‘Australia against U.S. tariffs, but QUAD remains relevant’

Amid the ongoing geopolitical reshuffle, with the tariffs on many countries by the USA weighing heavily, Philip Green, Australia’s High Commissioner to India and Bhutan, said that though there is a long-standing relationship with the United States, a key security partner, Australia stands against the tariffs. In an exclusive interview with The Hindu in Bengaluru, Mr. Green said that despite the souring relations between India and the U.S., the QUAD remains relevant for many reasons.

Excerpts from an interview…

What kind of impact is the U.S. tariffs having on Australia and India?

We have a long-standing, very deep relationship with the United States, our key security partner, a country that looms very large in our perspective on everything. But on this, we differ from our friends in Washington. We stand against tariffs. We stand for an open, rules-based trading environment. That’s an important principle as part of our broader support for global rules and norms, and we will stand by that for the longest time. The Australian economy is resilient, and while we don’t welcome these tariffs, we’re confident that Australia can weather them. Only 5% of Australia’s total goods exports go to the United States and we have been, from many years, for a range of reasons, developing methods to diversify our trading relationships and the places to which we export. 

India is a focal country for our diversification effort. And we think there is huge potential between Australia and India. We are highly complementary economies. We produce many of the things that India will need for its next phase of economic growth. And that’s obvious in the case of energy, minerals, and metals, green energy, but it’s also true in fields like education and skills, where India will need to train up an even larger group of young people as they come onto the jobs market here, and Australian educational institutions are willing and able to support India in that perspective. I was nearly four weeks in Australia, and the mood is buoyant. We feel as though our government has a good plan and the Australian industry is well placed to deal with the challenges, even though as we say, we don’t welcome the tariffs which have arrived from Washington. 

For India too, Australia can be part of its efforts to diversify its markets. And we already have the first phase of our free trade agreement, which is called ECTA (Australia-India Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement), but we are seeking very seriously on both sides to develop the second phase, and I think for Indians as well as for Australians, this can be a way of diversifying our import basis and export basis so that our economies can be more resilient.

We are a shifting geopolitical situation. There is QUAD, and on the other hand, the US has expressed its displeasure about India becoming “friendly” with China and Russia. With this shift in dynamics, where does the QUAD stand today?

For Australia, the QUAD remains very relevant. We are committed not only to the QUAD, but the things that it stands for: free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific. That’s the shared home of Australia and India. And we think that the underlying reasons that the QUAD has come so far in recent years still very much prevail, and we know that those views are shared in Washington.

Already this year, there have been two QUAD meetings at the Secretary of state level and Minister of External Affairs level from India and our Minister of Foreign Affairs and those meetings issued powerful communiques about our continuing shared support for the QUAD and what it stands for. Now, and particularly between Australia and India, I think those underlying realities remain strong. And if I read the Indian mood right, the ambition for our partnership, both bilaterally in security terms and across the QUAD, remains strong. 

With the USA, UK and other countries posing challenges to Indian students aspiring for higher education abroad, does Australia stand to gain?

International education is a key sector for Australia. The (Australian) Prime Minister recently released an economic road map for Australia-India relations, which identified four key sectors, and one of those was education and skills. We see that there is a large and growing number of young Indian people who want a high-class international education in English, and we think that our offering is a good one, both in terms of the quality of our education institutions, the multicultural, warm, and welcoming nature of our society, and the fact that we are a lifestyle superpower. 

There are a lot of Indian students in Australia – about 130,000 at the last count, and that is very much welcome. But there are other ways in which Australia can participate in India’s skills needs, such as research partnerships, partnerships with PhD students. Australia has answered Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for the opening of foreign branch campuses in India, and the first two foreign universities that chose to take up the call are both Australian, Deakin University and the University of Wollongong in Gujarat. Since then, three other Australian universities have said that they have committed to opening campuses, and they are looking at a range of Indian States. This provides a real choice for the Indian student and the Indian family. They can choose a high-quality, Australian degree in Australia, or they can choose to go to an Australian campus in India, get the same quality of degree, and at a fraction of the price, and without the family dislocation.

You have mentioned how Indians are one of the fastest growing demographic groups in Australia. Are they there for work or studies?

We issue about 50,000 visas for study in Australia every year and about 100,000 for people to undertake work in Australia of some kind – either short or long term.

Overall, there are now more than a million people of Indian origin in Australia, which is a lot for us, because we are only 26-27 million people. So, they are nearly 4% of our population. They’re making a very powerful contribution to our lives and economy. Our census statistics say that a person of Indian origin in Australia is twice as likely as another person in the community to have a Master’s or further degree. They’re twice as likely as another person in the community to open their own business. And they’re one and a half times more likely than other migrant groups to be involved in community and sporting associations. So we welcome this group of migrants to Australia as we have welcomed waves of migration from other countries in different eras.

There’s one special way in which we are seeking to engage this group in our community. The government has set up the Centre for Australia-India Relations, headquartered in Parramatta, which is an area of Sydney with a large number of Indian people. It was established with two very esteemed Australians of Indian origin as CEO and chair. It is deliberately seeking to engage the diaspora in Australia to support our bilateral relationship.

But hate crimes are on the rise against migrants of various origins in many countries, including Australia. How is the Australian government dealing with these to ensure the safety of migrants? 

The first thing I would say is Australia has been, and remains, one of the safest places on the planet for people of all types, and we have an open, multicultural society with people from many parts of the planet and Australians are proud of the way in which that has worked very well, both for Australia and for those who choose to live amongst us. There have been recent incidents, and that is deplorable, and our Ministers at the highest level have been very firmly on record that acts of hatred and violence have no place in our society. We deplore them, and we rely on our institutions of security management to be able to deal with them with the full force of the law. We continue to support, and the vast majority of Australians continue to support, our multicultural society, and acts of this kind have no part in the society that we have and that we’re seeking to strengthen.

The India-Australia cricket matches generate a huge amount of interest. Are both countries utilising this to further sporting relations? 

Cricket reigns supreme as the apex sport between Australia and India, and for us, this is now the apex competition. Obviously, the Ashes have a big place in Australian history and culture, but these days, the global epicentre of cricket is closer to India, and the rivalry between the Australian cricket team and the Indian cricket team is fierce and respectful, and beating India is now one of the top goals of the Australian cricket team. I don’t think that we as governments have yet done as much as we can on other sports.

Australia will host the Olympic Games in 2032 in Brisbane, and India has aspirations to host a Commonwealth Games, an Olympic Games, and possibly an Asian Games. And we think this presents a very big opportunity for the two countries. This would be the third Olympics that we have hosted. And we have a lot of the skills and capabilities that are required for delivering such a major event. Some of that, of course, is in the design of stadiums and sporting precincts, and we’re very proud that it was an Australian firm that designed Narendra Modi Stadium, and we’re looking forward to Australian firms being involved as India goes forward with its major sporting ambitions. But it’s not just stadiums; it’s security ticketing, marketing, and all of the disciplines in the sporting field where Australia is strong.

Are there any major sorts of partnerships that Australia and India have in terms of tackling the climate crisis? 

When Prime Ministers Modi and (Australian PM) Albanese met for their annual leaders’ summit last November, their focus was precisely on this field, and they concluded a renewable energy partnership. Now, that will do a range of things, but at the core of it, we’ll be a partnership to help deliver the Prime Minister’s objectives of 10 million solar rooftops. Australia is the country with the largest per capita deployment of solar rooftops in the world. Now, India is on a similar journey, and we feel that there are many capabilities that Australian firms and research institutions have. So, we are bringing those capabilities to support India. We will be establishing, with a major Indian renewable partner, a training centre for technicians, which will train 2,000 young people, mostly women.

As more Indians venture to explore new places, is Australia planning to woo them?

Last year, we had 450,000 (or roughly half a million) arrivals from India, and India is now the fifth largest source market for tourism in Australia. By way of interesting coincidence, Australia is the fifth largest source market for travel into India. So this is a two-way street. We think this is a big opportunity. We want to establish more direct air routes.