The Foreign Minister Penny Wong has delivered Australia's address to the United Nations General Assembly. In her speech, the minister focused on conflict, climate change, nuclear weapons and called for reforms to the UN to better respond to an age of existential threats.
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00:00 This institution and our shared multilateral system is falling short of the commitments
00:07 we have made together.
00:09 And we are collectively falling further behind.
00:13 There are more people displaced, more people hungry, there is more conflict and greater
00:18 risk that a nuclear weapon could be used.
00:21 The climate is changing faster than our combined efforts to stop it.
00:26 Already African agricultural productivity has dropped by a third.
00:31 Within just 22 General Assemblies from now, more than 900 million additional people in
00:37 Sub-Saharan Africa will have less water than they need.
00:42 In many countries, including my own, floods or fires have overwhelmed communities.
00:48 The most tourism-dependent region in the world, the Caribbean, faces the loss of half its
00:53 tourism revenue because of extreme weather.
00:57 And nowhere is the climate threat more profound than in the Pacific.
01:01 Kiribati, Tuvalu and Marshall Islands are only a few metres above sea level.
01:06 Friends, the first article of the UN Charter speaks to maintaining peace and security,
01:12 but there can be no security if the sea itself closes in.
01:17 This is why the voices and experiences of the Pacific matter.
01:23 Our commitment to international peace and security is why Australia seeks a seat on
01:27 the Security Council for 2029-30.
01:31 And it is why we pursue Security Council reform.
01:34 We must ensure greater permanent and non-permanent representation for Africa, for Latin America
01:41 and Asia, including permanent seats for India and Japan.
01:46 And we must demand more of permanent members, including constraints on the use of the veto.
01:53 With its special responsibility as a permanent member of the Security Council, Russia mocks
01:57 the United Nations every day.
01:59 It continues its illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine.
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