Asian ties

7% of Australia's population is Asian About a third of new immigrants are Asian Three quarters of Australia's schools teach at least one Asian language

But on Thursday night, federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson, said that government would be halting its funding for the programme four years early, saving Australia A$120m (US$65m).

Kevin Rudd, Labor's foreign affairs spokesman who helped devise the scheme, denounced the decision as "a huge act of national vandalism" which would harm Australia's image in Asia.

Mr Rudd, himself a Mandarin Chinese speaker, argued that terminating the programme would have a major impact on business and employment.

The decision comes just months after the Australian Tourist Board launched a campaign to attract more Asian tourists to Australia.

These already account for 30% of total arrivals, and the board hopes this will increase to about 40% by 2010.

Early end

The language programme, set up by former Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating, was designed to run for 10 years, finishing in 2006.

Mr Nelson said federal spending on all language training would be reviewed over the rest of the year and there would be "resources available" for Asian languages, but it was not clear how much.

Since coming to power in 1996 Australian Prime Minister John Howard has argued that his predecessor's government was too preoccupied with Asia.

However, Mr Howard did choose to lead a peacekeeping force to East Timor in 1999, to stop violence sparked by the province's vote for independence from Indonesia.