Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In the limited time that I have, I would like to speak briefly on two subjects in this debate on the appropriation bills. The first one is following on a debate which I had in the House last week regarding the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. As I said, I am the chair of the parliamentary friendship group with Sri Lanka. Since that debate, I have had an enormous amount of email from and contact with the Sri Lankan community. Even this Monday, there were some 400 members of the Tamil community demonstrating outside this place because they are concerned about the listing of the LTTE, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, by the European Union. As a result, quite rightly, a number of people from the Tamil community in Australia demonstrated, as they did all over the world, about this potential listing by the European Union. Three members of that protest group came to my office to talk to me about my speech in this House. I was very happy to talk with them and I have undertaken to talk with them further, because I need to be balanced in the position I hold.

However, what I am telling the House today is that I intend, as an addition to my speech last week, to write to both the foreign minister and the Attorney-General to ask that Australia consider proscribing the LTTE as a terrorist group. I find it quite unusual. In December 2001, the foreign minister listed the LTTE; however, the listing of the LTTE does not have the same definition and the same sanctions as does the listing of a proscribed terrorist organisation. So I will be writing to those two ministers, asking that we take that on board, as has been done by the United States, Britain and Canada. Can I say that I will be suggesting to the foreign minister and the Attorney-General that they list the LTTE using the same model as the Canadian model, which has variations from the US model and variations from the British model.

I am concerned about the fact that, while the British may have listed the LTTE, their sanctions do not seem to be as strong as they could be, because I understand that this weekend in Britain the Tamil terrorist leader Prabhakaran will be in London celebrating his daughter’s 20th birthday. I find this quite unusual. He is putting on a lavish function for her birthday in London, yet this listing is supposed to do something about stopping travel and the flow of money to terrorist organisations. As a result I find this quite unusual, quite bizarre, and I would be surprised that the British would be very supportive of this. Here he is living a lavish lifestyle, yet the child soldiers that he forcibly recruits to act on his behalf have to carry cyanide pills around their neck in case they are caught. So I find that quite disappointing as well.

Secondly, with all the emails that I have received in response to my speech last week, as I said, obviously the overwhelming amount support me in my statements regarding the LTTE. However, of course, there have been several emails which have not. I have received an interesting one from a Mr Wilson Mervin Reynold. I will read what he says to me regarding, ‘Australian MP blasts LTTE in federal parliament speech’. It says:

Don Randall, the Liberal Party MP for Canning, and Chairman of the Australia-Sri Lanka Friendship Group in parliament, blasted the LTTE’s spokesperson in the Australian Federal parliament, John Murphy (Labour - MP for Lowe) for making allegations against the democratically elected Sri Lankan government and aligning himself with a terrorist organisation.

Those are his words. This is a man that is having a go at me and who has listed Mr Murphy as the spokesman in this place for the LTTE! I put that on the record because, if that is the way the supporters of the LTTE seem, he has a problem. At the end of the day, can I make it very clear that in general the Tamils in this country, as I have said before, are harmonious, peace-loving people who integrate well, as they do in Sri Lanka. However, there is no way in the world that Australia can support a terrorist group and fund a terrorist group, and that is why I am calling for the proscription of this group by our government. I could say more, but I will move on.

The other issue I wish to speak briefly to is the development of Preston Beach in my electorate. Since I spoke about the environmental concerns for the development of Preston Beach I have found further information. I am looking at the proposal to the Waroona Shire Council, which says that when the Department of Environment was asked to comment it returned the letter with no comment on it. The Department of Health was also asked for comment but declined to do so. I find this very unusual. As I have said, the BioMAX system that is being proposed for these 135 units is basically being ignored by the two state government departments, which should be very concerned about the treatment of sewage in a very pristine environmental site, a fragile Ramsar wetland site. I want to ask why these two state government departments have basically washed their hands of this issue. As I have said before, I have written to the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, to see what issues can be raised as part of his federal responsibilities for the environment. I understand the department is still looking at that.

The other issue I want to raise is this. I do not mind people making money; I think enterprise is good, but under this proposal 135 shacks in a beachside hamlet of 400 will be under a timeshare arrangement. No-one will be allowed to live there for more than three months. In other words, the owners cannot stay there for more than three months. The timeshare units will place into a small beachside community a transient population for the rest of the year. This does nothing for the community and does nothing for amenity. I have some grave concerns about the fact that this development has gotten under the guard of the Preston Beach Townsite Strategy. As part of that strategy there is meant to be a contribution to infill sewerage, transport and all other infrastructure, such as gas and roads et cetera. Potentially there is $41 million to be made from this project. I understand that 30 of the units have already been presold at $309,000 each. I think it is a grave injustice that these people can be given a walk-up start before the Preston Beach Townsite Strategy is in place, and I will continue to raise this point.

The last thing I will say in the time left concerns the public open space requirement for this development. The council have given them the land. When I say they have given them land, they have not actually given it over to them but have signed over a piece of council land approximately 25 by 40 square metres in size. To start off with, I think public open space which is only half the size of an Olympic swimming pool for 135 dwellings is inadequate, but for the council to give this land as such to the developers means that they do not have to develop the public open space on the land that they own. It gives a huge commercial advantage. Why would a council give away this sort of land to a developer? I think there is something quite wrong about all of this. In fact, to me, it smells somewhat. I am going to continue to dig and expose where I can the issues that are involved there. I will be meeting the developers from Preston Beach next week and I will say that to them. I think the people of Preston Beach and that area deserve far better governance by their local authorities, and I will be raising that wherever I can.

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