Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I present the report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to Canada and Germany, which took place from 14 to 28 April 2007. I seek leave to move a motion to take note of the document.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I wish to comment on the delegation to Canada and Germany, led by the Speaker of the House. In order to save the time of the Senate, I refer my Senate colleagues to the Speaker’s tabling statement for the report. He outlined in more detail than I will the things we did. If anybody wants to see what we did in more detail, they can go to the report.

I want to start by thanking the Canadian and German parliaments, led by their presiding officers, for the warmth of their welcome, the interesting programs they arranged and the hospitality they showed us. Both in Canada and in Germany the hospitality was outstanding. Also, our thanks are due to our High Commissioner to Canada, Bill Fisher, our ambassador in Germany, Ian Kemish, and their staff at the embassies, for the work they put in to make sure the visit was a productive one. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Parliamentary Library and parliamentary relations officers also made a significant contribution to our understanding before we went and arranged our plans. They made a significant contribution to this successful delegation.

When he was here last week, the Prime Minister of Canada, despite emphasising the similarities, explained that one difference between Canada and Australia is that Canada has an appointed Senate. Their senators are appointed until they are 75 years of age. He expressed very clearly that he hopes to reform that and that he hopes to have a Senate that is more representative of the Canadian population.

We found that there are similar issues facing Australia and Canada that result from being federations. They have provinces to deal with, and it is similarly the case in Germany. We all expressed the challenges that face any federated country in dealing with provinces or states. We talked at length about that with our Canadian and German colleagues when we met with them.

The Speaker of the House outlined the issue of low unemployment rates affecting rural areas, which is the case in Canada. He said:

The delegation heard about the successful Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, which sees around 20,000 workers come to Canada from Mexico and Caribbean countries to undertake seasonal agricultural work. The details of the program are outlined in the delegation’s report. The key point is that the program works because there are incentives for all participants—workers, employers and the participating countries—to make it work. Given similar labour issues facing Australian agricultural industries, the applicability of a similar scheme to Australian circumstances would be worth exploring.

We saw a range of things. We were ably assisted by Mr Christopher Paterson, a senior adviser to the Speaker, and Mr Andres Lomp, the delegation secretary. On behalf of the honourable senators and members, I thank them for the work they put in and for putting up with us when sometimes we were a bit overtired. I would emphasise that, when we have these parliamentary delegations, we need to seriously consider that people need to have some time to recuperate after they have been travelling all night. I go on about this at length, but in both the delegations I have been involved with I think we pushed the envelope a little. We are sometimes forced to do this because we have to fit into a program offered by another country.

I would also like to raise another issue while I am on this. In the next parliament, I would like consideration to be given to committees travelling together at least once in a parliamentary session. It is very difficult to meet the needs of everybody on a parliamentary delegation. Somebody will want to go and look at transport, somebody else will want to look at governance and somebody else will want to look at social policy. Sometimes it is hard to meet the needs of everyone. I think it would be valuable for committee members to at least have the opportunity to travel together to look at significant issues that affect their particular interests. That is not to take away from what we learn from these wonderful experiences, where we are exposed to wonderful opportunities that we would not normally be exposed to. They are wonderful learning experiences, but I wonder if consideration should not be given to some areas of interest for delegations that could really go into depth. That is the only way in which I think we can improve these visits.

I will just say, before my colleague on the other side gets up and maybe refers to my love of German white asparagus—she has referred to me as a ‘spargel sister’ ever since we came back—that I enjoyed the delights of Canadian food and German food, particularly because we were there in asparagus season. If anybody wants to go to Germany, they must go when they have those very large white asparagus. I came back looking like an asparagus, I think, because we ate so many of them!

One of the great opportunities on these trips is to break down some of the barriers that exist between parties and learn more about individuals on the other side. It is a shame that the public cannot see the cooperation that goes on in these committees. Whether it be a committee, such as the Senate Standing Committee on Regulations and Ordinances and the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills, or whether it be a delegation, there are friendships made. I think that learning about each other is just as important as learning about other countries. I commend the report to the Senate.