Page 3038 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 23 August 2005
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MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, the Chief Minister, according to the standing orders, has got five minutes to respond to the question that was put to him. While ever he sticks with the subject matter of the question, he is entirely in order. You know that and that is the way it has always been.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I can understand the Leader of the Opposition’s sensitivity in relation to his walking away from the sister city relationship with Nara, a matter of great regret.
Mr Smyth: We haven’t; you’ve got to tell the truth, Jon.
MR STANHOPE: In relation to the sister city relationship, the Nara-Canberra sister city committee—
Mr Smyth: You’ve got to tell the truth.
Ms MacDonald: Mr Speaker, I am sorry to interrupt the Chief Minister but Mr Smyth has now just said twice in a row that Mr Stanhope needs to tell the truth. That is disorderly.
Mr Smyth: No, it is not.
MR SPEAKER: I did not hear that but, if you said it, you ought to withdraw it otherwise I will just refer to Hansard and make a ruling on it later.
Mr Smyth: I certainly did say it, Mr Speaker. He is not telling the truth in regard to the Liberal Party. I do withdraw.
MR SPEAKER: Resume you seat Mr Smyth and discontinue this approach otherwise we will be taking a closer look at standing order 202 and that would be unfortunate.
MR STANHOPE: Thank you, Mr Speaker. It was a great privilege to go to Nara during my recent visit and to cement the relationship and the friendship that have been forged between the people of the ACT and Nara. We can see many beneficial outcomes of that relationship. We can see one at the moment with the visit to Canberra of the Nara youth soccer team, which arrived in the ACT at the weekend to participate in a number of games of football with teams within the ACT.
The number of visits occurring now between our two cities is significant, particularly at a youth or school level. It is at that community level, essentially, through sporting teams and through our schools, that we see a significant benefit for communities from across the sea twinning with the ACT in the way that Nara has. We also see it with a number of community organisations such as the ACT Law Society, which has twinned with the Nara Bar Association, and similarly with the ACT and Nara chambers of commerce and industry. We have the ACT Australia-Japan Society twinning with its counterpart in Nara and similarly between rotary clubs in the ACT.
But, as I said, the greatest continuing linkage, which I think is potentially very important for future peoples around the world, is the extent to which Canberra schools have
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