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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (7 September) . . Page.. 3061 ..

MS TUCKER: Yes, a sister city relationship with that particular city, Phnom Penh, where for the first time they had a democratic system. It was not perfect, I admit, but it was on the brink of moving forward. People thought it would be useful to support that. It was going to be an altruistic sister city relationship. I talked to CanTrade. They said, "No, you do not have sister city relationships with places like Phnom Penh because you do not make money out of it." I said, "Oh, is that what sister city relationships are about?" because I was not aware of that before. That is consistent, of course, with the arguments coming here.

Many people have come to me and suggested that Dili would be a lovely place to have a sister city relationship with. There are strong feelings in the Canberra community about Dili. They have gone to Mrs Carnell. "No," she says. Instead, I read in the Canberra Times-I will talk to this issue more because it is a process issue and I will be able to address it in the part of my motion that we will be able to look at separately-that we were having this sister city relationship with Beijing. This is a minority government. This is a house that is supposed to represent the people of the ACT. How come I have to read about it in the paper?

Maybe Mr Rugendyke knew. He knows things I do not know, quite often. I am not in the right circle. I do not know whether Mr Osborne knew. Labor certainly did not know. So, if this is about the ACT community engaging with the government about where we would like to move with a sister city relationship, why were we not informed and why were we not told quite some time ago? It is not a satisfactory process at all.

In conclusion, I just want to say again that I am not saying we should isolate Beijing. I am certainly not saying that we should not engage with cultural exchanges. What I am saying is that what the current regime is doing in China is absolutely offensive, and we cannot congratulate Beijing by having a sister city relationship.

MR SPEAKER: The member's time has expired.

Question put:

The Assembly voted-

Ayes, 8  	Noes, 3

Ms Carnell  	Mr Kaine 
Mr Cornwell  	Mr Osborne 
Mr Hird  	Ms Tucker
Mr Humphries  
Mr Moore  
Mr Rugendyke  
Mr Smyth  
Mr Stefaniak

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

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