Japan's Ambassador to Australia has told the ABC that his country wants to see "certainty" in Australia’s energy policy. Gas companies and some Japanese think tanks have criticised the Coalition's gas reservation policy warning it could undermine investment in Australia’s energy sector, including from Japanese corporations.
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00:00Well, Ambassador, thanks very much for speaking with the ABC.
00:05Thank you very much for having me today.
00:07Let's start with Donald Trump.
00:09Obviously, these Liberation Day tariffs have sent shockwaves around the world.
00:14Japan is now sending a team of high-level negotiators to Washington, D.C.
00:19That sounds like it will happen soon.
00:21What do you feel?
00:22Do you believe that there's a good chance that Japan can strike a workable deal with this administration?
00:27Well, first of all, thanks really very much for having me here.
00:33I think this is a really important moment to discuss a variety of issues, particularly facing the many challenges, both in Australia and Japan.
00:42And the unilateral tariff measures that the U.S. administration announced last week was a deeply regulatable announcement.
00:53And extensive restrictive trade measures will not only harm Japan, but also the United States and the global economy.
01:07Do you think Australia and Japan can learn from one another here?
01:11Obviously, Australia is a bit constrained.
01:13We're in caretaker at the moment.
01:15But are Japan and Australia sharing notes on this, the best way to try and deal with the shocks coming from this announcement?
01:21Well, I think last week, Prime Minister Ishiba said all the options are on the table.
01:33But what he said is that he will not adopt a tit-for-tat kind of approach.
01:40So, basically, we are going to try to talk to the United States and try to find out the best solution.
01:51But in the course of it, I'm sure that it's very important, it's natural course, to talk to other close friends and partners like Australia to both coordinate and find out a good solution.
02:05Let's talk, finally, energy policy.
02:08Obviously, at the heart of the Australia-Japan economic relationship is energy, and in particular, the gas that is sent from Australia to Japan.
02:17Now, as you know, the coalition has proposed a gas reservation policy.
02:23Let's ask, first of all, Peter Dutton said he'd given a heads-up to Japan about this.
02:28Is that accurate?
02:29Did he give a heads-up to you or a heads-up to Tokyo?
02:32What shape did that take?
02:33Well, what I can say to your question is that our embassy here in Canberra, and including myself, has various very close contact with the government, many people in the government, and also many people in the members of the parliament, including the opposition party, on a daily basis with a wide range of topics.
03:00And so far, we are extremely happy about these relationships.
03:05There have been an awful lot of gas policy proposals from both sides of government over the last decade or so.
03:11Does that create uncertainty for Japan and for Japanese gas companies in particular?
03:17Or are they comfortable with this political back and forth?
03:19Well, what I say is that, I mean, Japanese investment here in Australia are really thriving.
03:28There's a traditional sectors, energy sectors, minerals, etc.
03:33are also very, very, you know, confident about the current status of our bilateral relationship.
03:40But at the same time, it's extremely important that in order to continue this, the consistent widening of investment here in Australia,
03:53the newly report made by the Herbert Smith Freehills, indicated that there's $141 billion Australia investment here in this country last year.
04:08And then chunk of it is from the resources sector.
04:12And in order to have this investment here continue to flow from Japan, it's extremely important that the Australian government should have the predictability and the policy stability.
04:26That is key to invite investment here.
04:30And, you know, we are talking very closely with the various, you know, agencies here in order to ensure that kind of a policy stability and the environment here in Australia.