Australian Ministers at COP27 in Egypt
- John Mayers
- Oct 31, 2022
- 4 min read
Writing in The Age on 7 November 2022 Nick O’Malley reported that Prime Minister Anthony Albanese would not be at the scheduled Climate Change Summit in Egypt (COP27), choosing instead to attend ASEAN, Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation and G20 meetings in Cambodia, Thailand and Bali, respectively. Instead, Pat Conroy, Minister for the Pacific will represent Australia during the first days of the talks in Egypt, along with the newly appointed climate change ambassador, Kristin Tilley.
Negotiations over new climate measures would be held during the second week of the meeting and would be attended by Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen.
Conroy said he would use the first days of the talks to meet with Pacific Island leaders to discuss plans to co-host a COP summit with them in 2026.
‘It is important to be asking them what role they think they would like to play rather than having Australia dictating to them as we have done in the past,’ he said.
‘Climate didn’t define Australia’s entire relationship with the Pacific … but it was seen as a sign of disrespect that the last government rejected taking action on climate change, which is the number one existential threat to the Pacific,’ Conroy said.
Press Conference Port Moresby, 1 Nov 2022
My visit here demonstrates the new Australian Government’s commitment to our relationship with Papua New Guinea, our closest neighbour and one of our dearest friends. This is the third visit by an Australian minister in the last eight weeks.
This is the second day of my visit, and I’ve had some very productive meetings so far, including yesterday with Foreign Minister Tkatchenko. I updated him on our budget announcements that are particularly relevant to Papua New Guinea. They include a very significant increase in investment in Overseas Development Assistance—foreign aid. The budget last week increased our ODA or foreign aid by $1.4 billion over the next four years, which is the largest increase in a decade.
It included allocating $1.9 billion this financial year to aid for Pacific nations, including Papua New Guinea. This is the largest contribution Australia has ever made to Pacific development, including $600 million to Papua New Guinea.
I also updated Minister Tkatchenko on our reforms to the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme, a scheme that is critical to filling skills shortages in Australia, increasing skills development in countries like Papua New Guinea and providing very strong income streams home. To give you an example of the power of that scheme—the average Pacific worker under the scheme sends back $15,000 a year.
I had very productive conversations about how we’re turbocharging that scheme, making it more attractive for Australian employers, increasing protections for Pacific workers, starting trials of Pacific workers being able to bring their families over for longer-term visas and starting a trial of 500 aged care workers in that scheme.
We also talked about our $32 million Indo-Pacific Broadcasting Strategy to increase the engagement of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation into the Pacific and partner with Pacific media to help develop and mentor journalists.
We talked about the Pacific engagement visa, where for the first time in the history of Australia, we will allocate 3,000 permanent migration spots annually to the Pacific for permanent migration. And I also informed Minister Tkatchenko that we would be increasing our funding for Pacific aerial maritime security surveillance by 250 per cent to crack down on illegal fishing that robs Pacific Islanders, and Papua New Guineans in particular, of one of your greatest natural resources,
This morning I visited Kwikila Village and District Hospital, where I saw community health workers and village volunteers vaccinating babies, weighing babies and toddlers, making sure that Papua New Guineans are given the best start in life. This is a partnership between the Australian Government, the Papua New Guinean Government, the central health district government and health authority and the local village that is saving lives right now.
I’m looking forward to further ministerial meetings over today and tomorrow. I’ll be launching an AFL partnership with Papua New Guinea. I’ll be launching a development film festival, and then on Thursday, I’ll be travelling up to Kokoda to take part in the commemorations for the 80th anniversary of the Kokoda campaign, a campaign that really symbolises the deep and abiding commitment between the people of Australia with the people of Papua New Guinea.
The Minister concluded his press conference by answering questions about enhancing the Pacific Labour scheme for participants from PNG, the Bougainville-PNG peace process, the development needs of PNG and border surveillance.
In concluding the Minister said there were several reasons why Australia was spending most of its overseas aid in PNG. Firstly, PNG is both the largest and closest of Australia’s Pacific neighbours and secondly, we owe both an obligation and debt to the people of PNG. We have that continuing obligation from colonial times to assist development and the bond and debt that arose from the contributions Papua New Guineans made to the defence of Australia during World War II.
The full transcript of the press conference is available at this site:
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