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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-06-21 Daily Xml
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French Engagement Strategy

Mr WHETSTONE (Chaffey) (15:13): My question is to the Premier. Premier, what specific trade qualifications does Ms Joslene Mazel have to make her the appropriate person to head up the new French engagement strategy, and were there any language requirements as part of the appointment?

The Hon. J.W. WEATHERILL (Cheltenham—Premier) (15:13): I think she actually comes from a French background. I think her mother was Egyptian and they came from that part of the world, but that wasn't the principal requirement. In fact, the job itself isn't about trade per se: it's about the relationship with France and, in particular, more about the non-trade elements of the relationship with France. What we have decided to do within the Department of the Premier and Cabinet is have the deepest possible engagement with France across a range of domains, including sporting, cultural and artistic. We are looking to explore sister state relationships/sister city relationships.

Fortunately, the Minister for Defence, the present French Minister for Defence, is also my counterpart as President of Brittany, so he is both a state Premier, in our parlance, and also a federal minister. That's rare. In fact, it's the only member of the French ministry who has been given that forbearance by the President of France to occupy both positions. It is a rare opportunity to bring our two regions closer together.

This is how the French see the relationship: they see this as an act of friendship, not just a commercial relationship. Of course, there will be other parts of government that will attend to the trade relationship. The Minister for Trade will attend to that, and of course a discrete subcomponent is the defence relationship, which is all well underway and being supervised by his agencies. It's important we take a whole-of-government approach to this. We are expecting a visit from the French defence minister later this year. I think we are also expecting a visit from the French environment minister later this year, if that is still happening. So there is an enormous amount of attention.

Those visits need to be handled with great care and attention. We want to put our best foot forward. There is a French advisory board, which is being chaired by our Minister for Education, who I know is a fluent French speaker who will bring together a range of notable French citizens here in South Australia to come together to assist us to find ways in which we can deeper engage with the people of France off the back of this extraordinary opportunity presented to us by the Future Submarines project.

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