Robert Oakeshott (Lyne, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I am having a good night on the crossbenches. I heard a debate before this one in regard to coastal issues, which is a very local issue in an electorate such as Lyne. It was an excellent report supported by both sides of the chamber through the member for Throsby and the member for Moore. And now I am hearing some good bipartisanship on the significance of the international arm of the work of members of parliament through the bipartisan words of the member for Parkes, the member for Cowan and the member for Braddon. I say thank you to everyone for allowing a parliament to do its good work.

The UN is important and, as I have mentioned, it is an important part of what a local member of parliament does. There is a saying in this place that all politics is local. That is right to some degree but I do believe the work of the United Nations is a part of the role of a local member of parliament. All of us have a role in bringing the international into our local electorates and engaging with our communities on the important work of the United Nations and the many arms of work it is involved in—and vice versa. I think we have a responsibility with many of the local issues such as Indigenous issues and gender based violence, to pick just two examples, to feed up many of those important local issues from our electorates through to the international domain. We are not playing our roles as local members of parliament unless we are engaged in organisations such as the United Nations. It does therefore have an important role and that is why I am more than happy to speak in support of this motion. In my first speech in this place I talked about the local, national and international role of members of parliament. I said that quite purposely to place a marker to say that I am not one who is willing to give rough trade to the work done by the United Nations as mentioned by the previous speaker.

It has always left me somewhat bemused why the United Nations does not have the reputation in Australia that it has in many other parts of the world. I am not sure whether it is because we have a great big moat around the country which at times can mentally disengage us with many of the world issues. I am not sure whether it is because there are only two full-time staff of the United Nations that actually work in Australia. I am not sure whether it is the history of defining ourselves by the superpower of the moment, the UK or the US, rather than defining ourselves by the advantages of multilateralism and working as a global unit rather than whoever is the superpower of the moment. I think the politics in Australia to date has been somewhat of a hard sell. But I would hope all members in this chamber, regardless of political persuasions, do not take the easy path. That is why motions such as this one are important. It is the easy path to run on the simple sentiments about the United Nations rather than doing the heavy lifting and actually selling the good work that the United Nations does.

I would love terms in Australia such as the Millennium Development Goals to be much more widely known. It is the role of many of us in this chamber to sell those terms and engage with communities on the importance of those terms and allow the communities to get angry about why many of those Millennium Development Goals are failing, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. For that reason, in the Mid North Coast, we have tried to do some of that heavy lifting and last month set up a United Nations Association of Australia branch. It is unchartered waters and it will be difficult but I would hope it is an example for the many members of parliament in this place who do not have a UNAA branch in their local area. From an area which normally does not talk world affairs it was fascinating to sit in on the first meeting of about 20 who turned up. We covered topics from climate change to Indigenous issues to gender based violence and it was great.

Debate interrupted.

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