Mr DOWNER (Minister for Foreign Affairs) (11:18 AM) —We of course will have an ongoing program in the budget of commitment to assist developing countries in relation to the issue of climate change. I answered a question in the House about three or four weeks ago on this issue, and I commend that answer to the honourable member. This is the figure for this year, but I made clear in that answer that we have been involved for a long time, and will continue to be involved, in activities in relation to climate change in assisting countries in the region to adapt to climate change. I just use as one example—because it does not get too much publicity—the very longstanding sea level monitoring stations that we have. Off the top of my head, I think there are about a dozen of them around the Pacific. So we can monitor any changes in sea level and obviously assist those countries if the situation begins to deteriorate to the point that it causes concern.

We assist developing countries. I had a long chat the other day with the advisory body, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, ACIAR, about assisting with research into ensuring that crops in particular, but agriculture more generally, can be adapted to changing climatic conditions. I suspect that not only will we have for many years into the future a continuation of these programs to address the issue of climate change and adaptation to climate change but also—if some of the more serious predictions about climate change turn out to be right—we will probably have to do more than we are planning to do at the moment.