Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the European Institutions and bilateral visit to Norway, April to May 2006. At the outset, I would particularly thank Christopher Reid, who accompanied the delegation, and Lynette Mollard for their endeavours beforehand to our diplomatic representatives overseas and to the public servants in the countries that we visited. Also, to the members of the delegation, I think the delegation had a great sense of camaraderie and cooperation. It really is another worthwhile aspect of these visits that people come to know each other better.

The delegation visited the European Parliament, NATO et cetera. Amongst the issues with the European Parliament were the question of Turkey’s future in Europe. Obviously there are mixed views there, but I think the delegation have come away with a better understanding of a very strong position from Germany and Austria in particular. I for one am very strongly supportive of Turkey going to Europe for the future of relationships in that region, but there seems to be a very divergent view there.

We also had the opportunity to focus on something we do not really think about very much in this country—that is, the development program of the European Community of £6 billion to £7 billion. The orientation towards Asia was, I think, informative for members of the delegation. Obviously, members took the opportunity to put an Australian perspective with regard to the Common Agricultural Policy. But, particularly when we moved on to Norway, I think we appreciated the other side of this coin: the national cultural centres behind the preservation of agriculture in some of these countries. Whilst Norway is not in Europe, I think the degree to which the country seeks to preserve its sector was very much driven home.

Another issue throughout Europe is immigration. Whilst those countries do not have our tradition as a settlement reception country, we must also bear in mind the very low populations of some of these countries—Norway, four million; Belgium, Holland et cetera—so the level of migration is in some senses a very real challenge to their cultural identity. Whilst we obviously would like to overcome the barriers of discrimination and bias in those cultures, we must at the same time appreciate the severe challenges that it represents to their culture.

Another most interesting aspect of our visit to Norway was the pension fund that the country has established as a result of its oil revenues, appreciating, as it does, that they will one day run out. I think members were surprised that that fund currently has $US286 billion and had an 11.1 per cent return in 2005. What I think was interesting to the delegation was the degree to which the fund had invested in external financial instruments. The other interesting aspect for all members—and I think we all came away with a view that we should take it on board in this country—was the question of the ethical committee that looks at investments, decides that there is too much risk in areas, decides that weapons and non-humanitarian investments are totally wrong and excludes investments in that field.

We also had the opportunity in Norway to look at that country’s reorientation to the high north of the nation, which is also interrelated with its interest in renewables in the capture and use of carbon dioxide. At the same time, on the question of the Sami minority there, it was interesting to meet Berit Eira, the state secretary of the ministry of labour, who is a Sami speaker.

Another aspect of the delegation’s visit was its involvement in overseas commemoratives services. I was particularly struck by the Anzac Day events at Ypres. We had arrived just after an unfortunate stabbing death in the main railway station of the capital city, and I was very impressed by the Bürgermeister, Luc Dehaene, who, in his speech, really stressed the need to overcome ethnic division in the country and to not go into stereotyping et cetera. It was a very worthwhile speech on a very important day. We were honoured by the reality that Belgians, many decades afterwards, still have that service at the Menin Gate on a daily basis. It was interrupted only by the Nazi occupation in the Second World War; otherwise it has been constant. I found the Flanders Field Museum very impressive, magnificent and world class. It really did convey the realities of the suffering.

Also with regard to commemorative services, we had the opportunity in the Netherlands to be present at a ceremony recognising the 8½ thousand Dutch citizens who fought for this country in the Second World War after the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies. This comes at a time when we are celebrating 400 years of contact with the Dutch. There is also an important publication by Nonja Peters, The Dutch Down Under, which our ambassador in the Netherlands has had very high— (Time expired)

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