Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to Malaysia and Sri Lanka, which took place from 5 December to 14 December 2011, and seek leave to move a motion to take note of the document.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I want to make a few brief remarks about the delegation visit. The parliamentary delegation visited both Malaysia and Sri Lanka immediately following the rise of parliament in December last year, and that visit essentially reaffirmed already strong ties with both of those countries. We share with Malaysia and Sri Lanka membership in the Commonwealth and similar bicameral systems based on the Westminster system. We also ongoing frank and constructive dialogues with both of those countries through parliamentary exchanges and visits such as the visit that we undertook in December. It would be remiss of me not to note that we were very warmly received in each of those countries and had significant and impressive access to senior decision makers, local officials and community representatives during that couple of weeks. I would like to note that both parliaments were incredibly generous with their time and hospitality and were very welcoming of the opportunity to have very open dialogue with them.

I record my appreciation for a number of people who made this visit as worthwhile as it was. For the Malaysia leg of the delegation I would like to extend the thanks of the delegation to the speaker and members of the Malaysian parliament for hosting the delegation. So many of them spent most of their time with us while we were in country. I would also like to thank those who met the delegation in Malaysia, including United Nations officials, the leadership team from the Monash University site where we have a partnership arrangement, a number of journalists, ASEAN and Australia/New Zealand dialogue participants and also members of the Australian Defence Force who were based there. We had a very interesting tour and visit of the site. The Australian High Commission in KL was fantastic, particularly the high commissioner, Miles Kupa; the deputy high commissioner, Jane Duke; Arthur Spyrou; Anthea Lawrence; and Clare Derrington. It would be remiss of me not to recognise DFAT, who provided us with very comprehensive briefings before our departure.

In Sri Lanka there are also a number of people I want to recognise. Our visit in Sri Lanka was very extensive; it is the first time that Australia has visited Sri Lanka in some time, so it was an opportunity for many in the Sri Lankan government, along with many in the Tamil movement, to have a very open and direct dialogue with us. So I would like to recognise the speaker and members of the Sri Lankan parliament who hosted us during our time, particularly in the south; the Secretary General of Parliament, Dhammika Dasayanake; and parliamentary officers. His Excellency Admiral Samarasinghe has been extraordinarily generous in his time and hospitality. He actually flew to Sri Lanka to meet us there and assist us in some of our meetings that took place there, so I thank the admiral for that.

We also met with a number involved in the Tamil community in Jaffna and Kilinochchi, which is a district in northern Sri Lanka. In particular I would like to recognise a number of those government ministers, representatives of political parties, government officials, security force personnel and community representatives whom we met. They are all in this document. We met quite a large number of them. But I would also like to recognise the Australian High Commission in Colombo and in particular would like to applaud the contribution that the former high commissioner, Kathy Klugman, made to our diplomatic mission there. She subsequently came back to Australia shortly after our visit. I hope it did not reflect on our visit to Sri Lanka that her term finished expeditiously; I think she returned in the next week or so. She has been sensational in, firstly, advancing our interests there and certainly in keeping dialogue open in terms of our views on the ground.

We had an extraordinarily interesting visit to our aid development programs that we fund up in Jaffna and Kilinochchi. We observed where much of our AusAID money is directed, including in land mine clearing exercises and programs. In consideration of the time I am only mentioning a couple things here. We also looked at housing projects which we fund and which I have to say were so impressive that I thought they should be used as a prototype for other programs because of the way they were deployed to ensure value for money. I suggest that others look at those programs.

Clearly, given that we were the first delegation to visit Sri Lanka in some time, the issue of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, which was appointed as a commission of inquiry by President Rajapaksa, was discussed at some length by all parties. It was something that came up in all dialogues and I would like to note that this was an inquiry commissioned by the Sri Lankan government itself to investigate the facts and circumstances which led to the failure of the ceasefire agreement that was made operational on 27 February 2002, the lessons that should be learnt from those events and the institutional, administrative and legislative measures which needed to be taken in order to prevent any recurrence of such concerns in the future.

In closing, I refer to a statement by the former foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, in response to the commissioning of this inquiry. I think this statement reflects what we all hope for. The statement noted:

The Australian Government has consistently urged Sri Lanka to investigate all allegations of crimes committed by both sides to the conflict, including those raised in the UN Secretary-General's Panel of Experts report.

Mr Rudd also expressed concerns that the report had comprehensively addressed such allegations. But, in making those observations, he did also note that we all look forward to the demilitarisation of the northern areas of Sri Lanka and that we should and do help all governance processes, so that we can help and encourage the bringing back of civic administration and management of the region so that the military can withdraw. It was a very, very interesting visit, and the report is one that I commend to the Senate.

Question agreed to.