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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 4 Hansard (29 March) . . Page.. 1021 ..

MS TUCKER (continuing):

Xanana Gusmao, and the town of Suai was proposed as a partner. To ensure coordination of efforts with other agencies, the delivery of aid in the first instance is being conducted in collaboration with UNTAET district representatives.

The council has also worked in cooperation with Australian Volunteers International, thereby providing human resources and a facility for tax deductible donations, with PLAN Australia and the Australian Local Government Association. The action plan to date includes emergency aid, such as a four-wheel drive truck, rice, bikes, clothes, tools, seeds, et cetera; support for infrastructure development, drawing on council and local business resources and expertise; strategic planning skills; and public administration training. The most interesting feature to note is the range of community support - from Shirley Shackleton's bicycle donation project, which caught the public imagination early on, to support from the East Timorese community in Melbourne - and the enthusiastic support from NGO staff, volunteers and UN employees.

Another local government project is under development with Darebin City Council, based around Preston and Northcote in Melbourne. The Darebin Council is taking first steps in developing a sister-city-like partnership with Baucau in East Timor. The pattern of development is similar, with a partnership developed through the CNRT, through church group links and with community, local government and parliamentarians' support. The first delegation was essentially a community group, mostly of young people who spent Christmas with orphans in East Timor, taking with them donations of food, toys, musical instruments, a drafting kit from the city council and an offer to establish a friendship city relationship.

The delegation came back with community-to-community connections under way, including links to the Student Solidarity Council, churches, schools, the university and the Baucau Reconstruction and Development Committee, which comprises representatives of the UNTEAT, CNRT, SSC and the church. Areas for real and possible assistance included waste management and recycling, public facilities such as libraries, local governance capacity building, and business activity.

The next step in the development of this relationship is to be a visit by a council and community delegation - including experts on engineering, governance and urban and social planning - to establish formal links and protocols with the social institutions, reconstruction committee and key organisations.

The Australian Local Government Association last year adopted a resolution to look for ways in which local government bodies can support the reconstruction of East Timor. We could take a lead from them. Their analysis, which I believe is the correct one, is to do what we do well. It is about responding to the needs and the goodwill of the people of East Timor, and it is about using the goodwill of our community effectively. It is about establishing long-term sustainable relations, not about delivering aid. It is about seeking to contribute expertise and support in the task of community building - which includes understanding the social and physical needs of people - and developing and maintaining day-to-day infrastructure. It is about advocacy and governance. These are

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