Mr TRUSS(12.31 p.m.) —I present the report of the Australian Parliamentary Delegation to the 17th ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organisation General Assembly in Phuket, Thailand, held from 16 to 21 September 1996. I am delighted to present this report on behalf of the delegation which attended this very significant gathering of parliamentarians from the ASEAN countries and their dialogue countries held in September this year.

The delegation, which was intended originally to include both senators and members, finally included only members of this House. I would like to thank the deputy leader of the delegation, the honourable member for Barton (Mr McClelland), the member for Namadgi (Ms Ellis), the member for Indi (Mr Lieberman) and the member for Moncrieff (Mrs Sullivan), who made up the delegation, which I think had a very enjoyable and very informative experience through its participation in the conference.

At the outset, I also thank the secretary of the delegation, Robert King, and acknowledge the very great assistance which the delegation received from the Australian Ambassador to Thailand, Mr Cavan Hogue, and James Larsen, the second secretary. I know, Mr Acting Speaker Jenkins, that you would be very familiar with this particular conference, having been the leader of the delegation to the 16th ASEAN conference. As a delegation, we were grateful for the benefit of your experience in briefing us prior to our departure. I would have to say that you warned us appropriately about what to expect, and the advice that you gave us about the quality of the conference and the capacity that we have through participation in such gatherings to cement our relationships with our neighbours of the near north was indeed very accurate and very helpful.

There are 12 dialogue partners who participate in this particular conference. Australia was, in fact, the first dialogue partner and, as a country, we have attended this ASEAN conference on 16 consecutive occasions—a record not paralleled by any of the other dialogue countries. The members of ASEAN all had large delegations present—Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam and Singapore—together with Brunei, which has special observer status. Cambodia and Laos are likely to become full members of AIPO in 1997 and there are discussions currently taking place about the role of Burma. When these countries get together, when they meet with Australia, it does provide us with a dialogue opportunity to deal with a number of issues of great significance.

One of the features of the conference is the dialogue sessions held with each of the observer partners. In our case, we participated in a very active session which dealt with issues such as culture and technology transfer, a range of trading issues, including anti-dumping, investment policies both by Australia and within Australia and a range of environmental issues.

If there is one issue that the delegation had brought home to it most strongly, it was the tremendous interest in Australia's capacity to provide environmental services in Asia. There is certainly growing interest in environmental issues and an acknowledgment that our country has much to offer other parts of the world in that regard. That was one of the focuses of our dialogue session, and the committee has recommended in its report that Australia should place increasing emphasis on trade in environmental services and our capacity to contribute to countries in that part of the world.

There is no doubt that Australia enjoys excellent relationships with the countries of ASEAN. The goodwill that was so apparent to our delegation while we were present at the conference reflects very well on the warmth of that relationship. From those countries where there was perhaps some strain in the past, there certainly was a desire to start off on a new foot and to work towards a cooperative relationship in the future.

This report tells in pictures and text the story of a very successful conference. As observers, we were not involved in all of the sessions of the conference and it is our recommendation that we should pursue with the organisers of the next conference, in Jakarta, the possibility of observer delegations being involved in all of the sessions. There was some support for that view expressed to us and we believe that it is important that we build on that opening with a view towards building an even more successful participation in conferences in the future.

Mr ACTING SPEAKER —Order! The time allotted for this report has concluded.