Sharman Stone. Photo: Facebook
Sharman Stone has represented the people of the Murray in northeast Victoria as a Nationals member at Commonwealth level since 1996. Having held the positions of shadow minister for Women, Immigration, Citizenship and Indigenous affairs, but now the Doctor of Philosophy is in New York representing Australia at the UN.
Dr. Stone will spend the next three months in New York consulting on a number of committees as the general assembly focuses on international military conflict, security and the growing humanitarian crisis in developing nations. Two Australian federal politicians are chosen to represent the country at the UN general assembly every year; Dr. Stone says to be chosen to share her expertise was certainly an honour.
“I’ll be embedded in a lot of the committees there. I have a special interest in women’s and girls’ access to equal rights and advancement and there’s also at this time the global congress of indigenous people looking at how they are not progressing so well in many countries in terms of equity,” she said.
While overseas Dr. Stone plans to not only have her say on global issues, but to explore localized industries, such as agriculture, in order to improve farming practices for Australian farmers and her electorate when she returns.
Dr. Stone said she wants to representatives from the farming lobby, to see how they look after their family farmers, their viability and agriculture. “I’d like to think I could come back here particular with a better understanding of how to make our local agriculture do better,” she said.
The member for Murray also wants to consider ways to pass on knowledge to other countries about how they can better deal with natural disasters, humanitarian issues and supporting their own countries with people power. She said she is very proud of Australia’s strong volunteer culture and hopes to educate other nations about our customs, aiming to inspire them also to take action.
“Basically come the floods… I think we can teach a lot of others about how we do that”, she said.
Adding, “I think that’s a novel idea for most countries (to use volunteers).”
Dr. Stone won’t return to Australia in December but has assured the media, voters and colleagues that she’ll continue to work hard from the concrete jungle, will be reachable at any time, fulfilling her parliamentary duties.
