People who think Australia is in Asia have only ever looked at Mercator's projection and never at a globe.

Paris is closer to Asia than Australia.
Note Indonesia is NOT in Asia, it is like Australia in Oceana.

Historical Australia has hitched its wagon to the West. When Britain was a power, we were "the branch office of the Empire". Today we are called "Deputy Sheriff" to the US. Point is, our role has been to act as a the regional representative of the Western centre of the day and likely to do so.

In more recent history, it has US policy to have Australia and Japan it's pincers in the region. Now, there is pontential China will become too big of this to continue. Is this bad. Probably, yes.

US Side: A likely response is for the US to increase its military presence in the East Asia region say 2012-2015. The US will also realise that China and its Diaspora hold huge US US dollar reserves in US dollars, which could be dumped on currency markets. Meanwhile, the US needs to deal with nuclear weapons being 1950s technology and Islamic states growing threatening powerful. China can leverage this situation.

Chinese side: China is sucking-in advanced knowledge from the West. This could prove to be an advantage for China and the West, especially Australia. However, China is in someways like Prussia c. 1840-1870, wherein there is an ancient mind on top of a modern(ing)body. Herein, China needs to develop a democratic leadership to avoid an military cum imperialist phase in its development. As we Japan and German took the old driving new course. When I see China's concerns about Tibet and Taiwan, I recall the German-Austrian relationships and the Japanese Sphere of Co-prosperity.

It is therefore important that the West and China, both appreciate history, wherein, the West needs to become less Sinophobic and China (and the World)needs learn, peril of being imperialist and territorial. The pride of the national-state needs to be eased in a nuclear age. Something Kennedy and Khrushchev appreciated in October, 1962. Austria and then the World didn't in 1914, when the "shot that was heard around the (nationalistic) World" led to WWI.

Einstein said, there will be no WW IV.

Our geographic proximity to the Pacific Islands is not insignificant. Both in terms of solidarity and of security, Australia must face up to the fact that the arc stretching from Timor-Lest to Fiji will require assistance in nation-building for some time, perhaps for as long as a generation. This is clearly our responsibility.

Running a foreign policy based purely on geography, however, would be completely wrong-headed. Bazz is right to put the distances into perspective: Beijing is closer to London than it is to Canberra. So, for that matter, is all of India. Obviously we need to be on good terms with our Asian neighbours, but it would be absurd to suggest that Asia should ever be the sole focus of our world-view.

We are not, after all, an Asian country. Chinese people are not ashamed of their Chinese heritage, so why should we be ashamed of our British heritage? New Zealand and Canada, for example, are also Pacific nations, but they are ones that share much of our history, our world-view and our values, not to mention our language and our institutions. They are our natural partners, and we already speak with one voice at the UN as the CANZ group.

The relationship with the United Kingdom also continues to be crucial, on any number of levels. It is, for example, the home of the greater part of Australia’s expats. Australia and the UK recently established an annual, ministerial-level forum called AUKMIN: a far more intimate kind of relationship than we are ever likely to have with most of our geographical neighbours.

Yes, Australia is a Pacific nation, but, like Canada and New Zealand, it is also a British nation. We are separate countries, but we are not foreigners: our common history, our common culture and our common values mean that we are family. Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom: CANZUK. In an age of rapid travel and instantaneous communication, there could be nothing more narrow-minded than denying our logical place in the world purely for the sake of geography.

“ A refugee is a refugee - political or economic. “

Is that right, Mr. Henderson? Where is it written that people, who decide that they would like to come to Australia, because they want to make more money, have an equal footing with someone who can demonstrate the likelihood of persecution or death?

Tony Henderson throws “rights” around with abandon: “any regional or cultural group has the right to self-rule”. How can people who obviously don’t have the population, the resources and ability for self-rule – such as East Timor - have the “right” to self-rule when they need huge sums of foreign money to keep them going, and intervention from outside when things go pear-shaped, as they inevitably do?

Australian intervention then re-intervention in East Timor show that it has learned nothing from the independence granted to that cot case PNG, which we all believed had the “right” to self-determination.

Allan Patience, Professor of Political Science at PNG University, told the ABC’s The World Today on 1 June that that country has been in serious decline for the past 10 years, and is rapidly getting worse.

How much will have to be spent on that failed state in the near future?

Patience lays the blame on Australia’s doorstep, even though PNG is supposed to be a sovereign country and even though he (Patience) believes that Canberra doesn’t have: “.. the resources, the capacity, the foreign policy acumen… to deal with PNG.”

Australia is already overstretched in the region, militarily and financially. We, and New Zealand, have nothing in common with the two-bit countries in the area, and Australia’s best interests should dictate our only interest in them. Indonesia is the country we have to get along with, and suggesting that we dictate to them on “rights” is egregious nonsense. East Timorese, for instance, have swapped alleged Indonesian breaches of human rights for killing each other: machete hackings between people from the east and the west.

Perhaps the next suggestion from academic crackpots will be that Australia oversee separate development between west East Timor and east East Timor!

Further to my earlier post. Nationalism and statism are out of date in a global world with super-technology and super-communications. The question is can large emerging countries keep up the same pace with political systems. If Australia looks to China, it sees dollar signs, but it should also see a Sino leadership needing to make a difficult transition. If Australia looks at Britain, well, she's a spent force. A little like a silent movie star, living on 1920 memories in 1940s. The US, on the other hand, has a strong democratic tradition. But, it is really a French tradition. Australia has a good ally in the US. Trouble is she is also very nationalistic and self-centred. Just the same, the US is culturally closer to Oz than is China. Ther would be "two suns in the sky".

Given Australia's geophysical significance, she can't opt-out. Canada and New Zealand can. Perhaps, politically, we should steer a liberal progress course, like Norway and Sweden? But, I think if push comes to shove, we will continue to lean towards the US.

China has ruled itself for less than 300 years, since its first unification. We should welcome her into the World. Just the same, its leaders need to realise reformation is the price of entry.

If China can reform without imperialist intent, well, Australia and the World, can readily accept two superpowers

Oliver said;
Given Australia's geophysical significance, she can't opt-out. Canada and New Zealand can.
end quote

This is exactly what I pointed out. Canada is a lot closer to Asia than Australia ! If anyone is interested there are great circle calculators on the web.
A year or so ago there was great kerfuffle about Nth Korean missles and Australia being in range. At the most they might have reached Darwin at a stretch but central Europe was well within range and not a peep about that.

This is another example of how schools with Mercators projection on their walls has distorted history, and politics today.
Don't expect politicians to understand simple things like this.