David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the first meeting of the United Nations Parliamentary Association, a new parliamentary group designed to deepen and extend the relationship between this parliament and the United Nations. The chair of this new body is Ms Melissa Parke, the member for Fremantle, and the deputy chair is our colleague Senator Trood. I for my sins have assumed the duties of secretary.

We were very pleased and honoured that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon. Stephen Smith MP, came to our inaugural meeting yesterday and there addressed us on the importance of Australia’s relationship with the UN. The minister pointed out that Australia was a founding member of the UN and has always played an active role in the organisation. He particularly highlighted the role of Dr HV Evatt, Minister for External Affairs in the Curtin and Chifley Labor governments from 1941 to 1949. It is well known that Dr Evatt was one of the most outspoken advocates of the rights of small and medium sized countries at the UN founding conference in San Francisco and was President of the UN General Assembly in 1948-49. I recall that Doc Evatt, as he was known, used to boast that he had been president of the world! It is less well known that he was responsible for article 56 of the United Nations Charter, which pledges the UN to work for:

… higher standards of living, full employment and conditions of economic and social progress and development …

In recognition of Evatt’s contribution this became known as the ‘Australian pledge’—a matter of great pride, I am sure, to all of us.

Australia’s commitment to the UN was continued by successive governments, and Australia responded to UN calls for our troops in conflicts from the Korean War to the Gulf War of 1991. It is sad to note that, during the term of Mr Downer as foreign minister, that commitment declined as the Howard government fell under the influence of the UN-scepticism then championed by what is known as the ‘neocon’ faction in the Bush administration in Washington. This culminated in Australia’s support for the US-led invasion of Iraq—and, of course, the rest is history. We also saw scepticism about the value of the UN and our commitment to multilateral arrangements generally, with the refusal to sign the Kyoto protocol on climate change.

Under the Rudd government, however, we are seeing a revival of Australia’s commitment to the UN and a return, I might say, to our historical normalcy with respect to the United Nations. Even before he became Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd outlined what he saw as the three pillars of Australia’s foreign policy under a Labor government. These were the US alliance, engagement with the countries of our own region and support for international law and the UN system. Since the election of the Rudd government, Australia has moved to strengthen all three of these elements. One of Mr Rudd’s first acts of government was to travel to Bali to sign the instrument of ratification of the Kyoto protocol. This enabled Australia to become actively engaged in what was then the next round of international climate change negotiations. Last September Mr Rudd and Mr Smith attended the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly. This year Australia will assume the chairmanship of the donor support group of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Australia is also seeking a seat on the UN Security Council for the period 2013-14. These acts all send a signal to the world that Australia is resuming its rightful role as an active participant in the UN system and seeking to again affirm its commitment to multilateral arrangements.

Australia’s commitment to the UN has been financial as well as symbolic. In last year’s budget the government announced an additional $200 million over four years in dedicated funding to UN agencies, such as UNICEF and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. On International Women’s Day this year, Mr Smith joined with the Hon. Tanya Plibersek, Minister for the Status of Women, to commit over $17 million from this additional funding to UNIFEM to address issues of gender inequality.

At our inaugural meeting yesterday, Mr Smith announced a further allocation of $68 million over four years with which to support the work of the United Nations Development Program, the UNDP, to help tackle poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Australia is now working closely with the UNDP in the Asia-Pacific region, promoting democratic governance, human rights and crisis prevention. This work will become increasingly important as the global financial crisis affects the prosperity and stability of some states in our region, particularly the smaller and economically weaker island states. I note here the present inquiry being undertaken by the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.

While I am enthusiastic about the work of the United Nations Parliamentary Association, and while I fully support the Rudd government’s policy of renewed participation in and engagement with the UN system, that does not mean that all of us in the parliamentary group believe the UN is perfect. The forum is one for debate and consideration about the future of the UN and future directions for multilateralism. The UN is far from perfect; it is a human institution. I believe that Australia should continue to play an active role in the movement to reform some aspects of the UN’s functions and operations. I was therefore very pleased to hear Mr Smith restate Australia’s commitment to improving the effectiveness, efficiency and accountability of UN operations, and to hear him say that we are actively supporting the new Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, in his structural reform efforts.

I want to conclude tonight by mentioning the second UN World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, commonly known as Durban II, due to be held in April, in Geneva. This conference is supposed to further the UN’s agenda of combating racism and supporting human rights, as did the original Durban conference in 2001. Unfortunately, as currently structured, the conference is highly unlikely to make any worthwhile contribution to these worthwhile objectives. A conference on human rights whose organising committee includes Cuba, Iran and Libya strikes me, as it does many other supporters of the UN, as bizarre and perhaps even offensive. These are three of the most oppressive regimes in the world. Australia and the other Western democracies no doubt have many failings too, but we do not need to be lectured on them by characters such as the Castro brothers, Colonel Gaddafi or President Ahmadinejad of Iran.

Despite the hopes that Durban II would be a better and more useful forum than Durban I, sadly all the signs point to the fact that it will be yet another pointless, expensive festival of anti-Western and particularly Israel-bashing rhetoric from a range of governments whose own human rights records are often very inferior to those of the US, Israel or Australia. It will also provide another platform for some extreme governments to call for restrictions on freedom of speech and freedom of religion in other countries, under the banner of ‘opposing hatred of Islam’. This is why President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have decided that the US will not be participating in Durban II. The US delegation at the conference’s preparatory talks has reported that ‘the anti-Israel and anti-Western tendencies were too deeply entrenched to excise’, and that the planned outcome document had ‘gone from bad to worse’, and was ‘not salvageable’. The State Department concluded:

A conference based on this text would be a missed opportunity to speak clearly about the persistent problem of racism.

Israel, Canada and Italy will also not be attending the conference, and the UK, France, the Netherlands and Denmark are presently considering withdrawing.

I believe that Australia should give very serious consideration to what interests we would be serving by dignifying this conference with our presence. So I was pleased to hear that, in question time today, the Foreign Minister said that Australia will only participate if there is a marked improvement in the draft document. Mr Smith said:

If we form the view that the text is going to lead to nothing more than an anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic harangue and anti-Jewish propaganda exercise, then Australia will not be in attendance.

I would be very surprised if such an improvement in the draft document were able to come about. That, of course, is a great pity, and it shows that the process of UN reform still has a long way to go. I look forward to Australia playing a leading role in that process, and I look forward to debating these important issues in a useful way in our parliamentary association.