Gavin Pearce (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

My relationship with the Pacific Island nations is somewhat different. I deployed when INTERFET deployed in 1999 to East Timor. I went to a country that was ravaged by pro-Indonesian militia and insurgents, who were devastating the good villages and good folk of East Timor. I have seen it firsthand. I was deployed to the border between Indonesia and East Timor, and as the chopper came in you could see the plumes of smoke from all of these small villages. What was left was a decimated people: people that fled, children that had already seen their parents beheaded and killed. We were incredibly cognisant of the fact that here we were standing with a rifle in our hands, and we didn't want to scare them any further. We soon built relationships with those that were left in East Timor. Once they saw the rising sun and the Australian national flag on our arm, they soon knew that that meant they had a friend. The look in those kids' eyes really embellished this. That's a look that I'll never forget. I'm proud of the efforts of INTERFET, as I am proud of the Australian government's support for the good folk in the Pacific.

The government's Pacific Step-up is incredibly important. It is mutually beneficial for both Australia and the region. There is no doubt that government-to-government relations with our Pacific neighbours are fundamentally important. However, that bond extends far more than our Pacific neighbours would recognise at this time. There is a much deeper relationship between governments. We have deep-rooted personal, historical and cultural relationships and connections throughout the Pacific. We have built these through Timor Leste, the Solomons, Bougainville, Tonga, New Guinea. We were there during the Bali bombings. We are a respected friend to all these regions and their people.

The critical aspect of the relationship is to ensure that Australians seeking to do business in the Pacific are well supported. The Pacific Step-up is instrumental to that assistance, and the Australian Infrastructure Financing Facility is the way that this will occur. This $2 billion investment makes available a mix of grant and loan funding to support the development of transformative infrastructure in telecommunications, energy, transport and water. The facility manages $1.5 billion in loans and $500 million in grant funding. As a neighbour and friend, Australia has a long track record of supporting this critical infrastructure in the Pacific region, most recently the construction of the Coral Sea cable system, which brings a new high-speed Internet connectivity to Papua New Guinea and our friends in the Solomons. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade manages an AIFFP with support for lending from Export Finance Australia. Australia is continuing to engage very closely with governments across the Pacific to ensure that AIFFP supports their development priorities and continues to work with bilateral and multilateral partners in the private sector as well. The facility funds high-priority infrastructure across the Pacific, including telecommunications and, as I said, energy, transport and water.

We continue to work with our Pacific partners to identify projects that will make their countries better. I am sure that the AIFFP will welcome bids from Australian and international businesses with capabilities in at least one of the following sectors: water, energy, telecommunications, transport, buildings and developments as they manage these projects and their construction through delivery of capital infrastructure. It gives me great pride to support the bill and support the relationship between Australia and our Pacific friends.

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