Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I table a report of a parliamentary adviser to Australia’s permanent mission to the United Nations in 2013. I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

It was my privilege last year to be one of two parliamentary representatives to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, and in fact it was particularly advantageous that Australia, in the years 2013 and 2014, is a member of the 15-member Security Council. This of course was a tremendous advantage given the fact that the Australian delegation was able to go into any open or closed meetings of the Security Council.

It is interesting to note that the very first president of the UN Security Council meeting, held in London in 1946, was Australian ambassador the Hon. Norman Makin AO. In 2013 Australia earned universal praise from UN member states during its presidency of the Security Council in the month of September for its leadership following the use of chemical weapons against civilians in Syria on 21 August, and it was only days, in fact, that the Security Council, in concert with the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, was able to achieve the consensus of all members of the Security Council, which led to personnel being deployed to Syria within weeks.

The report has eight appendices. It was too voluminous to present the appendices, so they will appear on a website to ensure that they are available for scrutiny.

The fact of Australia being on the Security Council was of particular significance again during the month of September. During our presidency in that time a motion of the Australian delegate ensured that the Security Council passed a resolution dedicated to the limiting of the threat of small arms and light weapons. In the appendices of my report, I speak in greater detail about that.

It is a fact that the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons is a key driver of conflict and instability around the world, including in the vast majority of the conflict situations on the council's agenda. Of course it is of significance the fact that women and children in these affected areas are so much the victims of the abuse and illicit use of small arms and light weapons.

Small arms and light weapons are intrinsically linked to terrorism, piracy and transnational crime. They impede peace building efforts and pose threats to civilians, peacekeepers, humanitarian workers and civil society organisations. I would commend people to read through what was the resolution simply because, Mr Acting Deputy President Gallacher, as you would know, of the 15 members there are five permanent members and it was very pleasing to record that while one or two of the permanent members did not oppose that motion, neither did they actually vote, so that particular motion went through and it was announced by Australia's foreign minister acting in her capacity as president of the Security Council in September last year in New York.

In terms of the General Assembly itself, it was the 68th session of the General Assembly. The General Assembly works through six committees, of which I had the pleasure and privilege of being particularly involved in two. It was an added benefit for me that our United Nations ambassador, the Hon. Gary Quinlan, was tied up in the Security Council because it did actually allow the opportunity to make some statements on Australia's behalf in the General Assembly and in its committees.

Those two committees with which I had the greatest association were the First Committee dealing with disarmament and international security, and the Second Committee dealing with economic and financial matters. Again the report and its appendices deal in some more detail with the discussions and particularly the resolutions of those committees, and I want to briefly outline some if I may.

In the First Committee those in which Australia particularly had input related to the establishment of a nuclear weapon free zone in the region of the Middle East; the implementation of the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction; the Arms Trade Treaty; assistance to states for curbing the illicit traffic in small arms and light weapons, of which I have already spoken; and a Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction. There are several more that would also be of interest.

In the Second Committee, again the attention of this committee was directed to challenges of economic growth and development, including international trade, financing for development, debt sustainability, eradicating poverty in least developed countries—LDCs—and small island developing states, and of course in developing countries themselves. I have included in my report some of the key resolutions of the Second Committee, which went to the United Nations General Assembly for approval in December 2013, and I list in my report some 12 of those key recommendations that went forward for acceptance: dealing with external debt sustainability and development and international strategy for disaster reduction; human resources development; international financial system development and commodities; the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.

And I now refer to the influence of this committee and its resolutions in the field of agriculture and its related areas: the Second United Nations Decade for the Eradication of Poverty; agricultural development, food security and nutrition; the indication of a World Soil Day in December this year and the International Year of Soils in 2015; the fact of 2014 being the Year of the Family Farmer—and I was pleased to make a contribution when the FAO announced in early December last year that this would be the International Year of the Family Farmer—aspects of sustainable agriculture technology; and a range of other areas.

I kept my Western Australian staff very, very busy during my time. I reflected and reported, again, in the report and its appendices, on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals, which had their origins in September 2000 and are due for completion by December 2015. There were eight of them, relating to: eradicating extreme poverty and hunger; universal primary education; promoting gender equality and empowering women in the world; reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV-AIDS, malaria and other diseases; ensuring environmental sustainability; and developing a global partnership.

I have presented in the report my summary of where we are, with 22 months to go in achieving them. But what was of significant interest to me was what the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 did not do. The first failure was that, regrettably, perhaps because of the speed of their implementation, there was not much consultation by the providing states with those who would be the recipients. The second failure, I believe, was the fact that the corporate sector was largely left out of the Millennium Development Goals and their achievement. The third—and it has been agreed and understood—was that there was a relative lack of focus on governance as to how we would understand the achievement of those Millennium Development Goals.

Interestingly, given the fact that agriculture is so important in the least developed countries and the developing countries of the world, and given the fact the vast majority of people in low-socioeconomic areas are engaged in agriculture, not one of the Millennium Development Goals actually addressed agriculture. I am pleased to say that the Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, is already pressing on with work beyond 2015, on the post-2015 sustainability goals, and I can assure you that each of those is front and centre.

I have attempted to present my summary of where I believe the Millennium Development Goals have achieved and where I believe they are not achieving. I thought I would draw a line in the sand for people who are interested as to where we would go. I also spent time—annoying my staff intensely—on trying to come to an understanding of the whole question of financial support and the receipt of financial support within the UN. There are 193 countries members of the UN. It is little wonder they do not achieve a lot. If you had 193 members of the one family around the Christmas table there would only be arguments. Of that 193, there are 31 developed countries, three advanced economies, 93 developing countries, 30 least developed countries and 36 small island developing states. Again, it is interesting to reflect on those countries which are donors—we are one of those—those countries which are recipients and the way forward, because we have to address the question of financial support in the future.

Question agreed to.