Page 2185 - Week 08 - Tuesday, 4 August 2015
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I wish to express my sincere thanks and appreciation for the success of this delegation to Dr Han Yongjin, the Director of the National Library of China; Ms Anne-Marie Schwirtlich, the Director-General of the National Library of Australia; Her Excellency Ms Frances Adamson, the Australian ambassador to China; Mr Michael Clifton, the Austrade senior trade commissioner to Beijing; the mayor of Beijing, Mr Wang Anshun; Professor Lin Jianhua, the president of Peking University; the ANU vice-chancellor, Ian Young; the Renmin University vice-president, Professor Yi Zhihong; and the University of Canberra vice-chancellor, Professor Stephen Parker.
Similarly, Canberra’s growing relationship with Singapore and the city of Shenzhen stands to contribute to ongoing cooperation and collaboration within our city to accelerate the emergence of Canberra as a truly global city. I wish to express my sincere thanks and appreciation for the success of this delegation to Mr Bill Foo; Mr Ho Meng Kit; Mr Philip Green, the Australian High Commissioner to Singapore; Mr Guangwei Liang, the chairman of Huaqiang Holdings; Mr Ai Xuefeng, the vice-mayor for international affairs for the city of Shenzhen; Mr Paul Tighe, the consul-general to Hong Kong; and Mr Dominic Trindade, the consul-general at the Australian Consulate-General Guangwei.
I present the following paper:
Ministerial Delegation to Beijing, China—April 2015 and Ministerial Delegation to Singapore and China—June 2015—Ministerial statement, 4 August 2015.
I move:
That the Assembly take note of the statement.
MR HANSON (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (10.55): I thank the Chief Minister for his statement. I think that something that we should all be able to agree on in this place is the importance of our relationship with China in terms of investment into the ACT, in terms of trade, both import and export, and in terms of other sectors of our industry and community here, in particular the education sector. We know that there are so many Chinese students here studying in the ACT. I congratulate the Chief Minister on his endeavours to strengthen that relationship and seek opportunities for greater investment and trade between Australia, in particular the ACT and China.
Unfortunately, this is done in the context of what is a very damaging and, in some descriptions, xenophobic campaign that is currently being run by the CFMEU. At the same time as Mr Barr is travelling in China explaining how we want to increase opportunities we have the CFMEU running what is described as a xenophobic campaign saying exactly the opposite. This becomes very complicated obviously, because of the fact that the CFMEU has such close relationships with the Labor Party. Chinese business, Chinese politicians, people that want to invest in Australia do not understand what is going on because they know that the CFMEU is an integral part of the Labor Party. They know, for example, that there are Labor Party members who are CFMEU organisers. In fact, there are sub-branch presidents who are Labor Party members.
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