply embedded within ASEAN regional communities, through TNE delivery, hybrid programs, in country campus presences and via an impactful array of industry and research pursuits that underpin further work across the region. Through decades of regional engagement, Australia and our educational institutions have cultivated a comprehensive alumni community spread across ASEAN member nations.
The Centre and the Advisory Board hold stewardship of these inter-generational and intra-regional relationships, housed in the vibrant epicentre of one of the fastest growing and most cultural and politically diverse regions on the globe.
See the announcement of the Advisory Board here.
