§ Mr. SpeakerI have a short statement to make. On 18 January this year the House approved a motion relating to the presentation, on behalf of both Houses of Parliament, of a Vice-Regal Chair to the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia. The gift was to mark this year's bicentenary of the first European settlement of Australia and the opening of the new Parliament House in Canberra.
I should inform the House that, at the invitation of the President of the Australian Senate and the Speaker of the Australian House of Representatives, and in company with many other Presiding Officers from around the world, I attended the first sitting of the Australian Parliament in the new Parliament House on 22 August. The Vice-Regal 872 Chair was in place for that occasion; and each House of the Australian Parliament adopted a resolution which, among other things, expressed
thanks and appreciation to the Parliaments, Governments and peoples of those countries, states and territories and to those organisations which have so graciously presented gifts to Australia's new Parliament House.