Adams in Australia

Gerry Adams is pictured with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and with former Australian PM Paul Keating

"It's a strange world," said Gerry Adams to a packed audience in Melbourne. "Eight years ago, your Prime Minister refused me permission to visit Australia on the very same basis that tens of thousands were sent here in the first place."

The Sinn Féin President was addressing almost 600 people at a literary lunch sponsored by The Age newspaper in Melbourne. It was midway through a strenuous eight-day visit to Australia, which saw Adams, Dodie McGuinness and Richard McAuley visit six Australian cities.

Beginning in Perth, where Gerry Adams was the guest speaker at the International Festival, the Sinn Féin delegation travelled thousands of miles across that huge continent to speak to the enormous Irish-Australian community, which makes up almost 30% of the country's 20 million population. Each day was filled with back to back interviews, political meetings, book signings around the launch of Hope and History, and events with Irish-Australian community organisations, including Australian Aid for Ireland. In Perth and Melbourne, representatives of the Aboriginal peoples met the Sinn Féin delegation and briefed them on the many difficulties faced by them.

In Melbourne, Adams met the State Premier Steve Bracks, and in Canberra, the Federal capital, the Sinn Féin delegation met the Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and the opposition spokesperson on Foreign Affairs Kevin Rudd. Adams also addressed the Foreign Affairs Committee. His message to all of them was the same. "The suspension of the political institutions by the British Government must end, we need help and support in ensuring that the two governments, but particularly the British, implement their obligations under the Agreement, and Mr Blair should be pressed to publish the Cory report."