Labor in office will create an ASEAN Studies Centre, run by Australian universities in cooperation with south east Asian nations. “Australian universities host US Studies centres, China Studies centres, and Monash University hosts the Australia-Indonesia Centre while the University of Western Australia hosts the excellent Perth US-Asia Centre. But we lack an Australia-ASEAN Studies Centre. Comparable centres exist in the US, Japan, Korea and India but not in Australia,” Shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen said Friday in a wide-ranging speech on engaging with Asia.

Mr Bowen also commits to fostering a long-term engagement with Asia and spoke of the need to expand Asian language learning in schools, promising to “ use the COAG processes to collaborate with states and territories to lift the focus on Asian languages and work on specific programs in this field.”