Ms CLAYDON (Newcastle—Deputy Speaker) (19:45): Last April I was very fortunate to be part of a terrific delegation travelling to Dharamshala to meet with His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The delegation was an all women's delegation led by my colleague the member for Macquarie; the co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Tibet, Senator Janet Rice from the other house; and another colleague of ours from the House, the member for Mackellar.

We met with members of the Central Tibetan Administration, including Sikyong Penpa Tsering and a whole lot of his cabinet members and people in his government. As Deputy Speaker of this House, I was especially pleased to meet my counterpart from the Tibetan administration. Their deputy speaker is also a woman. Dolma Tsering Teykhang was her name, and I was delighted to be able to meet with her. The delegation had an opportunity to discuss geopolitics with the Dalai Lama for almost an hour: the challenges, the opportunities and the important establishment of services and cultural and political institutions that are meeting the interests of Tibetans who are now living in all parts of the globe. We visited many community facilities, including a school, the Tibetan Nuns Project, medical centres, policy think tanks and aged-care homes. It was a really terrific opportunity to look at all aspects of life in exile for the Tibetan people. It was fabulous to see how younger Tibetans were continuing to work very hard at maintaining and celebrating Tibetan culture wherever they might live on the globe.

All of those that we met expressed their concern for fellow Tibetans in China. Of particular interest, there were a number of issues that were raised that I know Australia has also been raising in international forums around the issues of surveillance, the removal of children and families through Chinese boarding schools, and the alleged DNA data gathering that is taking place. The United Nations has warned that some one million Tibetan children are now affected by the policy of removing children from families and placing them into state-run boarding schools. It's a policy that's not utterly unfamiliar to Australians, where we have seen First Nations people experience removal from family in an effort to disconnect from culture and language. It was an issue that really resonated with many of us in this last delegation. It was something that I know the Sikyong raised when he was here in Canberra during the last sitting fortnight in this parliament. It's an issue that causes great sorrow for him, his government and indeed many of the Tibetan people across the globe.

The Australian government has been clear and consistent in raising our serious concerns about human rights in Tibet publicly, privately and directly with China and in multilateral forums. We're deeply concerned by reports of the detention of Tibetans for peaceful expression of political views, and the suppression of Tibetan religious expression, excessive security measures, mass-surveillance, restrictions on travel and China's policies on Tibetan cultural rights and heritage. I'll be continuing, as I know other members of the all-party parliamentary group will, to advocate for the rights of Tibetans whose educational, religious, cultural and linguistic freedoms are at risk. These are matters that we follow both at home and abroad. I know in my electorate of Newcastle we've got a small but very strong Tibetan community. I do want to give a shout out. I had a fabulous time celebrating His Holiness's 88th birthday the other week, and I thank the Newcastle community for that.

I want to do another very quick shout out. There's a very big, important match that's about to take place, and I just want to say a very big 'Go the Matildas!' and 'Congrats' to the Australian Diamonds, who just won a massive game, meaning that they remain undefeated in the Netball World Cup. Women's sport is on the world stage, as it should be.