David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

As is custom and practice for us under other international legal instruments, Australia will comply with its reporting obligations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions without the need for these obligations to be set out in legislation. The obligations contained in paragraph 8 of articles 3 and 7 of the convention do not require legislative implementation and will be implemented through administrative means.

The bill contains the legislative measures necessary to ensure consistency between Australian law and the convention and is a necessary step before Australia can ratify the convention, but the bill forms one part of the measures necessary for Australia to implement its obligations under this convention. These provisions contain requirements aimed at promoting transparency on states parties implementation of the convention. Paragraph 8 of article 3 requires states parties to submit annual reports regarding cluster munitions that they have acquired or retained for the permitted purposes set out in paragraph 6 of that article—namely, the development of and training in detection, clearance or destruction techniques for the destruction of cluster munitions or for the development of cluster munitions countermeasures. This paragraph also requires states parties to report annually on any cluster munitions that have been transferred to another state party for the permitted purposes under paragraph 6 or for the purpose of destruction. Article 7 of the convention contains further reporting requirements. This article requires states parties to submit annual reports on their implementation of the convention. And, in addition to complying with the reported obligations under the convention, the government will in each annual transparency report reaffirm its commitment to not allow foreign stockpiles of cluster munitions in Australia.