Andrew Southcott (Boothby, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services, Health and Wellbeing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong in November 2009 and seek leave to make a statement in connection with the report.

Leave granted.

During the first two weeks of November 2009, I was pleased to be the deputy leader of an Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the People’s Republic of China and Hong Kong. We travelled as guests of the National People’s Congress to mainland China, where we visited the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, and also Lhasa in the Tibet Autonomous Region. This was the first official visit to Tibet by an Australian parliamentary delegation since the Human Rights Delegation visit in July 1991. We also travelled to Hong Kong.

At the outset I would like to acknowledge and thank my fellow delegates for their contribution to the trip. The delegation was led by the President of the Senate, Senator John Hogg, and also included my colleagues the member for Chisholm, the member for Isaacs, the member for Braddon, the member for Moore and Senator Scott Ludlam. The delegation was accompanied by Ms Meredith Home, adviser to the President of the Senate, and Dr Jacqueline Dewar, the delegation secretary from the Department of the Senate.

I would like to record the delegation’s appreciation of the hospitality and courtesy extended to us by the People’s Republic of China during our visit. In particular, I note thanks to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in Beijing; the Standing Committee of the Shanghai Municipal People’s Congress; the Standing Committee of the Sichuan Provincial People’s Congress; and the Standing Committee of Tibet Autonomous Region’s People’s Congress.

I also note the valuable contributions made by Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade staff, both in Australia and in China and Hong Kong, and the support provided by the Parliamentary Relations Office and the Parliamentary Library.

Australia’s relationship with China is a very important one, and accordingly we welcomed the opportunity to participate in this delegation. The objectives of the delegation were to renew links with the National People’s Congress; to gain an appreciation of contemporary political, economic and social issues in China; to gain an insight into China’s progress in addressing energy and environmental issues; to obtain an understanding of China’s perspective on regional and international issues; to explore prospects for further enhancing bilateral economic relations; to gain an appreciation of the effectiveness of Australia’s development assistance program and visit an AusAID assisted project; and to discuss cooperation within the multilateral system.

Delegation members met with a range of very senior members of the National People’s Congress in all the cities that we visited, which greatly assisted us in fulfilling our first objective. Our visit to mainland China provided us with a very worthwhile opportunity to renew and strengthen person-to-person contacts and parliament-to-parliament links. The busy program that was put in place for us also allowed us to pursue some of our other objectives, although there were some key issues—including the state of the Chinese energy and transport sectors, responses to the global financial crisis, trends in sustainable development and human rights—about which the delegation would have appreciated the opportunity to learn more.

In Hong Kong we met with a wide cross-section of Hong Kong’s policymakers, legislators, business leaders and community representatives. In particular, we were pleased to engage in discussions about the range of commercial opportunities for Australian business in Hong Kong.

In a two-week visit there were many highlights. One of the most memorable was the visit to the Expo 2010 site in Shanghai, where we saw the spectacular Australian pavilion, with a very distinctive Australian rust look, designed by a Melbourne architect. We also visited the site of the earthquake in Sichuan province. We were able to attend, in Hong Kong, a lecture by Stephen Roach on the impact of the financial crisis in Asia.

I would like to thank Ambassador Geoff Raby in Beijing, Consul-General Tom Connor in Shanghai and Consul-General Les Luck in Hong Kong, all of whom opened up their homes to us and enabled us to meet Australian expatriates who were working in China and Hong Kong. I would also like to thank Graeme Meehan and Christopher Lim, who travelled with the delegation and who, with their impressive command of Mandarin and their enormous knowledge of China, really helped to make sure that the delegation got the most out of the visit. Overall, the delegation provided a valuable insight into the state of the relationship between Australia and China and, hopefully, has helped to lay the groundwork for some more substantive future visits.