Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Hansard source

On 19 October this year Australia secured what has been and is rightly described as a once in a generation opportunity of filling a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council. The coalition welcomes this outcome and pays tribute to the hard work of many diplomatic officials and staff in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in making this opportunity a reality. Proper respect and acknowledgement should also be paid to the former Prime Minister, the member for Griffith, Kevin Rudd, for setting this aspirational goal.

The challenge now is to make the most of this very rare opportunity. You would think that the uniqueness of this opportunity would mean that the government had a well-developed plan and a strategy for making the most of it. Regrettably, briefing notes obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and prepared by DFAT for the incoming foreign affairs minister Bob Carr reveal that this was not the case. Senator Bob Carr became Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs on 13 March. The briefing notes for him as the incoming Minister for Foreign Affairs do include a specific reference to the United Nations Security Council campaign.

I note on page 18 of these briefing notes that DFAT refers to the 'commencement of the development of a strategy, including objectives, priorities and resourcing'. That is right, 'the commencement of the development of a strategy'. You would be forgiven for wondering why wasn't there a strategy in place in the first place? Also, on page 19 of the same briefing notes, a reference is made to commencing the development of a strategy for how Australia would use its membership and how we would resource membership. I seek to table the incoming minister's briefing notes.

Leave not granted.

That is a shame; the truth is in those briefing notes. These were obtained under freedom of information and they show that there was no strategy, there was no clear policy direction on how to make use of the United Nation Security Council bid. It is a shame that the member for Page will not allow me to table these notes.

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