Nick Champion (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thankyou, Deputy Speaker Vasta. You must be very prescient to know the topic of my speech, because I was going to say that it was a great honour to represent the parliament at the 74th United Nations General Assembly, along with yourself. Obviously we were well represented if I was there with you. I want to begin by thanking the post that we have in New York at the United Nations, particularly Ambassadors Gillian Bird and Mitch Fifield. We were privileged enough while we were there to see the transfer between these two ambassadors. Ambassador Bird had served five years at that mission; a very long stint. She did a great job representing our nation in what is a very complex multilateral forum. I'd also like to thank Ambassador Hockey for his kind assistance during our delegation. I'd like to thank all of the mission staff for putting up with us asking for briefings while they were busy on their committee work. We're particularly thankful to Peter Stone for looking after us and facilitating all the mechanics of our delegation visiting.

There is a tendency to take the multilateral institutions that were formed after the Second World War, after a period of total war, for granted. I think that all too often we think to ourselves that these things are permanent, that they're permanent fixtures, that they will exist whether we put a big effort in or a small effort in. That thought, which I think is there in the public, in our own national institutions and in this parliament, shouldn't be had. We should realise that this is a precious asset that was bequeathed to us by a generation of soldiers and statesmen, people who wanted a more peaceful, more just and more orderly world. In the limited time I have before 90-second statements, I want to say that there are some threats to that and we should be mindful of those threats.

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