James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was a great pleasure yesterday morning to meet with the new Italian Ambassador to Australia, His Excellency Signor Paolo Crudele, with my fellow co-chair of the parliamentary friends of Italy, Senator Raff Ciccone.

My electorate of Sturt has a little over 27,000 people of Italian ancestry, which makes that the largest of any electorate in the House. I'm very proud of the Italian community that I represent and also the excellent links between Italy and Australia.

A few weeks ago I attended the opening night of the annual Adelaide Italian Festival, which was another great showcase of Italian culture in Adelaide. But it also reminds us of not just the history we have, through Italian migration and Italian Australians, but the opportunities we have to continue to grow and improve our economic relationship with Italy and to look for more operations for our two great countries to do even more together in the future.

I look forward to hosting, with Senator Ciccone and His Excellency, our launch event, for all those who have joined the parliamentary friends of Italy, at an appropriate time in the new year. It will be a great opportunity for us to launch a program for this parliamentary term, to continue to deepen the relationship between Australia and Italy.