This speech was delivered by federal Ambassador for First Nations People, Justin Mohamed, at the launch of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's First Nations International Engagement Strategy on Wednesday evening.

When I had the great honour of delivering my first address, back in April 2023, I spoke about my ambition and the task ahead.

It was to strengthen our foreign, trade, and development policy with First Nations perspectives, interests, and capability.

For the benefit of our people.

For the benefit of all Australians.

And for the benefit of our engagement in our region.

This is something I reflected on just last week, when I joined the Australian delegation and Vanuatu leaders for the signing of the Nakamal Agreement.

And I reflected on it again just a few days ago, when I stood with the Prime Minister for the announcement of the Vuvale Union and Ocean of Peace Alliance, in Fiji.

These agreements make Australians safer and our region more secure.

More First Nations opportunities for trade, investment, and economic growth, help Australian businesses access new markets.

And they strengthen regional cooperation.

Our Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with the United Arab Emirates contains our first ever standalone First Nations chapter in a free trade agreement.

The benefits provided to First Nations businesses under the Australia-European Union Free Trade Agreement, and the Australia-UK Trade Agreement, grow investment and opportunity for all Australians.

And our work amplifying First Nations voices - including at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, World Expo, and trade missions to the United States, India, Japan, and Taipei - has enhanced Australia's influence, in our region and across the world.

As Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Wale said, "the respect paid by Australia to its First Peoples matters".

"It said to me that Australians pay respect to Pacific Islanders."

I've seen firsthand - time and time again - how our history, our connections to the region, our perspectives, have great potential for Australia's engagement with the world.

First Nations culture, as the Foreign Minister has said, is a powerful element of our national power.

Something Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister acknowledged in 2024, 'Ours is a relationship', he said, 'that is built on shared ethnicity between the Torres Strait Islanders and my people up north from you, between the Indigenous Australian people and the Melanesian people.'

I can think of no more fitting time than NAIDOC Week to release the First Nations International Engagement Strategy.

This is a strategy built on experience.

It charts a clear course for how we can continue to deploy First Nations diplomacy with real impact, and in ways that continue to deliver outcomes.

Deepening our partnerships with Pacific nations.

Expanding First Nations trade and investment.

And elevating our diplomacy and influence.

Building on existing initiatives, including five Reconciliation Action Plans and International Development Policy...

Grounded in the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples...

And aligned with the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.

With the strategy, we have been deliberate and thorough.

Testing feedback through experience, learning by delivering.

All to ensure the strategy is effective and enduring, ambitious and achievable.

Directly consulting more than sixty First Nations stakeholders from across business, academia, and culture and diplomacy experts.

Along with more than 130 engagements with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people across Australia.

In my 36 years of working in Indigenous affairs, the process we took to develop this strategy was something very special.

It allowed time to engage, listen and reflect.

Ensuring the words we heard, the advice we were given, and the aspirations expressed to us, were reflected in the final version.

Distinguished business and clean energy leader Dr Kate George has said that the "strength of the First Nations International Engagement Strategy is that it was shaped by First Nations perspectives".

"DFAT has been exemplary in ensuring First Nations people are at the table, championing First Nations voices on the global stage, and recognising genuine partnerships with government are essential to delivering meaningful outcomes."

It's part of the promise I made when I started in this role - to sit, and listen, to walk together, side by side, to build a foundation, step by step, that can be lasting.

Tonight, we celebrate 50 years of NAIDOC.

We celebrate the relationships our people have built for tens of thousands of years.

And we look to the future... listening, learning, and leaning in, to understand where the power of our First Nations people and culture is best directed, and continues to deliver the greatest impact.

For the betterment of Australia, for the betterment of our region.

Showing the world who we are, and where we are going.

Thank you.