On Saturday 27th February I attended the banquet organised by the Cairns and District Chinese Association to end the 15 days of celebration of the Chinese New Year. All three levels of government were there to highlight the importance of our relationship with Chinä: Jim Turnour, member for Leichhardt and Michael Choi, the State Parliamentary secretary for Natural Resources, Mines and Energy and Trade. Michael made a wonderful speech in which he acknowledged the traditional owners of the land, the ABCs as he called them - Australian Born Chinese - and all of the people from other nations who contribute to making us a truly multi-cultural society.

An estimated 14,000 Chinese people have visited this region over the past two weeks in charter flights from southern China and for the first time this year from Beijing. Cairns made them feel welcome with the Chinese Festival on 13th February on the Esplanade, lion dancers at the airport to greet visitors and new year banners flying in the streets.

I have been involved in discussions with Chinese airlines to encourage them to extend their charter flights to other times in the year as a prelude to establishing a direct air link with China.