Page: 6407
The Hon. A. B. KELLY [10.19 p.m.]: I should like to tell the House about the sister city of Wellington, New South Wales, and some good news we received this week. Some 12 years ago a sister city relationship began with Wellington and a small town called Osawano in Japan. For 12 years that sister city has been sending groups of 20 young Japanese schoolchildren accompanied by two or three adults to stay in Wellington for a week or so. For most of those years I have hosted two students on each occasion.
Good and friendly relationships have developed between the people of Osawano and Wellington. Wellington was the poorer sister city and on only two occasions sent students to Japan. Osawano continued to send out its schoolchildren. Two years ago Osawano funded the construction of a Japanese garden in Wellington, which was opened last year. The sister city spent between $250,000 and $300,000 building a Japanese garden along the same lines as the garden in Cowra. Although it is not quite as big at this stage, it is a very beautiful Japanese garden all the same. The Wellington Japanese garden is adjacent to the Wellington caves, so anybody travelling in the area would do well to visit the new Japanese garden that was totally funded by Wellington's sister city in Japan.
Last year members of the New South Wales Parliament paid a visit to its sister city, Tokyo City. The group included the Hon. J. P. Hannaford and myself, along with members from the other place—John Murray, Tony Stewart, John Turner, Grant McBride and Jillian Skinner. We spent some days on a hectic summer tour of Japan ending up in a place called Nagano where we had one day off. We were deciding what to do on that one day off to catch up and recuperate. I said that we were only a few hours from Wellington's sister city and I asked the group if it would be all right for me to travel to Osawano. Very graciously all the members of the parliamentary group said we should all go. We all travelled up to Osawano but, unfortunately, the Hon. J. P. Hannaford did not enjoy his time quite so much as he was seriously ill on that occasion.
The Hon. D. F. Moppett: Too much sake!
The Hon. A. B. KELLY: No, he had a bad dose of the flu. We were well entertained on that occasion. In the discussions that night the Mayor of Osawano, Tadao Nakasai, and I exchanged stories about some of the students who had visited Wellington over the years and had stayed at my house. We talked about Yota Arase, who had stayed at my home five years earlier. I was told that he was now the all Japan high school swimming champion. Within an hour they trundled young Yota Arase with his parents to the function that night. Unfortunately, we cannot incorporate in Hansard the photographs he gave me but he brought with him the certificates he won as Japan's swimming champion. This week we received the news that he will be returning to Sydney this year to represent Japan in the Sydney Olympics. It is a fitting relationship. I hope he does well, although I hope he does not beat too many Australians! I congratulate Yota Arase on his excellent achievements.