Petro, we first met at the Normandy commemoration in June. It was lovely to meet you there because I have a bit of a personal connection with the Ukraine through my friend from Oxford days, Ihor Fedorowycz, and we had the chance to talk about the challenges that you were facing and I really enjoyed the conversation that we had. Little did I think that just a few weeks later we would be both involved in responding to the MH17 atrocity.
In one sense the Ukraine is a distant country with which Australia has only a thin relationship, but in another sense we feel a strong bond of solidarity with Ukrainian people rising from the MH17 atrocity because you did everything you could to help in those awful circumstances and we also came to appreciate better the predicament that Ukraine finds itself in. A smaller country striving to be free and prosperous that is being disrupted by a larger neighbour.
Now, there’s only so much that other countries can do in this situation, but the very least we can do is offer moral support and some economic support and some capacity building support and I’m pleased that Australia has been able to do that over the last few months. I’m also very conscious of the fact that while Ukraine is a long way away, some 40,000 Australians have recent Ukrainian ancestry, including people like Mathew Guy, the new leader of the opposition here in Victoria. They have become exemplary Australians as invariably our migrants do, but they add to that sense of solidarity, that sense of warmth between our two countries.
I’m pleased that since the MH17 atrocity we have moved to establish an embassy in Kiev and we’ve got both Jean and Doug, our current and our future ambassadors here and that’s good. But I hope this is the beginning of a new and stronger relationship. Ukraine has so much potential – about 40 million people, roughly the size of Poland. Poland has begun its economic take off, Ukraine is still very much at the start of that, but with the right help both domestically and internationally there is no reason why Ukraine can’t become a highly developed, sophisticated, first world economy quite quickly because that’s essentially what’s happened in Poland over the last two decades.
So, thank you for being here. This is the first ever visit by a Ukrainian president to Australia. I hope at some time in the not too distant future I might be able to return the favour and visit Ukraine. Perhaps at some time in the not too distant future we might be able to unveil a monument to the dead of M17 in a peaceful Eastern Ukraine. That would be something that I would very much hope for and in my own way would like to help you work towards.
So, thank you Petro and welcome.
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