Barry Haase (Kalgoorlie, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I have a great deal of pleasure in rising today to address this report. This was a hugely successful visit to both Canada and Mexico at what turned out to be extremely trying times. The first issue that I wish to specifically address, of course, is the fact that congratulations must go to Senator John Hogg. As leader of the delegation, he carried out his duties over that trying period with absolute competency and brought members of the delegation together in a way that at times must have been difficult for him. I am happy to report that, despite the difficulties, the members of the delegation enjoyed themselves, although of course that is a secondary matter.

We carried out a very rigorous itinerary of visits and briefings in Canada and Mexico. Of course, the Canadian section of the trip was almost a clockwork operation. The assistance that we received from the high commission staff in Ottawa and Toronto was superb. I found their knowledge of the country that they are stationed in to be exceptional. The list of meetings that had been arranged was thorough and to the point. I had an opportunity on numerous occasions to raise the issue of the Canadian government’s treatment of flow-through shares and came back much better informed about that particular issue and how it ought to be introduced to the Australian taxation regime to assist explorers. The number of places that we visited in Canada is well contained in the report, and I will not mention them all. It gave us a cross-section of weather patterns and cultures.

We were able to look at the parliamentary system in Canada, which was a real eye-opener. The revelations about the nature of provincial government in relation to their federal government were quite informative. I hope that we do not have to follow in their footsteps in that regard. Whilst we were there, of course, we endeavoured to portray to them that in Australia federal government has a much more dominant position than it appears to have in Canada. There was the opportunity to visit, to have high-level briefings and to have an understanding of the commonalities of our two countries and the cultural differences. How they handle their bilingual situation in both the spoken and the written word was amazing to me. Somebody on the delegation, I am sure, made the comment that Canada uses twice as much paper in parliament as we do in Australia, but that is by the bye.

Whilst we were still in Canada, we then had to make the decision as a delegation on whether or not we would move on to Mexico, and specifically Mexico City, given the difficulty being experienced by the Mexican government at that stage in relation to the publication worldwide of the incidence of swine flu. It was an extremely difficult time for the Mexican government. We did, with the exception of one delegation member, agree wholeheartedly that, under the circumstances and with the competent warnings and information that we were given by authorities in Australia, we would proceed with that part of the visit. I might say that that positive decision we took was hugely appreciated by the Mexican government. Even though we had a reduced itinerary due to the circumstances of large public gatherings being discouraged and a number of public buildings being closed, we were nevertheless made very welcome at that reduced number of meetings. Our visit was so appreciated that, when we met with the Mexican Senate, we were in fact given a standing ovation. I would suspect that that is an accolade that is not given lightly. We had a very good transfer of ideas and briefings in Hidalgo state and Mexico City. We came away with a much better understanding of the interaction that exists in trade between Mexico and Australia. I am confident in saying that we cemented social relationships for a very long time into the future.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this report. I congratulate the very competent staff who assisted us, especially Mr Gerard Martin and Mr Nick Tate, the Deputy Usher of the Black Rod. Their service to the committee was exceptional. I commend this report to the House.

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