After the Secretary of State welcomed the ANZUS Delegations, the Council Members reviewed the ANZUS Alliance. It was the first such review since the ANZUS Treaty was signed in 1951. They noted that, although international political and strategic circumstances which prevailed at that time had changed, it is a sign of the resilience of the Treaty that it remains relevant and vitally important to the shared security concerns and strategic interests of the three partner governments.

The Council Members affirmed that the Alliance is firmly based on the partners' common traditions and concern to protect democratic values. They value highly the co-operative defence arrangements, facilitated by the treaty since its conclusion, which have served their government's mutual security interests and promoted a strengthening of each other's defence capability. In the spirit of the ANZUS Alliance, they noted that beyond the activities of defence co-operation, the various efforts, individual and collective, by the partners to promote both regional and global development and stability have also served the cause of mutual security.

The Council acknowledged that the ANZUS Treaty does not absolve each government from the primary responsibility to provide for its own security to the extent which its resources allow. It is for this reason that Article II of the Treaty provides that the parties will ‘by means of continuous and effective self-help and mutual aid maintain and develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack’.