Australia's future security and prosperity in a rapidly changing region and world

The Australian Government is committed to restoring Australia's place as a nation of creative middle power diplomacy - both in our region and in broader international forums. Australia has the potential to be a significant force for good in our region and on the world stage, including through our diplomatic efforts, increased contribution to efforts to reduce extreme poverty and fostering stability and peace in our region.

The Australian Government is acutely aware of the new range of security, economic and foreign policy challenges across our international operating environment. The Government is conscious of the need for creative, long term responses to these challenges.

The Australia 2020 Summit [1] will examine:

• How Australia best protects its national security interests in the face of an increasingly complex threat spectrum, including terrorism, bio-security and other threats to human security - as well as the adequacy of existing institutional arrangements for dealing with the threat spectrum into the future
• How Australia should maximise its cooperation with its long-standing ally the United States
• How Australia engages with China and India in the coming decades as both play an increasingly important economic and political role
• How Australia can make the greatest contribution both within and outside the framework of the United Nations in addressing the challenge of extreme poverty
• The long-term adequacy of Australia's existing foreign language capabilities to meet increasingly complex challenges presented by the globalisation.

Use this online forum to contribute your ideas to the Summit. [2]