Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to present a delegation report.

Leave granted.

I present the report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to the 123rd Assembly of the Inter-Parliament­ary Union held in Geneva, Switzerland and meetings with international organisations held in Paris, France, from 1 to 11 October 2010 and I seek leave to move a motion to take note of the document.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

In doing so, I just want to draw the Senate's attention to some of the issues that were raised during this international meeting. As senators would be aware, around this world twice a year the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly gathers to hold its discussions, exchange views and ideas and to debate current topics of all the countries that have operating parliaments. Many countries make the effort to get to IPU meetings and of course every year in October, the general assembly occurs.

The reason I wanted to speak this afternoon on this report is that this delegation last year was led by Senator Michael Forshaw, who is, of course, no longer in the Senate, and I wanted to put some comments down for the Hansard about his role as the delegation leader. I particularly wanted to pay tribute to the Hon. Senator Judith Troeth, who was also on that delegation. In fact I think she had been going to IPU meetings for a number of years. I had been with her in 2009 and again in 2010. I wanted to make some comments about that because, if people from the Senate will remember, in 2009 when we were at the IPU meeting it was Judith Troeth and Roger Price, who at the time was a member of the House of Rep­resentatives, who so eloquently convinced the rest of the world and the world's parliaments that we should debate a motion on food security. Judith had the pleasure of travelling with us again last year. On the delegation were Mr Patrick Secker and me, and so four of us travelled last year to the IPU Assembly meeting.

Each year at an IPU Assembly meeting an emergency item is debated. Last year the debate occurred around the title of the motion, 'Immediate action to support inter­national relief efforts in response to natural disasters, and in particular with regard to flood-stricken Pakistan'. In hindsight, little did we know as the Australian parliament delegation when we provided some input into that motion being debated, that we would confront the tragedies that we saw in this country earlier this year in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Little did we know that the Japanese delegation we met would soon experience the overwhelming tragedy that beset them when the tsunami occurred in their country. It is always very useful to have a discussion about how other countries tackle emergency situations such as those. Lessons have been learned and lessons could be learned and there is an exchange of ideas particularly from countries like Australia who have such a well-trained and well-equipped emergency management response, and teams in place.

There were a number of other panel discussions, one of them providing a sound legislative framework aimed at preventing violence and improving election monitoring and ensuring a smooth transition to power. It reminded me, of course, that we can go from having one political party in power in this country to, overnight, having another political party in power, and our democracy is so well respected and well acknowledged that we do that seamlessly. When you go to an IPU meeting you have over 190 other countries confronting you and telling you that in their countries life is so not like that. In fact, life can be quite horrific and terrify­ing and devastating for many people when there is a change of political parties. So, again, Australia should hold its head up quite proudly because we know how expertly run our electoral system is and how much confidence the Australian public have in the way in which our elections are held and run, without bias and without political or military interference.

We also debated the role of parliaments in ensuring sustainable development through the management of natural resources, agricultural production and demographic change. And of course transparency and accountability in political party funding was the third general motion that was debated at that IPU meeting.

I want to spend some time highlighting the 15th Meeting of Women Parliament­arians which Judith and I attended and reported back to from a meeting that had been held in Bangkok. The emphasis there was on human trafficking and violence against women in places of detention and prison. Again, it is useful to hear what is happening around the globe in relation to the way women are treated, the placement of women in societies and the way in which women parliamentarians can use their position to improve what is happening. There are other subsidiary committees that meet at the same time and I was invited to attend the Advisory Group of the IPU committee that looks at United Nations affairs. This is a new group that has been formed to have a look at how the IPU itself can influence what is happening in the United Nations and how politicians from different countries can have input into what is happening at the UN. Australia has been invited by the president to nominate a delegate for this special advisory group. We have been invited to represent the Asia-Pacific group on the advisory group for an initial term of two years. I attended that initial meeting because I was in Geneva at the time representing Australia. I understand since then the Presiding Officers have nom­inated Anthony Byrne as the subsequent and permanent representative of the Australian parliament for that initial two-year period. Again, I think this signals the esteem in which Australia and our politicians and our parliaments are held, to the point where we get specifically invited by the president to be one of 12 countries on this advisory group advising on the way in which parliaments and politicians can have input into what is happening in the United Nations. We should be very proud of our input as a parliament and across parties into ensuring that other parliaments and other parliamentarians learn from what we do so well in this country.

We also went across to France, prior to the IPU meeting. We had an indication that we wanted to meet with the International Energy Agency which the four of us did. That meeting was to look at issues to do with climate change, energy renewables and carbon capture and storage. We also accepted an invitation to go again to the French Senate, where we had a delightful time. I have to say that there is some rapport with the French senators and Judith, Michael and I felt some allegiance in terms of their warm and welcoming friendship when it comes to sharing our knowledge. At the time they were debating a bill to increase the age of retirement. They complained that they had just had three consecutive sitting nights that went well past midnight, and we said that there were times when we could relate to that workload.

Finally, as a group we went to the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, again pursuing our work here, particularly looking at regional development. They have just undertaken a regional development review which they gave us copies of and briefed us about. We also went to UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, and I am particularly pleased to say that we were briefed there on what they are doing with World Heritage programs, in particular the provision for maintaining Indigenous languages and culture. I met Dr Douglas Nakashima at UNESCO and I have since invited him to attend the Garma Festival at Yirrkala, which will be held in a couple of weeks. I have not heard if he is coming, but I know he has a particular interest in the maintenance and preservation of Indigenous languages and culture. I thought connecting him with the Garma Festival in Gove, which is to be held in five or six weeks, would be a perfect way to do that.

All in all, I think the Australian parlia­mentarians who represented this parliament and this country at the IPU assembly again did an outstanding and very professional job, one where we can boast that the work that we do in this parliament which is cross-party and bipartisan is held in high regard around the world.

Question agreed to.