Today in the Our Ambassadors series, we're joined by Australia's Ambassador to the
Netherlands Neil Mules
good morning Neil
great pleasure to be here, thank you
Neil, of course there's a long
historical connection between Australia and the Netherlands, how does
that resonate today?
yes, well many people don't realise that the Dutch were the first to
land in any numbers on Australian territory and we celebrated
back in two thousand and six
four hundred years since the first Dutch ship landed in Australia, the Duyfken
up in Cape York
in sixteen sixteen
Dirk Hartog the Dutch navigator landed on the coast of Western Australia the first
of many Dutch
ships that reached the West Australian coast
so we'll have a big celebration also in the next few years for four hundred years
since that happened
so there is this very rich tapestry of historical connection. The Dutch were
obviously the first Europeans
ans as many school children know, the western half of Australia was called
New Holland for
the first few hundred years of European contact.
Since then there's been a
continuation of that, other Dutch navigators have left their mark,
names like Cape Leeuwin, Rotnest Island
and even Tasmania and the Tasman Sea are named after
Abel Tasman the famous Dutch navigator.
That contact dropped off a little bit because the Dutch didn't stay,
and the British came to the other side of the country, but following the
Second World War
the waves of Dutch migration that came to Australia I suppose was the
next big
Dutch contact, Dutch impact in Australia.
We had hundreds of thousands of Dutch people arriving in Australia and
they've made an extraordinary contribution to our country, so
there is this backdrop of historical connection and friendship
between us.
And so then, looking beyond the historical relationship, how would you
characterize the contemporary relationship between Australia and the
Netherlands
we'll sort of laid over that historical backdrop we have a situation today
in which the Netherlands and Australia
basically share a global outlook, with very similar values and the way we
see the world is very similar
so we've been able to build an extraordinarily strong bilateral
relationship on that
historical foundation
most recently we saw that in evidence where Australia and the Netherlands worked
together in Afghanistan.
Our two militaries have worked together to provide security in
Oruzgan Province. As a result of that, the Dutch military has the highest regard
for Australia, and the Australian military
but more broadly this connection we have enables us to talk to the
Dutch, to
compare notes and share approaches across a
whole range of international issues whether it's
very sensitive high profile foreign policy matters like
counter-terrorism for example,
UN reforms, the Dutch are a very prominent member of the EU, so its very good to
have a
a close friend in the councils of the EU
but also in lighter areas, in cultural relations for example
the great Dutch orchestra the Concertgebouw, as part of its one hundred
and twenty-fifth anniversary celebrations will visit Australia
this year for the first time
and apart from musicians I guess i think that the most recent
stats we have from two thousand and eleven
there's, one hundred and sixty thousand Dutch visited australia
whether its backpackers or businessmen
they stay longer than most visitors and they learn a lot about
Australia. The Dutch
know and like australia very much
I think the Dutch know more about contemporary aboriginal art for example
than anybody else in Europe and perhaps more than many Australians
we have a
very solid bilateral relationship at every level
Of course Australian's are already quite familiar with a number of Dutch companies
through their interaction and investments in Australia,
can you tell us a little bit about the commercial and investment
relationship between the two countries
Absolutely, and of course
the economic relationship
is always one of the major pillars of any serious bilateral relationship
the Netherlands is an important economic power in the world. If you
just took the world's
biggest economies, it would come in the top twenty somewhere
and so it's very important for us to work to work together with the Dutch on
broad economic matters. At a
bilateral level we have a healthy trading relatinoship of about
five billion dollars a year. It suffered a little bit from the global
financial crisis that has bounced back
but the the highlight story on the economic relations between our countries
is in the area of investment, the Netherlands is
the fourth biggest foreign direct investor in Australia.
As you mentioned there are household names that we all know: Shell,
Phillips, which are
big investors in Australia.
other big investors are the financial institutions ING, Rabobank
so almost all of the
important global players in the Dutch economy are present in Australia and
we take full advantage of that.
In the other direction Australians are investing more and more
in the Netherlands as well, I think it's now about the ninth
biggest destination for Australian foreign direct investment
so across the board on the economic front things are
healthy
with potential for being even greater in the future.
And of course the Hague is probably best known to most Australians as an
international legal centre
can you tell us about how important that is and a little bit about your role there?
Absolutely and as I've been talking about the bilateral relationship,
the truth is that probably more than half my time as ambassador in the
Netherlands is spent
on the international organisations based in the Netherlands.
That starts with the Organisation for the Prevention of
Chemical Weapons which is the international body that oversees the
implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention
Australia was
very important in the foundation of that organisation, we remain very active in it
Australians by and large don't know much about this these
days but it's important to
recognise the importance of the OPCW
the Chemical Weapons Convention is the only international disarmament
agreement which has all but
achieved the elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass
destruction, chemical weapons, so it's
very important that we stay engaged with them
you mentioned the courts which is the other big international feature of the
job and
they range from the country specific
tribunals such as the Yugoslavia and the Lebanon
Tribunal.We've been very active in the Yugoslav Tribunal historically and as it
winds up
we'll continue to be
but also that includes the International Criminal Court
this is a very interesting and challenging development in the
worlds
international legal system
for the first time we have established an organisation
which has as its aim a global coverage of of the world and an ability
to bring to justice the perpetrators of war crimes and
crimes against humanity. Australia is very active in that organisation, we work
very hard
towards helping improve the governance of that court as it enters its
only second decade in existence
I suppose the court that most people would be familiar with in the Hague is
the International Court of Justice
which is the UN body which
which looks at disputes between states.
Australia again has had quite a lot to do with the the ICJ over it's history and
most people will know that we currently have a case in the ICJ, that's the
case against Japan on whaling in the Southern Ocean.
That's going to keep the embassy extremely busy during the course of this
year, the oral hearings in the court should happen in the middle of the
year
and so we are in very close touch with the court on a almost daily basis in
preparations for that, and
that'll keep me and my colleagues busy
so you see there is more than enough for us to do in the international
organisations in the Hague
thanks very much Neil
it's been great thank you
and that was Neil Mules Australia's Ambassador to the Netherlands