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

I thank Senator Scarr for his question. Given that the impacts of COVID-19 in our region is so significant, our strong focus is on recovery. Partnerships for Recovery is targeted to health security, to stability and to economic recovery—the issues that our Pacific neighbours identify as their priorities—while protecting the most vulnerable, including women and girls, and people with disabilities. Partnerships for Recovery frames our response, drawing on all of our national assets to support development: diplomatic, economic and security.

I think our Pacific labour mobility programs are a good example of the shift that we have undertaken, where we've made immigration and quarantine and development policies all work together to keep this vital program going and to keep remittances flowing to the Pacific, as well as supporting the labour needs of regional and rural Australia.

In practical terms, our immediate response to COVID-19 involved a very substantial pivot of funds within our development program to respond to the most pressing needs of our region. We immediately rolled out our Indo-Pacific response and recovery package. That included the distribution of PPE, critical medical services and also the establishment of the Pacific humanitarian corridor to keep essential services flowing—to ensure essential services, essential goods and essential people were able to move around the key areas of the Pacific. This package was our first step, and overall we directed in 2019-20 over 400 of approximately 1,000 development investments to direct COVID-19 support—a huge task, and I want to commend the highly professional DFAT teams at posts and here in Australia on their efforts in what was a very significant undertaking to urgently address COVID-19.