Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—On behalf of Senator Webber, I present the report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to the 26th AIPO general assembly in Laos and a bilateral visit to Pakistan which took place from 17 to 30 September 2005. I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

(Quorum formed)

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wanted to make some brief remarks on this report, as has been outlined by my colleague Senator Carol Brown. It is the report of the delegation that visited both Laos and Pakistan from 17 to 30 September last year, so it has been over 12 months between the visit and now presenting the report and, as you can imagine, some of the memories are not exactly fresh. However, I did want to place on the record some brief remarks.

Firstly, the visit to Laos was for an Australian delegation to act as observers to the ASEAN forum. I wanted to mention that because ASEAN is a forum that Australia as a nation has strived to join from time to time and, therefore, I think it is particularly important that, when they have parliamentary fora and the like, Australia sends an observer delegation. Parliamentarians from all of the member nations of ASEAN attended and made some useful contributions. There were roundtables held between parliamentary representatives of ASEAN member countries and all of the observer nations—Australia was not the only observer nation; New Zealand and others were there as well.

It is probably timely to mention that one of the key issues that were raised with the Australian delegation in our roundtable discussion was our attitude towards climate change and our environmental policy. It was at the forefront of members’ minds because they are trying to deal with this issue, and I do not think they quite understood the confusion happening in Australia at the time. So to say that developing nations are not taking this challenge seriously and not having that political discussion would be to misrepresent them. They definitely are having that discussion and they are looking for leadership from other nations. It is an important issue for Australia to address, particularly if we are seeking to join ASEAN. It is something that we need to address in a more timely and thoughtful manner than perhaps we currently are.

As part of the delegation’s visit to Laos, not only did we attend the ASEAN forum but there were a number of side visits organised by the Australian post there, the most moving of which, to my mind, was a visit to an agricultural university. Australian university students are often critical of the lack of support that governments of all persuasions give to our tertiary institutions, sometimes quite rightly critical, in my view. However, those criticisms dim when you look at the circumstances in which tertiary education is delivered in an impoverished country.

Laos was the most heavily bombed country during the Vietnam War and is therefore struggling with the development of its resources sector because there is still not enough contribution—although there is some Australian contribution—from countries involved in that conflict to removing all of the unexploded ordnance. Hundreds of children every year in Laos are still dying because of the unexploded ordnance. The Australian government does make some contribution but there is a real need for a much greater contribution to be made. If this country is to develop and to go forward and exploit the genuine natural resources that they have then there is an onus on all countries that have been involved in the conflicts in that region on both sides to do more about funding the removal of the unexploded ordnance.

After our visit to Laos the delegation moved on to Pakistan. We were the first parliamentary delegation from Australia to visit Pakistan in over 10 years I think. There had not been a parliamentary delegation visit Pakistan in the life of this government, that is for sure, and we were there as a precursor to the Prime Minister’s visit. Pakistan was in the midst of some local elections at the time and I must say that they are very lively occurrences in that country. We think we take our campaigning seriously and we sometimes think that it gets very personal but, to use a colloquialism: you ain’t seen nothing yet until you get to a place like Pakistan.

The delegation was privileged to meet with both the President and the Prime Minister. We also had the honour to meet with quite a few very assertive, very progressive, very strong and dynamic women parliamentarians from all levels of government. Indeed, President Musharraf went out of his way to point out the percentage of female parliamentarians in Pakistan and drew an unfavourable comparison with Australia. He also pointed out to those of us from the Labor Party that he did not need a rule to achieve the amount of female participation.

Whilst we were there the delegation also visited the Khyber Pass and we saw some of the Afghani refugee camps that are on the border in Pakistan. As we know, Pakistan also has some economic challenges ahead, but to see their commitment to dealing as best they can with the refugee crisis that has been created by the conflicts in that region is something that we should note and place on record.

In closing, I would like to place on record my thanks to the support staff from the parliament who assisted with the delegation, my fellow members of the delegation and the Australian Federal Police who accompanied us mainly in Pakistan where they take the security of parliamentarians even more seriously than we do here—and sometimes I think it can be a bit stifling in this building. They certainly take it very personally there. So my thanks to the AFP and to the people from the Australian posts in both Laos and Pakistan.

Question agreed to.