Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I present the report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to the 142nd Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly, which took place virtually from 24 to 28 May 2021. I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I would just like to make a few brief remarks on the background for this remarkable organisation, which is actually about parliament-to-parliament contact. It's about parliamentarians actually getting together and understanding more and more of the way the world is working and how we can work together to improve things.

It's an international organisation of parliaments and sovereign states, and it works essentially to promote democratic governance, institution and values, and aims to improve the lives of people right across the world by building strong national parliaments that can deliver better outcomes for citizens.

Originally, the 142nd assembly was scheduled for Geneva, Switzerland, in April 2020. But, of course, like so many of our communications across the world, that was profoundly interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In its wake, the IPU, the International Parliamentary Union executive committee, decided that the 142nd IPU assembly would be held in the week of 24 May 2021 in a virtual format. I can just say that, when the virtual format runs on the time of a European country, it's a little challenging in terms of the representation. My fellow delegates to that virtual IPU assembly were Ms Lucy Wicks, MP, member for Robertson; Senator Sarah Henderson and Mr Julian Hill, MP. With the support of a remarkable secretariat—and I really want to acknowledge the incredible work they do for us—we attended quite a number of sessions between 11 at night and three in the morning to do our bit to stand for the people of Australia, to understand what's going on in other contexts and to represent our great country.

It was a shame that we were unable to join the actual 143rd assembly, this week and last week, in Madrid and be active participants, because the IPU decided that it would be only by attendance, and we were no longer able to meet them between 11 pm and four in the morning—so it turned into a different sort of experience. Sadly, we were unable to make a contribution, but we'll be able to secure the documents and see what we can do.

The IPU has taken this year to renew its strategy for 2017 to 2021, and I think the eight objectives that we have agreed to sign up to with the rest of the participants are really worthy of noting—that is, to build strong democratic parliaments; advance gender equality and respect for women's rights; protect and promote human rights; contribute to peace building, conflict prevention and security; promote interparliamentary dialogue and cooperation; promote youth empowerment; mobilise parliaments around global development agenda; and bridge the democracy gap in international relations.

This is a very, very important international organisation in which Australians have taken a significant and prominent role over many years. It's different from many of the other delegations that might be just incidental; this is a period of commitment over the course of a parliament. Sadly, we haven't been able to do as much work with our fellow parliamentarians around the world as we would have liked but for COVID. So we are where we are and we are hopeful that next year might provide an opportunity for a delegation from Australia to meet formally with others to take our part in the debates about the future of how we can do our best as parliamentarians, servants of democracy, to bring about better outcomes for all people. So I commend the report to the Senate.

Question agreed to.