Mark Bishop (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator Faulkner. Can the minister inform the Senate of recent developments in respect of Australia’s relations with Pacific island nations?

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can inform the Senate that the Prime Minister visited Papua New Guinea on Thursday, the 6th, and Friday, 7 March, where he met Prime Minister Somare and other senior PNG figures. Discussions were wide-ranging, covering not only relations with PNG but also regional development and the future of the Pacific. Mr Somare endorsed the Port Moresby Declaration, issued on 7 March. This begins a new era of cooperation in relations between Australia and Pacific island nations.

The Port Moresby Declaration proposes the establishment of Pacific Partnerships for Development between Australia and the Pacific island nations. These partnerships would be about mutual respect, mutual responsibility and mutual cooperation. The partnerships are designed in part to help the Pacific island nations make real progress towards the Millennium Development Goals agreed in 2000. There are eight Millennium Development Goals, which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV-AIDS and providing universal primary education.

The partnerships will also provide a framework for Australia to offer more development assistance to Pacific island nations in line with the government’s commitment to increase our development assistance budget to 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2015. To do this, they will embrace commitments by the Pacific island nations to improve governance and achieve better outcomes on health and education.

Australia wants to see real progress against poverty, in education, in health and in infrastructure, and to spur employment and economic growth. More broadly, Australia also wants to address the question of climate change, and has therefore signed, with the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, a forest carbon partnership. This establishes a framework for Australia and PNG to look at international and bilateral cooperation on forests, climate change and carbon markets.

Last week, on 9 March, the Prime Minister also visited the Solomon Islands. He met there with the Prime Minister, Dr Sikua, and other ministers in Dr Sikua’s new government. The future of the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands was discussed, and it was agreed that it continued to make a substantial contribution to stability in the Solomon Islands. Australia is committed to our partnership with the Solomon Islands through RAMSI.