On his first visit to India as the new CEO of the Centre for Australian-India Relations (CAIR), former Australian diplomat Ryan Neelam, who has earlier served in Hong Kong, and the UN Security Council in New York, talks to Divya A about the need for New Delhi and Canberra to come together amid geopolitical tensions, and towards a free Indo-Pacific, and the collaboration on energy security.
Neelam — who traces his roots to India and has family living in Mumbai and Bangalore — also talks about the role of the Indian diaspora in taking the bilateral ties to the next level. Edited excerpts from an interview:
CAIR was announced by Australian PM Anthony Albanese in 2023 with a $28.1 million investment, during PM Narendra Modi’s visit to Sydney. Three years down, does the organisation have a specific goal for the future?
We have an advisory committee of 12 prominent Australians from business, arts, culture and sport, including Steve Waugh. It is a recognition that we could be doing a lot more and there is a huge potential to lift economic engagement and people-to-people engagement.
The political relationship has been on an upward trajectory for a while. So, the idea is to explore how to bring in the rest of Australian society into that mission – how do we talk to businesses about the trade and investment opportunities that aren’t being harnessed yet. And how do we talk to arts and cultural organisations and thicken those ties.
You spoke of cultural ties. How does that fit into increasing trade and political engagement?
A major objective is to deepen the public understanding of each other. So, in Australia our role is to lift the level of India literacy in the broader community. The idea is to get a bit more nuance and depth of understanding among Australians about India’s place in the world, how it’s navigating the challenges and upheaval, and what that means for Australia.
Story continues below this ad
It is also about celebrating the contribution of Indian-Australians to society. There are one-million Australians of Indian descent, I’m one of them, but the contribution of the diaspora goes across all sectors – C-suite executives, business leaders, sporting and cultural leaders.
There are also discussions about India and Australia collaborating on the energy landscape…
There’s a lot of complementarity in our economies naturally. We’re a big resource and energy exporter. India has a huge demand for the kind of products we export. We have strengths relevant to India – agri products would work towards India’s food security landscape, while clean energy is another space as India aims to decarbonise and become more self-sufficient on energy.
Do you think there could be newer areas of collaboration considering conflicts, tariff issues and navigation issues?
Story continues below this ad
Our economy is geared towards certain industries and those are relevant for the current context. For instance, clean energy and critical minerals. India has a huge interest in how it works with other countries, including Australia, on diversifying supply chains and building a bit more resilience into that and sourcing the raw materials as well as processing technologies.
Also, education is always going to be a central strand of our relationship. We are a quality provider of education and we want Indians to think of Australia when they think of studying abroad.
But India is already among the top source countries for Australian universities.
One area that could grow more is vocational education and skills. India is moving towards Net Zero by 2070, while Australia has a nearer timeline of 2050. So, we’re both pushing in the same direction. But this energy transition is not only about policy goals and investment, you actually need the people to lay the wires. Australia certainly doesn’t have enough of those people who will be able to supply what’s needed, while India has a huge population of skilled labour.
Story continues below this ad
In this complicated geopolitical scenario, how does Australia view India as being indispensable?
The rules-based international order that we’ve come to rely on, seems like it’s changing very rapidly. And we’re both working out how we can preserve aspects of that. The relationship has never been more consequential. So, we recognise the value of partners that share the same interests to navigate some of the uncertainty that we’re seeing in the world.
We’re moving towards a great power competition and at this time, the more you can invest in relations with partners having the same interests and values, the more resilience you build to deal with whatever might come.
Is the place for Indian-Australians changing in Australian society?
One of our strengths as a society is that it’s diverse and that we have migration from across the world. A million Australians who have that Indian connection like me exist, and it’s only growing. We actually harness the diaspora to help with economic engagement. While there was some pushback last year, the Prime Minister of Australia has made it clear that there’s no place for intolerance or racism in Australia.
