On January 8 1984 the Commonwealth Speakers and Presiding Officers conference began in Wellington, New Zealand. The conference ran until January 15. The Conference brings together the Speakers and Presiding Officers of the national parliaments of the independent sovereign states of the Commonwealth. It was created in 1969 as an initiative of the Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada, the Honourable Lucien Lamoureux.

The Conference is an independent group and has no formal affiliation with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the Commonwealth Secretariat or the Commonwealth Heads of Government. The conference operates on a two-year cycle, holding a conference of the full membership every two years, usually early in January, and a meeting of the Standing Committee at the same time the intervening year. The Conference aims to:

?Maintain, foster, and encourage impartiality and fairness on the part of Speakers and Presiding Officers of Parliaments; ?Promote knowledge and understanding of parliamentary democracy in its various forms; and ?Develop parliamentary institutions. Pictured here are the speakers of Parliament, on the steps of the Parliament in Wellington, New Zealand. The last Commonwealth Speakers and Presiding Officers conference held in Wellington was in 2014.

Reference: ABGX 7574 W4969 2/a (R2186542)

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