TNAG-2743-FCO40-3958-Visits-by-Commonwealth-officials--ministers-and-public-figur-1993 — Page 133

D of ADM

PAO(C) (7) to 24/5691/74

©

RECE. Spom 4 Sir Hard Botton,

Clifford

RESTRICTED Claire of Monmoges.

IN.

See attached

Sander?

! fót and establish

2

Association of

(perhaps via (CD)

early van it was in

Namibia

1.

Presiding Officers of Commonwealth Legislatures

who attended ham UK wait to Speaker, a get

The Canadian Commissioner rang me on 14 January.

said that the Clerk of the Canadian House of Commons, a

He

an

account

Mr Marlow, had attended a meeting of the standing Committee kem?

the Association of Presiding Officers of Commonwealth Legislatures in South Africa last week. He had been accompanying the Canadian Speaker, Mr Fraser. Mr Marlow was now on a visit to Hong Kong and had reported a rather disturbing development at the meeting to Mr Higginbotham.

2.

Apparently this Commonwealth association meets every other year in plenary session. In the intervening years, of which this was one, the Standing Committee meets. John Swaine

was invited to the last plenary meeting and attended. The Canadian assumption was that he and his successors would be invited to plenary meetings in future up to 1997.

3.

But at the Standing Committee meeting in South Africa the Speaker of the Australian Parliament, a Mr Maclay, said that Australia would never agree again to Hong Kong

attendance. He also said that there would never be any

Australia/Hong Kong Parliamentary friendship body. It was not very clear to me from what Mr Higginbotham said whether the

objection was because Hong Kong was not a country or because

the Australian Speaker believed China would object.

former is more likely.

Maybe the

RESTRICTED