STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia—Manager of Australian Greens Business in the Senate) (13:34): In July, I was lucky enough to visit Timor-Leste, or East Timor, as part of a parliamentary delegation put on by Save the Children. It was a very important and very special visit. I'd never been to East Timor before, and seeing firsthand the country that I'd heard so much about was absolutely eye opening.

The level of poverty in East Timor is extreme, and yet this is a country that's only an hour and 20 minutes flight from Darwin—one of our closest neighbours. It's home to people who fought alongside our soldiers during World War II. In fact, young East Timorese men—boys—saved the lives of many of our Australian Defence Force in World War II.

It's a country that we abandoned for too long during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. Now, today, it's a country that hangs in the balance because of a lack of development and aid support. One story really stood out to me.

It was that 50 per cent of children in East Timor suffer from stunting. That means they are so malnourished that they simply cannot grow. It's one of the highest in the world—the top three.

These children struggle so much to get enough protein that a handful of peanuts is what gets them through. Australia has been funding a $1.5 million peanut program and has just cut it, leaving these children— (Time expired)