Mr MARLES (Corio—Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence) (15:01): Can I thank the member for her question and congratulate her on her re-election to this place. Last Friday the annual AUKMIN meetings happened with me and the foreign affairs minister—the annual 2+2 defence and foreign minister meeting with the United Kingdom. We met with UK foreign secretary David Lammy and UK defence secretary John Healey. Our relationship with the United Kingdom is obviously the oldest relationship we have. It is characterised by deep people-to-people links and a great history which informs so much of modern Australia today—our system of government, our language and the way in which we organise our security and our defence forces. Our economic relationship is such that, for both nations, we are each other's second largest investment partner. But with the advent of AUKUS it is hard to overstate the significance of the UK decision to build, sustain and operate their future attack submarines as the same class of submarines that will be operated by Australia. This is a huge decision, which is the fundamental bilateral component of the trilateral AUKUS arrangement.

On Saturday, I and the UK Secretary of State for Defence, John Healey, signed the Geelong Treaty. This is the treaty that provides the underpinning of those bilateral arrangements that sit under the architecture of AUKUS. And, of course, AUKUS itself is embodied in a trilateral treaty, which I signed on behalf of Australia in Washington, DC, in August of last year. All of this means that there is today a strategic, contemporary dimension to this, the oldest of our relationships. It really is elevating our relationship with the United Kingdom to the very highest order, and this is all being built upon the bedrock of trust that has always been there between both countries.

I know I speak on behalf of the foreign affairs minister when I say we are deeply grateful to both David Lammy and John Healey at a personal level for the personal relationships we have with them. This is now the second AUKMIN we have done as a group of four, and I can say to this House that the level of trust that exists between the four of us is so important in terms of being able to accelerate the agenda we have between our two countries, which is pursuing a relationship that is now right there amongst the most important relationships our nation has.

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