Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the United States of America from 20 September to 2 October 2015. I ask leave of the House to make a short statement in connection with that report.

Leave granted.

The delegation, as I said, took place between 20 September and 2 October last year. It was led by me; the member for Franklin, Julie Collins, was the deputy leader; and we were accompanied by the member for Hasluck, the Hon. Ken Wyatt—whose time, I must say, was actually cut short a little because he was promoted while we were away and had to return to Australia to his higher duties—the member for Greenway, Michelle Rowland, and Senator for the Australian Capital Territory, Zed Seselja. I thank them very much for their cooperation and support throughout the delegation. It was a very enlightening time for us.

The overall objective of parliamentary visits is to further enhance bilateral relations, to develop deeper ties between our countries, to build the capacity of the parliamentary institution, and to promote democratic values through interaction and engagement with other parliaments and parliamentarians. The parliamentary visit format was designed to allow us to explore and examine particular issues in greater depth, and to meet with dignitaries, officials, non-government organisations and members of the public, and to conduct site inspections. The Parliament's international program has a strong focus on Australia's immediate region, and the parliamentary delegations typically visit the United States, a key ally, at least once per parliament. The visit provided opportunities for us to explore issues in which there are shared interests, and to examine the detail of political, economic and social developments in America. Before this delegation's visit, an official Australian parliamentary delegation attending assemblies and conferences had last visited the US in 2011.

I will briefly move to a couple of highlights of the visit. I would like to thank the consulates in San Francisco and Los Angeles and the embassy in Washington for their cooperation. They went to a lot of effort to make sure the delegation ran seamlessly and that it ticked off on all the things members of the delegation had interest in. A particular highlight for me was a visit to the SolarReserve facility in Nevada, a 110-megawatt solar installation using molten salt's storage capacity and offering 24-hour-per-day renewable solar electricity. Other highlights included a visit to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, near San Francisco, a government-provided laboratory where private organisations undertake research; and a visit to Northrop Grumman in Washington, where, amongst other things, we had a look at the new James Webb Space Telescope, which is the next generation of Hubble, if you like. It was fascinating to see the precision this new telescope will have.

In Washington we had a focus on the US election, which of course was very topical and still is, and met with a number of people there to discuss particularly the ramifications of any of the outcomes for Australia and the free trade agreements between the US and, at that stage, the Pacific rim nations as well. I would like to thank very much the now retired ambassador to the US, Kim Beazley, who was very helpful when it came to understanding the US political system, which we all know has been a great passion of Mr Beazley's over a long time.

We visited the Simi Valley and the Reagan library. It was on a Sunday, and the delegation thought it well worth their while to go. It was a highlight. We were given access not only to the Reagan library and all the things that are in it but also to President and Mrs Reagan's private facilities, the place where they entertained guests and their offices. We had visits to a number of universities and education facilities, with a special focus on how they promote the STEM learning streams within their facilities. We had a good look at some dynamic start-up companies in San Francisco, in Airbnb and Yelp.

Overall, the thing that impressed the delegation was the absolute dynamism of the US economy generally but the private sector in particular. They have a much higher appetite, it seems, for risk and adventure than we do here in Australia. I think there is a far higher acceptance that an individual or a company may invest in a technology or an idea or a system and then find that it does not work, and that does not necessarily become a hanging offence for the individual—the chief executive or whoever it was—who drove that innovation in the first place. They accept that not every innovation will be successful. Perhaps we have a little to learn in Australia in that area.

If you look at the value of this delegation for those who were on it, it greatly increased our knowledge not only of the US—and our understanding of the Australian system by comparison—but of the world generally. It can only make better parliamentarians of us, inasmuch as we build relationships for the future. All of us had our notebooks out the whole way round, making sure we kept this or that particular business card, because we can then return to those people and return that kind of information and intelligence to the Australian public. All in all, it was a very great success. I thank all those who contributed to making it that success, but I make particular note of Mark Fitt, who was our chaperone through the whole program, who did a wonderful job. The organisation was faultless and allowed us, as members of parliament, to concentrate on the issues that we were there to concentrate on.