Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, can I thank the member for Tangney for chairing the committee in the latter stages and for taking the committee to visit the Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands. Can I also thank his predecessor, the member for Canning, who initiated the inquiry and terms of reference and who left to go to a another committee. The member for Tangney replaced him and did it very adequately, and I thank him for the work he has done. I also thank the committee secretariat, who are sitting here in the parliament, for the work they have done. I also thank my committee colleagues, including my comrade to my left, the member for Canberra—she is not always on my left, but in this particular instance she is on my left. I want to thank her for her encouragement and engagement with the process, as a person with long-term and longstanding interests in territory matters generally, but particularly, of course, in the ACT. She has a longstanding interest in the Indian Ocean Territories.

The Indian Ocean Territories I'm familiar very familiar with, having been their member in this place since I first got elected here in 1987. I'm very familiar with the issues raised in this report. Of course, it is not the first time that issues to do with strategic matters relating to the Indian Ocean Territories have been discussed—not in this place but elsewhere. There have been elements of white papers previously, of course. We know that, historically, the First World War saw the sinking of the Emden by the mighty Australian Sydney off the Cocos Islands. The remains of that magnificent ship, the Emden, rest on the bottom near North Keeling Island in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. We know that both territories were occupied by the Japanese during the last war.

They have been places where those we have fought have seen opportunity, and they are important to us now because we've used them, for some time now, as transit points. During the respective Gulf Wars we had our major heavy lift aircraft fly through Cocos Islands on a regular basis. We know that the P-3 Orions fly through Cocos and, to a lesser extent, Christmas Island, and are stationed at Cocos regularly. So they are seen as important in terms of our strategic interests, and that will be the case in the future. When we went through this inquiry, we heard a great deal from people with expertise in the areas of strategic and defence matters—including the Department of Defence—all of whom said that these island territories were of importance to Australia's strategic interests.

The recommendations of the report bear some consideration—and I'm sure they will be considered by the government and, hopefully, adopted—but I want to make a point about a couple of them, one of which concerns the development of infrastructure on the island territories. Certainly, in the case of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, there is a need to extend the runway and harden the runway. That needs to be done, but it needs to be done in consultation with the local communities. As other investment, where it happens, needs to be done on Christmas Island for similar purposes, there needs to be contemplation of engagement with the local community, where possible providing local community members with job opportunities and small-business opportunities. There's clearly a need for significant investment on the Cocos islands in particular, and to a lesser extent on Christmas Island.

We know that they are both important for Australia's surveillance of its territories. We now have naval vessels in and around those territories on a regular basis for our own border protection purposes. The people on the islands are very receptive to Defence Force personnel and to engaging with Defence Force personnel. Indeed, some argued for the development of a cadet unit on Christmas Island and on the Cocos islands. That's potentially going to be difficult, I suspect, but nevertheless it shows the level of interest from people on the island territories around accepting their role as part of the broader Australian community and as Australian citizens, and they need to be commended for that.

They are a wonderful people, and it's in our strategic interests to make sure that those two communities remain viable in the long term. That means that other investments, not directly to do with defence, are undertaken. We need to make sure that the long-term economic interests and economic development of those two island communities are at the forefront of our thinking when we're talking about our strategic interest, because, if we don't invest and don't continue to invest in their economic and social development, then we'll soon lose the vision which they have for themselves and we currently have for them also.

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