Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My constituency question is to the Prime Minister. As you are aware, Prime Minister, in my electorate of Reid, I have a large Australian-Turkish community. Gunes Gungor, from the Australian Turkish Advocacy Alliance, has asked if you could please outline the government's objectives for the G20 meeting in Turkey and how our bilateral ties with Turkey will be strengthened as a result?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my left! A number have been warned!

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just as Australia is the most successful multicultural society in the world, there is no electorate represented this House that is more multicultural than the electorate of Reid.

Opposition members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members on my left!

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The honourable member for Reid represents a diverse range of Australians from many different faiths and many different cultural backgrounds. He does not just talk about multiculturalism, he lives it. He absolutely lives it. He is the Chairman of the Parliamentary Friends of Turkey and, of course, right in the heart of his electorate is the magnificent Auburn Gallipoli mosque, the biggest mosque in Australia. It reflects, of course, the shared heritage between Australia and Turkey, because both our countries' foundation stories were written on the Gallipoli Peninsula. It is a remarkable thing: two or three nations—if you include New Zealand, three nations—had their national stories founded at Gallipoli and that is why the bonds of friendship, despite the horror of the war, are so strong between Australia and Turkey. The honourable member, just on Monday, spoke in this place to commemorate the passing of the great Turkish leader, the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

The G20 is the pre-eminent forum for global economic cooperation and Australia, as the most recent G20 host, has been pivotal in focusing the G20 on the goal of maintaining strong, sustainable and balanced growth, and on job creation. We need to maintain the G20's attention on promoting future global growth through innovation, through structural reform and through infrastructure, rather than simply looking backwards at the global financial crisis, which of course was, naturally, such a focus some years ago. I will be working at the G20 with other leaders, including President Erdogan, our host, the President of Turkey, to open up global trade, to see better financial regulation, to deal with base erosion of profit-shifting more consistently, and to promote more infrastructure investment.

Honourable members should remember that the infrastructure hub for the G20 is located in Australia, in Sydney. Above all, we will be working to harness the global economic opportunities given to us for innovation superpowered by the internet and technology. Every nation is talking about innovation. Every nation is focused on technology—regrettably, the opposition show no interest in that at all.