Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In November last year I travelled to Papua New Guinea as part of my work as chair of the defence subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. I had the opportunity to see the impact of Australia's Pacific Step-up for myself. Touring the village of Buna, I visited the new double classroom built at the local primary school with Australia's help, which has allowed the school to grow rapidly to teach more than 100 students. I visited the Buna Health Centre, which has been totally refurbished with new inpatient and outpatient and maternity facilities, as well as training for the centre staff, provided in partnership with the Kokoda Initiative. I saw the village's simple solar light project, funded by the Australian government through the Kokoda Track Foundation. This installs a small solar panel on locals' roofs to power three lights. These lights change lives, allowing families to cook in the evening and, very importantly, allowing kids to study at night—something that they just hadn't been able to do.

Nations in the Pacific, like Papua New Guinea and Indonesia, are the largest recipients of Australian aid because they are some of our most important partners. The Asia-Pacific is our region, and with a struggling world economy and increasing tension between the United States and China, our region is facing uncertain times. We must work together and promote prosperity for all. A prosperous Asia-Pacific will be a stable Asia-Pacific. A stable region will help secure our borders, defend our national interests and provide large new markets for Australian products and services.

Right now, the Defence subcommittee which I chair is undertaking an inquiry into our defence relationship with Pacific island nations. Submissions close today. Mr Deputy Chair Rick Wilson, I know you will eagerly join with me in putting in some submissions for that. I'll have a great deal more to say about that aspect of our Pacific Step-up in weeks to come. However, towards the end of the last parliament, I had the privilege of attending the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in the Cook Islands to address parliamentarians from all over the region on another aspect of the Pacific Step-up which is so often frequently overlooked. Critical to our work in helping build prosperity across the Pacific is Australia's focus on anticorruption and good governance. Prosperity in the region cannot grow where corporate or governmental corruption or poor governance exists. That is why Australia's largest aid investment this financial year, of some $793 million, was allocated to building effective governance. In combatting corruption, we have, for example, provided $7½ million to support a UN Office on Drugs and Crime project, the global regime against corruption in South-East Asia and South Asia, which is coming to an end later this year. We also provided $6.6 million to support the UN development's program Anti-Corruption for Peaceful and Inclusive Societies in the Asia-Pacific, and another $5.7 million to the Pacific Regional Anti-Corruption Project. We allocated $6.9 million for a four-year grant to Transparency International's Asia-Pacific program and made contributions to the UN Pacific Regional Anti-Corruption Project's work in Tonga, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Palau.

To fight corporate corruption, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade publishes the Fraud Control Toolkit for use by the region's governments and organisations, with practical advice on how to manage fraud and corruption risks and how to deal with incidents that occur. We also provide more hands-on support, like delivering relevant training to 934 police and justice officials in the Solomon Islands. Our support builds capacity as well as helping stamp out corruption. We support the Pacific Leadership and Governance Precinct in Papua New Guinea, a partnership which furthers the development of ethical and capable public sector leaders in PNG through sharing firsthand experiences at all levels. We support initiatives like the Development Leadership Program, funded by Australian aid, which brings together international research leaders to explore how to create legitimate and robust government institutions. Overall, working closely with our partners in the region, together we have a great deal of success in helping to build good governance. Results like this, achieved together, will lay foundations for economic prosperity, security and success across our region.

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