Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade entitled Australia’s relationship with the Republic of Korea and developments on the Korean peninsula. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to have my tabling statement incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statement read as follows—

For over half a century Australia and the Republic of Korea have enjoyed an important and productive relationship. The RoK is the tenth largest economy in the world and the third largest in Asia. In 2005, the RoK was Australia’s third largest export market and fourth largest trading partner. Our trading relationship is complementary—Australia exports natural resources to the RoK and imports manufactured goods from the RoK.

This report reviews that trading relationship, but goes further to include issues such as cross-cultural understanding, and relations between Australian and Korean institutions, both government and non-government. The report also includes a commentary on issues concerning the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea because of their potential impact on regional trade and security.

The relationship between Australia and the RoK is strong and exists on many levels. While there appear to be no major impediments to the relationship, there are opportunities at the margins to enhance the relationship.

Government to government interactions play an important role in setting the agenda in any bilateral relationship. Reciprocal visits by Australian and RoK Government Ministers are frequent and inter-government cooperation and consultation exists at many levels.

Australia and the RoK share a number of security interests in the Asia-Pacific region and the belief that cooperation in the areas of peacekeeping, consequence management, and defence industry cooperation are key focal points. The report recommends continued defence cooperation and further exploration of defence cooperation opportunities.

Trade is the mainstay in the Australia–RoK relationship. The report reviews trade between the two countries and the challenges facing the economic relationship. Organisations such as AusTrade, and the Australia-Korea Business Council provide valuable assistance to Australian exporters. There is, however, the potential to expand the trade undertaken by the small business sector. To this end the Committee has recommended that greater support be provided to small exporters, by way of organisations such as the Overseas Korean Traders Association.

Mr President, free trade agreements are another way to increase trade. However, any FTA between Australia and the RoK should not be at the expense of Australian and Korean cultural industries. As well, agriculture issues should be resolved early in any negotiations.

The provision of educational services is an important sector in Australia’s economy. The RoK is the second most important source country for foreign students studying in Australia. This market can be developed further through improving the educational experience of visiting students. The Committee has recommended an Internet-based forum be established for Korean students returning from Australia to collect feed back on the performance of Australian educators.

Many students visiting Australia for study purposes are accompanied by a guardian from that country. This may affect the risks presented by those students when they are granted a student visa. The Committee has recommended that the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs review the risks presents by such accompanied students and incorporate the result into the overall risk assessments for Korean students.

Cultural understanding enhances Australia’s relationship with the RoK and can be strengthened further. For example, Australian businesses can gain an understanding of Korean culture by engaging local representatives in the RoK. There are also opportunities to build greater cross–cultural understanding through sporting links and cultural exchanges.

The Australia-Korea Foundation (AKF) is a key body promoting the Australia-RoK relationship. The AKF promotes exchanges and institutional links in many areas and at all levels. The Committee recognises the valuable work of the AKF and has reviewed the expertise contributed by board members. This expertise covers the areas of AKF focus and the majority of board members have direct experience working in the RoK. Nevertheless, the Committee has recommended that board membership include more members with an intimate knowledge of Korean society and culture.

The Committee received substantial evidence concerning the teaching of the Korean language and culture in Australian schools. Unfortunately, there has been a decline in Australian student interest in learning Korean. There are several reasons for this decline and the Committee presents a strategy to address this problem. Included in this strategy is the promotion of school exchange visits between Australia and the RoK. The Committee has recommended that the Department of Education, Science and Training promote such visits through direct funding, or by facilitating sponsorship from non-Commonwealth Government bodies.

There is a high level of collaboration between Australia and the RoK in science and technology research. The risk, however, is that this activity becomes piecemeal and uncoordinated. The Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training needs to take the lead in providing a strategic direction through the development of an action agenda.

The RoK occupies an important place in North Asia, situated between Japan and China, and has established itself as an economic force in the region and globally. It is important that Australia continues to maintain and grow its relationship with the RoK. I believe that this report, through its analysis and recommendations, will enhance what is already a strong relationship between the two countries.

In closing, Mr President, I would like to thank all those who provided submissions and gave evidence at the public hearings. Finally, I thank my colleagues on the Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee who undertook the inquiry on behalf of the Committee, and the secretariat.

Mr President, I commend the report to the Senate.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Marise Payne (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, I present the report of the committee entitled Australia’s response to the Indian Ocean tsunami. I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The Boxing Day 2004 tsunami has the unfortunate record as one of the worst natural disasters to occur in modern times. Equally unprecedented in scale has been the response of the international donor community to help the tsunami victims with their recovery.

Australia has been the largest per capita country contributor to tsunami aid and played a major role in the relief and reconstruction effort, particularly in Indonesia, our close neighbour, where the tsunami struck hardest.

Australia’s collective response has involved federal government departments and agencies, state agencies and non-government organisations, and a range of other individuals and volunteers who have made an extraordinary contribution. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the Australian government committed $68 million. Australian NGO partners received $12 million to provide services, supplies and support to tsunami affected countries, while $23.5 million was donated to the UN to support its activities in coordinating the relief effort. Additional funds, including the $1 billion Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development, are progressively being committed against longer term reconstruction priorities. Indeed, within months of the tsunami, Australian non-government organisations had raised a further $313 million from the wider Australian community—an unprecedented level of support from the Australian community and quite extraordinary levels of giving.

It was against the backdrop of this initial generosity and the fact that some 18 months have now elapsed since the disaster, that the committee considered it timely to convene a forum where members could meet with Australian NGOs and discuss, together with government departments and agencies, where Australians’ money is being spent and how aid agencies are continuing to deliver assistance to tsunami affected communities.

The committee hosted a public roundtable hearing at Parliament House on 12 May this year, to which it invited a range of participants, including the five main non-government organisations in Australia active in the tsunami reconstruction process—the Red Cross, Oxfam, Caritas, CARE and World Vision—and officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, AusAID, Defence and the Australian Federal Police. Other NGOs were also invited to participate in the roundtable but were simply unable to attend because of timing. We acknowledge their contribution as well.

At the roundtable, the committee gained an overview of the progress to date, learnt about current operational priorities and focused on emerging lessons that should inform ongoing responses to recovery requirements in the tsunami affected countries.

The committee, in hearing the attendees at the roundtable tell their stories, was particularly affected by the shared experiences of the agencies, in particular the perspectives of Australian Defence Force and Australian Federal Police personnel who were involved in the initial clean-up and disaster victim identification missions. The stories they told made for compelling listening and, I think, even on the Hansard make for compelling reading. Officers clearly carried out their jobs well, with compassion and dignity under quite extraordinary circumstances, and this is something that those individuals and indeed all Australians can be proud of.

Witnesses outlined some of the many reasons why the rebuilding process is necessarily progressing slowly. Ultimately, the sheer scale and complexity of the disaster must be borne in mind and the reconstruction and development phase viewed in terms of taking years, not months, to complete. It is also important that there be sufficient time for consultation with local communities and to deliver high-quality outcomes to beneficiaries. There are enormous challenges for those involved in the reconstruction—challenges with the supply of materials and labour and, in some instances, the management of corruption issues—but significant work has still been done. Much remains ahead. At the hearing, agencies described a wide range of projects on which they are working to achieve this end, from rebuilding houses, reinstalling basic services and restoring infrastructure, to health and counselling services and training villagers to help with the planning of village reconstruction and direct access assistance.

The committee would like to see greater media coverage, including more positive stories, of the reconstruction effort as it progresses. While the tsunami has moved on from being front-page news, it remains the largest international relief and reconstruction effort staged in recent times, and one to which Australia continues to contribute significant resources. AusAID gave very interesting evidence about arrangements and engagements with local media from Australia and indeed from Indonesia about their endeavours to obtain positive coverage of what is being achieved.

In an era when natural disasters appear to be increasing and the aid community finds itself being stretched to capacity—and, in some cases, perhaps beyond—the committee acknowledges that government and non-government organisations alike are finding new ways to work together and complement each other’s strengths, from engaging in joint reporting processes and civil-military cooperation to informal and formal evaluation processes. One witness at the hearing described the tsunami response as an instance where ‘Australia Inc.’ really did come through.

The committee hopes that this roundtable process contributes to and encourages public discussion of this still important topic, and showcases some of the excellent work being done by Australian agencies and non-government organisations. In closing, I want to thank all the roundtable participants and also my colleagues on the Human Rights Subcommittee, who undertook the inquiry, and the secretariat for their assistance in the process. Mr President, I commend the report to the Senate.

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support Senator Payne’s remarks about the Human Rights Subcommittee’s inquiry into and report on Australia’s response to the Indian Ocean tsunami. When we commenced the roundtable hearing in Canberra, Senator Payne opened the discussions by saying that it was actually her preferred format, and I have to say I think it was a good choice of format for achieving what we did as a committee. It allowed for a wide-ranging discussion between all of the agencies, with those of us from the political process probably trying to minimise our involvement but maximise our education, which can only be a good thing.

The effects of the Boxing Day tsunami, as has been said, meant that it was the largest natural disaster that Australia has ever been associated with. It had a huge impact on my home state of Western Australia and on our community. In fact, we felt the wave of the tsunami down our coast that day. The coming together of all of the different charitable organisations, NGOs and government agencies was a demonstration of all that is good about Australia. In fact, Australia’s response to that tsunami, that disaster that struck our near neighbours, was something that I think really highlighted the fact that we do still have a very egalitarian and compassionate attitude towards those in need.

Not only the NGOs turned up to play their role—and, as someone who has had cause to visit Banda Aceh since the tsunami, I want to place on the record my appreciation of the role that both the AFP and the Defence Force also played. The work that they did not only in assisting and supporting those communities but also in representing our nation was truly remarkable in such adverse circumstances. The accounts that I heard about the work of the defence forces in helping to get the hospital up and running, or vaguely functional, and cleaning out other things sounded like experiences that I do not think anyone would ever want to go through, and there is no training that can adequately prepare you for some of the work that they had to undertake.

My concern, a concern I shared with people during the committee process, is the need for greater public education. Yes, we went in there, and we assisted highly traumatised communities and communities in a great deal of need, but, as Senator Payne said, there is a need now for ongoing support for that rebuilding process, and that is where we need to actually educate the Australian public. We need to educate them in not only the need to give donations—and they were overwhelmingly generous following the tsunami—but also the need for compassion, patience and tolerance in the rebuilding of a highly traumatised community.

A community that loses such a significant percentage of its population loses its local decision-making capacity. A community that is traumatised to the extent that communities were in Thailand and Aceh, as the closest to Australia, are not going to be able to instantly make decisions about the way they want to rebuild and re-establish their lifestyles. Having said that, we as a government, as a community or as a parliament cannot decide that we are going to do that for them. What we need to do is support them along that road of regeneration and show them the same degree of tolerance, patience and support that we did when we initially assisted in cleaning up after the disaster. Having myself lived through a very small natural disaster up in Darwin, I know what it is like when a traumatised community tries to put itself back together and then outsiders come and try to tell you where you are going to live, what house you are going to live in and how you are going to conduct yourself. It is not something that makes for a strong community. It is not something that makes for any form of community.

We need to educate ourselves about the other kinds of support that we can provide to that community to help it recover from that disaster. That is a role that the Australian media should play. Rather than saying three months later that there are still no houses and other services, we should talk about what we can do to assist those people to work out what kind of housing they want, where they want to live and how they want their community to function. There is an important role for those of us in this place, for the other agencies and particularly for the Australian media in educating people who make contributions to these charitable collections about the need for ongoing and lasting support.

Natasha Stott Despoja (SA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade entitled Australia’s response to the Indian Ocean tsunami and on the roundtable discussion. I support the remarks made by the chair and Senator Webber. I want to specifically address, recognise and commend the efforts of all of those who contributed to the rescue and salvage effort in the aftermath of the tsunami. In particular, I draw attention to a group of Australians who participated in one of the grimmest tasks of the effort: the identification of victims.

The Australian DVI contingent, comprising Australian Federal Police and members of our state police forces, performed a gruesome task in a challenging environment in assisting with the identification of more than 5,395 bodies recovered in Thailand alone. In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, the Australian Federal Police and state and territory police forces sent a contingent of DVI staff to Phuket in Thailand to begin the task. The group included DVI specialists, family support officers, welfare officers and communication support staff under the command of Karl Kent of the AFP Forensic Field Services, who was requested by Thai authorities to take on the role of joint chief of staff coordinating the response.

The Australians joined forces with more than 600 others from 30 different countries and, of course, the Royal Thai police, under Deputy Commissioner General Nopodal Somboonsub, to form the TTVI, the Thai Tsunami Victims Identification. Last year I had the privilege of meeting with General Nopodal as well as the Australian and international DVI contingents. My special thanks to AFP Agent Bernie Young and Detective Inspector Tony Cerritelli for their assistance. I witnessed some of their vital work and experienced first-hand—albeit briefly compared to what they had to deal with—the challenging environment they endured. In addition to the stifling heat and humidity, DVI workers faced long journeys to their work sites. The DVI post-mortem sites were improvised facilities featuring rows of refrigerated containers housing bodies. They worked on what was dubbed the ‘mortuary line’—that is, examination tables set up under shade cloth with only mobile fans to battle the heat—for 12 hours each day. They were gathering victims’ clothes, jewellery and other samples for the purposes of DNA testing. The teams processed up to 180 bodies a day.

Sergent Cheryl Brown from the South Australian police force was second in charge of one of the mortuary sites. She described the difficulty of the task, saying:

The sheer scale of the catastrophe was overwhelming, and the task of identifying people was made difficult due to the heat, humidity and rapid decomposition of the bodies.

Victims’ bodies were identified using fingerprints, dental records or DNA. Samples were cross-matched with those obtained from other sources. Accessing these secondary samples required the assistance of other state and territory police in Australia. They had the critical task of approaching next of kin for DNA and other items, such as toothbrushes and hairbrushes, which would have DNA on them.

Confirming the identity of many victims proved difficult in many cases due to a lack of ante-mortem data, such as dental records. In the case of local victims, many of them had no such records whatsoever. By July last year, six months after the tsunami, 30 per cent of Thai victims had been identified. When you compare that to the German victims, you will see that 94 per cent of German victims were identified by that time. The advanced state of decomposition of many of the bodies also hampered the retrieval of samples for the purposes of identification. Tragically, the identification of the tsunami’s youngest victims also proved incredibly difficult. Many children were simply too young to even have dental or fingerprint records.

The DVI team have also had to deal with a community that has been influenced by the ‘CSI effect’—that is, the television phenomenon where investigations are quickly resolved due to quick processing of critical forensic evidence, mirroring the pace of the television shows. In reality, the collection and processing of forensic information and evidence is much less glamorous and takes much longer. Dramatic breakthroughs that crack the case are rare. In fact, in optimum conditions, a full DNA profile will take around two weeks to obtain from a tissue sample. Obviously, the DVI teams took longer. In the initial aftermath of the tsunami, some members of the media and the public struggled to comprehend these so-called delays in identification processes and in the repatriation of the victims’ bodies. But this was painstaking work requiring attention to detail and enormous patience and dedication, and it allowed no room for mistakes.

Many of the Australian DVI contingent donated their time. People took holidays in order to be a part of this process, to be a part of this extraordinary international effort. It was cooperation on a scale that I have never witnessed, and I want to pay tribute to it. It is important that we provide support to those DVI workers returning to Australia. When you imagine the conditions that they have been in and the work that they have had to do, we must ensure that they are looked after when they get home, whether it is counselling, support or services in other ways.

The remains of the last Australian victim of the tsunami were identified in August last year, but Australian DVI staff remained in Thailand until December, continuing the task of identifying more than 1,600 remains. Australians were working with other people from around the world to identify all victims, not just Australian victims. At the DVI worksite that I visited, the temporary international community erected a wall of remembrance to commemorate the tsunami’s victims. The name of each country affected by the tsunami was inscribed along a long whitewashed wall which stretched off into the distance. It said:

This wall of Remembrance represents a memorial to the victims, families and relatives whose lives were so devastated by the Asian tsunami disaster of December 26, 2004. Our heartfelt condolences are offered to all who visit this site in order to pay their respects to their loved ones.

It is a shrine for all the victims, but especially those who will not be repatriated. I know that visitors often leave wreaths and flowers at that site below their country’s name. The wall not only paid tribute to the victims of the tsunami but also to the many efforts of so many different countries that united to help their own and the Thai people in the aftermath of such a disaster. I am extremely proud of the efforts that our country contributed in the context of the international community in the aftermath of such a horrific disaster. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.