Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 5 Hansard (13 May) . . Page.. 1351 ..

Mr Moore: Any sister city relationship should go through an Assembly committee.

MR BERRY: Indeed, and that may be a controversial one. As Michael Moore rightly interjected, any city sister relationship should be dealt with by the whole Assembly, through one of its committees, or by a means which gives the rest of Canberra at least some opportunity to have an input into the issue. It is very clear that there would be some people out there in the community who would be most upset about a sister city relationship with an Indonesian city. I certainly would want to think about it. It would be a shame if this were to go ahead without the Assembly being fully informed on the matter.

MRS CARNELL (Chief Minister) (6.59): Mr Speaker, I agree that it would be absolutely atrocious for the Government to enter into a sister city agreement without informing the Assembly, or, for that matter, our party, or anybody else. On Monday morning my office received a telephone call from a constituent who claimed that it had been reported by the Antara news agency, on the Internet, that on 8 May 1997 the Indonesian Ambassador, Mr Wiryono, had addressed a group of 35 lecturers at a university and stated that the ACT Government had established a twinning arrangement between Canberra and Jakarta. I think he probably meant Yogyakarta. Anyway, the Ambassador said that the twinning arrangements had been approved in a letter from the Chief Minister to Mr Tony Eastaway, President of the Australia-Indonesia Association of the ACT.

Mr Speaker, it might be appropriate for me to table that letter. The first paragraph of that letter says:

Thank you for your letter of 9 April 1997 in response to the Government decision not to enter into any further sister city relationships at this stage.

Notwithstanding this fact, and as you mention in your letter, there are advantages to be had by fostering closer ties. The Government welcomes and encourages opportunities for the development of friendship relationships with other cities.

In this context, I have asked the Executive Director of CanTrade, Simon Woolmer, to contact you -

and so on; all that sort of normal stuff. There is the letter, Mr Speaker. I am happy to table the first letter as well, which said categorically that we were not planning to enter into a sister city relationship at this stage.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .