Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Shortland, the Minister for International Development and the Pacific, for his kind words about me. I thank him for his actions and involvement with the Pacific. Let's not be partisan about the Pacific. We need statesmen and stateswomen, we need diplomacy, and we need team Australia when it comes to the Pacific. It's too important to allow any other foreign interests or any other incursions into the Pacific. That is why the minister and I have been very firm about what's important to Australia and very firm about what's important to the Pacific island nations we call family and we call friends. He and I would agree that, when it comes to faith, family and football, the Pacific and Australia are as one, and we need to continue, irrespective of who forms the next government. You and I, Deputy Speaker Georganas, have been on overseas trips together before in various delegations. Hopefully we'll get to do that again. When Australian politicians and members of parliament, senators et cetera travel overseas, foreign countries need to see us at our best, and they need to see us speaking as one. When it comes to the Pacific, we need to do just that.

The Pacific Banking Guarantee Bill 2025 is an important piece of legislation. I know just how important the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme is because my electorate benefits from it. The remittances that go back to the Pacific Islands nations—for some of those tiny countries, they are more than half of their gross domestic product. It is something those families back home rely on very much, and it's earned in various capacities. It's horticulture and it's agriculture, but it's more than that. It's so many areas of endeavour. Australia relies on Pacific workers, and those from other international countries besides, to ensure that we can get the jobs done that cannot be filled by Australians—by our own citizens. We very much thank, admire and value the efforts made, particularly by those PALM workers.

It really came home to me when I attended a very sad farewell on Sunday 16 March at the North Wagga Hall. The previous week, a young woman—just 41—passed away. Her name was Tuota Kirition, and she inexplicably passed away at the Teys Meatworks. Teys were very much in there offering support and whatever they could to her family and to her many friends. I was in the front row at that particular memorial service. Sometimes, when you're sitting in the front row, you don't get an appreciation for just how many people are in that hall, but, when I glanced around, the hall—and it's only a small hall—was filled to overflowing. There were more than 400 mourners that turned up. So I want to pay tribute.

It is very much relevant to the topic of debate because she had a 15-year-old daughter back home. She was in Australia, in about her third year working here, and sending the money back to Kiribati. She was sending the money back so that her daughter could have a better life. She was sending the money by banks to ensure that her daughter, her village, her community and her island could have better outcomes. All too sadly, she's passed away in Wagga Wagga. It struck me so vividly that, at the end of the service, her female friends and all the women there were virtually moved to one side of the hall, and the men—big, robust men as they were—had prepared the food. They moved the chairs. They put the tables out. They laid on the feast that followed and allowed the women to mourn. You could see the love and support and family. They weren't all related, but they were all family.

It was a very moving service, and I want to pay tribute to Pastor Jerry Rokosuka and all of the island nations that turned up to farewell Tuota, because it was a moving service. I know her loss will be felt keenly in Kiribati, no more so than by her teenage daughter. Australia is better for having her work on that PALM scheme, for her coming to our city and for contributing what she did. I know XXXX will continue to work with her family, her community and, indeed, all her island friends to make sure that she is remembered and that she is supported, and that is a good thing.

On this Pacific banking guarantee bill, we heard the minister outline the fact that there has been an arrangement struck between the Commonwealth Bank and Nauru when Bendigo withdrew, and we acknowledge that. We acknowledge all the banks which have for many decades operated in the Pacific, because it is important. I know the minister would be interested to hear this, and I know he probably made representations as well when financial institutions—and not necessarily Australian ones—were taking too much of the remittances and it was actually difficult for the people in the island nations to withdraw their money or to have access to that money. I know that he and I would both be as one when it comes to ensuring that the money that was sent back home went straight into the bank accounts and that—but for some minor adjustments—they received full recompense for their labours. That's critically important.

The guarantee covered by this particular legislation supports Australian-authorised deposit-taking institutions—ADIs—operating in the Pacific region to maintain vital banking services there. I know the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Penny Wong, and the former foreign affairs minister Senator Simon Birmingham from South Australia—he and I have travelled to the Pacific together, though we didn't come home in the same state! We went there as team Australia. We went there as one.

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