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

Apparently a few in the financial services industry expressed some disappointment over, and noted, my absence at the last budget estimates. While budget estimates are usually somewhere I would be with bells on, I was instead taking part in multilateral discussions with other nations. It's an important role for all parliamentarians, from the PM to the newest backbencher, to engage with other countries. We live on an island continent, but we are part of a global economy. We are a trading nation and we share the planet.

Two weeks ago I was in Angola representing Australia in a cross-party delegation for the 47th Parliament at the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the IPU. I was joined by my esteemed colleagues Mr Julian Hill, Mr Warren Entsch, Senator Linda Reynolds and of course the delegation lead, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Milton Dick. I'd also like to thank parliament's IPU team of Jane Thompson and Elise Williamson, DFAT delegates and members of the Australian Federal Police.

I will note, though, that this was a multiparty delegation. Together, we understood the importance of acting and working as one team with one message for our great nation, Australia. I commend the member for Leichhardt and the senator for Western Australia—and I congratulate that same senator, Linda Reynolds, for her advance of the orphanage trafficking statement that came out with unanimous support—for sincerely appreciating the importance of putting partisan differences aside when we're representing the nation. This is markedly different from others who wish to turn foreign affairs into a domestic political football and struggle with understanding the fact that words matter. I want to congratulate Milton Dick, the elected member of the executive committee for the Asia-Pacific Group, who will be working with our region and for our nation through the international forum that is the IPU.

I don't take for granted the luck that I experienced when I was born into this beautiful, free country. But, if we are to do our work as politicians, we do not have the luxury of only looking inwards; we must turn to the world.