Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A couple of days before Christmas I got a phone call from a very distinguished and senior member of the Bosnian community in Victoria, a gentleman by the name of John Bosnich, who was trying to persuade me to participate in a personally organised trip to Serbia—a place where there has not been a parliamentary delegation from Australia before. In fact, only one Australian minister has visited there, close to 20-odd years ago. It was on the basis of a personal invitation that was extended by the Serbian president, but as a first step towards further engagement between the Serbian parliament and the Australian parliament—notwithstanding the fact that it was not an official delegation.

Mr John Bosnich is a very persuasive individual. I was seriously tempted to spend a few days with my family in early January, but I decided that I would join three members from the House of Representatives: Mr Luke Simpkins, Mr Chris Hayes and Mr Steve Georganas. The reason I am raising it tonight is the Serbian ambassador, Dr Neda Maletic, is leaving Australia at the end of her three-year term here. She is leaving at the end of the month. I wish to put on the record our appreciation for the extraordinary work that she did to put together what was an incredibly comprehensive program. Not only that, it also provided a great opportunity for a very small number of parliamentarians to get an understanding of the economic, social, cultural and political landscape of Serbia post-Balkan war era. We saw the way in which they are really doing everything they can to rebuild that country after what has been an incredibly volatile and very difficult time for them over the past 20 years.

I want to acknowledge and thank Dr Neda Maletic at the outset for the enormous amount of work she did to put this trip together for just the four of us. The professionalism and the courtesy that she showed in putting the program together was second to none, and I really wish to table my thanks to her and to applaud her for the way in which she put that program together. It was a particularly comprehensive visit.

Not only did she coordinate it but she made sure that we did not go astray. She returned to Belgrade with us, travelled with us, attended all the meetings with us. She is a wonderful representative of the country. She was and is an extremely effective advocate, a gracious host and, I have to say, was relentless in ensuring that we had every opportunity presented to us so that we could fully explore and appreciate the history, heritage and economic and political climate of Serbia.

In essence we had a week of back-to-back meetings with a number of very senior people from the President down. We were first met by the Australian Ambassador to Serbia, her Excellency Dr Helena Studdert, who gave us an exceptionally good overview. Senator Payne, I acknowledge your saying what an exceptional diplomat she is, because she really demonstrated that on our arrival. She gave us a terrific overview of what we could expect and the sorts of things we should consider exploring whilst we were there. That made the whole experience so much more valuable.

On the second day we went to the National Assembly and met with a wide range of ministers, backbenchers, committee members and members of all political parties. They have a very interesting political system, which I will not attempt to describe. They provided us with the rich, complex political system that the Serbian parliament is. It was very interesting and I will identify a couple of things I think you might be particularly interested in, Madam Acting Deputy President Moore. Some 38 per cent of members of parliament are women. This representation is achieved through what the Labor Party would describe as a quota system, even though that is not what they call it. The preselection system that applies there mandates that across all parties a minimum number of women in parliament are elected at each election. The parliamentary procedures and comparisons between the two systems were also made, with 80 per cent of the Serbian cabinet attending each question time, whilst the President himself attends only on Thursday. I think this is something that the Prime Minister might like to avail herself of. It is interesting to note that there is a minimum number of women that are not only preselected but have to be elected at each election.

One meeting I found particularly valuable was with SIEPA which is the Serbia Investment and Export Promotion Agency. The meeting was particularly informative because it presented the enormous opportunities that we could avail ourselves of as a country trading with Serbia, and the opportunities that are presented with the economic climate that exists in Serbia. I will go through a couple of those, because they indicate why it is an area that we should continue to explore and encourage business to consider further. I note that we have mining companies in Serbia at the moment which are researching and looking at developing and investing further there.

The GDP in Serbia has dropped from 5.4 per cent in 2005 to minus two per cent in 2012. We heard that the average median wage is around 370 to 400 euros per month. The Serbian population are a driven population, who want to work. They want to be given opportunities to provide for their families. They have a very conservative hardworking ethic that they apply to all their endeavours. The unemployment rate in many parts of Serbia is up to 19 per cent and in some more rural areas it is a lot more than that. This is a real problem for the country and one that they are trying to combat by seeking foreign investment in the country so that they can expand industry, particularly manufacturing industry and tourism. Whilst we did not have an opportunity to appreciate the full benefits that could be explored in that regard, I saw that the history of the place is extraordinary. This history provides a lot of tourism opportunities.

An area that particularly interests me is the agricultural sector. Everything that is produced in Serbia is organic, and it is the one thing that differentiates Serbia from all of their neighbours. They produce something like 70 per cent to 80 per cent of the raspberry production of the world. That is largely because these raspberries have not been sprayed with insecticide. There is a great opportunity for them to increase productivity. Irrigation is very poorly applied. It is essentially non-existent in Serbia. There is a great opportunity to increase production.

We really appreciated our opportunity to be there and I strongly commend the parliament to consider a formal delegation to Serbia, because I think Australia and Serbia could benefit from strengthening their ties.