Kay Patterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to 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.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too would like to make a few comments about the delegation report. The delegation in April this year to Canada and Germany, which I was very fortunate to be able to attend, was a valuable opportunity to see issues of common interest between those two countries and Australia and to get a better understanding of the social, political and economic developments currently taking place in Europe and North America.

Like Australia, Canada is in the midst of a resources boom and is facing a skills crisis. Canada has some interesting initiatives to try and deal with that. In 2005 alone, some 100,000 skilled and unskilled workers supplemented Canada’s workforce. We met some of those at Whistler, in British Columbia, where the delegation learnt how important temporary holiday maker visas are to the successful operation of the ski and tourism industry in particular in that country.

The delegation met a number of young Australian workers—in restaurants, on the ski fields and in hotels—and it was very pleasing to hear the Canadian Prime Minister, in his speech to the parliament last week, say that he would seek to get the agreement of his parliament to increase the number of young Australians who may go and work in Canada under that scheme every year. I think it must be a wonderful opportunity for young Australians to go and have the excitement and adventure of working in a foreign country.

As a participant in last year’s somewhat controversial Senate Standing Committee on Employment, Workplace Relations and Education inquiry into the proposal to have a scheme of bringing in labour from the Pacific Islands to assist in the horticultural harvest in Australia, it was particularly interesting for me to learn about Canada’s experience of a program like that, the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program, which Senator Patterson has already referred to.

In 2005, 20,000 employees from countries around Canada were employed under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program. The Canadians, I have to say, were surprised that the proposal to establish such a program in Australia was so controversial last year. But it was pointed out by the Canadians that such schemes do have the potential for exploitation of workers, and it was only vigilance on the part of the Canadian government and peer pressure within the agricultural industry that ensured exploitation was kept at bay.

Canada requires standardised contracts that ensure employers using the seasonal agricultural workers scheme provide appropriate working conditions, accommodation, stipulated wages and subsidised transportation costs. When we were speaking with the immigration minister about the success of that scheme over a number years, as Senator Patterson has said and as is reflected in the report, the minister said that it only works because the incentives are there for everybody who participates to make it work.

Another interesting aspect of the portion of the time we spent in Canada was meeting with representatives of indigenous communities and members of the parliament who were dealing with indigenous issues in Canada. Obviously, indigenous Canadians face some of the same difficulties that Indigenous Australians face, but those issues are being dealt with differently in Canada. There is a process of treaty negotiations between the federal and provincial governments and indigenous people, and currently some 40 treaty actions are being considered to define the rights and responsibilities of the First Nations and the state and federal governments in Canada.

The Canadian government has also established a $100 million trust to provide practical support for reconciliation—which, I have to say, is in stark contrast to our government, which unfortunately has so far refused to even say sorry to our Indigenous peoples. The aim of the Canadian fund is to provide First Nations with the tools, training and skills so that they can participate fully in land and resource management and land use planning processes and develop social, economic and cultural programs appropriate for their communities.

One other interesting part of our tour in Canada was a visit to a winery near Niagara-on-the-Lake which was being managed by an expatriate Australian winemaker. I have to say that, while the product was good, it will probably never be quite as good as South Australian wine.

In Germany the delegation focused in particular on climate change, energy, security and environmentally responsible and sustainable industry. There was a lot to learn from the Germans in this regard. Germany, like Canada but unlike Australia, is a signatory to the United Nations agreement on Kyoto, and that does inform the Germans’ progress towards achieving environmentally sustainable manufacture, which is what we looked at in particular.

The delegation was fortunate enough to attend a parliamentary session at which Germany’s environment minister, Sigmar Gabriel, presented a major policy statement on the environment. In his statement he outlined the government’s plan for addressing climate change until 2020. I noted that Germany had cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 18 per cent from its 1990 baseline but the nation is still three per cent away from achieving its climate protection target for the period 2008-12. The minister said in his statement that for Germany to fulfil its Kyoto commitments it would need to cut greenhouse gases by a further 37 million tonnes. That is no small target.

The minister also indicated that the climate protection strategy offers Germany a wealth of economic opportunities. He explained that improving the energy efficiency of power plants, machinery, heating systems and automobiles would create jobs for Germany’s engineers and skilled workers in the long term. It was an important speech to hear and it was heartening to witness a major nation of the EU not only frankly discussing its issues with achieving energy and environmental targets but looking positively at how it could do that while not negatively impacting on economic growth in that country.

The delegation went to both Stuttgart and Frankfurt, where we were given the opportunity to visit important German industries. We visited the world’s largest DaimlerChrysler plant, at Sindelfingen, and saw a range of measures that that company has taken to reduce the environmental impact of the manufacturing plant itself and of the vehicles that it produces. This was particularly interesting for me as a senator from South Australia, which is very reliant on automotive manufacturing.

The delegation was told by DaimlerChrysler representatives we met with that it was important not just for government to impose restrictions on the way manufacture is carried out but also for companies to challenge themselves—to ensure that environmental standards set by the government are met and that industries are actually looking further than those standards and into the future. The company’s somewhat incredible commitment to reducing its environmental footprint impressed all of the delegation.

We were also very fortunate to visit an agricultural community near Frankfurt, a community which has, with subsidies from local, federal and EU sources, been able to construct agricultural facilities that benefit the whole community through cooperative arrangements. In particular, I was very impressed to see the steps taken to use biodeisel to fuel the machinery and vehicles used in that cooperative agricultural venture. There was something to be learned there about how our agricultural industry sectors in Australia can work better together to address issues to do with climate change and energy.

While in Germany we also visited a smaller business—the Hassia mineral water factory. There we had the opportunity to hear from a very old, established family company about how they were dealing with workplace relations issues since the fall of the wall, because the company had employees in both the former West Germany and East Germany, where conditions were different. They also spoke to us about their opportunities to move into the Asian market.

I also appreciated very much the opportunity to attend an Anzac Day service in Berlin with the rest of the delegation. It was wonderful to see many Australian tourists there who did not want to miss an opportunity to attend a memorial service on that very important day. I too would like to thank all of the people who supported us on that delegation: in particular, Mr Andres Lomp, from the Parliamentary Relations Office; Mr Chris Paterson, from the Speaker’s office; and His Excellency Bill Fisher and staff at the Australian High Commission to Canada. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.