Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

At the request of Senator McAllister, I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

  (i) the Prime Minister asserted in a speech at the Lowy Institute in October last year that: "We should avoid any reflex towards a negative globalism that coercively seeks to impose a mandate from an often ill defined borderless global community",

  (ii) on 16 April 2020, Home Affairs Minister Dutton said: "There are other bodies within the UN that I would argue aren't acting in the global interest, aren't acting certainly in the interests of countries like Australia", and

  (iii) in her speech on 16 June 2020, Foreign Minister Payne said: "the pandemic has brought into stark relief the major role of international institutions in addressing and coordinating a global response to a global problem, across multiple lines of effort" and that multilateral organisations "promote universal values and play critical roles in responding to emerging global challenges, from the regulation of cyber security and maintaining a peaceful outer space, to outbreaks of Ebola and COVID-19"; and

(b) commends Senator Payne for affirming that effective multilateralism is a key Australian national interest.