Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

As the chair of the Bangladesh country group as part of the Australia South and Central Asia Parliamentary Network, I am honoured to rise in this place and speak about and celebrate Australia's longstanding, fruitful relationship with Bangladesh. For our parliament, this is an especially important time to highlight the good that our parliamentary networks and country groups do in fostering engagement between members of our parliament and the legislative bodies in places across the globe, along with their diplomatic representatives within Australia. This week is particularly noteworthy, given that, later today, chairs, co-chairs and vice chairs of our parliament's country groups will meet with heads of mission and diplomats from all over the world within this building. It is an event co-hosted by the member for Bean and the Embassy of Paraguay in Australia. This event is a fantastic idea, and I thank the member for Bean for doing his part to make it happen.

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of attending an event in honour of the 51st anniversary of Bangladeshi independence and their national day. This took place not long after I became chair of their parliamentary group, and I, wanting to play a small part in extending and deepening our country's friendship with Bangladesh, looked further into how deep that friendship goes. The timing of doing so, on the eve of attending Bangladeshi independence and national day festivities, was poignant indeed, for Australia was, after all, the fourth country to recognise Bangladesh's independence, and the first in the developed world to do so, back in 1971. From that time, as two nations, we deepened that bond through many shared and common values and ideals. As time went on, we tapped into those values and ideals and shared many things, like a love of sport, particularly cricket, of course. We grew our economic ties through education and trade, and we shared our peoples. I am particularly proud to say that our country is home to a vibrant Bangladeshi diaspora, many of whom hail from my state of South Australia and indeed my own electorate of Spence.

On the subject of trade, one can look no further than the flourishing Bangladeshi textiles industry. In fact, only a fortnight ago, the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association held the Bangladesh Apparel Summit in Melbourne. It was an honour to speak with a number of their delegates in Canberra later that week. I sincerely thank His Excellency M Allama Siddiki, Bangladesh's high commissioner to Australia, for his gracious invitation that night and for extending a hand of friendship to our country group. Along with our vice chair, Senator Dean Smith, we look forward to many more opportunities to engage in dialogues about what makes our countries special. By working to further strengthen our bilateral relationships, both of our nations become more prosperous, as we have done so through successive decades of positive engagement, trade and cultural exchanges.

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