Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I ask: will the minister report on how Australia is taking forward its security and defence relationship with the United Kingdom?

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. The bilateral relationship between Australia and the United Kingdom is one of our most significant. It is at the front line of our international relationships. It is of course a relationship built on history, but in the modern era it is built on people-to-people contact; a couple of centuries of trade and diplomacy; and importantly, and this is underappreciated, very significant links so far as security, strategic and defence interests are concerned.

One of the attributes of the relationship which reflects that security, strategic and defence relationship is the Australia-United Kingdom ministerial meeting, or AUKMIN as it is called. Tomorrow I will travel to the United Kingdom to attend the second AUKMIN meeting, together with Minister Fitzgibbon, the Minister for Defence, who will be arriving in the United Kingdom following the meeting of defence ministers at the southern regional command in Afghanistan. The meeting will be attended by the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Mr Miliband, and the Secretary of State for Defence, Mr Hutton. We will examine the array of mutual interests that we have in our significant international interests in Afghanistan and Pakistan and the significant interest we have so far as nonproliferation is concerned, particularly in the nuclear area, with Iran and North Korea.

One of the bilateral matters that I will be taking up with my counterpart, Foreign Secretary Miliband, is of course Australia and the United Kingdom’s shared interest in Zimbabwe. The governments of Australia and the United Kingdom have both been at the forefront of international efforts to seek to bring about democracy, the rule of law, and better economic and social circumstances in Zimbabwe. We are increasingly concerned that, a month or so after a compact between Mr Tsvangirai and Mr Mugabe, a government of national unity has not yet been effected. We are very concerned that the so-called elders group of Jimmy Carter, the former President of the United States; Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the United Nations, and others was effectively excluded from Zimbabwe in recent days.

The humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe is now very acute. Today I have announced that Australia will provide an additional $8 million of immediate humanitarian assistance to the people of Zimbabwe. Six million dollars of this will be for emergency food assistance through the World Food Program and $2 million will be for non-government organisations for food and sanitation purposes, particularly given the outbreak of cholera that we have seen in recent days.

So the relationship that we have with the United Kingdom is one of those relationships that we have at the front line of our international relationships, and that is reflected by not just our interest in the humanitarian and political situation in Zimbabwe but also our security, strategic and defence arrangements internationally.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, on indulgence, could I congratulate the minister for continuing this important initiative of the Howard government. I just wonder why the Prime Minister is not there!

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, the member for Warringah will resume his seat. Can I say that I really do have under consideration the indulgences that are being granted. I am open to receiving comments from members, but I think you would find that in the past the main indulgences have been given to the Leader of the Opposition. I am really considering whether that is the appropriate way of doing things, because that would prevent stunts like the member for Warringah’s.