STATEMENTS ON INDULGENCE
Ms TEMPLEMAN (Macquarie) (18:37): It has been a long and harrowing wait for the families of Australian, Nepalese and Tibetan victims of the catastrophe that has hit the Himalayan border region, from witnessing footage of the terrifying floodwaters as they tore through villages and homes, sweeping away bridges and roads and everything in their path, to getting the terrible news of those who've died and waiting for news on the thousands and thousands of people who remain missing.
Among those missing are 35 Australians, plus others from around the world and, of course, local Tibetans and Nepalese people. I acknowledge the devastation of the loss for their families and their friends and also for those who have survived the trauma and will now have to face that task of recovery. I know my community has shown its support for Nepali and Tibetan community members in vigils over the last couple of weeks in the Blue Mountains.
Of course, the Blue Mountains are home to many Tibetans, as are Sydney and Newcastle and right around the country. What is making it particularly hard for families of people in the Tibet region is the lack of communication from China about their loved ones. Unfortunately, it has been very challenging to get information on that side of the border.
The Chinese authorities have provided very little detail of the people affected in the Tibet region, only broadly confirming the hundreds missing, including 260 foreign nationals. They've also not provided any specific information about the settlements and villages in the areas that have likely been affected. We all know of China's control of information.
It is well documented and well known. But this is a time when information for Tibetans living in Australia is really vital and I'd certainly urge for a level of transparency in the interests of humanity. I know the Australian government, along with other countries, is pressing for updates, and I will certainly continue to ask for those.
I think it's important to recognise the role Australia has taken to support the communities that are affected in the fastest and best way we can. There have been offers of assistance to China. These haven't yet been accepted.
There has been significant support provided for Nepal. We've deployed almost 50 officers to the region to support in search, rescue and recovery efforts. We've got officials working in Kathmandu, Beijing, New Delhi and Canberra around the clock, trying to find and help establish the whereabouts of Australians and, very importantly, meeting with family members, some of whom have travelled to Nepal, desperate for information and trying to get the answers wherever they can.
Each Australian family has a dedicated case officer from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the AFP, who've been assigned to support the next of kin of those missing. That's so that those families have a constant through this really difficult time and don't have to retell their story multiple times. It's hard to imagine what they must be experiencing, and I'm really pleased to know that we have taken this approach.
There is also a variety of people in Kathmandu who are supporting the dedicated family support hub in the embassy, including two Services Australia social workers. This is help that we can provide on the ground and here and that Nepal has accepted. One of the things we've also been able to do is provide specialist Australian drone operators, who are over there as part of a 15-person disaster assistance response team.
The team is drawn from Fire and Rescue NSW and the Queensland Fire Department and is bringing that advanced technology to bear on those areas where searches are taking place. We all know how extraordinarily challenging the terrain is. We've also provided AFP disaster victim identification specialists, and they're on hand, and we are providing telecommunications data.
They're very practical things that we can do and that we can provide from here, knowing, really, that our hearts are with those searching and that we hope for the miracles that will allow more people to be found alive. In humanitarian assistance, there's been an $11 million commitment so far for things like emergency shelters, food, clean water, sanitation, healthcare and other essential supplies.
I'm very proud that a Royal Australian Air Force C-17 has been the means of delivery for almost 24 tonnes of humanitarian aid to Nepal. I want to thank all of those involved, from Defence, the AFP and DFAT, plus the non-government workers who've been involved, so far, in our efforts. Australians, of course, have been very generous with donating—I think it's probably close to $5 million of their own money—to Emergency Action Alliance, which has been matched by the government.
Australia will obviously need to continue providing support for what's going to be a long and slow recovery for the people who live on the Himalayan border. At the same time as we support the recovery on the Nepalese side and continue to offer support for the Tibetan side, I'd really urge the Chinese government to allow independent observers into the Tibet region going forward, because, once the recovery begins, the Australian Tibetan community would really like to see international scientists, journalists and observers being able to get in and understand what the situation is on the ground.
They're concerned about the impacts of climate change on the region and what the environmental consequences are of the major development projects that are being undertaken there. For them, it's a question of what the impacts are on Tibet's environment and on the people and countries downstream. I also want to share some of the insights that Plan International has already been able to give about what it sees going forward in this recovery.
Plan International is very focused on the impacts on children, and we know that children will bear a heavy price because of this disaster. Even when the full scale is not known, we know one thing for sure, and that is that the disaster will not affect Nepal's or Tibet's children equally. It will fall hardest and longest on girls, because that's what history tells us happens.
Plan has been looking at this situation across disasters for many, many, many years. Nepal is the 20th-most disaster-prone country in the world, with frequent floods, riverbank erosion and landslides—all major climate related hazards. As they say, this flood didn't create the link between climate change and girls' future in Nepal, but it accelerates a trend that Plan International has already documented and qualified.
In 2023 their research found that, in Nepal, students are on average losing three months of their education every year due to climate disasters. The same research found that a third of young people surveyed said their schools had been closed, damaged or destroyed by climate related events in the past year, and almost half felt unsafe travelling to and from school because of climate related disasters.
This is a really profound effect already, and the disaster that we've seen clearly is on much bigger scale. The thing we need to be mindful of as we provide aid to Nepal is that, in the immediate aftermath, with girls' mobility contracted sharply, we need to be thinking about those experiences and the consequences of the greater restrictions on girls' mobility and autonomy compared to boys.
In the emergency shelters, the risk intensifies, and the consequence of all of this for women and girls is the heightened risk of violence, trafficking and exploitation. Plan International's own research into trafficking routes affecting girls and young women in Nepal confirms this is a well established, cross-context risk rather than something they're just speculating about.
Therefore, the disaster-to-marriage link is also an issue, and it is quantifiable. Child marriages can surge by up to 39 per cent, as they did following a natural disaster in Bangladesh. As Australia provides assistance, we have to make sure that we put the needs of children right at the top of our list as we support the recovery from this disaster.