Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Will the minister update the House on action that Australia is taking to contribute towards nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament?

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government came to office last year with a very strong commitment to return Australia to the forefront of arguing in the international community for nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament—to return Australia to the forefront. Previous Australian Labor governments have had a very proud record in advancing nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. And I choose my words carefully—‘previous Australian Labor governments’—because we know that those on the other side have displayed no interest in these matters, just as they have displayed no interest in the United Nations, as the previous question from the member for Goldstein made crystal clear.

The current government wants to take Australia’s rightful place and role arguing for these issues internationally, just as previous Labor governments have done with the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons and our strong support when last in office for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The current government is continuing in this very fine tradition. Last month, for example, in the margins of the UN General Assembly, I chaired the ministerial meeting on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, once again taking up the cudgels of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which is very much needed to advance the interests of nuclear disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation. The coming into force of the treaty is, in the government’s view, absolutely essential to advancing these very important interests. In addition, as members would recall, in June of this year, after his visit to Hiroshima, the Prime Minister announced the government’s intention to establish an international commission on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. And I make the point that the Prime Minister’s visit to Hiroshima was historic, the first such visit by an Australian Prime Minister. I am very pleased to indicate to the House that today the International Commission on Non-Proliferation and Disarmament has its first meeting in Sydney, meeting today and tomorrow.

The commission is co-chaired by one of my distinguished predecessors, former foreign minister Gareth Evans, and former Japanese Foreign Minister Kawaguchi. The international commission is of very high quality, with a combination of international disarmament experts, former foreign ministers and leaders of their nations, including the former President of Mexico President Zedillo; the former Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland; the former US Secretary of Defense William Perry, with whom I had the great pleasure in New York of discussing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; and the former Indonesian foreign minister Mr Ali Alatas. We are very much looking forward to that commission doing very good work in this important area. To indicate the government’s very strong support of the commission, I am happy to announce today that the government, in the last month, have determined that we will allocate $3.8 million for the work of the commission in this financial year 2008-09.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We highly commend the actions of the international commission in its nuclear disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation work. I can tell from the interjections of those opposite, including those from the alleged shadow minister for the environment, that these are issues of no interest or relevance to the opposition, just as they were of no interest or relevance to them in their 10 long years in office.