Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I want to join the Chief Government Whip in expressing my appreciation of this important visit by JSCOT to India and Indonesia. Unfortunately, I was only able to participate in the Indian section of the visit. I think that as Australian MPs we learnt a great deal of important things, particularly from my point of view, about India.

We observed the Indian parliament in action, and it was a particularly interesting session that we attended. There was a debate on a proposed amendment to their constitution, with a 123-amendment bill. The bill sought to grant constitutional status to the National Commission on Backward Classes. That sounds a pretty arcane term in this parliament, but it refers to castes which are socially, educationally and economically disadvantaged. It is very interesting to see, as part of India's progress, that the disadvantaged castes are being legally addressed by the Lok Sabha and are being brought into equality—a very, very good thing from India's point of view.

We had a chance, as the Chief Government Whip said, to observe economic reform in that great country and to look at the possibility of a free trade agreement with Australia. I have to report—I think it was the view of the delegation—that that FTA is going to take a great deal of further work, because most of the Indian economic policymakers were interested in focusing on their huge economy rather than even trade with the outside world or the importance of FTAs with Australia or, indeed, other countries.

I would say, however, from our meetings with Australian businesspeople operating in India, that the abolition of different GSTs by states and the consolidation of them by the Lok Sabha has had an amazingly productive effect—just like the change in the Indian currency. The Indian government is to be congratulated on doing this, and it's made the doing of business between states in India—some of which, of course, are bigger than Australia, certainly in population size—a great deal easier, and we heard many commendations from Australian businesses about the benefit of that.

We had an extraordinary insight into Indian culture. We had a tour of the National Gallery of Modern Art in India under the auspices of Adwaita Gadanayak, who was a great host. Also, in Mumbai, we met the Governor of Maharashtra, C Vidyasagar Rao, who took us through the governor's palace.

The last point I would make is that we also gained an extraordinary insight into the political developments in Pakistan, being very close to them at the time of their national election. The widespread view was that the new Prime Minister of Pakistan is very close to the Pakistan Army and that little progress can be expected of the new government of Pakistan, in engagement on security issues with India and the rest of the world, unless the Pakistan Army is involved in those discussions, because the impression, certainly throughout India, was that they were the people strongly behind him.

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