ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER: Thank you, Nicholas for taking on this job.

NICHOLAS MOORE, SPECIAL ENVOY FOR SOUTHEAST ASIA: A great honour, Prime Minister. So thank you very much for asking me. And Minister, thank you very much.

PENNY WONG, MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS: We're very pleased.

PRIME MINISTER: As you know, ASEAN's two-way trade is bigger than the trade with the United States. It's a big deal and those are growing economies in our region and there's such an opportunity. ASEAN next year will be hosted in Indonesia and it's going to grow to be the fourth largest economy in the world as we go forward. And there's huge opportunities for Australian business to have a presence there, which is an opportunity for Australian jobs and economic growth. I can't think of anyone better than yourself.

MOORE: Well thank you very much, Prime Minister, for that. And certainly the feedback so far has been exceptionally positive from the ASEAN countries, from the ambassadors and other people in terms of Australia's engagement and the interest that Australia has. So it's just got to be a very positive start.

PRIME MINISTER: It was timely to be able to speak about it up at the ASEAN Summit and the G20, the B20 and then APEC, of course, as well. So it was a busy fortnight. I was on the road, I know a bit how the Foreign Minister feels now

MINISTER WONG: I break mine up a bit more, he went for a very long time.

PRIME MINISTER: I just kept going. But it is such an exciting region. It's a youthful region. We're living in the fastest growing region of the world in human history. And that presents opportunities. It used to be the tyranny of distance being an island continent where we were, but not anymore. So we want to take advantage of it, for the interests of our nation, but also in the interests of our neighbours as well. We want to see them grow and prosper.

MINISTER WONG: Well, we're really appreciative of you doing this.

MOORE: Well thank you Minister. Thank you Prime Minister.