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

For the information of members, I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the 120th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, from 4 to 10 April, and a bilateral visit to Switzerland, from 11 to 18 April 2009. The detailed report I have just tabled demonstrates the success of the hardworking, conscientious parliamentary delegation that attended the 120th assembly of the IPU in Addis Ababa and a bilateral visit to Switzerland. I do not have time to go through all of the achievements, but I wish to outline some of the highlights.

In Addis the Australian delegation participated fully in the work of the IPU and its various debates and meetings. From the point of view of the Australian delegation, the most important debate was the IPU debate on ‘Advancing nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament and securing the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: the role of parliaments’. A year ago in Cape Town the Australian delegation proposed—and the IPU agreed—to have a full debate on this important international issue. The Chief Government Whip, the member for Chifley, took a leading role on this issue. He was appointed corapporteur for the debate. He participated in a successful panel discussion on the matter in Geneva in late 2008 and in Addis, as corapporteur and chair of the drafting committee, was instrumental in finalising a resolution that was adopted by the plenary session of the IPU. This was not an easy task, but the final resolution reflects the outstanding role that Australia, and in particular Roger Price, played in the IPU agreeing to a decisive final resolution on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament.

Similarly, the member for Mackellar participated in the committee that debated the issue, ‘Freedom of expression and the right to information.’ Mrs Bishop was appointed to the drafting committee to finalise the resolution. She was elected rapporteur of that drafting committee and presented a report on the deliberations when the resolution was considered and adopted by the assembly. The member for Canberra, Annette Ellis, who joined the delegation at very short notice, enthusiastically participated in several meetings of the IPU, including its debate on climate change, sustainable development models and renewable energies. Senator Judith Troeth, the deputy leader of the delegation, was a great support to me as leader of the delegation not only in Ethiopia but also in Switzerland, and, along with the member for Canberra, she attended the meeting of women parliamentarians. With other delegates she attended panel discussions, geopolitical group meetings and bilateral meetings with delegates from other parliaments.

I participated in the debate on an emergency agenda item on the role of parliaments in mitigating the social and political impact of the international and economic financial crisis on the most vulnerable sectors of the global community, especially in Africa. The message that I conveyed in my speech to the delegates from the 123 countries attending the IPU was that restricting trade flows will not help fix the global financial crisis, indeed that such measures will make it worse and that free and fair trade is part of the solution to the crisis, not part of the problem.

The delegation was good enough to give me the wonderful opportunity to take part in a field visit organised by the IPU and UNICEF to projects in Addis Ababa for vulnerable children and adolescents, with an emphasis on education, health and nutrition, and social cash transfers.

During the assembly the delegation had the privilege of visiting the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. There we had the great honour of meeting Dr Catherine Hamlin and her staff, inspecting the hospital and receiving a briefing on its work and that of the midwifery colleges located in Addis Ababa and regional Ethiopia. It was wonderful to see firsthand the excellent facilities at the hospital in Addis and the outstanding results being achieved, to experience the commitment and enthusiasm of the team of people who work with Dr Hamlin and to be reassured that her work is expanding and enduring. In this regard, the delegation noted that the Australian government will contribute a further $2.3 million for the expansion of the hospital and maternity colleges. This particular visit left a lasting impression on each and every member of the delegation and reinforced our regard and respect for the many Australians who, like Dr Hamlin, make wonderful contributions to those in need in many countries around the world.

A longer term issue that the members of the delegation have become aware of is the fact that few if any Pacific nations attend meetings of the IPU. Members of the delegation have discussed ways to facilitate the participation of Pacific countries in the important work of the IPU and, to this end, have raised the matter with Mr Anders Johnsson, Secretary-General of the IPU. We understand that the IPU President, Dr Theo-Ben Gurirab, is very much aware of this issue, and we have assured the secretary-general that members of the Australian delegation will welcome further discussions on concrete proposals to encourage participation of Pacific nations at the IPU.

I am sure that I speak on behalf of all delegates when I say that our bilateral visit to Switzerland was worth while and excellently organised. In Switzerland the delegation participated in a comprehensive program that allowed it to gain an appreciation of key international developments, including the global financial crisis and climate change. To this end the delegation had informative meetings with representatives of Credit Suisse, the Swiss National Bank, the Swiss Federal Department of Finance and Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the department of environment. The delegation was also pleased to meet with the President of the Swiss Council of States, Mr Alain Berset, and members of the Swiss parliament. The delegation’s program included meetings with several United Nations agencies in Geneva, such as the World Trade Organisation, the World Meteorological Organisation, the ILO and the Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights. Other meetings included the International Committee of the Red Cross; the Secretary-General of the IPU; a lunch hosted by Ambassador Caroline Millar, with several Australians actively involved in the UN system and NGO system in Geneva; a dinner hosted by Ambassador Peter Grey, with Dr Francis Gurry, the newly elected Director-General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the most senior ranking Australian in the UN system in Geneva, and Mr Keith Rockwell, the Director of Information and External Relations Division of the WTO.

The delegation found these meetings informative and useful and is certainly of the view that it is important for members of the Australian parliament to have the opportunity to engage and increase their understanding of the roles and works of the UN system and other international agencies. The delegation records its sincere appreciation of Ambassador Ian Kemish and the staff at the Australian Embassy in Berlin, Ambassador Peter Grey, Ambassador Caroline Millar and the staff at the permanent missions in Geneva for their considerable efforts to make the delegation’s visit such a success, notwithstanding the short time frame they had in which to arrange what turned out to be an outstanding program.

We especially thank Mr Chester Cunningham, for his work in the earlier part of the Switzerland delegation, and Steve Thom in Geneva for their tireless efforts during the delegation’s visit. The delegation would also like to recognise the excellent advice and support provided by Mr Nicholas Sergi, a policy adviser from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade during the IPU assembly. We also thank Federal Agent Jeff Smith for his tireless effort in coordinating security and other arrangements in Addis; his contribution was much appreciated. I also express my sincere gratitude to the secretary of the delegation, Neil Bessell. Once again his breadth of knowledge on matters to do with the IPU was important to the ongoing success of Australia’s contribution.

I commend the report to the House.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I rise to endorse the remarks you have made, Mr Speaker, with regard to the delegation that went to the IPU and to Switzerland, and I would like to make some remarks myself. Firstly, 123 countries took part in the work of the IPU assembly in Ethiopia, of which there were 1,193 delegates, 27.6 per cent of whom were women. Although during the five days of the assembly there were many formal and informal meetings, the main work of the IPU is dealing with the standing committees of the IPU, the first of which deals with matters relating to peace and international security, which you yourself mentioned, Mr Speaker; the second deals with sustainable development, finance and trade; and the third standing committee, whose terms of reference relate to democracy and human rights, is the one in which I took part very specifically. We had before us in that committee the issue of freedom of expression and the right to information.

The committee held three sittings, which were chaired by Mr Canepa from Uruguay. The committee dealt with a report and a preliminary draft resolution drawn up by corapporteurs from India and the United Kingdom, along with amendments to the draft resolution from 13 delegations. I participated in the original debate and then had the honour of being appointed by the Asia-Pacific geopolitical group to be its representative on the drafting committee along with delegates from Bahrain, Canada, Chile, Congo, Germany, Iraq, Mali, Mexico, Switzerland and Zimbabwe. The committee was chaired by Mr Winkler, a delegate from Germany. At that meeting I was elected rapporteur.

The committee considered the draft in detail, incorporated some of the amendments which had been put forward and managed to accommodate, in whole or in part, amendments that came from 10 of those 13 delegations. The committee, having considered the draft resolution, presented it to the general committee for adoption, which was done unanimously. I was then asked to be rapporteur for the report on the resolution to the assembly. In that assembly there was one reservation from Australia relating to freedom of information, and that was that it should apply to governments and not to the private sector. Again, that was accepted unanimously by the assembly.

You may remember that in this chamber I spoke on the Evidence Amendment (Journalists’ Privilege) Bill 2009 on 14 May this year and referred quite extensively to the final IPU resolution, to argue the proposition that legislation should be improved to ensure that journalists did not have to disclose their sources, and explained how important it was that in a country such as ours, which was in the first league of freedom of information in encouraging other countries which had virtually no such provisions, we ought to be quite fulsome in protecting journalists’ rights in that way.

Mr Speaker, you also mentioned the important visit we made to Dr Catherine Hamlin and her fistula hospital. It was moving to be in the presence of such a woman. She has given 50 years of service to restoring women to the status of being acceptable human beings in the community. We walked into that hospital and saw rows and rows of young women whose lives had been destroyed by, quite frankly, lack of prenatal care. Their bodies had been subjected to unacceptable results following very difficult births and they were in a position where they were not accepted by any of their communities and lived as hermits. Some of them lay dormant for years, with their legs and muscles wasting away, because they thought that if they stayed still the problem of the leakage would go away. Her compassion, her work and the joy that she could bring to the lives of those women was extraordinary. We saw a young baby that one mother brought in. The woman had had seven miscarriages, finally having the fistula problem. Dr Hamlin brought her back, she had a caesarean and she gave birth to a live baby, which was Dr Hamlin’s promise to her. It was an extraordinarily moving event. I was very, very proud to be an Australian and to see her work.

A lot of us took rugs that were made by people from the St George and Sutherland Shire in New South Wales and assembled by the Hon. Danna Vale, the member for Hughes. We all carried those rugs and gave them because the women, when they first come to the hospital, wear those rugs. Because of the shame, the rugs would be over their faces, but after their operations they put them around their shoulders and they become a source of warmth. Thank you to Danna.

From there we went on to Switzerland. We had very important meetings in Switzerland, particularly with Credit Suisse and the department of finance. Mr Rohner from Credit Suisse and members that he had with him were very fulsome in their discussions about what had happened with regard to the collapse of the financial system globally. It was particularly illuminating to hear a blow-by-blow description of what had happened when Lehman Brothers was decided to let go. The insight that we were privileged to have gave us a greater understanding of what had happened. From my personal point of view, I was most interested to see that in Switzerland they are not following a Keynesian model. Credit Suisse itself got out of trading in derivatives very early, which contrasted with UBS, which did not, which was very much into CDOs. Credit Suisse has said it will take no government funding and raised $10 billion itself, whereas UBS is taking government money. I found that also their department of finance, again, were not following a Keynesian model and were being far more conservative in the way that they were spending money with regard to stimulus packages. There was no cash splash as we have had here. They also recognise the fact that, because Germany is the largest exporting country in the world and largely dependent on manufacturing, Switzerland would suffer also as a result of Germany’s downturn.

The delegation’s program also included informative meetings with several United Nations agencies in Geneva and we welcomed the opportunity to participate in a lunch hosted by Ambassador Carolyn Miller, with several Australians actively involved in the UN system, and a dinner hosted by Ambassador Peter Grey, with Dr Francis Gurry, the newly elected Director-General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation—a pretty fierce fight that had been, too—and Mr Keith Rockwell, Director of the Information and External Relations Division of the WTO.

Mr Speaker, I thank you for your leadership during the delegation and also thank my colleagues for what was a very productive and informative visit.

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

I thank the honourable member for Mackellar for her comments. I wish to rectify some omissions that I made about our Swiss visit. We had a very informative briefing from Economic Swiss and the Swiss Business Federation, which is an umbrella group representing the Swiss business and industry sector. I hope that the Minister for Health and Ageing does not think that I am touting for business for CSL Behring, but we visited CSL Behring in Berne and I think that that was a really good example of an Australian based company making a real impact on the world stage especially in very important pharmaceuticals.