Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the establishment of formal diplomatic ties between Australia and Sri Lanka. On 4 February, I attended the 69th anniversary of Sri Lanka's independence. Indeed, it is appropriate to remark that the Sri Lankan Prime Minister has been visiting the parliament this week. Australia has a long history of bilateral ties with Sri Lanka, linked as we are by our shared commitment to education, trade and investment, the security and prosperity of the Indo-Pacific region, and one of the positive legacies of British colonialism—this institution of parliament. I was fortunate enough to visit Sri Lanka in January. My trip was a little more eventful than I would have wished because my daughter was hospitalised for much of the time there, but I did enjoy a tour of the parliament and lunch with the Speaker and also catching up and staying with the Muslim family of an exchange student from Sri Lanka whom my family had hosted and learning a little more about how things are in Sri Lanka.

The strength of our bilateral ties has been enhanced through our cooperation in multilateral forums over many decades, from the Colombo Plan to the Indian Ocean Rim Association, but it is really the person-to-person contacts that have driven this relationship. From the first recorded migrants of the late 19th century to today's largely skilled intake, the composition of Sri Lankan migrants to Australia has changed over the years. The 2011 census showed we had around 86,000 Sri Lankan born Australians, and so many of those are in my electorate. Indeed, half of Australia's population of Sri Lankan born Australians live in Victoria. I congratulate the Sri Lankan people on the milestone of the anniversary of their independence and celebrate our nation's close and continuing relationship.