Page 2135 - Week 07 - Thursday, 4 June 2015
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Title agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
Adjournment
Motion (by Mr Gentleman) proposed:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Commonwealth Parliamentary Association—seminar
MS FITZHARRIS (Molonglo) (6.19): I rise today to speak about the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Seminar on Strengthening Democracy and the Role of Parliamentarians: Challenges and Solutions that I attended last week in Ottawa, Canada. I want to thank the CPA and their representative, Ms Lucy Pickles, and in particular the Canadian Branch of the CPA, led by Joe Preston MP, chair, and supported by the associate secretary, Elizabeth Kingston, and her staff who were recently in the Assembly in person, for their interesting and diverse program and generous hospitality in welcoming the 20-odd delegates to their capital city—a city with much in common with our own.
I would like to note the other delegates who contributed so richly to our discussion over five days—five days on which we were all parliamentarians. Despite where we may have political differences, we had more in common than what set us apart. This is true for us all here too: some days are richer in our parliamentary tradition than are political. Perhaps today was not one of them. But first and foremost we are parliamentarians with a special role in our democratic systems.
The other delegates were the Hon Francis Mwangangi MP from the National Assembly of Kenya; the Hon Noel Masangwi MP from the Malawi National Assembly; the Hon Bernard Arnephy MNA from the National Assembly of the Seychelles; the Hon Petrus Ngomana MPL from the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature in South Africa; and the Hon Arjuna Sujeewa Senasinghe MP from the Parliament of Sri Lanka.
From Australia were the Hon Natasha Maclaren-Jones, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council who sends her regards to our colleagues opposite, particularly Mr Coe; Ms Joan Rylah MP from the Parliament of Tasmania; the Hon Terence Mulder MP from the Parliament of Victoria; the Hon David Grills MLC from the Parliament of Western Australia; Deputy Scott Wickenden from the Assembly of the States of Jersey; Ms Ann McTaggart, member of the Scottish Parliament; Shri Kirti Vardhan Azad MP from the Lok Sabha, the Indian House of the People, who may be known to some, particularly members of our Indian community, as a former representative of the Indian national cricket team; Dr Madhu Gupta MLC from the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Council; Mr Dwayne Vaz from the Parliament of Jamaica; the Hon Helen Drayton, senator from Trinidad and Tobago Parliament; and the Hon Lillian Misick OBE, member of parliament of the Turks and Caicos Legislative Council.
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