Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have a few questions for the foreign minister in relation to our commitment to the Pacific region and territories. When I visited Vanuatu and Kiribati some years ago, I noticed that the Australian government provided a substantial patrol boat program. In fact, the economic zone around Kiribati is, I am told, as large as that of Australia. As a result, the patrol boat program to patrol their territorial waters had been seen to be somewhat welcome, but one of the criticisms was that, rather than actually using these patrol boats for the function for which they were intended, they had become interisland ferries. As a result, the actual patrol work was not being done and the local business people raised the issue that poaching was happening on a large scale, which had an effect on their fishing stocks

Minister, could you provide me with any information, if you have it readily available, as to the current status of our commitment to the patrol boat programs to the Pacific island nations that I have referred to? Are we upgrading these fleets, and do we have an ongoing commitment? I noticed when I visited Honiara, for example, that there were two patrol boats in the harbour and apparently they had not left for some time. So I am interested in whether it is a good program that we should continue, given its lack of activity.

The other issue I would like to raise is the activity of the Chinese and the Taiwanese governments in these island nations, which has also been under some scrutiny, for all the reasons that we are aware of. Also, there appears to be a large amount of Japanese investment in places like Kiribati and Tuvalu. Given the fact that we are endeavouring to seek their support on whaling, the Japanese seem to be providing similar support. The cynic in me tells me that Japan has probably very little interest in whaling around Tuvalu, for example, but is endeavouring to provide some economic enticement for their vote. Do you have any details which might support that view of mine? If so, could you outline what the extent of the dollar value of projects may be and what Australia is doing in response in economic aid to counteract that?

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