“I want to unleash the potential of Australia and India’s economic relationship and that Indians living in Australia are the key to this work.”
— Tim Watts, Australia’s Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs
Tim Watts, Australia’s Assistant Minister for Foreign affairs, said that India’s energetic and influential diaspora in Australia was an invaluable national asset that could unlock economic and trade partnerships.
Watts told an audience recently at a round table for Australia-India Business Engagement Roundtable in Melbourne that he wanted to unleash the potential of Australia and India’s economic relationship and that Indians living in Australia were the key to this work.
Citing a 2035 strategy document, former DFAT heavyweight Peter Varghese handed to the government in 2018, which concluded there was no other comparable market to India that offered Australia more growth opportunities over the next 20 years, Watts said India was currently Australia’s sixth largest trading partner. “We know that there is so much potential in this economic relationship,” Watts said.
“As Peter Varghese has said: this diaspora ‘can go into the nooks and crannies of a relationship where governments cannot. They can shape perceptions in a way governments cannot. And they create personal links, in business, the arts, education, and civil society which can help anchor the relationship.”
The aim of the round table was for ministers to listen and learn from stakeholders of the business community and understand what they regarded were the challenges and opportunities to advancing Australia’s relationship with India.
This year Australia will open a new Consulate General in Bengaluru. Also a new joint Australia-India Centre of Excellence on critical and emerging technology policy will be set up in Bengaluru that will bring together industry, government, academia, and civil society stakeholders to shape governance on policy frameworks
Foreign minister Penny Wong joined the function, along with a number of Victorian state MPs.
Watts, who represents the federal electorate of Gellibrand in Melbourne’s West, has some of the fastest growing communities in the country. He said the Indian-Australian diaspora community was a principal driver of this growth in his own electorate. “My community is on the front line of a national trend that has seen Australia’s Indian-Australian diaspora community grow to almost one million Australians who have Indian heritage; with around 670,000 born in India,” Watts said.
“India is now Australia’s biggest source of skilled migrants and our second biggest source of international students. This diaspora is young, energetic, ambitious, dynamic and influential.” Watts also said: “Australia is making unprecedented investments in new programs with India, including many that build our science, technology, and innovation partners.” He mentioned that some of these initiatives included extending the Australia-India Strategic Research Fund, which supports joint venture research between our countries. “This is already Australia’s largest financial research fund in any country in the world,” he said.
This year Australia will open a new Consulate General in Bengaluru. Also a new joint Australia-India Centre of Excellence on critical and emerging technology policy will be set up in Bengaluru that will bring together industry, government, academia, and civil society stakeholders to shape governance on policy frameworks.
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