Australia, 2010

This great body has been

in existence for two thirds of a century — three times

longer than its predecessor body, the League of

Nations, and longer than previous attempts to fashion a

continuing collective approach to the common

problems of nation States. The question we must ask

ourselves today is whether the United Nations remains

effective in confronting the challenges of our time.

The United Nations was established in the grim

aftermath of the two deadliest conflicts in human

history, in which close to 80 million people were killed

and entire families and almost entire generations lost

for all time. The world came together out of necessity.

There had to be a better way, and in the decades since

we first met at San Francisco, we have managed to

avoid another world war, although at times that seemed

less than certain.

Today, we are faced with a different set of

challenges and in different strategic, political and

economic circumstances. We now live in a world that is

more multipolar and more interconnected than ever

before. We are confronted with the double-edged sword

of globalization. The transformation of the global

economy has increased living standards and lifted

many hundreds of millions out of poverty.

At the same time, the increased interdependence

of global financial markets ensured that no country

connected to the world economy was spared the impact

of the global financial crisis. Furthermore, the rapid

transformation of global communications and the

radical increase in global people movements have

improved the well-being of all humankind. But equally,

they have created or at least amplified a new set of

security threats to all humankind: pandemic diseases,

transnational organized crime and the continuing threat

of global terrorism. There is also the global challenge

of climate change. The unconstrained carbon emissions

of one State impact on the long-term survival of all

States. Climate change respects no national or

geographic boundaries and thus simultaneously

demands both national and integrated global responses.

So two thirds of a century after our formation, we

the United Nations now face increasingly complex

global challenges in an increasingly fragmented world

and a much more contested international space. These

new global realities create an imperative for

responsive, representative and, most critically,

effective systems of global governance.

If we fail to make the United Nations work and to

make its institutions relevant to the great challenges we

all now face, the uncomfortable fact is that the United

Nations will become a hollow shell. Nation States may

retain its form, but will increasingly seek to go around

it and deploy other mechanisms to achieve real results.

And that is the question we all face today. It is a

question of our collective political will to make the

existing institutions work and combine the existing and

unique legitimacy of the United Nations system with a

new-found effectiveness on security, development and

climate change.

The United Nations has most of the essential

structures in place, but if the structures are to work we

must harness the political will necessary to make them

work. In other words, we must enable the institutions

we have created to do the job for which they were

created. Put even more starkly, we must do that which

we say. If we have a Conference on Disarmament, it

should do disarmament — not pretend. If we have a

convention on climate change, it must do the job to

tackle climate change — not just talk about it, and

similarly with development. Otherwise, the credibility

of the United Nations in the eyes of the world and our

own citizens will eventually collapse. The international

community can no longer tolerate the actions of a few

dissenting States to roadblock the common resolve of

the many.

The international community faces the continuing

challenge of international terrorism. Terrorism knows

no geographic or political boundaries. We are now in

the tenth year since terrorists launched their murderous

attack on this great city of New York. The threat of

international terrorism remains alive. It continues to

challenge civilized norms, to generate fear and

insecurity, and to take innocent civilian lives in many

parts of the world.

41 10-55103

The outlawing of terrorist organizations under the

provisions of the relevant Security Council resolutions,

together with the individual and cooperative measures

taken by Member States, reflect the unprecedented

levels of international collaboration in responding to

the worldwide threat of terrorism.

As part of the effort to combat terrorism, many

Member States have their armed forces and other

personnel committed to Afghanistan, again sanctioned

by Security Council resolutions. These brave soldiers,

police officers and aid workers, representing so many

of the countries represented here in the General

Assembly, including Australia, remain in Afghanistan

following many years of conflict.

The result is that Afghanistan no longer

represents an unimpeded base for the global operations

of terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaida. The result

is also that we are all contributing to the security and

stability of Afghanistan as a nation. This has been a

difficult war, but our collective resolve is strong

enough to prevent Afghanistan from once again

becoming a base for the export of terrorism.

Beyond Afghanistan, terrorism continues to

remain a threat to people of all faiths and civilizations.

We must remain nationally and internationally vigilant

against the possibility of further terrorist attacks. The

threat remains real.

We must equally be concerned about the

continued challenge of nuclear proliferation. Violations

of the non-proliferation regime by States such as the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Iran

represent a potent and potential threat to us all. It is for

this reason that Australia provides robust support to the

United Nations sanctions regime against both the

Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and Iran.

The United Nations has played a critical role in

promoting the goal of a world without nuclear

weapons. Non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament

are mutually reinforcing processes and cannot be

separated.

Australia’s activism on arms control and

disarmament remains undiminished. And there remains

much urgent work to be done. In 1996, Australia

sponsored the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty

in this Assembly to ensure its adoption. Since then,

182 States have signed the Treaty and 153 have ratified

it. Nine more States are needed to ratify in order for the

Treaty to enter into force. Australia welcomes recent

statements by Indonesia and the United States

concerning their intention to ratify the Treaty, and we

would urge all States that to date have failed to indicate

their intention to ratify the Treaty to do so in order to

enable it to enter into force.

The most recent Treaty on the Non-proliferation

of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) Review Conference was

held earlier this year. Australia and Japan worked

closely together in the lead-up to the Conference,

including through the jointly sponsored report of the

International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation

and Disarmament (ICNND), prepared by the former

Foreign Minister of Australia, Gareth Evans, and his

Japanese counterpart, Yoriko Kawaguchi. This

significant report provided substantial momentum in

the lead-up to the Review Conference. We believe that

the Evans-Kawaguchi report of the ICNND also

represents the most comprehensive, practical and

contemporary blueprint for the international

community to both consider and adopt a

comprehensive arms control and non-proliferation

agenda.

The Review Conference agreed by consensus on

64 sets of actions. And Australia and Japan took the

initiative this week in New York to jointly host a cross-

regional meeting of Foreign Ministers, with the aim of

working towards the implementation of those 64

actions. The potential catastrophe of nuclear conflict

means that the status quo is not an option. We must

move ahead with the negotiation of a fissile material

cut-off treaty, and we must ensure that the United

Nations disarmament machinery is doing its job.

On the wider question of security, the Australian

Government, under Prime Minister Gillard, warmly

welcomes the statement to this Assembly by the

President of the United States concerning his efforts to

achieve a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace in

the Middle East (see ). Australia’s position

remains constant: such a settlement must allow both

Israel and a future Palestinian State to live side by side

in peace and security. Australia calls on all parties to

put their shoulders to the wheel, to seize the historic

opportunity that now presents itself to bring about a

lasting peace. All States members of the General

Assembly should welcome the prospect of both an

Israeli and a Palestinian State being represented at the

sixty-sixth session of the Assembly, to be held next

year.

10-55103 42

Over the past several years, Australia has

promoted the concept of an Asia-Pacific community

involving the active membership in the future

architecture of our region of both the United States and

the Russian Federation. Australia therefore welcomes

the imminent membership of the United States and

Russia in the East Asia Summit. The East Asia Summit

leaders will take this historic decision in Hanoi in

October. Australia, as a founding member of the East

Asia Summit, looks forward to contributing to the

evolution of this wider sense of community across this,

the most dynamic region of the world.

On questions of wider human security, Australia

remains fully engaged on international and regional

challenges, including irregular movements of people,

organized crime and people-smuggling.

The most immediate and pressing threat to the

physical security of Australia’s wider region lies in the

scourge of natural disasters. The Asia-Pacific region

has seen tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes and floods

on a massive scale. Australia proposes that the

international community consider afresh our capacity

to respond rapidly, coherently and proportionately to

large-scale natural disasters.

Within our own region, Australia argues that this

would also represent an effective benefit to the peoples

and countries of our region, which are particularly

prone to natural disasters. It would also in time

constitute a valuable confidence- and security-building

measure among the armed forces, emergency services

and security agencies of the various nation-States of

the Asia Pacific. The magnitude of what I witnessed

last week when I was in Pakistan underlines the

importance of better planning, preparation and

coordination to deal with natural disasters on a mass

scale. We cannot afford simply to wait for another such

disaster to occur before realizing that the resources of

the United Nations and its agencies are simply

incapable of meeting challenges of such an order of

magnitude.

The challenges to global economic stability

remain significant. The full impact of the global

financial crisis is not yet clear. There are still systemic

problems within the global financial system. These

must be dealt with through the appropriate national and

international institutions if we are to remove the

underlying causes of the crisis that began in the United

States in September 2008 and then proceeded to ravage

the economies and the working people of the world.

Beyond the specific reforms necessary in the

global financial system, the parallel problem of global

financial imbalances must also be addressed. These

have formed part of the Group of 20 (G-20) agenda, in

which Australia is active. The objectives of the

Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced

Growth agreed to by the G-20 States at their Pittsburgh

summit in September 2009 remain essential and must

be implemented if we are to act on the causes of the

recent crisis.

Last December, the nations of the world

assembled in Copenhagen for the Conference of the

Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention

on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Australia was an

active participant at Copenhagen. Together with a

number of other States, Australia worked tirelessly to

produce the Copenhagen Accord. The Accord did not

represent all that the international community needed

then in order to bring about a comprehensive response

to the continuing challenge of climate change. It did,

however, represented four significant advances.

For the first time, the Accord entrenched 2°C or

less as the limit beyond which global temperatures

could not be allowed to rise in order to avoid

irretrievable climate change for the planet.

For the first time, both developed and developing

countries accepted that they had responsibilities to

bring about this outcome.

For the first time, developed and developing

countries agreed to develop a framework for the

measurement, reporting and verification of mitigation

actions.

And for the first time, developed countries

committed themselves to mobilizing an amount

approaching $30 billion in international public

financing for immediate action in developing countries

to 2012, and to work towards a goal of mobilizing

$100 billion annually by 2020 in funding from all

sources.

Much, however, remains to be done. Australia

believes the international community must urgently

address the particular climate-change adaptation needs

of the world’s most vulnerable States, in particular the

island countries of the Pacific, the Caribbean and the

Indian Ocean.

43 10-55103

One significant area of progress in the period

ahead lies in the proper protection, preservation and

reforestation of the world’s rainforests. Collectively,

rainforest degradation and deforestation in developing

countries represents about one fifth of global

greenhouse gas emissions. Australia stands ready to act

with other States, including Norway, to build on the

work already done, in order to achieve an effective

outcome in this area as rapidly as possible. The

international community needs to see an early sign of

real success in our international efforts to combat

climate change. We believe that action on rainforests,

through what is called the REDD-plus set of

initiatives — on reducing emissions from deforestation

and forest degradation in developing countries —

represents one such area of possible early advance.

Australia is now active on both the Secretary-

General’s High-level Panels, on global sustainability

and on climate change finance. This, added to our

continued participation in the UNFCCC, means that

Australia will continue to be among the most globally

active States in global forums for bringing about a

comprehensive and effective global response to climate

change. In doing so, the Governments of the world will

have to closely consider new growth models that

incorporate both the concept and the reality of lower-

carbon economies.

For the economies of the world, this

transformation — which some have called the next

industrial revolution — also represents an

unprecedented opportunity for investment and

employment as the global economy embraces new

efficiency measures and new renewable energy

strategies. The international community needs to

embrace a new way of looking at climate change,

which sees action on climate change providing new

industries, new investment and new job opportunities

for the future.

All Governments represented in the Assembly

participated in the High-level Plenary Meeting on the

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Australia

fully embraces the MDG framework.

This week, in New York, we said that our aid

programme has doubled over the last five years and is

projected to double again by 2015. Over time, more of

our aid will go to the least developed countries, and we

will continue to give high priority to assisting the

world’s small island States, particularly our Pacific

neighbours, in recognition of their special needs.

We expect to invest some $5 billion in education

by 2015, including support for universal primary

education. Australia also expects to invest at least

$1.6 billion in women’s and children’s health up to

2015.

Australia applauds the initiative to create a new

institution entitled UN Women, under the capable

leadership of the new Under-Secretary-General,

Michelle Bachelet, former President of Chile. Australia

looks forward to working with UN Women on the vast

array of challenges which half of humanity faces and

for which our existing international frameworks have

been found wanting. The education of women and girls

and the security of women and girls from violence and

sexual abuse and exploitation must now become a core

part of our global campaign for a fairer world.

Human rights abuses and humanitarian crises in

failing States continue to plague us. We must enhance

the negotiations on the responsibility to protect and

support the mandate of the International Criminal

Court. We must also continue to speak out against

flagrant abuses.

Often it is the indigenous peoples of the world

who suffer most. I am proud of Australia’s apology to

our own indigenous peoples and our policy of closing

the gap between indigenous and non-indigenous

Australians. I am also proud of Australia’s support for

the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Australia is making a major effort in the treatment of

our indigenous peoples, although we still have a long

way to go.

Australia is a founding Member of the United

Nations. We have been active in this institution for the

last 65 years.

We are also a candidate for the Security Council

for the 2013-2014 term. Australia has contributed

65,000 of our number to 52 different peacekeeping

missions across the world. We remain active in several

such peace operations today, including in Cyprus,

Sudan, Timor-Leste and Afghanistan.

Over the years, Australia has a led a number of

significant United Nations initiatives, including the

Cambodia peace settlement and the conclusion of the

Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty and the Chemical

Weapons Convention, as well as leading the force that

10-55103 44

stabilized Timor-Leste after its people voted for

independence.

Australia remains intimately engaged in all the

funds, programmes and specialized agencies of the

United Nations. We are also active in other

international institutions, including the

Commonwealth.

Australia is the twelfth largest source of funding

for the United Nations budget. Australia pays in full

and on time. We always seek to do that which we say

we will do.

Australia wants to be part of the solution to the

many challenges that the international community now

faces, not just point to the problems. Australia believes

in the power of creative ideas and active diplomacy to

solve long-standing international problems. Australia

values good international citizenship. It is for these

reasons that Australia has been committed to the

United Nations since the very beginning.

The United Nations is inevitably imperfect. As

the Organization’s second Secretary-General — the

great Swede, Dag Hammarskjöld — famously said,

“The United Nations was not created in order to bring

us to heaven, but in order to save us from hell”.

Our responsibility today is to fulfil the vision that

our forebears had for this great institution 65 years

ago. Our responsibility is to make the United Nations

fulfil its mission — to make the United Nations work

through the combined political will of all Member

States.