Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

It's an honour for me this evening to be able to speak on the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, which concluded this year after a period of 14 years. Over that period of time, we have seen played out one of the most successful interventions globally and, I think, one of the most successful responses and, ultimately, acts of leadership by Australian governments, beginning with the Howard government but also through the Rudd and Gillard governments and the Abbott and Turnbull governments. It is a great Australian success story. It is a great Pacific success story. Most of all, it is a great success story for Solomon Islands itself. It speaks to me about the kind of role that we as a country can play in our region which can be so beneficial to our region but also demonstrates to the world the way in which we can assist as a regional leader in times of difficulty.

From 1998 through to 2003, there was a period in Solomon Islands known as 'the tensions', essentially driven by urban growth and urban attraction to the Honiara area on Guadalcanal. Lots of people were coming into that region and creating a range of difficult issues in the context of a culture that exists on a land system of customary land title. I'm aware that I've horribly simplified the issues in describing them like that, but that was at the heart of the tensions that we saw. It led to a point in 2003 where functioning government within Solomon Islands effectively ceased.

Solomon Islands is a country of 500,000 to 600,000 people. It is very close to Australia. It is a country which, in our history, going back to the Second World War, has played a very significant role. The Battle of Guadalcanal was a very significant moment in the Pacific theatre of the Second World War. Whilst that was largely carried out by the United States Marines, there were Australian Navy assets present in the Guadalcanal sound during that period of time. The fact that such a significant battle within the Pacific theatre occurred there speaks to the strategic significance of Solomon Islands to Australia, but it also speaks to the closeness of Solomon Islands to our country. It is in the heart of Melanesia.

It was at that time that the then Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, Kemakeza, approached the Australian government—John Howard was the Prime Minister at the time—to intervene and try to restore law and order to that country. What then played out was an act of great regionalism for the Pacific. It was led by Australia, very much in partnership with New Zealand and, indeed, all the countries of the Pacific. An element was put together comprising ultimately of 15 nations, all contributing to the intervention within Solomon Islands to restore law and order to that country.

It needs to be understood that, within the Pacific, there are not many countries which maintain a defence force. PNG does, as do Fiji and Tonga. So a lot of the contributions being provided by a number of the Pacific Island nations were with respect to police and other advisers helping the RAMSI mission. That highlights the fact that this was not simply a military intervention, although it definitely had a military component to it. This was an intervention that also involved policing and, in effect, development assistance focused on the rebuilding of governance within that country, and that allowed countries from around the region to participate—essentially, all the countries of the Pacific Island Forum.

Having attended the Pacific Island Forum on a number of occasions and having spent some time in the Pacific in my former role as the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs, I can tell you that it was an enormous matter of honour for the countries of the Pacific that they were making this contribution to the effort with RAMSI, and, indeed, it was of enormous comfort to Solomon Islands itself that this was not simply Australia and New Zealand but all the countries of the Pacific coming to their aid. This was genuinely a regional effort. I have no doubt that a huge part of the success associated with RAMSI was the degree of regionalism which was associated with it.

As it turned out, I first happened to cross RAMSI at the end of 2003, well before I entered this place, when I was in transit on a holiday to Kiribati with my now wife. We transited through Henderson airfield in Honiara. I can remember that this was just a few months after the commencement of RAMSI. At that point, the airfield was a sea of khaki tents. You got a sense of the significant commitment that had been made by all countries involved in assisting the Solomon Islands through that particular moment of crisis. But it was as the Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs in 2010 that I came back to the Solomon Islands. During the period of 2010-13, I visited Solomon Islands on numerous occasions. Every time, I would go to the Guadalcanal Beach Resort—GBR, as it was, effectively, known—which became the headquarters of RAMSI and learnt of the work of RAMSI myself and, also, in a sense, became personally inspired by exactly what was occurring there and the regional nature of it and degree of cooperation across the Pacific family in helping a friend in need. 'Helping friend' was, of course, the motto of RAMSI.

After that, I had the great honour of being able to show off, if you like, the work of RAMSI to eminent Australians and, beyond that, to eminent global figures. I can remember travelling with then Governor-General Quentin Bryce and seeing her reaction to the work that was being done through RAMSI. In 2012, I had a unique opportunity of showing the then Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, through the Pacific. The first place that we wanted to go to was Solomon Islands so that he could see exactly what we were doing within our part of the globe in engaging in a cooperative, regional way to deal with what began with a military intervention but was ultimately the rebuilding of a country which had been the subject of so much strife. I can tell you that the impression it left upon him was deeply profound.

What became clear to me at that point was that what was going on with RAMSI, given all the interventions that we see around the world, was something truly special. This had become a global model for an international intervention which sought to rebuild a country in a post-conflict environment to the position that it's in today. I acknowledge very much the presence earlier in the week of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, who was Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands previously during parts of the period of RAMSI and has been the Prime Minister, fittingly, to conclude RAMSI, which ended this year.

Finally, I want to acknowledge four Australians who lost their lives during the RAMSI: Private Jamie Clark, from the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment; AFP protective service officers Adam Dunning and Ronald Lewis; and civilian adviser Tony Scriva. I also want to pay my tribute to the RAMSI special coordinators, many of whom I met during my time there—and, indeed, have since met. Starting from the beginning: Nick Warner, James Batley, Tim George, Graeme Wilson, Nicholas Coppel, Justine Braithwaite and Quinton Devlin, who has the honour of being the last RAMSI special coordinator. They have all, in their own way, played a remarkable role. I do pay tribute to all those who have served in RAMSI. It is a great Australian story. It is a great Pacific story. It is a great story for Solomon Islands.

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