Date:  07 March 2007

Welcome to the Australian Labor Party’s International Projects website. Over coming months we will give you up-to-date information about the exciting initiatives being undertaken by our people around the world. 2006 marked a turning point in our international relations. Through the creation of the ALP International Projects section, Labor has been able to intensify our engagement with the region and the world.

Through a raft of initiatives Labor will continue to build party-to-party links throughout Asia, the Pacific, Europe and the Americas.

This has given us an unprecedented ability to further bilateral and multilateral dialogue with our regional counterparts on central issues such as trade, encouraging economic growth in Australia and abroad, political and social rights, the environment, our conventional and human security needs, countering terrorism and the spread of democracy in the near region.

2007 will be a busy year. Check the website for regular updates on our activities. In November 2006, Federal Parliamentary Leader Kevin Rudd led a Labor delegation to China to discuss Australia-China relations, climate change, political and social rights, and trade.

There's also news from International Secretary, Senator Michael Forshaw and Socialist International Vice President for Women, former Senator Sue West, who recently returned from the Socialist International Congress in Santiago de Chile. Sue West also took part in the SI Asia Pacific Committee meeting in Nepal in February 2007.

In the current global environment, we also need to participate in non-ideological international fora and former WA Premier, Dr Geoff Gallop reports on the 4th General Assembly of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) in Seoul.

Our engagement in the region was bolstered by the creation of the Australian Political Parties for Democracy (APPD) scheme, launched in 2006. Under the APPD scheme, a Department of Finance and Administration (DOFA) grant-in-aid program, our people now provide cutting edge technical assistance to political parties in Asia and the Pacific. Reports on our missions to Philippines, Indonesia, Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea can be found in Our Programs.

Over the coming years, we will continue to build on our training programs on campaign strategies, party organisation and policy development. Engaging Asia and the Pacific in this way, we will respond to the demands of our regional counterparts as they build on the democratic gains of the past decade.

Labor believe that given a fair go, people can better themselves and the world around them. In our commitments to the APPD scheme, we will promote fairness and balance in political party organisation in the region. These principles are at the very heart of the progressive approach to building democracy.

Part of the challenge of political party assistance is recognising that great differences exist between the cultures, institutions and practices of Australian political parties and their counterparts in Asia and the Pacific. In choosing recipient political parties for our training programs, we will be guided by our ideology but it is not the only consideration. Where like-minded parties exist, we engage them as partners in development. Where political parties are differentiated by other criteria, we strengthen democratic institutions and promote stable and effective governance across the board. In turn, strengthening democratic institutions such as political parties is the lynchpin in our strategy to secure a stable and prosperous future for ourselves in the region.

We look forward to giving you regular updates on Labor’s activities around the world through ALP International Projects. With our renewed focus on international engagement, we have also renewed our links with ALP people abroad. We will continue to post short reports from our people working around the world on our website in coming months. Let us know what you are working on.

Michael Morgan

Director, International Projects

March 2007