Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

You are all the same, you lefties. The second allegation made against Patrick Cole is that the Prime Minister of the Solomon Islands objected to Patrick Cole’s opposition to the establishment of a commission of inquiry and in particular to some aspects of that commission of inquiry——and he quite rightly opposed that on behalf of the Australian government.

I would have thought most members of this parliament would be sensible enough to know that this commission of inquiry is not the right thing. It is an endeavour to try to clear the names of Messrs Ne’e and Dausabea in particular, who are facing charges in relation to the riots in April. These two men were both made ministers when Mr Sogavare became the Prime Minister of Solomon Islands. Frankly, this has been a matter of very great concern to the Australian government, and it should be. We should be objecting to this. Frankly, to declare Mr Cole persona non grata is completely and utterly inappropriate.

Let me make two final points. The first is this: we will continue our work with the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands because that regional assistance mission, a Pacific-wide mission led by Australia, is providing enormous benefits to the ordinary people of the Solomon Islands. There may be some people in Solomon Islands politics who object to RAMSI standing between them and the honey pot, but there is no doubt that as far as the ordinary people of the Solomon Islands are concerned RAMSI is a great thing. Finally let me say: we really do appreciate in this incident the strong support we are getting from our partners from other countries in the region and beyond. I think this is a time when all of us should show our solidarity with Patrick Cole, who has been treated abominably. He is a good and decent Australian, a hard-working public servant and he should not have been treated in this shabby way.

See this speech in context