Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to 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.

Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a pleasure to rise and speak on the closure of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, RAMSI. We here in Australia are part of a rich and successful nation with abundant wealth to share, but we do not live and do not exist in isolation. It is our strong and enduring partnerships, particularly with our closest neighbours, that have allowed our nation to thrive. How right and proper it was, that, in their hour of greatest need, the Solomon Islands were able to count on Australian support. The Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands will long be remembered for its success, despite uncertain odds at the outset, and for paving the way for cooperation between nations in the south-west Pacific.

Five years of ethnic tensions and a coup in 2000 had left the Solomon Islands facing many and serious problems. Law and order had broken down, officials and private citizens were subject to intimidation and violence, and corruption was unfettered. The government and institutions had ceased to function effectively and corruption was widespread. The public finances were in ruin and many of the most basic services such as health and education were not being delivered to the people. It was in this atmosphere that RAMSI arrived in Solomon Islands in 2003, at the request of the Solomon Islands government. Shortly after the first rays of dawn struck the tarmac of the Solomon Islands Henderson International Airport on Thursday, 24 July 2003, soldiers, police and civilians from Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu began to arrive in their hundreds. Eventually amassing over 2,000 personnel, these security forces came not in anger but, rather, as friends determined to assist a neighbour in need. In what was to become one of the most successful experiments in regional cooperation, RAMSI was born.

RAMSI's mission was to help lay the foundations for long-term stability and prosperity in the Solomon Islands, with a mandate to restore civil order in Honiara and throughout the rest of the country, rebuild and reform the machinery of government, improve government accountability and improve the delivery of services in urban and provincial areas, stabilise government finances, balance the budget, fight corruption, help rebuild the economy and encourage sustainable, broad based growth. From the outset, RAMSI was not tasked to address national reconciliation or nation-building. This would later be undertaken through the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 2009. In RAMSI's first week, more than 3,700 guns were collected and destroyed. In its third week, the surrender of renegade militants was negotiated. By the end of its third year, RAMSI had made 3,600 arrests for militant and criminal activity. RAMSI was also critical in enabling the Solomon Islands government to resurrect state institutions so life could return to normal for Solomon Islanders. RAMSI enjoyed an extraordinary degree of popular support over its duration.

In 2017, the Solomon Islands presents a very different picture from that which first confronted RAMSI personnel when they hit the ground in 2003. The Solomon Islands are reaping the benefits of stability, with the economy having grown more than 80 per cent in the first 10 years of RAMSI's presence. RAMSI's success depended on Australian men and women and their Pacific colleagues making sacrifices for a higher cause, to ensure that Solomon Islands could enjoy the kind of peace that we here in Australia sometimes take for granted. Preserving and building on the achievements of the last 14 years presents the Solomon Islands with a daunting challenge. In June this year, an aid partnership was signed between our two countries and the partnership enables a shared vision for cooperation to foster inclusive economic growth and the reduction of poverty in the Solomon Islands.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Solomon Islands in 2014 as part of an Australian government election observation team. During this trip, we also had the opportunity to meet with the RAMSI leadership and to discuss the progress of the mission. At this time, the transition period was commencing. I distinctly remember the positive way in which the RAMSI leadership spoke about the transformation of the Solomon Islands over the period since 2003. The highlight of the trip was being able to observe the colourful, noisy and joyous campaign parade through Honiara by the various candidates and their campaign teams. It was a tremendous demonstration of the progress the Solomon Islander people made in rebuilding their nation and the freedoms that this had achieved. This joy spread to polling day, with long queues forming well before polls opened. The atmosphere was positive and expectant at the opportunity to have a say in the future government of their country. Since then, Prime Minister Sogavare and his government have continued to work extremely hard to build on these foundations.

The Solomon Islands government and RAMSI have undertaken extensive community engagement across the nation to assuage community apprehension about RAMSI's exit and discourage would-be troublemakers from seeing RAMSI's departure as an opportunity. The focus has been building trust in the police and explaining that RAMSI-contributing nations such as Australia will continue to support the police and national security more broadly. Post-RAMSI assistance includes a policing program, with 44 Australian Federal Police advisers in Honiara. The policing program will be complemented by new bilateral programs of support for justice and governance. The post-RAMSI package of assistance will amount to some $141 million over four years, from 2017 to 2021. On Monday, 14 August 2017, the two governments signed a bilateral security treaty. The treaty will enable Australian Defence Force police and civilian personnel to deploy operationally in emergency situations.

In closing, I wish to acknowledge and thank those who have contributed to the success of the RAMSI mission. Without the support and commitment of the Australian government officials, police, Defence personnel, our Pacific island partners and, most importantly, the government and the people of the Solomon Islands, the bringing of peace and stability to their country would not have been the success it has been.

Finally, I want to acknowledge the six RAMSI officers who paid the ultimate sacrifice in their service to bring peace and security to the Solomon Islands. May the finalisation of the RAMSI mission be a fitting epitaph to your sacrifice.

To Prime Minister Sogavare and the people of the Solomon Islands: the future is bright, and the country you are looking to build and the opportunities for the future are only limited by your industry and imagination. In that, you honour the contribution of the RAMSI mission to your country by building on the foundation of peace and security it has created.