Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

While the International Monetary Agreements Amendment Bill 2017 is a relatively uncontroversial bill, it is an important one—despite the controversy that a similar bill caused under the previous Labor government. It speaks to our values as a nation; not only a nation that is a member of the brotherhood and sisterhood of nations but one that continues to stand up to support those less fortunate around the world.

The International Monetary Fund was conceived in 1944, at the Bretton Woods Conference, by 44 UN member countries in order to build a framework for economic cooperation that would avoid a repetition of the competitive devaluations that had brought about the Great Depression. Australia played a key part in those processes and the conference. Not well enough known through our great land is the integral and pivotal role that Australia played in the establishment of the key international organisations rising from the ashes of World War II that are still key parts of the world order today. As Doc Evatt said, the ambition of the UN and its related organs, such as the IMF, was:

… not very much; just peace and justice and decent standards of living for themselves perhaps, but mainly for their children.

At the end of the Second World War, the IMF was charged with overseeing and rebuilding national economies. Since that time it has been responsible for promoting international monetary cooperation, facilitating the expansion of international trade, assisting in the establishment of a multilateral system of payments and assisting member states who are experiencing difficulties. In the 1970s, after the system of fixed exchange rates collapsed, a series—

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