Page 2271 - Week 06 - Thursday, 6 June 2019
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I want to pay tribute to the many staff who have spent time over the years helping to build the strength of the Kiribati parliament. Through the work of the public accounts committee and the redevelopment of standing orders, a number of pieces of work have been undertaken by staff and former staff of this Assembly to help strengthen parliamentary democracy in the public of Kiribati.
As the Speaker alluded to, I have had the opportunity to visit Kiribati and I can recommend it to her. We did receive an extraordinarily warm reception and wonderful hospitality from the people. I think that these are valuable ties. As the Chief Minister said, these valuable ties are important in enhancing and strengthening Australia’s role in the Pacific with our nearest and closest neighbours. Kiribati is an amazingly diverse and complex country, when you think that it has a geographic spread which is somewhat larger than Australia. The distance from Tarawa to their Christmas Island is as far as it is from Perth to Cairns.
In that great geographic expanse there are a series of tiny flecks where people live, sometimes in precarious circumstances. The thing is that the Kiribatis are rightly concerned about the possibility of rising sea levels, when most of their land mass is less than 10 metres above sea level. The people of Kiribati have been resourceful, innovative and have planned for the future. While we differ in size, although our geographic spread is large, our population is larger and our land mass is larger, and we have many more resources. The great resources of the sea and the seamanship of the people of Kiribati stand them in great stead.
I want to pay particular tribute to the exchanges of gifts that we have received over time, which have led, very appropriately, to the actions of the former Speaker, Mr Rattenbury, in creating the Kiribati room, which is the repository of many of those gifts, a fine display of the Kiribati culture and a fitting testament to that twinning arrangement. I would like to extend my congratulations to the President of Kiribati, the Hon Taneti Maamau; the Speaker, the Hon Tebuai Uaai; the parliament and the people of Kiribati on this significant occasion. I wish them well. I also hope that the work that we have done in twinning will continue, to the benefit of both Kiribati and the ACT.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (4.58): I am pleased to rise on behalf of the ACT Greens to express my sincere congratulations to the parliament and people of Kiribati on the significant milestone of 40 years as a sovereign independent republic.
The ACT Legislative Assembly has a special and close relationship with the parliament of Kiribati, formalised through a twinning arrangement through the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Since the establishment of this special partnership in 2007, many members of this place have benefited from exchange visits and other opportunities to engage with our colleagues in the Kiribati parliament. I hope that the relationship has been of benefit to both sides, with both parliaments learning from each other.
While we are rightly very proud of our Assembly and the strong democracy that we have here in the ACT, there is also much that we can learn from others. We share with
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