Tania Lawrence (Hasluck, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I recently had the opportunity to speak on behalf of the federal government at the Australia-Japan Society of Western Australia to commemorate and congratulate them on their 50th anniversary. It was an absolutely amazing evening, with more than 150 people there to witness and celebrate the history and the achievements of the society including the Consul-General of Japan, Yasushi Naito, and industry and cultural business leaders.

I commend President Ben Wholagan not just for the fantastic new opening of their Tuart Hill centre, the Japan Education and Cultural Centre of Western Australia—which is only the second Japanese cultural centre nationally and houses a large collection of Japanese related language and cultural materials—but also because he and the team have secured a three-year community investing funding agreement with INPEX. That is a testament to the support and the bilateral relationship that exists.

The work of the society is indispensable in strengthening the already strong economic, academic, cultural and government connections between our two nations. For me it is personal, as I recalled on the night and recall now, because of my own journey from the little country town of York to Japan, and to Seki-shi and Gifu-ken, where I lived for 12 months. There began a long and wonderful journey of understanding of Japan's some 2½ thousand years of tradition. Being able to continue that connection in Perth is an absolute asset to our state.