Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak following the tabling of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade report into Australia's relationships with the countries of Africa. At this stage I would like to pay tribute to the chair of that committee, Senator Forshaw, and the deputy chair, the member for Gilmore, as well as the secretariat for their hard work in making this report possible.

Africa may not be in our diplomatic backyard like Asia or indeed the South Pacific, but it is an important part of Australia's foreign policy outlook. We have significant aid, strong people-to-people links and strategic interests and we engage in a multitude of global organisations with our African partners.

Africa is a continent of up to a billion people. It is made up of 53 countries, each with their different traditions, their different languages—some 3,000 different languages are spoken in Africa—and different religions, and this provides many challenges and opportunities. In terms of challenges, 33 of the 49 poorest countries in the world are in Africa. There are real issues around governance, but there is also great opportunity. People are innovative, there is extensive resource wealth, and there is a movement of many millions of people out of poverty into the middle classes. Australia has an opportunity to work with the African Union, the Economic Community of West African States and the Southern African Development Community to try to reach common answers to common problems.

In this report there are a number of significant recommendations, some of which I hope the government does take up. One is to call for greater cooperation between the private sector, government agencies and NGOs in developing and delivering aid to Africa. A second talks about a regulatory framework for the resources sector—Australia, using our own experience with our strong resources sector, could help develop such a regulatory framework that could assist countries in Africa to develop their resources.

Significantly, the report recommends that we review our diplomatic representation in Africa, particularly in the francophone countries. Our presence in Africa has decreased from 12 diplomatic missions to eight in the past 25 years. We have significantly less diplomatic representation than a number of our trading partners such as Canada, Korea and Malaysia—not to say that we have significantly less diplomatic representation in Africa than the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom. I welcome the opening of a mission in Addis Ababa, which is the headquarters of the African Union, and recognise that the committee has suggested we increase the number of honorary consuls in Africa as well as the A-based French-speaking diplomatic staff.

There are also opportunities for Australia to develop valuable ties in research, in higher education. This includes offering more scholarships for African students to study here and the interesting idea of a centre for African studies to be located at an Australian university. There is also scope for an Australia-Africa council which could be used to expand trade and cultural links. I remember when Alexander Downer was the foreign minister back in 2000 and the Council on Australia Latin America Relations was set up, and that helped deepen and strengthen the ties between Australia and Latin American countries. There are great trading opportunities in agriculture, resources and tourism. But if you look at the statistics today, less than one per cent of our imports come from Africa and just over 1.5 per cent of our exports go to Africa. So clearly there are great opportunities for Australian businesses to partner with African countries to our mutual benefit.

In conclusion, I just want to talk about one issue that I think is very important to Australia's policy on the African continent. That is about how we can improve the democratic rights of the Zimbabwean people. Back in 2005 I wrote an article that was published in the Courier Mail about the UN's failure to pressure Mugabe and how back then it was an indictment on the UN membership and the values that it professed to hold. The food basket of Africa was Zimbabwe and it has quickly turned into the basket case of Africa. President Mbeki was supposed to be the honest broker in trying to bring Zimbabwe to the table. That did not succeed. President Mugabe bulldozed hundreds of thousands of poor people's dwellings and temporary dwellings in Harare, leaving hundreds of thousands—it was estimated to be 700,000 people—homeless. Inflation and unemployment skyrocketed, the currency was worthless and still the international community, particularly Zimbabwe's African neighbours, stood still and stayed quiet. Would you believe that Zimbabwe was elected to a three-year term to the UN's Human Rights Council? I am all for international bodies, but when they kick dirt in our faces by electing the likes of Zimbabwe to a UN human rights body you have to ask, 'What is it all about?' Clearly, quiet diplomacy does not work with Zimbabwe and something more dramatic needs to be done.

People may be aware that after the failed elections in 2008 there was a so-called power-sharing agreement between President Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai from the Movement For Democratic Change. Lo and behold, nothing has happened. We have not had fresh elections, we have not had a new constitution and we are now a couple of years on. Why aren't Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard speaking about this more often? Why aren't they speaking to the Australian public and to their partners in Africa and elsewhere about the disgrace that is Zimbabwe? I notice that the South African development community has recently said that Zimbabwe and leaders need to be urged to 'create a conducive environment to the holding of elections that will be free and fair, under conditions of a level playing field.'

But I also note that the so-called electoral commission in Zimbabwe is telling us that a third of the people whose names are on the electors roll are dead and that the government has no money to conduct a new election. That is no excuse to abuse human rights and suspend democracy. Mugabe is a dictator of the worst kind. It is an indictment on many of our international partners that something more has not been done. The ZANU-PF, Mugabe's military and political arm, are thugs. They try to intimidate their political opponents. The rapes, the bashings, the poverty, the lack of education and health systems to speak of—thousands of people have died of cholera—are completely intolerable. I know that Kevin Rudd thinks that he is going to bring peace to mankind, and particularly to Libya, but why does he not pay more attention to Zimbabwe? Isn't it time that Australia, as a Commonwealth nation, made Zimbabwe an absolute priority for our foreign policy? There might be a power-sharing agreement between Morgan Tsvangirai and President Mugabe, but it is a power-sharing agreement in name only. There is no real democracy, there are no human rights and millions and millions of people lie scared in their beds.

This report from the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade committee is a valuable contribution. It points to how we can strengthen our relationships with the countries of Africa. As I said at the start, Africa may not be in our diplomatic backyard, like Asia and the South Pacific, but it is a very valuable country in terms of Australia's global interests, and we have a moral obligation to help the millions of people in Africa who are dealing with extreme poverty and a lack of governance. I pay tribute to the chair of the committee, Senator Forshaw, his deputy chair, the member for Gilmore, and the secretariat for their important work. But I say to our Minister for Foreign Affairs and to our Prime Minister: Zimbabwe under Mugabe is a blight on the world and it is a blight on your foreign policy record. With CHOGM to take place in Australia, there is no better time for you as the Australian government to use your voice in international forums and here at home to make the case for change in Zimbabwe and the end of the disastrous dictatorship that is the Mugabe regime.

Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to speak to this report as a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and as someone who has taken a keen interest in this inquiry into Australia's relationship with the countries of Africa. For too long, Africa has been a continent that has not received from Australia the attention it deserves, except perhaps in the form of the images of non-government organisations delivering aid projects in Africa and, to a lesser extent, of Australia's participation in UN peacekeeping missions. Unfortunately, this has meant that some Australians tend to associate Africa only with extreme poverty, corruption and conflict.

While these aspects still exist in some parts of Africa, the reality is, as DFAT submitted to the inquiry, that Africa is changing for the better. Overall, it is a more stable, free and prosperous continent than 10 years ago. Following economic reforms, many African countries have enjoyed strong growth in recent years. Africa is especially rich in resources, offering major economic opportunities but posing a challenge to governments. Collectively, African countries are becoming more important in global economic and political terms. They play an influential role in multilateral forums, including in the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations. African countries make up 25 per cent of each body.

Of course, the growing involvement of Australian companies in mining in Africa has led to the continent being viewed more recently through the prism of our economic interests. The reality is that Africa is significant to Australia's interests in so many ways, not just economically, but also politically, strategically, educationally, environmentally and socially and from a global and regional security point of view. Indeed, it is a matter of common sense that we should engage comprehensively with a continent of nearly one billion people that comprises more than 50 countries. Importantly, witnesses to the inquiry emphasised that the 53 countries of Africa are extremely diverse and should not be considered as a homogeneous group of nations. For example, according to Ms Margaret O'Callaghan's submission:

… so often "Africa" is taken to be one homogenous mass. It is far from being that, with significant economic, historical and social differences between regions and countries. Factors such as population size, extent of urbanization, type of resources, human resource capacity, infrastructure, agricultural base, type of climate and geography and disease burden vary considerably.

Professor Gareth Evans is quoted as follows:

I think it is most unwise to try and impose any kind of cookie cutter analysis, any more than it is wise to impose cookie cutter solutions.

I am also pleased that the committee quickly dispatched the notion that Australia is only interested in Africa now because of its candidacy for a UN Security Council seat. As noted in the report:

The Committee is of the firm view that Australia’s increased interest in Africa is not motivated by its seeking a seat on the UN Security Council. Rather, it is motivated by a commitment to contribute to the development of the continent including through trade and investment, education and research links, and achieving progress towards the MDGs. As Mr Negin noted, if the aim was to buy a place through the aid dollar, that strategy would be ineffective. The Committee considers Australia has a long-term commitment to the continent.

While Australia's involvement in aid security and mining in Africa are clearly among the important issues examined in this report, the inquiry also carried out an examination of Australia's education and research involvement, its governmental, parliamentary and people-to-people links with African countries. The committee has made some useful recommendations on those and other matters in this report, and I will canvass some of them now.

First, the report recommends enhancing Australia's diplomatic representation in Africa, particularly in Francophone, West Africa, where there is currently no Australian representation. The post introduced in Addis Ababa last year has been very helpful but, as noted just now by the member for Kooyong, Australia still only has eight high commission or embassy posts on the African continent. These are: Abuja, Nigeria; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Accra, Ghana; Cairo, Egypt; Harare, Zimbabwe; Nairobi, Kenya; Port Louis, Mauritius; and Pretoria, South Africa. To place our eight posts into context, the diplomatic representation of some other countries include Japan with 32, India with 26, Malaysia with 13, Korea with 16, Canada with 18, China with 41, the US with 47 and the UK with 34.

With regard to Australia's aid program, the report notes:

Australia‘s ODA to Africa, administered by AusAID, in the past has been modest, but it has been increasing in recent years. Budget papers for 2011–12 show actual AusAID expenditure on Africa in 2009–10 was $103 million; the estimated outcome for 2010–11 was $173 million; and the Budget estimate for 2011–12 was $218 million.

That is more than a 100 per cent increase over three budgets, which is significant and welcomed. It is pertinent to note that a large proportion of the money donated by Australians to NGOs goes to Africa. As noted in ACFID's submission:

In 2008, nearly 35 percent of these funds were used in NGO programs in Africa. In dollar terms, this amounts to $280 million in 2007—8.48 and $323 million in 2008—9.49. This money was used to support programs in 39 African countries.

This demonstrates that there is significant support within the Australian community for aid programs in Africa.

Australian NGOs have generated considerable expertise in a few areas, and given their extensive experience on the ground in Africa are well aware of priority areas for assistance. The programs they are engaged in are varied and diverse, and include such areas as HIV/AIDS and health; food security and emergency relief; refugees and internally displaced persons; literacy and education; rural development; and child sponsorship and children‘s issues more generally. CARE Australia drew attention to the ways in which Australian NGOs add value to Australia's official aid program, including through their ability to build civil society capacity in African countries; their ability to link communities to broader policy and program efforts; their orientation towards learning, experimenting and innovation; their capacity to work in places where direct bilateral engagement is not desirable or possible; their capacity to respond quickly and effectively to major humanitarian emergencies; and through their proven ability to transition to effective post-emergency recovery efforts. Australian NGOs are notable for their high degree of accountability. The report notes:

As Australia‘s aid budget for Africa expands there will be increasing opportunity to involve NGOs in delivery of aid projects in Africa.

I certainly welcome this.

The report also recommends that AusAID provide funding assistance to capacity building programs such as that conducted by the Australian Leadership Program for Africa and the expansion into Africa of AusAID's Australian Business Volunteers program, which currently only operates in the Asia Pacific. A witness to the inquiry, Mr David Wheen, argued that by extending the program to include African countries like Rwanda, recipient countries could achieve considerable gain with a minimal increase in spending on Australia‘s part. He noted that this would make a real contribution in enhancing the quality of public administration and that there are Australians, including retired businesspeople and public servants, with the skills and willingness to become involved. The committee also had regard to Australia's extensive experience and involvement in the mining industry and considered that this presents a major opportunity for the Australian government, state governments and the wider mining sector to assist the development, implementation and administration of sound mining codes and practices in a range of African countries. The committee also recommended that the government work with the mining industry to promote corporate social responsibility and to continue to promote the extractive industry's transparency initiative, or EITI, principles and other corporate social responsibility instruments to the Australian mining sector—in particular at the Australia Down Under Conference and especially to new entrants and small operators. The committee also recommended that the government undertake steps for Australia to become an EITI compliant country, given that Australia has been criticised for encouraging countries to implement the EITI while not yet taking steps to become an EITI compliant country.

With regard to education, the committee noted that there are Australian universities engaged in African studies, including Sydney University and Monash University, which also has a campus in South Africa. In my own state of Western Australia, Edith Cowan, Curtin, UWA and Murdoch University are all engaged in various programs with Africa. For example, Murdoch University's program in Africa includes work on the application of legumes to improve soil fertility under the supervision of Professor John Howieson, Director of the Crops and Plants Research Institute. Through Professor Martin Mhando, Murdoch has also undertaken work in the area of engaging with African Australians in order to explore the potential for such communities to enable better links between Australia—including Aboriginal communities—and African countries.

I also take this opportunity to congratulate Murdoch University for their Sustaining Reconciliation in Rwanda project, which aims over five years to support the success of the reconciliation process and also to spread the messages of that success and hope to an international audience. Professor Craig McGarty leads this effort. In the project team's own words, they are working to establish 'a broader view of Rwanda not only as a place where infamous atrocities took place but where compellingly positive expressions of reconciliation and renewal can be found'.

Despite the efforts of bodies like the African Studies Association of Australasia and the Pacific and Universities Australia the engagements on Africa of a number of Australian universities are as yet not widely known or as well coordinated as perhaps they might be. One witness, Dr David Lucas, commented that Australian universities did not specifically identify scholars engaged with Africa or highlight courses or projects in this area. Indeed, they appeared to be less than fully aware of such work being done within their own establishments. Other academics pointed to the lack of an Africa specific focus in relevant topics available to tertiary students and related observations touched on issues including the absence of dedicated academic appointments in the area, the closure of the only dedicated African research institute and an absence of jobs for African experts in Australia, whether in universities or in government. This is in sharp contrast to countries like the UK, the US, France, Canada and China, all of which have a strong African studies focus.

A number of submissions noted that Australia needed to improve its understanding of Africa if it were to improve its relationships with African countries and in order to more effectively pursue foreign policy objectives through bilateral and multilateral engagements. The committee noted evidence from Dr Dymock and Dr Lyons regarding the role of the former African Research Institute, which operated at La Trobe University from 1985 to 2006, and the committee considered whether a successor to the ARI would answer the needs identified for the revival of African studies in Australia. There was consensus around the desirability of creating a centre for African studies as a means to enhance Australia's engagement with Africa through a focus on teaching and research on Africa. The committee has made a recommendation to this effect.

With regard to parliamentary links, the report notes that processes are underway within the parliament to establish an Australia-Africa parliamentary friendship group. It is hoped that this will be the conduit for increased interaction between Australian parliamentarians and African parliamentarians, diplomats and others with an interest in Africa from across the spectrum of business, academia and civil society—including African migrant communities in Australia and NGOs that have significant operations in Africa.

There are many other aspects of this report that I have not had the time to speak to today, including the issue of scholarships, scientific and agricultural research, security and the need for better engagement with the Australian African community. But I hope that persons in this place and within the Australian community will have a chance to read the committee's report. In conclusion, I want to thank the chair of the committee, Senator Michael Forshaw, who took a great deal of interest and pride in this inquiry as the last one completed by the committee prior to his retirement from the Senate. I also thank my fellow committee members, especially Senator Russell Trood, who has been the distinguished and knowledgeable deputy chair of the Australia-UN Parliamentary Group since its establishment in early 2009 and who is now also retired from the Senate. Furthermore, I wish to thank the hardworking secretariat—in particular the secretary, John Carter—for whom this inquiry and this report have represented a massive amount of work—very worthwhile work, in my view. Finally, I wish to thank all of those people and organisations who made a submission, those who appeared in person before the committee and the individuals and organisations that the committee delegation met in Africa. It is through these contacts and on the basis of the information provided in the many submissions to this inquiry that the committee has been able to come up with a report that advances our understanding of Australia's relationships with the countries and peoples of Africa and that makes strategic and forward-looking recommendations which will, if adopted, enhance these relationships.

Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am also rising to speak on the inquiry into Australia's relationship with the countries of Africa. This was an inquiry undertaken by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade. The inquiry commenced in late October 2009. Elections obviously intervened and so we did not finally have this report until June 2011, but it has been delivered at a time when Australian-African relationships are even more important than they were more than two years ago. The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade inquired into the bilateral relations; economic, trade and investment issues; cultural, scientific and educational relations and exchanges; development assistance; cooperation; capacity building; defence cooperation; regional security and strategic issues; migration; and human rights issues.

It was an extraordinarily complex and wide-reaching inquiry. It did take a very long time. There were the submissions taken in Australia, and we need to acknowledge the generosity of members of the public, institutions and non-government organisations who came forward and very carefully forwarded their thoughts and made their recommendations in an inquiry like this. But, as well, in April 2011 a small committee delegation travelled to South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ghana and Ethiopia. I was very fortunate to be amongst that small group. We were able to visit and be briefed on a number of Australian aid projects. We met with parliamentarians in those four countries. We heard firsthand of their challenges. We heard of their very keen interest in forming a friendship group, particularly with members of parliament in Ghana. We were briefed by our ambassadors, by our Australian NGOs, by youth ambassadors and by volunteers who were awe inspiring in their commitment and the work they were doing, often in extreme circumstances. I will never forget the Australian women who were some of the few working with the homeless on the streets of Addis Ababa; they were literally finding shelter and food for numbers of young boys and girls made homeless or becoming homeless in the capital city of Ethiopia. In Zimbabwe we were able to hear and observe firsthand the response to Australia's targeted sanctions, which were imposed on some politicians and senior officials of state owned corporations some years ago when the democratic evolution of Zimbabwe went seriously off the rails.

Africa was at one time in the late 1800s top of mind for a number of Australians who had relatives or friends who had gone off to fight in the so called Boer War of the day. Since then the issues of Africa have tended to slip from the minds of consecutive governments, but at no time were Africa and Africa's countries completely out of mind for many of Australia's faith based and other non-government organisations. So it came as no surprise to me to find that Australia's aid to Africa amounted to some $184 million—that is, AusAID managed aid—in 2008-09, while our Australia NGOs contributed more than that amount, $323 million, in that same period. We were able to commend those NGOs—the Australian NGOs—and also institutions like Monash University, who were putting a great deal of effort into building relationships, growing capacity and giving students from all around Africa an opportunity to have world-class education, in this case on a campus in South Africa. Africa has about one billion people, compared to Australia's 22 million or so. It consists of 53 countries, and over the last 10 years we have seen an average of five to six per cent growth per year over those 53 countries. At the same time, though, we need to be reminded that, while many of those African countries are rich in natural resources, it is most unlikely that they will achieve the Millennium Development Goal of eradication of extreme poverty. It is a sad thing to observe almost a feeding frenzy in parts of Africa as more developed nations, particularly those wanting to lock in their own food security for years to come, are buying up arable land and fisheries and exploiting the mineral wealth of Africa, sometimes without putting much effort into technology transfer or building the capacity of those who work for them in extracting that mineral wealth to be sent offshore.

When we were in Africa, we were able to visit an Australian owned goldmining company in Ghana, and I was impressed with their attempts to make sure that the village that the open-cut mining had displaced was being rebuilt, with an excellent school, good housing and health services to come. Their policy of employment in the goldmining company and processing works was to make sure, as much as possible, that they employed local people, trained those local people and were closely in touch with the local African leadership. We met with those men, and I was proud to think that this was an Australian owned goldmining company. But, not very far from their activity, there was an enormous amount of illegal mining activity being undertaken by, in this case, China nationals.

It is extraordinary to think that some 70 per cent of Africa's arable land is still underdeveloped. We were able to meet with a consortium consisting of CSIRO and local interests in Ghana who were working out how to improve the productivity of their dryland agriculture, particularly their cereal growing. It impressed me that there was also an enormous potential to develop irrigation, particularly irrigated agriculture, in that country. They have significant water resources and dammed water resources. So we have enormous potential, given our expertise in irrigation system building and irrigation management, to help some of these African nations to make sure they do not make the sorts of mistakes we have made over centuries in Australia with irrigation and water management. They need to maximise their own water resources and their arable land so they can better feed themselves.

In the committee's recommendations, we acknowledge that we need to do much more when it comes to Australia's diplomatic representation in Africa. We do not have any posts in francophone Africa at the moment. We recommend that honorary consuls should be appointed as a short- to medium-term measure. Honorary consuls can go a long way towards filling the gap and meeting the needs of Australia's representation in countries where it is still not possible to put formal or full-time diplomatic representation. A number of our very excellent ambassadors and high commissioners must cover a number of countries, and that means in some cases only visiting one of the countries they are responsible for once or twice a year. Clearly that is not very satisfactory.

We also were concerned that AusAID scholarship programs, which have been significantly expanded this year, should involve study at African universities but also at Australian universities with links to Africa. I have already referred to Monash South Africa.

In this inquiry we also observed that a very great problem exists for various countries of Africa with the loss of their professional people—their nurses, doctors, lawyers—who have been trained, often at vast expense, in their home country. These are the kinds of people who are likely to have migrated to Australia under our skilled migration categories, when of course their home countries need their professional training, their expertise, much more than we do, you could argue.

Dr Catherine Hamlin is an extraordinary woman who has inspired generations of midwives and surgeons. She works at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia. She now has mentored the establishment of a midwifery training college, again in Addis Ababa, called the Hamlin College of Midwives. At the college they are trying to ensure that their own country's young women, mostly those from regional parts of Ethiopia, are being trained in modern midwifery. When I talked to them about the opportunity for their coming to Australia for a time to do an exchange or to study, the Australian women managing that college were most concerned that it could be a distraction rather than a help. The women needed to train in their home country and develop their professional careers in their home country well before they took any trips out of that country and saw other conditions and opportunities.

At the Fistula Hospital I was impressed with the ongoing commitment of that marvellous woman, Dr Hamlin, who is now in her eighties and still doing some operations. She is an inspiration to all of us. Clearly, in countries like Ethiopia the poverty, the nutritional problems and the age at which young girls are having their first pregnancy all combine to make the rate of injury and deaths of young women during delivery, and of the babies themselves, a significant problem for that country.

I need to also refer to the visit we had to a South African company that has understood the problems of young children, not just in South Africa but in Mozambique, where often there is no furniture in the school classrooms and sometimes there is not even a classroom. The young children sit under a tree or in the shade somewhere. If you do not have a desk or a chair it becomes very difficult to manage paper when you are trying to learn to write. So, lap desks have been developed by a private South African country. They consist of a boomerang shaped plastic tray that sits on the knees of children as they sit on the ground or in a chair. The lap desks serve as a writing surface for the children. It means that they can in fact progress in the same way as other students throughout the world who have a desk or some furniture in their classroom. It is great that the Australian government has funded some 22,000 lap desks. They have been distributed to children in Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe. It is a very simple technology, but we do not understand the need until we go to these countries and see the lack of facilities that we take for granted. It becomes obvious that a small boomerang shaped plastic tray can mean the difference between a child easily being able to learn to write and not being able to learn at all.

We also went to see water aid projects in Accra, Ghana, where, after years of neglect, the sewerage system has become blocked with sand and detritus. The problem is that the households in those settlements wash their dishes with sand rather than washing detergent. The sand goes into the system and blocks up the works. There has been an enormous amount of effort to help the settlements in the Sabon Zongo urban slum in Accra to once again have running water and not have a system so contaminated and blocked that cholera is a problem. Even though the work was being done by a small fergie tractor—one we would not have seen in Australia for many years—it was still an inspiration to see how much progress was being made. We also saw the repairing of the city sewerage system by the city council in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.

For me one of the most important things I saw was a school in a slum in Ghana that had 900 student places but had no toilets. Boys and girls were supposed to go to this school but, because there were no toilets at the school for the 900 students, girls did not attend. With Australian aid toilets were built for the school. Girls were then able to attend the school and have access to a toilet. It is a very simple thing—toilets for girls and boys—and suddenly you had 900 students able to access education whereas before only half the local school population attended. We went there on a school holiday and the students had turned out in their school uniforms to greet us, armed with their brushes and dusters to demonstrate how well they were minding and cleaning these new toilets. I have to say that it was a proud moment for me. Building toilets for a school might be a simple technology, but the need was great and Australia was able to step up and do the task. I think that a hand of friendship needs to be extended from Australia to the countries in Africa which are resource-rich and have enormous potential by developing their own human capital. We now have a number of African migrants but also many refugees, particularly in my own community in Murray. We have many Sudanese, Congolese and Somalians. They are all making a major contribution to our economy already but, more importantly, to our cultural life. We feel rich with the Angel Voices choir, a Congolese young adult and children's choir that dances and sings its way through so many of our festival occasions in Murray. That was a group who were first settled in a regional centre in Australia—Shepparton—some five years ago. One of their number, Immaculate, has already run for local council, although not successfully. That is the spirit of the people of Africa. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.