Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for one minute.

Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Forestry and Fisheries) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government has been clear and consistent: for Australia to continue to be secure and prosperous, we need to work cooperatively and constructively with international partners. But it must be in our national interests, which means we must work with other countries and institutions but we must indeed advocate for substantive reform where it is needed. It's appropriate for a country of Australia's size, capability and standing in the region to make an ongoing contribution to the maintenance and evolution of a rules based international order. As COVID-19 has shown, multilateral institutions are most effective when they are driven by and responsive to the interests of sovereign states that form them.

Question agreed to.