TRAVEL REPORT The Hon. Michael Atkinson MP Attorney-General ...

cases . . . banked up for many, many years . . . I think Croatia could do withsome advice from the English language jurisdictions on case management,case flow, training the judges - we were told in Croatia that being a judgewasn't a terribly high status . . . that they needed to train judges and makepeople, lawyers, want to be judges - in Croatia the best lawyers tended to beadvocates rather than judges, whereas I find here in South Australia I hardlyever get knocked back when I ask someone to be . . . a judge -that's not so inCroatia . . . we need to help Croatia with its land tenure system . . . there isgreat confusion about who owns what . . . who has an entitlement toapartments, which were dolled out by the communist authorities duringcommunisms . . . then the war came . . . now there are arguments about whoseapartment it is (Presenter. So you think Australia can assist?) Well I thinkAustralia has the kind of expertise ; if it has the will to engage with Croatia . . .one of the disappointing things is that we were told that . . . there were very fewvisits of Australian politicians to the countries of former Yugoslavia . . . so lthink there's a need for Australia to re-engage with that part of the world,especially since so many Australians come from there (Presenter. Well, seewhat we can do . . . you mentioned some of the regions in Croatia that youvisited, what did you think of the tourist facilities?) . . . in Dubrovnik they werejust magnificent . . . didn't know these kind of places existed, hotels sosumptuous . . . Dubrovnik would have to be the greatest old city in the world -Vini and I took an hour and a half to walk around the walls of Dubrovnik . . . toenjoy the old city, to attend a mass there . . . we saw these magnificent linerson the sea at Dubrovnik . . . never seen ships so big . . . clearly the Germansand the Italians are coming to Croatia for their holidays - the tourist trade isback on track . . . David Tadoravic [phonetic] and his company have had a bigrole in turning their tourist resorts from resorts that weren't really touristfriendly during the communist era . . . turning them into paragons of service(Presenter: Are there any other potential areas in South Australia'srelationship of Croatia that can be built upon, perhaps cultural or studentexchanges . . .) I think that's possible by arrangement with the Government -clearly the Croatian Government's priority is not in that area ; Australia is along way away . . . not thinking of those kind of exchanges, but I'm sure theywill happen as time goes by . . . in Osijek there were still refugee camps there. . . they had been displaced from Bosnia . . . clearly the Croatian Government'spriority has to be treating them decently . . . reintegrating them into Croatiansociety - I was also lucky to visit some of the Croatian areas of Bosnia . . .went to Medjugorje to the shrine there . . . travelled through Kiseljak [phonetic]in central Bosnia on a bus from Zagreb to Sarajevo . . . I also visited Mostar[phonetic], which is recovering enormously well from its travails during the war(Presenter. . . . thank you very much the Honourable Michael Atkinson forcoming on Croatian Radio Hour . . . hope to see you here again soon . . .perhaps update on your next trip to Croatia) . . . here's hoping .Travel Report, Hon. Michael Atkinson, MP. and Ms . Vini Ciccarello M.P., August, 2004