Chris Crewther (Dunkley, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As Chair of the Foreign Affairs and Aid Sub-Committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, I rise today to speak about aid. This area is of great interest to me. Free trade, aid and open investment are keys to an international perspective that is relevant to today's political climate. With increased mobility, an interconnected world is inevitable, so it is natural that unrest and political interest should reach beyond international borders.

Australia's involvement overseas occurs in many forms, with children's education, creating job opportunities and making people's lives safer amongst many other important missions. Key to this is sustainable aid. We should be promoting and assuring this as a government. This includes, for example, not giving mosquito nets from China to a community where there is a local mosquito net manufacturer and where you put the local person out of business. It includes working to ensure development, particularly in our region, is sustainable.

As the Chair of the Foreign Affairs and Aid Sub-Committee, I was very pleased to recently launch an inquiry into establishing modern-day slavery legislation in Australia. The appalling practice of modern slavery is a scourge that, regrettably, continues to affect millions of people around the world, including in Australia. I look forward to talking about this further and to tackling this issue as part of the subcommittee.