Bob Katter (Kennedy, Katter's Australian Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Home Affairs. Minister, you're aware of China's Daru initiative in the Fly River, half of New Guinea. The Singapore Strait is controlled by Muslims enraged by Chinese treatment of Uighur. In the alternative Torres Strait, more young Chinese men with curious backgrounds have opened a shop on yams. Similarly, four Chinese are attempting to buy the tip of Cape York from traditional owners, two whitefellas from Sydney. Not a single Australian believes these are commercial initiatives. What action, Minister?

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question. Obviously the Australian government has an incredibly important and valuable relationship with the government of Papua New Guinea. The Prime Minister has a very close relationship with Prime Minister Marape, and all of us work constantly to make sure that we are doing all we can for PNG, a very important country in our region. We will work with PNG. I know the Prime Minister's raised this issue which I think is highly speculative, if I might say so, to the member for Kennedy. I've seen the press reporting around the Daru proposal. It's highly, highly speculative. But only this week the Prime Minister has raised that with Prime Minister Marape, and we will continue to work with our PNG counterparts.

In terms of the Western Province, we are putting a significant amount of support into that province, working with the government there and making sure that we can provide support to that part of the world, particularly at the moment in relation to the response to COVID. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Health have had a particular focus on making sure we can have the vaccine rolled out across the Pacific, but in particular in PNG we're working closely with our colleagues.

I will finish on this point. The government takes very seriously any attempts to subvert our sovereignty. We are putting more and more money each year into ASIO, into ASIS, into our national security agencies, to make sure that our equities are protected, and this government will always stand up for the interests of Australians.