Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to speak to the report of the official parliamentary delegation to Singapore and Indonesia from 28 October 2008 to 8 November 2008, I note that I had the pleasure of being a member of the delegation. Members of both the government and the opposition, led by the Speaker, had a particularly useful visit. We first went to Singapore. I might add that my remarks will be brief, as I know that the Speaker has already spoken quite extensively to the report, but I do feel that it is important, having been a member of the delegation, to record many of the things that I thought were useful for us to bring back to discussions here in Australia.

The first part of the tour, as the report sets out, was to Singapore. For me, one of the most important meetings we had was with the Monetary Authority of Singapore. It was timely that we were there, because the effect of the global recession was starting to be felt very much in Singapore. What became evident was that there was a good working relationship between the Monetary Authority of Singapore and the Reserve Bank here in Australia. One of the main levers that they use in their system rather than interest rates is the exchange rate. They went on to discuss with us why that was so.

The usual things that are important between Singapore and Australia were discussed, such as our defence relationship, which is in good condition. We also visited the war memorial at Kranji, which was a very moving thing to do. We had a small service there and the Speaker and I laid a wreath. Once again, one was struck by the enormous service and sacrifice that was given by not only the Australians who were there but also people who were part of the Allied endeavour through World War II. I think it is a remarkable continuance of the value that we place on the lives of those who served in that way and are buried there that this place is beautifully kept, there is always a sense of reverence and it is a totally moving experience.

From Singapore we went to Indonesia, and it was in a way a difficult time to be there because of the heightened discussion about the impending execution of the Bali bombers and the emotion that that brought up for us Australians as well as for the Indonesians. But we did have very successful meetings with the President of Indonesia. We had very good discussions with his vice president and also with the foreign minister. When I have previously been in Indonesia I have enjoyed meetings with the President and the foreign minister and I found on this occasion that there was a very comfortable relationship between our delegation and particularly the President and those with him, which I think augurs well for our relationship.

Of course, the financial crisis will hit them hard. It hit them hard when the Asian crisis occurred and they remembered that they were dealt with rather harshly. They learned lessons, though, in the way that they would respond and had a positive outlook on how they would deal with the impending difficulties.

We also had the opportunity to go to Kalimantan, which was for me really unexpected. Kalimantan is a place of importance in my memory, I suppose, as a place where many battles were fought during World War II and indeed a place where my father served. Nonetheless, it was a joyous occasion in that we seemed to be one of the first foreign delegations to visit Kalimantan, so their excitement at having a visit was really quite marked. We had the great pleasure of visiting a village and meeting with an extraordinary woman. She was a midwife and had a huge success rate in that she had lost neither a mother nor a baby, and this was not only of enormous importance to them but pretty impressive to us too.

There will be many items that people who are interested in the delegation’s activities can read in the very well presented report. I would encourage those people who are interested in developing our relationship with both Singapore and Indonesia to read the report because it is worth while and contains material which would be valuable in judging the strength of our bilateral relationships. I would like to conclude by thanking everybody who had anything to do with arranging that trip for us, both those here in Australia and those people in Singapore and Indonesia. I think it was a worthwhile trip and beneficial both to us and to the countries which we visited.

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