LISA PELLEGRINO, HOST: You might be busting to finally get overseas right now to visit family, go back home or just go on a long-awaited holiday. Well, someone who's just been jet-setting is your Labor Member for Solomon, Luke Gosling. He's been in Indonesia alongside Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who has declared the country essential to Australia's trade diversification away from China. Luke Gosling, good morning, and good to hear you're not battling with the passport delays as many Australians have been doing.

LUKE GOSLING, MEMBER FOR SOLOMON: Yeah, I was pretty happy when the Prime Minister asked me to go on the Indonesia trip. I thought, oooh, I hope my passport hasn't expired, and it hadn't, thankfully. So I was able to attend and rep the Territory over in Jakarta and Makassar over the last couple of days.

PELLEGRINO: Yeah. And did you meet with the Indonesian President—well, you did. But what did you guys talk about? What happened? Everything, we want to know.

GOSLING: Yeah, everything from family to the Territory to our long trading relationship that he was well aware of between First Nations people across the Top End with the Macassans But then some of the practical stuff around the cattle trade that we have with Indonesia and how that's going, how we can improve it, how we can help them with their biosecurity. They've got some issues there with foot and mouth disease and other things. So that was was good to let him know, and pass on the well-wishes of Territorians to him and the people of Indonesia and also talk about tourism, two-way tourism. They're keen for people to come back to Bali, obviously, but they’re keen to expand into a couple of other locations in eastern Indonesia. So we spoke about that. We visited a university in Makassar, so that was wonderful as well. And what's amazing when you get around Indonesia, whether it's in Jakarta talking to government ministers or talking to nurses studying in university in Sulawesi is they've all got some sort of relationship, and there's so many alumni of Australian universities over in Indonesia. Some of them are keen to come and work in Australia and some are just keen to increase out our connectivity.

PELLEGRINO: You mentioned about tourism and many Australians are still quite anxious and nervous about COVID-19. Did you get a picture as to how the situation is over there and how they're handling it? Because that's a big impact for a lot of tourist plans.

GOSLING: Yeah, absolutely. And in fact, Jakarta has bookended COVID for me because I was leading a delegation over to Jakarta when COVID hit, and before I went over, I'd printed out a heap of stuff about how we were going to deal with the with the pandemic and gave that to the Minister of Health. And he was like, “oh, thanks, this is crazy”. And they basically now have a situation where they still wear masks outside, but that I think is going to be dropped pretty soon. It's had a big toll, but like us, they're looking forward to getting on with life.

PELLEGRINO: PM Anthony Albanese has signalled increased defence cooperation with Indonesia in response to China's growing assertiveness. What would that look like?

GOSLING: I had some discussions with some of my colleagues over there about those issues. When it comes to naval cooperation, we already do what's called COR-PAT, which is coordinated patrol, where our patrol boats down here in Larrakeyah, they go out and patrol our common seas with the Indonesian navy and the Indonesian Coast Guard. And that's a good thing. We want to make sure not only for issues like illegal fishing, illegal people, movement, etc., that we're working together to make sure that criminals haven't got the ways of the seas, but also to show that these are our waters, our territorial waters, our international waters. And in international waters, of course, there’s the law of the sea says that anyone can be in them, that it's about having a presence and it's about working together on that, on our common interests.

PELLEGRINO: And you touched on it before, but what role will Indonesia play in Australia's trade diversification? Can we look more into this because this has been a high on the agenda?

GOSLING: Yeah, just before that, a quick anecdote. I met a guy that actually jumped out of an aeroplane with me in the Army back in Kangaroo 95. Some of your listeners remember the Kangaroo exercises. And I saw parachute wings on his uniform, and I said, “you've done parachute training in Australia”. And he said, “yeah, Kangaroo 95”. And I said, “yeah, how was when we jumped into this place in the Gulf, in the Bing Bong, and we jumped into North-western WA?”. So yeah, these connections are strong, our trading connections. It was an amazingly high-level delegation. So we had CEOs of Commonwealth Bank, of Fortescue Metals, BlueScope Steel, and that'll become important because they're building a new capital; the new capital will be called Nusantara in Kalimantan. But also talking with companies like Thalys. Now, the CEO of Thalys, good fella. They do the maintenance of our patrol boats down at Larrakeyah Navy Patrol Base. But what they do in Indonesia is all the air traffic control systems. So, at so many levels in Indonesia they are dependent on Australian knowhow and technological transfer. But Indonesia has come so far that we could really benefit from a lot of their tech people. So we had Ed Husic along, who’s the Minister for science and industry, and we had those discussions about where skilled workers from Indonesia, where we've got deficiencies, could assist. So I think that's really important. But we also visited some Australian businesses that are in joint ventures over in Indonesia and they want to do more of that as well. So there's going to be opportunities, even for a local company here in Darwin who I'm hooking up with a toy manufacturer because they've always got their ties out of China and they want to diversify.

Now, after the 2019 election, the current Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave me a job which was the Indo-Pacific Trade Task Force, and that was to look at ways that we could diversify. So think about that. Prior to COVID, the current Prime Minister was already thinking about we need to diversify our trade into the Indo-Pacific. And Indonesia is a big part of that. And Indonesia has developed in so many ways in industry that it's going to be a really mutually beneficial relationship. But it can't just be the nice photos over in Jakarta and then nothing. So there's been a trade force established that are going to get after it, and the Trade Minister is visiting Canberra very soon with business people, so that we can get the partnerships going and make it a reality. There’s already a lot being done and the Territory’s going to be a big winner. And at the end of the day, that's why the Prime Minister took me along.

PELLEGRINO: And will they do you imagine, do you hope, be, I guess, fair relationships? Because we often see Western countries going over in for a cheaper sort of workforce and trade and such overseas. Is it planned to be fair on all sides?

GOSLING: Always. It always will be with Labor. I mean, our first priority is obviously our own people, Territorians, and that's why we've got massive investment in free TAFE training, vocational education and training, and more university places for our kids. We want our kids to have secure high-paid jobs, but we know that they will always be – as our economy grows and we have more renewables and there there's more manufacturing happening here – there will be a role for jobs, whether they're skilled or unskilled, that we can't meet from locals. So that's where there's a role. But Labor will always make sure that people are paid fairly and have fair conditions.

PELLEGRINO: We've been talking a lot about climate change, especially the last week or so. I mean, we've been experiencing really hot temperatures for a dry season. And yesterday we spoke to Simon Quilty from the Australian National University and he was saying many scientists are predicting that there may be no dry season, or at least a tiny one in the Top End if things keep going the way they are. I'm wondering with the CSIRO modelling showing increasing days over 35 degrees, perhaps in the Top End, how will Indonesia play a part in our fight against climate change?

GOSLING: It was great to have the CEO of Sun Cable along on the visit. And when you've got the President of Indonesia talking about Sun Cable, that's massive. So for your listeners, I'm sure they're well aware, it’s the world's biggest solar farm down in Central Australia near Tennant Creek. An undersea cable supplying renewable energy directly into the Singapore grid. But those cables have to go through Indonesian waters. So I've been part of making those connections to get those approvals. But what the Indonesian President is very interested in is them getting our renewable energy. They burn a lot of coal to make their energy. Just think about Jakarta. Almost the whole population of Australia lives in the city of Jakarta. They're building a new capital, they use a lot of fossil fuels. They want to reduce that. We all need them to reduce that. We want to work with them to reduce that. The Territory is right in the game there.

PELLEGRINO: Yeah. Somebody has texted in: “climate action. You lot won't sacrifice your holidays and festivals while we get crushed out of existence.”

GOSLING: What’s that in reference to?

PELLEGRINO: In terms of, you know, flying, travelling, all those things that are adding to climate issues, saying that those things aren't going to be sacrificed and they'll be causing issues.

GOSLING: People are going to want to look for more energy efficient ways of living. I’m just really encouraged by what the NT Government's doing in terms of EV, electric vehicles and more charging stations, etc. Apparently I'm able to get an electric vehicle and I'll be doing that as soon as I can for my work car. I think we've all got our bit to do. I'm just so glad there is a Federal Labor government that is working with business and business is sending a clear message is that they need help in in switching into more greener forms of energy. We had talks around green hydrogen whilst we were over there and the [Indonesian] Government's got plans to develop that, that that the Federal Labor government will be working with them on. So we can all do something every day. I'm not looking forward to higher temperatures up here, of course. My kids, instead of getting ready for school this morning, jumped into our bed under the sheets because it was freezing cold, which is so welcome. But, you know, we're not going to have the issues with freezing temperatures as they do down south, and that is a great thing.

PELLEGRINO: During this trip, Anthony Albanese became the first Australian Prime Minister to visit Makassar, which is a city with deep, long running links with the Top End with Arnhem Land. Can you tell me about that trip?

GOSLING: Yeah, that was amazing. We visited a university where there's quite old maps of when Indonesia didn't exist, and there was a region that included their trading links with northern Australia. Just incredible maps in Makassar. And because I can speak Indonesian, part of the reason the Prime Minister took me, I was able to speak to the university students there and remind them that it was their vice chancellor of their university, who spoke with Charles Darwin University a few years ago and said, “kita berbagi lautan, kita berbagi angin.” Which is “we share the oceans, we share the wind”. We are connected and we have been for many centuries. It's a special relationship. We visited an Australian company there that's working in an incredible way, in that they import Australian wheat into this factory. It's turned into Indonesian noodles and then sold back in Woolies. And there's going to be more of that into the future as our strengths complement their strengths. And that's pretty exciting. But these young people at the university there in Makassar, they're well aware of our long relationship. You know, they obviously want to visit, but there'll be places where they can help us with skill shortages as well, and they're pretty excited about that. But again, our focus is going to be on our kids, getting them trained up for the jobs of the future. And yeah, really, really happy to be home.

PELLEGRINO: Luke Gosling, what's next? What's on the agenda? Any more international flights, or?

GOSLING: Yeah, I'm not sure. The Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, I had an opportunity to spend some time with her on the visit. I used to work and live in Timor-Leste, and I just said for her Timor-Leste trip, you know, I’m available to assist. We are not sitting in Parliament in Canberra until the end of July, so just looking forward to getting around, catching up with everyone back home here and enjoying the dry season.

PELLEGRINO: Labor Member for Solomon, Luke Gosling, thanks for your time.

GOSLING: Thanks very much, Lisa.