Michael Forshaw (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yes; thank you, Senator Mason. I say this because I was honoured to be one of the two parliamentary advisers to attend the United Nations General Assembly in New York last year. It meant I missed a fair bit of the election campaign, so the results speak for themselves, I suppose. I was over there with former Senator Rod Kemp, and I have to say that we found it an extremely valuable experience with respect to the parliamentary work that we do.

I particularly want to note that at the time that we arrived in New York for the General Assembly the issue of the role of the United Nations in peace and stability was right upfront on the agenda. It is always on the agenda, as we know, for the Security Council particularly, because hardly a week goes by where there is not some dispute—at times, violent dispute—occurring in some part of the world. When we arrived the situation of the repression in Myanmar—or Burma, as we call it—by the military junta there was front-page news. We saw the coverage of the terrible repression that was being meted out to people who were just asking for simple democratic rights.

Right through the time I was at the United Nations I spent a lot of time following the debates and discussions that went on in the General Assembly in various committees with respect to conflicts that were occurring around the world, whether it was the situation in Myanmar, the Middle East, Darfur or any number of other places in the world where sadly, tragically, civilians—in the case of Darfur, thousands of civilians—are losing their lives, being slaughtered, by repressive regimes. At times we really do despair about what the world community can do and whether the world community, as represented through the United Nations, is prepared to try to stop those massacres.

It was also the case that prior to the parliament being prorogued for the holding of the election I had been a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee that was inquiring into Australia’s involvement in peacekeeping operations. I particularly note, Mr Acting Deputy President Trood, that you were a member of that committee at the time.