Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have read with great interest a number of reports warning that climate change will have a huge impact on the Pacific islands. Today’s report by a coalition of 12 humanitarian and environmental groups, including Oxfam and World Vision, warns of the mass exodus of millions of Pacific islanders as environmental refugees. I note that, since 2001, citizens of Fiji, Tonga, Kiribati and Tuvalu have been able to enter New Zealand as environmental refugees displaced by climate change. My colleague the member for Maribyrnong has advocated the establishment of an international coalition led by Australia to accept climate change refugees from Pacific countries.

These are indeed worthy initiatives, but my concern is that, whilst we must prepare for the impacts of climate change in the Pacific, we must not hasten too quickly to write off the future of Pacific islands. We must prepare for climate change but hold out hope that Pacific countries will survive and prosper. We as a community have to be concerned today about poor governance standards, including corruption, money laundering, organised crime and human rights abuses. We have to be concerned today about poverty, illiteracy, low skills, unemployment, poor health, the lack of clean water and energy supplies, illegal and unsustainable logging, overfishing and poor agricultural practices. The unsustainable management of natural resources will have negative economic, environmental and social consequences for the long term in the Pacific.

As my colleague the member for Maribyrnong has said, many Pacific countries suffer from the resources curse—that is, abundant natural resources become a source of corruption, and ultimately conflict, with a lack of economic growth and development in the Pacific. The Panguna mine led to civil war in Bougainville, Fiji’s mahogany plantations were behind the 2000 coup and unsustainable logging contributed to conflict in the Solomons. These things can no longer be ignored today on the basis that tomorrow will bring the consequences of climate change anyway.

Our first priority should not be to empty out the Pacific or turn it into a carbon sink to make the rest of us feel good about ourselves. We want healthy Pacific neighbours with robust civil communities and thriving economies. Our first priority should be to give these countries a fair go and invest in their futures as well as in contingency plans for climate change. As my colleague the member for Maribyrnong put it:

Engaging with our Pacific neighbours on resource issues should be a strategic priority for Australia, especially in Papua New Guinea.

To start with, we must stop the importation of illegal timber from countries like the Solomons and Papua New Guinea, where three out of four logs are felled illegally. We must work with other countries in the region to curtail demand for illegal timbers and facilitate the widespread adoption of certified and sustainable forest management practices. Solomon Islands’ forests will be gone by 2015 if we fail to act now. Papua New Guinea has one of the world’s largest remaining rainforest resources, and the logging industry there—which is partly illegal—is unsustainable and heading for disaster.

When it comes to migration, a lot has been said about Pacific islanders as a potential resource to address seasonal labour shortages in agriculture, forestry and tourism in Australia. In that context, I refer to the recent report by the World Bank entitled At home and away: expanding job opportunities for Pacific islanders through labour mobility. However, it is my view that, while the Prime Minister’s extreme industrial laws are in place, the potential for exploitation today is too great. Workers coming to Australia must be entitled to enjoy the same rights and freedoms as Australian workers. The World Bank also has an obligation to actually work with nations such as Australia to do everything it can to promote economic development rather than to simply say the solution for the Pacific is to bring people to Australia.

That said, employment opportunities here in Australia would provide new skills and capital for Pacific islanders to take home and build economic capacity in their own countries. However, economic empowerment through education and training, jobs and sustainable resource industries is the true and proper path to stable and prosperous Pacific islands. This should be the hope we hold out for our neighbours, whilst we also have contingency plans with respect to the issue of climate change. Our first priority must be at home and in the Pacific. It is our obligation as a developed nation to do what we can to clean up their act, to work in partnership with them and to promote proper practices aimed at sustainable economic development which create a reason for the Pacific islanders to remain in their own nation. (Time expired)