"Australia's recent experience as a Security Council member confirmed that the council's role is more essential than ever," she told the General Assembly. An execution chamber at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in Oklahoma. Credit:AP She said the UN carries out crucial work in an increasingly hostile world, and is often not recognised for its successes. She offered her support for the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, unanimously adopted by the UN, saying that should they be realised, "we will transform our world". She also emphasised the importance of gender equality, saying it must be fully achieved by 2030.

"We must step up the fight against the global scourge of violence against women and girls," she said, informing the assembly about the $100 million women's safety package the government had announced domestically. Former treasurer, Joe Hockey, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop in Parliament House in Canberra. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen Speaking earlier Ms Bishop said concerns of the UN's special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Francois Crepeau, about Australia's mandatory detention policy did not conflict with the bid to secure a seat on the Human Rights Council. She said she had spoken with Mr Crepeau and made the government's case that Australia's policy of deterrence saved lives by tackling people smuggling. The government's engagement with the UN has apparently ticked up since Malcolm Turnbull became Prime Minister. Kelly Gissendaner during her murder trial in 1998. Credit:Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP

It is understood that planning for Australia's bid for the Human Rights Council began under the previous government, but that Tony Abbott had instructed to Ms Bishop to abandon the effort. She had not yet informed the UN of that order before he left office. Ms Bishop said she proposed to Mr Turnbull that Australia run again for the Security Council and he had immediately approved the bid. Ms Bishop earlier attended a leaders summit on countering Islamic State chaired by US President Barack Obama on the sidelines of the General Assembly. She told the meeting of about 100 leaders that the coalition fighting IS had brought the terrorist group's expansion in Iraq to an end and forced it to change tactics.

As a result the coalition's strategy must respond. "Colleagues, our campaign must continue to evolve and our strategy adapt as the situation changes," Ms Bishop said. As Russia has stepped up its engagement in the region, the US and allies including Australia have come to accept that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad may have to remain in place as part of a political deal to restore peace to the region and prosecute the war on IS. The US is still casting this as a possible temporary measure, while Ms Bishop has said no potential political solution should be discarded. "In Syria, as I said yesterday, defeating ISIL requires, I believe, a new leader and an inclusive government that unites the Syrian people in the fight against terrorism groups," Mr Obama told the summit.

"This is going to be a complex process and as I've said before we are prepared to work with all countries, including Russia and Iran, to find a political mechanism in which it is possible to begin a transition process." Mr Obama now appears to be caught between European allies who believe there should be more co-operation with Russia – which backs Mr Assad – and Middle Eastern allies, including Saudi Arabia, who still insist he must go. Russia refused to send a senior diplomat to the summit, dismissing it as American grandstanding. "This initiative seriously undermines UN efforts in this direction," Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. "The UN has its own anti-terror strategy and everything could easily be done within the UN framework.

"But Americans would not be Americans if they did not seek to demonstrate their leadership." The Russian and American presidents traded barbs about the causes of the Syrian war in their speeches to the General Assembly a day earlier, with Mr Putin saying it had been provoked by American attempts to "export democracy". Follow FairfaxForeign on Twitter Follow FairfaxForeign on Facebook