TNAG-2743-FCO40-3958-Visits-by-Commonwealth-officials--ministers-and-public-figur-1993 — Page 112

PA

RESTRICTED

HAB

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY

26 MAR 1993

SK OFFICER

Association of Presiding Officers of Commonwealth Legislatures

PA

REGISTRY Action Taken

I have checked further with the Deputy President's Office. It would appear that the DP's Office has already sown the seeds for an invitation for our "Speaker" (i.e. the future elected President) to be invited to the next Conference of Commonwealth Speakers and Presiding Officers in Papua New Guinea in 1994 as an observer. They got an invitation for Mr John Swaine to attend the Jamaica Conference last year after Mr Swaine's interest to attend the conference was conveyed to Mr Philip Laundy, Secretary to the Standing Committee of the Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of Commonwealth Parliaments (and currently Clerk Assistant to the House of Commons of Canada). The invitation was duly extended to Mr Swaine after Mr Laundy spoke to the conference host. Given the obvious value of such a conference to us, Mr Swaine did express an interest to attend future conferences and Mr Laundy undertook to speak to the conference host when details of the next conference were drawn up. Mr Swaine's attendance last year appeared to have been very well received by other participants and, unless the Australians were being difficult, I would not expect great difficulty for Hong Kong to be invited again.

2.

I suggest we leave the logistics to Mr Swaine's Office and Mr Laundy who, as you may be aware, is actually advising us in the re-organisation of the Legislative Council Secretariat and is extremely helpful to Hong Kong's cause. He will be in Hong Kong in early March and I'll remind the DP's Office to follow up Hong Kong's attendance at the

next conference.

CC

PS/GH

Mr Ricketts, HKD, FCO Mr Blunt, HC Canberra

Ref: CSO/ADM CR 1/5691/90

loj

(Nicholas Ng) D of Ad 10/2/93

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