Thank you, Mr. Bell. Please be seated. Members of the House, before we begin our day, I have a message from Her Majesty the Queen, Head of the Commonwealth.

It is highly appropriate that the theme of Commonwealth Day at the start of the new millennium should be The Communications Challenge. For much of the millennium just ended, the challenge was to relay information as speedily and accurately as possible. What once took weeks, is now instantaneous.

But the advances in technology bring a new challenge of how to use rapid communication responsibly and for the common good. We have to strive to ensure that the advantages of modern communication systems are available to all, and are used to bring us all closer together, not to create fresh divisions. And we need to remember that exciting though the new ways of communicating undoubtedly are, what matters most is what we say to each other.

The Commonwealth is an organization so diverse and widespread that it has always depended on good communications, which are helped, of course, by having a common language. Recent advances in communication technology are particularly helpful in fostering the non-governmental networks, which help to make the Commonwealth so unique.

The exchange of information and sharing of experiences between representatives of civil society in the different countries form an important part of the Commonwealth's activities at the start of the 21st century. Both in these networks, and in our cooperation at government level, our shared values and traditions provide a foundation for using the new technology to our common advantage.

The challenge for the century just started, will be to find ways to use ever faster communications to bring greater harmony and understanding both within each of our societies and between them, and thereby to strengthen the Commonwealth.

Elizabeth R.

Orders of the day. Item 2, Ministers' statements. The honourable Premier, Mr. Kakfwi.