Dr STONE (6:13 PM) —On 22 February at 12.51, Christchurch was rocked by a massive earthquake, of magnitude 6.3 on the Richter scale. In Australia, where we have such an old and stable continent, it is very hard to imagine that sort of terror and destruction—although, of course, some years ago at Newcastle we did have an earthquake that caused significant devastation.

The Christchurch earthquake destroyed one of the most historic parts of New Zealand, and in particular of its South Island, a place held very dear in the hearts of New Zealanders and in New Zealand’s culture. And many Australians, of course, have visited and stayed there. On behalf of the people of my electorate of Murray, which is in northern Victoria, I want to express our sincere condolences for the more than 180 who lost their lives—the little babies; the mothers and fathers; the grandparents—in a way that must have been a shock to all. Who would have expected it? The day dawns; it is another day—business as usual—and then you lose your loved ones. It is a shame, of course, that more could not have been rescued. But when you have an earthquake of this magnitude the miracle is that so many were able to be pulled from the rubble.

There was a massive international response, of course from Australia and also from Japan, which was ironic in that, just a very short time after that, Japan itself needed so much support for an earthquake and tsunami of even greater magnitude. It is not surprising that we should have speaker after speaker here in Australia extending our sincere sympathies and condolences to our friends across the ditch, as we say. We as Australians almost had New Zealand as another state of our federation, as we know, along with Fiji. It was a last-minute withdrawal, but it would have been a magnificent thing. I do not know if all New Zealanders would currently agree, but it would have been a magnificent thing for New Zealand to have been part of the Federation of Australia. We also shared early history of British colonisation. Who will forget people like our Governor Grey, from South Australia, who also worked in New Zealand, particularly with Maori issues and their early land rights issues. We had an enormous transfer of our high officials but also of our ordinary colonial Australians with the colonial New Zealanders of the time. There was a lot of Maori interaction, too, with Australia in those very early days. There were early whalers but also other workers who came to Australia. This was back in the 1800s. We have had those links therefore for so very long.

Until very recently, less than 10 years ago, there was no need for a visa or special red tape to enter Australia and become part of our society, and vice versa. Many New Zealanders who live in my electorate of Murray came prior to the need for visas but many, dairy farmers in particular, have come since. As dairy farmers they have experienced the worst drought on record that Australia can throw at them and, more recently, some of the worst floods on record that my area has ever known. So things have not always been easy for the New Zealanders in the electorate of Murray, but they are solid citizens who stand shoulder to shoulder in their volunteering, community cohesion and community contribution as New Zealand Aussies—as we tend to call them.

On behalf of my electorate of Murray, let me say that we have the most sincere sympathy for all of those who lost their loved ones, lost their homes and cherished things like gardens and memories—and their cathedral, which managed to get through, more or less intact, four earthquakes before this one. We have enormous sympathy for their experience now, and we wish them well in the rebuild.

I was lucky to have been in New Zealand just two weeks ago on a parliamentary delegation, on the north island. We were meeting with and learning from the Maori experience with their young people and the justice system. I have to say that the friendship and the genuine need for both us and our New Zealander friends to understand each other’s strategies and to learn from each other was just so close. It is not something I have experienced in any other country—that willingness and strong desire to cooperate and share in what is a mutual problem for both of us. We need to make sure that all of our New Zealander and Australian Indigenous families have the best go. Our CER, our closer economic relations, is almost unique in the world in being so comprehensive and yet so trouble-free and so long lived.

We have this extraordinary relationship with New Zealand. There is a lot of DNA shared between our two countries. Our colonial experience means that we understand each other’s cultures intimately. Our Indigenous Australians and New Zealanders share mutual issues and concerns about their recognition and the maintenance of their culture, and our countries work to make sure that all of that is better for our Indigenous citizens in both countries. This earthquake has been a terrible disaster for those in Christchurch and for the broader New Zealand community, and the people of Murray extend their sympathies.