Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Reid represents a diverse range of Australians from many different faiths and many different cultural backgrounds. He does not just talk about multiculturalism, he lives it. He absolutely lives it. He is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Friends of Turkey and, of course, right in the heart of his electorate is the magnificent Auburn Gallipoli mosque, the biggest mosque in Australia. It reflects, of course, the shared heritage between Australia and Turkey, because both our countries' foundation stories were written on the Gallipoli Peninsula. It is a remarkable thing: two or three nations—if you include New Zealand, three nations—had their national stories founded at Gallipoli and that is why the bonds of friendship, despite the horror of the war, are so strong between Australia and Turkey. The honourable member, just on Monday, spoke in this place to commemorate the passing of the great Turkish leader, the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The G20 is the pre-eminent forum for global economic cooperation and Australia, as the most recent G20 host, has been pivotal in focusing the G20 on the goal of maintaining strong, sustainable and balanced growth, and on job creation. We need to maintain the G20's attention on promoting future global growth through innovation, through structural reform and through infrastructure, rather than simply looking backwards at the global financial crisis, which of course was, naturally, such a focus some years ago. I will be working at the G20 with other leaders, including President Erdogan, our host, the President of Turkey, to open up global trade, to see better financial regulation, to deal with base erosion of profit-shifting more consistently, and to promote more infrastructure investment.

Honourable members should remember that the infrastructure hub for the G20 is located in Australia, in Sydney. Above all, we will be working to harness the global economic opportunities given to us for innovation superpowered by the internet and technology. Every nation is talking about innovation. Every nation is focused on technology—regrettably, the opposition show no interest in that at all.

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