Toast Speech by PM Lee Hsien Loong at the Official Lunch Hosted in Honour of the Honourable Tony Abbott, PM of Australia

The Honourable Mr Tony Abbott, Prime Minister of Australia, Ministers, Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen. I am delighted to welcome Prime Minister Abbott and his delegation to Singapore. This visit comes at a significant moment because this is not just our 50th year of independence, but also the 50th year of our bilateral relations. 

First of all, want to thank the Prime Minister for honouring us earlier this year when he came for the funeral of our founding Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew. His presence meant a lot to us and bore testimony to the friendship between our two countries. The Prime Minister has had a busy two days. Yesterday I had the pleasure of showing him Bishan - Ang Mo Kio Park in the evening, including the otter family having dinner. We joined a gathering of Singaporeans and Australians living in Singapore for an Aussie-style barbeque. We served up steaks and good Australian wine to the hungry crowd, I think all the food at the end of the barbeque was gone. Cooking steaks is not a part of our job specifications, but thankfully have not received any complaints about our cooking skills! I also hope Prime Minister Abbott likes the orchid we have presented him this morning. He has named it “Dendrobium Golden Friendship”. I think we have some of this placed in front of us. An apt name, because the orchid’s parents are a Singapore hybrid and an Australian species! 

Our two countries share a longstanding friendship. Australia was the first country to establish diplomatic relations with Singapore, just nine days after Singapore separated from Malaysia. But our ties go back even further, to World War II when Australian soldiers gave their lives in the defence of Singapore. Many of these Australian soldiers have been laid to rest at the Kranji War Memorial, which the Prime Minister visited yesterday morning. Singapore will always appreciate and remember their sacrifice. Over the years, our two countries have developed very close ties. We have strong and well-established defence, trade and people-to-people links. Beyond this, there is a special warmth in the relationship because we share a remarkable rapport with each other, whether between our politicians, our institutions or our peoples. We have strategic convergence in relation to the two countries and many complementarities in the economies of the two countries, and we have this rapport between the people of the two countries and therefore I have always felt that we could do a lot more together. 

I am glad to have enjoyed good relations with successive Australian Prime Ministers over the years. And I am very happy to continue and to build on these good relations with Tony; to deepen our bilateral cooperation and to take our relationship the next step forward. When I first met Tony in Canberra in 2012, he was Leader of the Opposition. Soon after, he won and became Prime Minister and we have met each other several times in a series of international meetings - APEC, G20, ASEAN meetings. Many times than we would have expected over two years. And I am happy that when we meet, we go beyond just talking about our official agendas, to exchanging views on how we see the world and our roles in the region. 

One of the things we discussed bilaterally is how to draw our two countries closer together. We already have very intimate relationships - there are around 50,000 Singaporeans in Australia and around 20,000 Australians in Singapore. So what more can we do? I am glad Tony shares the same sentiment. In fact, it was he who raised the idea of a strategic partnership when we met in 2012. And over the last year, our people have worked hard and today, we are launching the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, or the CSP.

The CSP will foster cooperation in many areas: in trade and economics, in defence cooperation, in security cooperation, in creating opportunities for our people to get even closer. It is what its name suggests - it is Comprehensive, leaves no stone unturned. It is Strategic – because given the shifting strategic balance in the region, it enables both our countries to work together to promote regional stability, and an open and inclusive regional architecture. It is a Partnership – because it describes the win-win nature of our relationship. 

At the heart of the CSP is a substantive ten-year ‘live’ Roadmap, Project 2025, which will set the course for Singapore-Australia ties over the next decade. Much credit must be given to Tony, for your personal vision of closer bilateral relations which you always pursued with determination in our conversations and agencies, and probably with the same determination that you did an hour-long bike ride in our hot and humid climate yesterday morning before dawn. I look forward to working with you to guide the progress of Project 2025, and to bring our already excellent relations to a new level. 

So it is fitting that to mark this relationship, we planted a tree yesterday at Bishan – Ang Mo Kio Park, and are presenting each other with a gift of trees today. The tree we planted yesterday evening was what we call the Gelam tree and what our old Malay village in Singapore, Kampong Glam was named after. It has a shared Lineage with Singapore and Australia – It is native both in Singapore and in North Queensland so it straddles the Wallace line. On our part, I am very honoured that PM Tony has presented us the Wollemi Pine. It was believed to have gone extinct 2 million years ago but 20 years ago it was discovered at the Wollemi National Park in Australia and a hundred odd specimens were found to have survived these millions of years and they have been cloned and they are thriving and we have a few of these trees growing in the Gardens by the Bay in the Cool House. This one is special, because it is a gift and we will take very good care of it. It will make its home at the Singapore Botanical Gardens in a Cool House. On my part, we are presenting Australia with a Tembusu tree. When PM Tony came into the Istana through the main gate, and looked at the greenery in the grounds, chances are you might have seen the many Tembusu trees. It is an evergreen hardwood, a strong handsome tree, easily recognisable from afar and one that Singaporeans love and provides shade in our parks. Once a year (sometimes twice), usually in May, it blooms and the whole tree is covered with small cream-coloured blossoms, which give off a distinctive fragrant aroma. I think it is a tree that symbolises how I hope the relations between our two countries will be – one that is precious, one that is evergreen, fresh and regularly blooming. 

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, our relations are in good shape, we have taken them another step forward. Please rise and join me in a toast: To Her Majesty the Queen of Australia, to the good health and success of Prime Minister Tony Abbott; and to the enduring friendship between Singapore and Australia.

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