Senator BOB CARR (New South Wales—Minister for Foreign Affairs) (14:54): Mr President, I acknowledge Senator Xenophon's keen interest in Malaysia and the welfare of the people of Malaysia. I underline what I have said in the past about his comments on the Malaysian election campaign. The first thing I want to repeat is that we are not in a position to make determinations about how that election was run. We cannot be the electoral commission for Malaysia. We cannot be the court of disputed returns for Malaysia. We cannot reach conclusions about whether people— Senator Joyce: Send observers. Senator BOB CARR: Senator Joyce yelled out 'observers'. The PRESIDENT: Order! Interjections are disorderly. You need to ignore the interjections. Senator Xenophon has asked a question. You should be addressing Senator Xenophon and ignoring the interjections. Senator BOB CARR: We cannot be the electoral commission for Malaysia. We cannot make determinations about which voter is eligible and which is not. We cannot make determinations about whether the ink put on the finger of someone who had completed a vote washed off easily. We cannot make those sorts of judgements. We do not have the resources to do it. The people from our high commission were out and about around polling places throughout Malaysia, observing the election, but they cannot make determinations about these sorts of arguments. We are not the court of disputed returns for Malaysia. We cannot make a determination from our high commission on the validity or otherwise of complaints made about it. On the question of observers, and Senator Joyce suggested we send observers, it is not the practice of the Australian government to send observers uninvited into a country that is conducting an election. Observers go as part of a Commonwealth mission, as they did to the elections held in Papua New Guinea last year. Observers will go to Zimbabwe as part of a Commonwealth mission, but again—(Time expired)