The UK and Australia may stand almost 10,000 miles apart, but when you look at our shared history, traditions, complementary economies, model of government and legal systems, not to mention our Ashes rivalry, metaphorically we stand shoulder to shoulder.
Around a quarter of people in Australia claim British ancestry, and it has long been a favourite destination for UK tourists, with over 700,000 visiting last year. There is also a long tradition of young Australians travelling to the UK to live, work and study. Many young Britons experience the Australian way of life, too, under our working holiday visa scheme.
Boris Johnson encountered the joys of Australia’s great outdoors in his own formative years, camping overnight on a Canberra roundabout when he was 18. But while our people-to-people links have gone from strength to strength, our economic ties have not kept pace. When the UK entered the European Economic Community in 1973, the UK went from being our third largest two-way goods trading partner, to now 12th. British companies looked to the EU for opportunities. UK consumers turned away from Australian produce when high tariffs and low quotas were imposed.
From crisis, though, comes opportunity. In the 1660s when colleges at Cambridge closed due to the plague, Isaac Newton went home to Woolsthorpe to think a bit more about the concept of gravity. Today’s crisis may not result in a discovery of such magnitude, but there are so many areas where our two economies can complement each other. Countries have not facilitated trade for millennia because of altruism. They do so for the mutual net benefits it brings.
Few of us could have foreseen the human tragedy and economic devastation the Covid-19 pandemic would inflict on the world. But when Australia and the UK work together, we can overcome great challenges. We have done so in response to Covid-19: from co-operation to get our citizens home safe, to working in global forums like the G20 to keep essential goods flowing, and collaboration on medical research as the world works towards a vaccine.
We might have some friendly banter on the sporting field, but the show of support and generosity extended to Australians from our British friends over the Christmas period, when we were experiencing some of the worst bushfires in our history, is what abiding friendship is all about.