Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much Madam Speaker, and can I also commend you on your campaign for the presidency and the way in which you conducted yourself throughout that campaign. On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I present the committee's report 146 entitled Treaties Tabled on 30 September 2014and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.

Leave granted.

Today I present the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties report 146. The report contains the committee's views on the treaty between Australia and the Netherlands regarding the presence of Australian personnel in the Netherlands in response to the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

I echo the sentiments that have already been expressed by this parliament in sending the committee's condolences to the victims and their families and the loved ones of the Australians who tragically lost their lives in the downing of MH17. We would also like to pay tribute to the dedicated Australian personnel who have worked so hard to bring home the victims' remains and to investigate the causes surrounding the downing of MH17. I think it is important that we acknowledge the tragic and difficult circumstances in which Australian personnel were deployed to the Netherlands.

This treaty did not follow the usual treaty-making process, as it was not tabled in parliament for 20 days before binding treaty action was taken. Instead, the treaty was fast tracked under the national interest exemption, an arrangement designed to facilitate urgent treaty action in exceptional circumstances. The treaty entered into force on the date it was signed by both Australia and the Netherlands, on 1 August 2014. The treaty was tabled on 30 September 2014 by the foreign minister with an explanation, for her urgent action. I also commend the foreign minister and the then acting foreign minister, the Attorney-General, on their work to bring this together in a very short period of time so that Australian personnel could be immediately deployed to the Netherlands.

We are all familiar by now with the tragedy that necessitated this treaty: the downing of MH17 and the need to recover and repatriate the bodies of 38 victims who called Australia home, the launch of Operation Bring Them Home by the government, and the deployment of personnel from the Department of Defence and the Australian Federal Police.

These personnel required certain rights and protections to facilitate that deployment and, in order to grant those, the Netherlands required a binding treaty. It was necessary for the deployment to take place as quickly as possible, so the national interest exemption was invoked. This is the only the seventh time that the exemption has been invoked since it was instigated in 1996, and on three of those occasions it was to ensure similar protection for Australian personnel deployed abroad at short notice. In this instance, prompt action was required to allow the deployment to take place quickly and to ensure that the legal framework was in place to enable this sensitive and important work to be undertaken.

The committee is more than satisfied that, in this case, there was justification to invoke the national interest exemption and supports the treaty. On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, I commend the report to the House.

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