Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to speak on the motion of condolence in relation to the Yogyakarta air crash of March 2007, I do so from a particular perspective—that is, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs with specific responsibility for the activities of AusAID and also for the work of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Two of the members of those agencies perished in this crash. I refer here to Allison Sudradjat, who was the head of AusAID’s Indonesia office, which has a staff of approximately 100 people, and to Liz O’Neill, who was the head of public affairs at the Australian Embassy in Indonesia. In addition to those two fine Australians, three other fine Australians lost their lives: two Federal Police officers—Mark Scott and Brice Steele—both of whom had distinguished careers; and Morgan Mellish, a Walkley award winning journalist from the Australian Financial Review. In addition to them, of course, another five Australians were involved in the crash, four of whom suffered injuries. In fact, Cynthia Banham and Roger Tallboys suffered significant injuries. I will return to them later.

I wish to offer my sympathy to the families of all 21 people—five Australians and 16 other souls—who perished on board the Garuda flight. However, I wish to speak in particular about Allison and Liz. Allison was, first and foremost, a wife and a mother. She leaves behind a husband, Ris, and four children, Jamila, Imran, Zaini and Yasmin. Our understanding of their loss and their grief can never be complete, but it is sufficient for everyone in this chamber simply to say that she was a wife and a mother. To Ris and the four beautiful children, whom I met on the day of the return of the bodies to Australia, we simply give you our support and our thanks.

To those at AusAID who worked with Allison, you have lost a real and valued friend, and a profoundly important colleague. Your work, Allison, was of great merit and meaning. It was the work of a humanitarian who served Australia but who also more importantly served the developing world at a time when she was in a position to make real change. She was at AusAID for 18 years after joining the agency in 1989. She worked in Indonesia from 1992 to 1995, in Papua New Guinea from 1996 to 2001 and again in Indonesia, as I mentioned, as head of Australia’s aid work there from February 2005.

Allison was in Papua New Guinea at a time of major development and humanitarian challenges. She managed Australian assistance during the crippling 1997-98 drought and contributed to the Bougainville peace process. That was an action of profound importance. She made a major contribution to long-term assistance to health programs, assisted survivors of the tsunami that hit Artape in 1998 and helped lead Australia’s response in Indonesia to the Asian tsunami similarly. Within Indonesia she was responsible for the implementation of the Australia Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development, managing a program of $1 billion over a five-year period. She also played an important role in the lead-up to the visit of the Minister for Foreign Affairs to the work on the ground in Indonesia of helping to build 2,000 schools for Indonesian students. There could rarely be a more important developmental project than the building of 2,000 schools in a country that has had a desperate need to provide opportunities for its young people. That legacy of helping to oversee the creation of these schools for young people will perhaps be the most important thing she leaves as an aid worker.

Allison worked on many fronts. She was an inspirational leader, she was a humanitarian and she was a warm friend to so many people. But first and foremost, more than any of these things—and I say this on behalf of AusAID, on behalf of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and on behalf of her friends and colleagues in the Australian government—Allison was a wife and a mother, and nothing can replace her loss.

Similarly I want to speak about Liz O’Neill. Liz O’Neill was an amazing character, as is said by everybody who knew her. She was a person who had a belief in Australia and a belief in Australia’s role. She believed in our capacity for good and our capacity to have an impact on our region and the world and on the lives and futures of so many people. She was involved in Indonesia as Australia’s Counsellor for Public Affairs in the Jakarta embassy. She helped with some incredibly difficult challenges, including the embassy bombing in September 2004 and the effects of the Asian tsunami, which commenced on Boxing Day 2004. She was a member of the emergency response team sent to Bali following the first Bali bombing in October 2002, and she was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her service to Australians in that period. During her career with Foreign Affairs, she served with the Peace Monitoring Group in Bougainville and at the embassy in Tokyo. But, as with Allison, whilst she will be missed by her colleagues and whilst her professional work will be missed, she was a wife and a mother first and foremost.

I met Liz’s husband, Wayne, last Wednesday at RAAF Fairbairn and I met her beautiful little daughter, Lucinda, who is nine months old and has no comprehension of what has happened. Liz will be missed, and her loss will be felt much more greatly by her young daughter over time. To Wayne and to Lucinda: you have our deepest sympathy.

Much has been said about the others who were lost. To the families of Morgan Mellish, Mark Scott, Brice Steele and all of those Indonesians who were lost: we cannot understand fully the extent of your loss but you have our complete sympathy.

What this showed ultimately was the strength of cooperation between Australia and Indonesia, and the response of the Australian and Indonesian governments and the people who helped. This is indicative of the desire to do real things. Lives were saved. Cynthia Banham, I suspect, would not have been alive today but for the cooperation between people on both sides, and I think that their work deserves recognition. Cynthia and Michael Harvey: you have our support. You are good people, you will get through this and you will come back.

To all of the people involved, I say thank you for your work. To the wonderful officers in the Australian Consular Response Group and consular crisis centre, led by Rod Smith, Simeon Gilding and Bassim Blasey, and to everybody who has helped: we thank you. But to those who have passed away—Liz, Allison, Morgan, Mark and Brice—you will be missed.

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