Today we see a growing realisation that Australia needs to get active to create its own future.

Bill Shorten's Monday speech to the Lowy Institute was an important moment. It showed that both main political parties have awoken to the need to shore up Australia's strategic hinterland, otherwise known as the Pacific. The Coalition government was slow to wake up to China's program of influence through the Pacific, but it woke up eventually. It hasn't issued a declaratory policy statement to point out the fact, but it's been working to check China's moves one by one since. Illustration: Dionne Gain Credit: Three quick examples. One. When the Turnbull government discovered that Chinese firm Huawei was going to build an underwater internet cable from the Solomon Islands to Australia, it realised the risk of allowing a Chinese entity to plug in to the mainland's arteries. Australia muscled Huawei out and offered $136 million in aid funding to connect the Solomons itself. The cable will also connect Papua New Guinea to Australia. Two. When Australia learned that the Chinese government was interested in redeveloping four ports in PNG, it quickly stepped in and struck an agreement with the Port Moresby government to enlarge the most militarily important of the ports, the one on Manus Island, into a joint Australian-PNG facility.

Three. When Australia saw that China was getting involved in plans for a regional military training centre for all Pacific Island nations through an upgrade of an army camp in Fiji, Malcolm Turnbull personally negotiated to make Australia the sole foreign donor. Each is an Australian counter to a Chinese move. It's effective but it's not the best way to do it. Apart from anything else, it says to the Pacific states that Australia doesn't actually care about the people of the Pacific. It says, loud and clear, "we only care about you as a chessboard where we counter China's moves". Loading This is where Labor has staked out a new and more constructive approach. Rather than Australia arraying itself against China, Labor wants to mobilise in favour of the Pacific. "The fundamental step we need to take, and have needed to take for a long time, is to care about the Pacific," Labor's defence spokesman, Richard Marles, told me three weeks ago. On Monday the Opposition Leader set out Labor policy as one based on "partnership, not paternalism". The Pacific would be "front and centre" of Labor's foreign policy, not flyover territory.

"We’re talking about a collection of partner nations in an ocean larger than all of earth’s landmass combined - I’ve heard some Pacific Leaders call it ‘the Blue Continent’," Shorten said.

"We will not define our Pacific neighbours by their smallness in size and population but by the greatness of the ocean they are custodians of – and that we share with them."

The Coalition muscled Huawei out of the plan to build an underwater cable to the Solomon Islands. Credit:Photo: Bloomberg He said Labor would not only increase aid funding but also create a new infrastructure bank for the Pacific, to "actively facilitate concessional loans and financing for investment in these vital, nation-building projects through a government-backed infrastructure investment bank." His aim? "To make sure" the countries of the Pacific "look to Australia first" as their partner of choice. Shorten posed it as a project to care for the Pacific peoples rather than the strategic needs of Australia: "Otherwise, within a decade, the 10 million people living across the Pacific islands will be living in some of the least developed nations on the planet." Loading This is exactly the right way to frame Australia's approach. To help the Pacific reach its potential. It's also self-interested, of course. Would we want a string of disease-ridden failed states to our north, available to China as military bases, or to the terrorists of Daesh as training camps, or to criminal syndicates seeking bases to trafficking in people, drugs and arms? Bill Shorten said: "Our goal will not be the strategic denial of others but rather the economic betterment of the 10 million people of the Pacific islands themselves." The beauty of this approach is that it can achieve both at once.