Mr TAYLOR(5.47 p.m.) —I say to the honourable member opposite, the honourable member for Maribyrnong (Mr Sercombe), that this government is not stupid. The government will be taking very objective decisions in the coming months on DIFF and EMDG. You will just have to wait and see what happens on 20 August. To recite some of the stuff you have just recited is simply to indicate there are interests in our community who do not want to stand on their own two feet. Yes, they do need some assistance, but there are other ways and means. I say to you that the government will be looking at these matters in the context of the August budget.

I rise this evening to indicate to the House that we have an international tragedy within the Commonwealth of Nations. I am sure many members on both sides of the House share the concerns I have with the sovereign state of Sri Lanka. In fact, that country, over the last 10 or 15 years, has been subjected to a horrendous civil war involving the Sinhalese majority, the Tamil minority and a smaller minority group of Muslims. People are being killed and very large injustices are being imposed on that community. I think it is incumbent on Australians, bearing in mind that we have a very large Sri Lankan community in Australia, to take more than a casual interest in the needs of that sovereign state.

The former Foreign Minister, the honourable member for Holt (Mr Gareth Evans), whilst he was very happy to stand in the General Assembly in New York, was less committed to looking after the interests of some of these countries because the profile just was not there. I am delighted that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Andrew Thomson) is at the table because I think it is also incumbent on us as a government to do something about it. I think we can do something about it as, I would hope, an influential country within the Commonwealth of Nations. I say to the parliamentary secretary that I hope our Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Downer) will look at ways and means in which we can assist.

I know we are dealing with another sovereign state. I know we are dealing with another government. If people were wanting to meddle in our internal affairs, they would have some reservations about that. However, I think there is something we can do with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and at the parliamentary level in conjunction with diplomatic overtures that I hope will continue to be made in relation to Sri Lanka.

Over the last 10 years something like half a million people have been killed or displaced and there have been lots of injustices on both sides of that conflict in Sri Lanka. I hope we can do something about it, that we can get things under way to assist. I am sure I am not the only member on either side of the House who has been pressured by the groups representing Sri Lanka here in Australia, be they Sinhalese or Tamil, to do something about it. I do not intend, and I am sure our government does not intend, to take sides in what is an internal dispute. At the same time, we can do something to reintroduce a very large dose of democracy into a country which is staggering and suffering under horrendous conflict.