Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to the 123rd Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, and meetings with international organisations in Paris, France. I seek leave to make some very brief remarks in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

The delegation was part of the IPU's biannual assembly. It is very interesting that the IPU is often referred to as the parliaments' equivalent of the UN. Many nations meet biannually at that organisation.

Also of interest for members of the parliament who may be interested in taking part in a delegation or in reading this report, we visited the International Energy Agency, which was established in 1974, following the oil crisis of that year, and continues to do good work. We visited the French senate. It was very interesting to see how other parliaments work. We had a very interesting meeting with the Organisation for Economic and Development, otherwise known as the OECD, and another very interesting visit to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, otherwise known as UNESCO. So there is a lot of material in this report that may be of interest to other members of parliament. I thank the House.