Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to Kiribati and the Kingdom of Tonga from 25 June to 2 July 2017, and I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with the report.

Leave granted.

As I said, this was a delegation to the island of Kiribati and the Kingdom of Tonga on 25 June to 2 July 2017. The leader of the delegation was Senator Ian Macdonald. The rest of the delegation consisted of Mr Milton Dick MP, the member for Oxley; me; Senator John Williams, the senator for New South Wales; and our delegation secretary, Gerry McNally, whom I would like to thank on behalf of the committee for all his hard work in ensuring that we got to places on time and that we were organised with papers et cetera.

This was a trip to one of the most remote islands in the world, Kiribati. The report that I have tabled will outline the key activities and observations of the delegation's visit to Kiribati and our visit to the Kingdom of Tonga, which was a few days after we went to Kiribati. We looked at many things such as stronger partnerships on economic growth and security in the region and stronger relationships between people.

The program was intended to look at how we could assist and what we are doing to assist some of our closest neighbours. We had meetings with fisheries in Kiribati. We discussed marine security and training, tourism, culture and health. We attended family violence centres, where Australian NGOs were working. It was interesting to see the work that Australian volunteers do in these places, which is absolutely crucial to these nations. It was wonderful to see the volunteers contributing on the ground. We had one-on-one meetings in Tonga with some of our Australian aid workers, who told us about the wonderful projects there and how Australian foreign aid is assisting the nation to build itself to ensure that it becomes economically viable.

It was also interesting to notice the connections that many people in Kiribati and in Tonga have to Australia through relatives, people-to-people contacts and the different agencies. One of the things that were highlighted in this delegation trip was the absolute necessity of the work that we do. We also saw how climate change is having a real effect there. It is affecting Kiribati today, as we speak, with rising seas. They've had to build seawalls. After a few years, those seawalls are gone and they have to build more seawalls. It was interesting to see that people were already being evacuated from Kiribati to Fiji because of climate change. One of the things that I took away from this delegation was the absolute necessity of Australian foreign aid to some of our closest neighbours. If we want a stable region, this aid is very important and should continue.