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Legislative Council - Fifty-Third Parliament, Second Session (53-2)
2016-03-09 Daily Xml
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Motions

Australia China Friendship Society

The Hon. J.S. LEE (16:18): I move:

That this council—

1. Congratulates the Australia China Friendship Society for celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2016;

2. Acknowledges the significant work and commitment of the Australia China Friendship Society’s Committee and volunteers, past and present, who continuously work towards building and promoting a friendship between the peoples of Australia and China; and

3. Acknowledges the importance of their establishment and the society’s attempts at bringing to the Australian public a greater knowledge and understanding of China’s rich cultural heritage.

It is an honour for me to rise today to move a motion to congratulate the South Australian branch of the Australia China Friendship Society on celebrating its 50th anniversary.

The society celebrated its 50th anniversary on Thursday 25 February 2016 at the very popular Chinese restaurant, Ming's Palace. I was honoured to represent the Leader of the Opposition, Steven Marshall, at the 50th anniversary dinner and very pleased to be joined by my parliamentary colleagues, the Hon. John Dawkins, the member for Hammond in the other place, Adrian Pederick, as well as the federal member for Barker, Tony Pasin.

Other dignitaries supporting the event included the Governor of South Australia His Excellency, the Hon. Hieu Van Le, and Mrs Lan Le, minister Zoe Bettison and also Dr Ross Gwyther, National President of the Australia China Friendship Society. I would like to acknowledge and place on the record special thanks to the 2016 executive committee members and also past presidents and life members.

The 2016 executive president is June Phillips; the vice president is Ann Ferguson OAM, who is also the Mayor of Mount Barker; the vice president is Chris Mutton; the secretary is Graham Bennett; Helen Bannock, Shane Strudwick and Daniel Ong are committee members; the tour secretary is Pat O'Riley; the past president and a life member is Mike Willis; and the past national president and a life member is Geoffrey Stillwell.

Just for the record for this motion, in terms of a brief history of the Australia China Friendship Society, the national body was actually established 65 years ago, but the South Australian branch began 50 years ago. Regular cultural exchanges and promotion of the Chinese language learning is a commonplace now, but, as you would imagine, it was certainly not a commonplace back then when it was first established.

It had its very humble beginning in an era where things were almost beyond reach and there were lots of challenges. The pioneers of the time were ostracised and even persecuted for their beliefs in establishing a friendship with China, but that did not stop the society in terms of furthering their movement and helping their members to extend and strengthen cultural trade and peaceful relationships with China and also to seek Australia's diplomatic recognition of the government of the People's Republic of China at the time.

Despite the organisation's earlier development, things moved really slowly in South Australia. In 1966, the founding meeting of the SA branch of the Friendship Society was held at the home of founder David Caust. The core of the branch became the pioneers of setting it up and the founding members included the McCaffreys, Roy Baynes and Marj Johnston. David Caust was the first president and Lil McCaffrey was the first secretary and treasurer.

Dr David Caust was an Adelaide GP and the first South Australian president of the society, and as a general practitioner he would actually use his surgery waiting rooms at Plympton as a place for meetings. He developed a love of Chinese books and magazines as well. When he passed away, sadly and tragically at the age of 46 in 1968, his legacy was continued by the other members of the committee because of his love for Chinese books and magazines. After he passed away, Charlie McCaffrey set up The East Bookshop in 1969. Charlie contacted China's state book distribution agency, China International Book Trading Corporation, about opening a shop—and there is correspondence on the matter between 1968 and 1969.

Back then it was the Chinese cultural revolution. To be able to get those books into Australia was something very challenging, but they were able to do so. In the mid-1990s, The East Bookshop was moved to Gouger Street, near Adelaide's Chinatown. I have had strong connections with this particular bookshop because as a young teenager and in my early 20s I would go to the bookshop as a customer. Mike Willis, in his speech at the anniversary dinner, actually remembered me. Often he would see me during Chinese new year in Chinatown. I would be wearing a Chinese jacket with my pigtails, and he remembers those times.

I was a good customer, because for years I would go to the shop and buy lots of books, magazines and handicrafts. I remember we spoke during a Chinese new year back then, when Mike had this brilliant idea of riding a trishaw across Chinatown on Moonta Street. He wanted a young woman wearing a costume and with pigtails to be sitting on the trishaw as part of a documentary film. Believe it or not, I was one of those models. To think that after all these years I have become a member of parliament and the Australia China Friendship Society is celebrating its 50th anniversary and I have had that strong connection with the society is quite a remarkable story.

Sadly, after nearly 40 years of operation, the bookshop did close because there was not enough patronage and it was quite difficult to manage with volunteers. Therefore, I was quite sad that it did close, that it did not continue. Nevertheless, in the 1970s the branch membership of the Australia China Friendship Society in South Australia actually grew very steadily. Lesley Caust, David and Tess' daughter, was one of these young people who furthered the movement with the growth of the branch.

The question of a diplomatic relationship was resolved at the end of 1972, although the branch was still regarded with suspicion in some quarters. Executive and general meetings and the names of the movers and the seconders of the motions at meetings held by the society were not recorded in the minutes for fear that this information would fall into the hands of ASIO. At the time, it was even one of the few organisations to be deemed worthy of continued police surveillance by Justice White in the 1974 report on the activities of the state police special branch. Nevertheless, it did survive and, even though at the time it was difficult, Roy Baynes OA and Sir Walter Crocker continued to work to ensure the society and the association continued to build friendship between South Australia and China.

I would like to make some mention of Roy's work, Roy Baynes OA, and of Sir Walter Crocker. Sir Walter Crocker was a distinguished former diplomat who had himself favoured the granting of diplomatic recognition to China at a much earlier date and had much to do with recommending Roy Baynes for the medal of the Order of Australia for his services to international relations. Sir Walter assisted the society in a number of ways, and for a time was a sort of unofficial patron of the society.

In 1977, the Australia China Friendship Society of South Australia was approached by the Chinese in China to select from among our members a number of teachers to teach English in China. As I said earlier, it is commonplace today to send teachers overseas to China, but it was not then. It was a new phenomenon, because in 1977 the Chinese wanted teachers who both understood China's political and social system and would teach for two years while managing the culture shock of living there.

Eventually, they sent eight teachers to China at one time. It was really a big effort, an enormous effort from a small membership base in South Australia. Peter Tretheway was one of those teachers, and he was based in Xi'an. It was one of the biggest projects, and he wrote to the society in South Australia requesting help to get books donated and sent to China. What followed, from about 1979 to 1983, was simply a humungous effort, particularly on the part of Roy Baynes, whose garage became the collection point for thousands of books at the time.

Roy was hammering nails into tea chests which would then be loaded by the members onto the Chinese grain ships on their occasional visits to Port Adelaide. One ship, the Luzhou, took 67 tea chests containing 15,000 books in one go, all free of charge, destined for various institutions throughout China. By the time they ceased the collection of books, more than a quarter of a million volumes had been sent to China. This was all done between 1977 and 1983, and it was pretty remarkable.

I also want to talk about the language classes and tours. Two of the core services the society offers to its members and to the general public are tours of China and language classes. The Australia China Friendship Society is the oldest China tour operator, and for a long period of time it was the only China tour operator. In South Australia, both the tour operations and the language classes owe much to the efforts of the branch secretary, Barbara Wahlstorm. Language classes continue to operate today through Helen and Graham Bennett's good organisation, and the tours have the added feature of inbound tours of Australia arranged for Chinese travel groups.

We talk about the ties between Shandong and South Australia celebrating their 30th anniversary this year, but the ties with Shandong actually started a long time ago. In 1986, there was a further important development when a delegation from the state branch visited Shandong Province. Members of the delegation, Jeff Emmel in particular, were largely responsible for putting in place the series of steps that led to South Australia and Shandong becoming sister states.

A presentation in Adelaide by a Chinese delegation was then made through premier Dean Brown, who in 1986 organised a celebratory banner marking the establishment of the Shandong-South Australia relationship. The Australia China Friendship Society of South Australia was the main organiser which established this particular relationship in terms of the delegation coming here back then.

Other special projects worth mentioning as part of the 50th anniversary of the South Australia branch include the following: the South Australia branch always contributed to a national cause for funds to help alleviate flooding in China or in support of projects, such as the industrial cooperatives (Gongye) in China, and a visit by Chinese secondary students to Aberfoyle Park school organised by the society in 1994 saw a donation made to Sanhe Primary School near Zouping in Shandong Province. China had recognised the problem of the poverty in many rural schools and had responded by initiating Project Hope, under whose auspices money was collected and distributed to schools in need.

Two years later a second South Australian school group organised by the society made the first of a number of contributions to the Zouping School for Deaf Mutes. Eventually some $10,000 would be raised by the South Australian branch and channelled to this school. When the school eventually succeeded in an ambitious rebuilding program, the fundraising effort by the society in South Australia was directed towards the Charles Foundation and its work for mainly the Yi nationality minority children's group in Sichuan Province's Liangshan Mountains.

In the first quarter of 2004, the society mounted a major display of its own history and activity at the South Australian Migration Museum. So much history and a lot of achievement is made through this particular society. Michael Willis, the past president of the SA branch said in his speech that occasionally the question is raised as to whether the society has served its purpose. He felt very strongly that there was much work to be done but that it is the first society, the first association, of such longevity that it has really paved the way now for so many Australian-Chinese organisations and associations to be set up in South Australia. They ought to be congratulated on their work in so many ways.

The branch has continued to foster and promote an understanding of Chinese society as well as promote South Australia to China as we move forward. With all the remarks that I have made and the remarkable history and the work the society has done, I think this motion needs to be recognised by members of parliament. With those words I commend the motion to the chamber.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.

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