Page 3419 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 23 September 2015
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video
ACT government’s signing a sister city proclamation with the Beijing Municipal People’s Government for Canberra and Beijing to enter into a sister city relationship. Governments often have a lot of opportunity to enter into such relationships, and some of the cities that had been in discussion with the then government were Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, Zakopane in Poland, Samara in Russia, Atlanta in the USA, Ottawa in Canada, Canakkale in Turkey, Pretoria in South Africa and, of course, Beijing in China. It was wonderful vision of the then Chief Minister in choosing Beijing because it has been very fruitful.
Again, I reflect on some of the words of the current Chief Minister when he said that every time we visit we are greeted with great hospitality, and that is true. Indeed during the visit I made to Beijing, on which the then Deputy Leader of the Opposition, Ted Quinlan, accompanied me, the hospitality was sensational. That was because people saw there was a common purpose between the two cities in furthering the progress of both cities and not just riding on the other or one drawing off the other. There was something in this for both.
Of course the initial focus was the Olympic bid, which was then successful. History shows that an ACT public servant, Haitao Wen, was part of the Beijing Olympic committee bid team in Moscow when the announcement was made. That was the level of trust that we very quickly came to have with the Beijing municipal government in regard to what we could do for them. Subsequent years have shown what Beijing can do for us. It is in that process of working together and being sister cities in that relationship that has made this work.
This month marks the 15th anniversary of the debates that occurred. We know two per cent of Canberra’s population was born in China and that Mandarin is the most commonly spoken language in Canberra after English. Chinese students form the largest international student group at Canberra campuses with, approximately 5,500 students enrolled in our education system. Chinese tourists have a high awareness of Canberra as well as a strong desire to visit our city. This is supported by the Tourism Research Australia data that indicates Canberra received around 29,000 Chinese visitors in the year ending December 2014.
I note from the Chief Minister’s recent statement that he says—I will read a couple of the quotes because they are important—one of the three primary objectives of the April mission to Beijing was to progress the Canberra-Beijing sister city relationship. He says on page 3 of his statement, as I quoted earlier:
The sister city relationship Canberra shares with Beijing has been a highly collaborative, beneficial and rewarding relationship throughout its 15-year history
It is great we have been able to achieve that. I have quoted some of the statistics from page 4 of the Chief Minister’s statement, and on page 5 he says:
… each time an ACT trade mission travels to Beijing we are provided with enormous hospitality and access to Chinese officials at the highest levels.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . . Video