Bob McMullan (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for International Development Assistance) Share this | Hansard source

It was lost during your term. If it was ours, you lost it. But, no, clear evidence is that it was not. In fact it was in your term, so I would not go on too much about that. The fact is that we were left a legacy of chaos and resentment which the Prime Minister has gone a long way to improving, particularly through the Port Moresby Declaration and through the establishment of the Pacific Partnerships for Development. If any of our neighbours were to read the speech which the shadow minister just made—and the only saving grace for our diplomatic relations is that none of them will—all the countries of the Pacific would be appalled to find that in a speech about the Asia-Pacific not one country of the Pacific was mentioned. Why would the shadow minister not mention them? Because there is no story to tell. We had cancelled ministerial forum after ministerial forum with Papua New Guinea because we had no ministerial-level relationship—none at all. That is not a controversial statement; that is simply a statement of fact. There had been none; they had been cancelled. We needed to do a lot of hard work to restore our relationship with all the countries in our region. The Prime Minister has transformed our relationship in a positive manner by the Port Moresby Declaration and by the initiative he took in going to Papua New Guinea and the step he took to build on ministerial relationships. (Time expired)

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