As spurious Chinese curses go, "may you live in interesting times" gets a fair run.
The quote, used in a speech by former US presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, was presented as a sign of the times by senior Labor figure Penny Wong to a forum in Parliament House on Monday.
"The truth is that the times in which we live are more than interesting," the opposition foreign affairs spokesperson told the Asialink leader's program forum.
In an address titled Understanding Asia, Senator Wong outlined the challenges facing Australia in a world characterised by disruption.
"A recalibration of how we understand Australia's place in Asia in a time of disruption requires us to re-think the way we have traditionally viewed Asia and to devise a contemporary way of talking about Asia," Senator Wong said.
The question for Australia was not whether it considered itself part of Asia, or culturally compatible with Asia.
"Rather, the basis for a successful and long-term relationship with the nations of Asia is the depth of our understanding of Asia," Senator Wong said.
The next step for Australia was to engage and come to terms with the depth of Asia's cultures, in part by investing in language skills.
"Our monolingualism is a liability," Senator Wong said. "It is a national problem in search of a national response," she said.
The Gillard government's 2012 Asian Century White Paper found that less than six per cent of school students studied Indonesian, Japanese, Korean or Mandarin in Year 12.
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