VICTORY: Australian prime minister-elect Tony Abbott (center) waves to supporters with his family after claiming victory in the 2013 Australian Election in Sydney on September 7 (XINHUA/AFP)

A new government was elected in Australia on September 7, bringing an end to six years of Labor Party rule. This was an election fought, and won, almost wholly on domestic issues. But it is also widely known now that some of the most pressing demands for the new Coalition government led by Tony Abbott will be in the area of international affairs.

The simple fact is that Australia, uniquely amongst developed nations, has enjoyed 22 years of continuous growth. This is unprecedented. Young people in Australia under the age of 30 have no real memory of what an economic downturn looks like. The last government's best achievement is probably the fact that it was able to avoid any major impact on Australia's economy of the global economic crisis since 2007. Its own internal arguments and disunity, however, meant that even after Kevin Rudd returned to power in June they were unelectable.

Abbott's aim

For Abbott, the issue is not so much about changes in foreign policy, but being able to get on top of a number of new issues that will confront his relatively inexperienced administration. Firstly, the size of government debt has risen sharply in the last few years. Australia has made a lot of money selling resources to its largest trading partner, China. But it has saved none of this, spending the receipts on the very comprehensive and generous social welfare and public goods that Australians enjoy. As China's growth rate has fallen to around 7 percent this year, there has been an immediate impact in Australia. For the first time, unemployment is creeping up, and there is renewed awareness both in state and federal governments that a period of austerity similar to that experienced in the United States and the EU over the last few years is now in view.

Abbott has made it clear that he does not think the resources boom is over, and that there is still business to be done in trading in Australia's rich resources with China and other Asian neighbors. But the brute fact is that there now needs to be a diversification of this economic relationship. The Gillard administration in April signed a renminbi trading deal between Sydney and Shanghai. This move into the services sector presages a new strategy, one which was started under the last government but now needs to accelerate and deepen. Placing Australia as a services provider to the vast potential market across China has been an aspiration for some time. Now with resource trade diminishing a little, there is added urgency to this strategy.

The previous government introduced two important documents setting out policy toward China. The first was the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper issued in October 2012. The second was the China Country Strategy Paper (CCS Paper), which flowed from the first, and which was issued in August, only days before the election. Both these documents spell out a positive, collaborative, constructive bilateral relationship. Both were produced after extensive public consultations. It is extremely unlikely that Abbott's administration would want to change these announcements dramatically.

What is much more likely is that priorities between China and Australia might be reordered slightly, to address this issue of how to get maximum economic benefit from each other despite a time when economic challenges for both are becoming clearer. For Australia, a key issue is to move forward with some urgency on the Free Trade Agreement (FTA), discussed with China over for 15 years, and something which, as much for symbolic as practical reasons, needed to be completed. New Zealand, Switzerland and Iceland have all signed deals in the last year or so. Abbott's administration is one which has placed economic issues at the heart of its program. A strong FTA deal finalized as soon as possible after coming into power, while demanding, is a prize worth going for.