 I might just grab your attention and start tonight's proceedings. Can I, of course, start by acknowledging the Ngunnawal people and the Nambri people, attrition owners of the land on which we meet and pay my respects to their elders past and present. Can I acknowledge Amanda Rishworth, the secretary of the parliamentary friends of Papua New Guinea and Senator Anne McHugh and the chair of the parliamentary friends of Papua New Guinea who, along with me, are the hosts of tonight's event. In absentia at the moment, can I acknowledge Harry Jenkins, the speaker of the parliament who will be joining us a bit later, the parliamentary secretary for Defence, David Feeney, the parliamentary secretary for the Treasury, David Bradbury. Again, I think joining us a little later, so in absentia at the moment, can I acknowledge the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop. Can I acknowledge all the members and senators who have come here to join us in tonight's event. There is always competition in this building, but the fact that we've had such a fantastic turnout amongst members and senators I think speaks volumes about the significance that people hold the relationship with P&G in and might I also say, Surabhi, I think it also says a lot about the high esteem with which people hold you. Can I acknowledge Charles Lepani, his Excellency Charles Lepani, the P&G High Commissioner, his Excellency Martin Dunn, the High Commissioner for New Zealand, his Excellency Buraki Gino, the High Commissioner for the Solomon Islands, his Excellency Simi Lama Lu, the High Commissioner for Samoa, and Tareli Falakava-Kupu, the charged affair from Tonga, and of course can I acknowledge our very special guest, I've just knowledge, Julie, can I acknowledge our very special guest here tonight, our inaugural P&G Independence Day orata, Surabhi Namanlu, and it is a great pleasure to have you here this evening. I first went to Papua New Guinea on a school excursion back in 1984 where I spent three weeks travelling around, travelling around P&G, not just stuck in Port Moresby, but going to the Highlands hiking, staying with my Papua New Guinea contemporaries at the Marta School in Papandeta. And I have to say that from that very first experience for me, it was love at first sight. Papua New Guinea is an amazing place, it is an utterly amazing place, with the cultures, with the different languages, with the different costumes, with the incredible beauty of the country, life is simply lived in Papua New Guinea in a way that it is lived nowhere else on the planet, and it is for that reason a very special place indeed. And my trip was filled with magic, magic in visiting a village which hadn't seen a European face for a few years, magic in spending the night in the boarding house at the Marta School which actually meant sleeping in a kind of hut with no walls outside and watching wild pigs have a fight in front of me at midnight and my P&G contemporary sleeping through the whole thing. It is an incredible place, but of course my story is nothing compared to the so many Australians who have spent a very long period of time in their lives in P&G, and that includes people such as Louise Marcus who is here tonight, who has lived in Papua New Guinea. Professor Ross Garneau who is with us here tonight. I have been to P&G since then in the guise of a lawyer, a union official, and now on a number of occasions as a member of this government. I've always been a little curious as to how people in P&G view Australia, but without a shadow of doubt I've always been met with an incredible warmth from P&G and from people in P&G about Australia. It's not a simple statement to make, there is some texture to that, but by and large my sense is that Australia is held in enormous regard by people in Papua New Guinea and there's an incredible interest in Australia as well, an interest in current affairs, what's going on in politics, what's going on in sport. And for me if there is one thing that I would like to see it's that in a way in our national discourse that that interest is reciprocated, that we see a greater interest shown by people in Australia in what's happening in P&G because I do feel that P&G's profile within our national discourse needs to be raised. And in saying that I don't make that as a criticism of any government, in fact I think that all governments since P&G's independence have placed a very significant importance on the relationship with P&G and you can see that in the fact that it is one of our two big bilateral recipients of development assistance, it's one of our largest overseas missions in the world. They are very important symbols which have existed over governments of all persuasions in this country which demonstrate the significance that at a government level is placed upon the relationship with P&G. But if you consider those basic facts along with the notion that P&G is an economy which is growing very rapidly nowadays in the last financial year at a rate of 9% the fastest growing economy within the Pacific, it has a population of six and a half million now compared to two and a half million at independence. It's a country 50% bigger than New Zealand. We now enjoy $6 billion worth of two-way trade between Australia and P&G and of course it is our closest neighbour. There are people living in the western province who every day get up in the morning and commute across the border to the northernmost islands of the Torres Strait. For all these reasons, no matter how you cut it, P&G has got to be in our top 10 bilateral relationships and the truth is it's probably much, much more significant than that and yet I don't think that it plays like that at all within our national discourse, it certainly doesn't play like that within our media. A good example of that to me is if you look at the tragedies of the summer that has just passed with the floods in Queensland and Victoria, the fires in Western Australia, the earthquake in Christchurch in the midst of all that in November and December last year more than 250 people died in Daru just across the border in an outbreak of cholera and yet who knew about that? It barely raised a ripple within our public discourse and to me that is a really good example of what needs to happen and so for me there is a bit of a passion in trying to raise the profile of our bilateral relationship with P&G in our national discourse and I think there is no better place to start doing that than here in this building and that's very much part of the inspiration for having tonight's inaugural P&G Independence Day oration, which is intended to provide P&G its day in this building, it's a day in this parliament. We all know that there are many organisations, industry sectors, sporting teams, even regional cities who have their day in this building. Will P&G from now on have its day in this building as well, celebrated on a sitting day as close as possible to the 16th of September which is of course the national day of Papua New Guinea and in doing that it will be unique because there is no other country in the world which will have its national day celebrated in this building each and every year, but there is an appropriateness to that uniqueness because of course in the journey to P&G's independence it culminated by an act of this very parliament, the Papua New Guinea Independence Act of 1975. Our first orator is Surabi Namu, a former Prime Minister of P&G, a former Speaker of the P&G Parliament. I won't steal Amanda's thunder in doing the full introduction of Surabi which will happen later, but Surabi talks to us at a time when we are seeing very significant generational change in P&G and where we are seeing P&G face the real challenge of whether or not it can leverage the current resources boom that it's experiencing into really lifting it from a poorer country into a middle income country and that is very much the challenge facing P&G today. This event sits alongside a number of other initiatives that we have put in place to try and raise the profile of P&G in our national discourse. Earlier this year in April we held an academic symposium around P&G. We're trying to convene a number of informal dinners between parliamentarians from the P&G Parliament and parliamentarians from here and Scott Morrison who's here this evening joined me in a dinner last year which was actually done with Peter O'Neill, the now Prime Minister of P&G. And of course a little crusade of mine which is to see that the Today Show which is broadcast into P&G on two stations every morning given it has a significant viewership in P&G to be really nice if in the mornings they could tell us what the weather is in Port Moresby. So you can judge me on whether I'm able to achieve that in the next couple of years. But I do think that in trying to raise this profile we're doing this from the basis of very third whole ground because there are under the surface such strong people-to-people links between Australia and Papua New Guinea. From someone like Dame Carol Kiddo who's an Australian-born member of the Papua New Guinea Parliament who's been such a leader and championing of women's rights to Wilgenia who are Papua New Guinea and born doing wonderful things for the Wallabies in New Zealand right now to the 24,000 Papua New Guinea and born residents of Australia to the 12,000 Australians resident in P&G to the tens of thousands of people who have Australians who have now walked the Dakota Trail in the last 15 years to the 170 P&G students who are studying in Australian universities today as a result of Osage scholarships. Every one of those people is willing us to develop the very strongest relationship that we can between our two countries, a relationship which is not just befitting closest of neighbours but a relationship which is befitting family. Please enjoy your entree. We'll be back soon with the inaugural independence duration from Surabhi Nw. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.