Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I think it is also important to note that Australia regularly raises human rights matters with the Saudi government. We've raised them with Saudi ministers through our embassy in Riyadh and to Saudi Arabian diplomats here in Canberra. Minister Bishop raised the issue of women's rights and activists in a meeting—I think a matter to which Senator Whish-Wilson referred—with her Saudi counterpart, the foreign minister Al-Jubeir, in their meeting at the G20 in Argentina just recently. We are very strongly committed to working with the international community to advance those human rights across the world. That is one of the reasons why we worked so hard to become a member of the Human Rights Council: to work with a range of countries to end violence—for example, against women and girls—to support their economic empowerment—and those sorts of concerns that Senator Whish-Wilson has raised.