Julie Bishop

Sydney, Feb 9 A long-term major focus of Australia’s international relations has been on East Asia, predominantly the economic giants of Japan, China and South Korea, while there has been lesser focus on the nations of the Indian Ocean.

India has the potential to be a valuable strategic partner and can be a policy linchpin in our relations with the Indian Ocean region.

Australia, at the south-eastern tip of the Indian Ocean, and India, at its northern shores, share broad common values with a tradition of parliamentary democracy, membership of the Commonwealth and a passion for the national sport of cricket.

India is a growing economic, political and strategic mega-democracy, although it seems Australia is yet to fully come to terms with its global significance and what a deeper and stronger relationship could mean to Australia’s national interest.

As Rory Medcalf of the Lowy Institute observed of India, “There is so much potential there, and it is probably the only relationship Australia has with a major power that is far less than its potential”.

In recent months the relationship has been particularly troubled with a spate of attacks on Indian students working and studying in Australia, giving rise to perceptions that racism is behind the attacks.

While the attacks have been rightly condemned by Australian political and community leaders, there is no doubt that the relationship is being severely tested.

This issue will need to be resolved before tensions in the relationship can subside.

Put to one side the glaring hypocrisy of Labor refusing to support India in its quest to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, the Labor excuse that it does not sell uranium to any country outside the 1967 Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty is both false and disingenuous and not in Australia's national interest.

India has an exemplary record in non-proliferation and is only able to join the treaty as a ''non-nuclear weapons state'', which it believes is discriminatory because some existing signatories have larger nuclear weapons stockpiles.

It is not in Australia's national interest, first because it sends a message to India that Australia doesn't trust it to be a recipient of our uranium, even though the US and Canada among others have agreed to sell uranium and nuclear power technology to India.

Secondly, it is a missed opportunity for Australia with our large uranium reserves as it has shut us out of a huge export market that would underpin more Australian jobs, particularly with the recent lifting of the ban on uranium mining in Western Australia.

Indian officials were told by the Rudd Government that the real reason for the ban was due to internal Labor Party politics. It is time for the Labor Party to put Australia’s national interest ahead of its dated dogma.

(Courtesy: Sydney Morning Herald, National Times)