But Australia faces additional regional and global challenges also crucial to our nation's future - climate change, questions of energy and food security, the rise of China and the rise of India. And we need a strong system of global and regional relationships and institutions to underpin stability.

If Australia wants an effective United Nations, we have to be comprehensively, not marginally, engaged.

A core challenge for Australia is - how do we best prepare ourselves for the Asia Pacific century - to maximise the opportunities, to minimise the threats and to make our own active contribution to making this Asia-Pacific Century peaceful, prosperous and sustainable for us all.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is with great sadness that I announce that I will resign as Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs. I am sad because I love this job. I'm totally dedicated to the work that we are doing in Australia's name around the world, and I believe that we have achieved many good results for Australia, and I'm proud of them.

It is unlikely that you'll have anything emerge from MEF (Major Economies Forum) by way of detailed programmatic specificity.

Australia is a nation of compassion. Courage and compassion. And the third of these great values: resilience.

Education is both a tool of social justice as well as a fundamental driver of economic development.