I tend to agree with the author from the view that we are still talking about and considering our connectedness to Asia when have been connected for many years. I have yet to read the paper and on the surface of it, from media reports, I agree with the tenor of the white paper. But it’s focus on Asian languages is problematic particularly if it impacts on the learning of other languages in state schools. In Australia we should focus on Asia Skills not only Asian languages. We are a multicultural society so learning and knowing a second or third language, any language, is crucial.
Knowing a second language puts one in a good position to learn additional languages. While we focus on Asia, we cannot ignore Europe and Latin America. Spanish as a language provides access to Latin American market consisting of over 350m people and that is not including Spanish speakers in Europe, the USA and Africa. One may ask why French? But given the range of African, Middle Easter and Caribbean nations which speak French, why not?
My command of Greek and English has enabled me to learn German and Spanish with less effort. My son is now learning Greek once a week, and Mandarin for an hour a week, and will soon take on his mother’s language Spanish.
I have worked in Singapore and Malaysia and my Greek heritage was more valuable than some broken Mandarin and Malay. My Chinese, Indian and Malay peers felt that as a member of a non-Anglo, non-Colonial and ‘ancient culture’, (they used this term), I ‘understood’ their cultures, their values and concerns.
Having said that, I would have enjoyed speaking Mandarin, but it was my cultural biases, my notions and understandings of trade and negotiations based on a non-Anglo/Germanic template that assisted me, not my language skills.
In the end we should, as the Victorian Government does, focus on all languages and allow schools to reflect the needs and desires of their students and parents. A directive approach to languages, a fashionable focus on languages, has consistently failed Australia.

Well, it is a reboot. Moreover, it has given us an opportunity to adjust the helm?
The future emphasis ought to be on growing our relationships with both India and Indonesia. Trade agreements, defence alliances and arrangements; and genuine reciprocation?
That doesn't mean jettisoning our relationships and trade agreements with China, which like Japan before it, we helped grow with our abundant resources.
We just need to expand that model to fully include all the Asian democracies in our region!
In that future vision, we also need to be using the opportunities currently on the table, to build a very high tech manufacturing economy, rather than every boy and his dog is doing it, service based economy!
The lesson we need to take home is, what impact the GFC had with regard to service oriented or reliant economies?
London and Sydney classic examples of just how wrong headed this dilettantish approach is!
Compare that with stand-out and still relatively prosperous and growing German economy, which had the basic common sense, not to trade her successful manufacturing economy for a highly dubious service oriented one! But rather, fully embrace and incorporate, the high tech approach.
Other nations like Korea have got the message and are spending well over 5% of GNP on R+D!
Germany's economy was also shielded from the, [right said Fred,] British disease, which basically killed British manufacturing.
Hence the huge economic collapse in service reliant Britain, and Sydney!
We rather mindlessly, all but gave away uranium enrichment using pulsed light.
Retained here as an exclusive process, we could have supplied the world with power grade fuel.
Similarly, we came up with the one step direct reduction steel making process, which if retained here, would have allowed us to export finished steel to the rest of Asia.
We need to just stop doing this really stupid stuff, if we really want to prosper in the Asian Century, and instead, start investing in our own people and their better ideas!
And please, keep the foreign speculators and their astronomical debt burdens and tax avoidance strategies out or at bay!
Rhrosty.

The only generational thing about it is the generation that includes
the PM attended schools with Mercador's projection world maps on their walls.
Those maps give a very distorted view of the world.
First Asia is on the other side of the world from Australia and we are
as far from, say Beijing, as Beijing is from Europe.

I'll bet 99% of those that read this do not even realise that in these
maps that 1% of latitude is compressed in the Southern hemisphere by
30% so that Australia is shown smaller than it really is and closer to
Asia than it really is.

Also surprise surprise, Indonesia and the Phillipines are not in Asia.
Bet you didn't know that !

Bazz, Indonesia and Phillipines can not be moved so they are in the asia region.

No they are not, they are in Oceana !

<<I have worked in Singapore and Malaysia and my Greek heritage was more valuable than some broken Mandarin and Malay. My Chinese, Indian and Malay peers felt that as a member of a non-Anglo, non-Colonial and ‘ancient culture’, (they used this term), I ‘understood’ their cultures, their values and concerns>>

What a load of old cobblers