Duncan Kerr, SC MP, Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs reports that Australia is back in the game of comprehensive international engagement. Building relationships across the Asia-Pacific and around the globe is now core business.

Date:  20 May 2008

Nurturing Australia’s strategic interest is a prime focus of the new Labor Government but we have other priorities, particularly the advancement of the human condition at home and abroad.

As the Prime Minister said in London on April 4: “We are so bold as to believe that the betterment of humankind is not the stuff of ideal dreams, but instead is the stuff of concrete political action”

We have hit the ground running in pursuit of this noble ambition. The response amongst Pacific Island nations to our fresh approach has been overwhelmingly positive and new relationships are being forged out of mutual respect.

Respect carries a lot of weight in the Pacific. For instance, the effect of the Prime Minister’s Apology to the Stolen Generation upon the people of the Pacific was entirely unexpected. During my visits to the region in the weeks afterwards, it was raised time and again.

The personal humility with which Kevin Rudd delivered the Apology affected the people of the Pacific in a fundamental way that we might find difficult to understand. It has served to elevate his standing, and that of Australia, in the eyes of many.

It is further proof that doing the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do can have benefits far beyond what you might first expect.

And we are determined to do the right thing: Build new development partnerships, tackle climate change, address health and education crises, open Pacific economies to new opportunities and play our part in maintaining regional security.

We came to office determined to articulate an alternative framework to underpin Australia’s relationship with the Pacific and we are doing it. My appointment as Parliamentary Secretary for Pacific Island Affairs demonstrates the region is a continuing priority for Labor now that we are in Government.

The Prime Minister gave further form and content to his commitment with his recent Port Moresby Declaration and announcement of his intention to pursue Pacific Development Partnerships (PDPs).

Under the PPDs the Australian Government will be prepared to provide increased development assistance to partner nations in a spirit of mutual respect, mutual responsibility and mutual cooperation.

Each will be designed to meet the particular requirements of the partner nation. Australia and our Pacific partners will set mutually agreed outcomes, with the focus on making real progress against the Millennium Development Goals for advancements in health, education and basic infrastructure.

The MDGs were set down in 2000 and we are already at the half-way point on the time-line established for meeting them. Progress has been mixed at best. We want to deliver real results and our commitment to lift Australia’s level of development assistance funding to 0.5 per cent of Gross National Income by 2015 is a practical illustration of this.

Disease—particularly HIV/AIDS, resistant TB and malaria—destroys families and saps communities of labour, leadership and hope. If we are to have a healthy community of nations we must start with communities of healthy people.

As important as bi-lateral arrangements are, Australia’s interests in the Pacific and around the world will be maximised by working as much as possible within multi-lateral frameworks. An example is the work of the Pacific Islands Forum in seeking the restoration of democracy in Fiji by March 2009.

Australia is committed to making a bigger contribution to the further development of a robust international order that enhances security and economic well-being for all nations and all people.

The Government wants Australia to take its place around the table of the United Nations Security Council in 2013-2014. Kevin Rudd is determined to make it so.

Our commitment to the United Nations is core business because we believe in a global rules-based order. Australia is a foundation member of the UN, we played a part in drafting the UN Charter and we are the 12th largest financial contributor to the UN’s Peacekeeping Operations, with Australians serving in UN-led or UN-approved engagements including in Sudan, Sinai, Solomon Islands and East Timor.

Australia must also play a part in addressing climate change, particularly within our region. Even small rises in sea levels will result in disaster for human activity on low-lying Pacific islands. Coral reefs, whose teeming sea life provide sustenance and the backbone of economic activity for islander communities, will become moonscapes from bleaching caused by the projected rise in marine acidity.

If ocean replaces land and coral reefs die the Pacific inevitably faces mass movements of human populations, presenting clear strategic and humanitarian challenges for the entire region.

Australia is unashamedly internationalist in its outlook and is committed to working across the region and around the globe to uphold and achieve common human values and aspirations such as security, freedom, fairness and preservation of the planet.

Now, that wouldn’t be a bad day’s work.