Steve Georganas (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support this motion as well, but before I do, on behalf of the member for Kooyong, the member for Melbourne Ports and all other members of parliament, I welcome members of the Ukrainian community who are in the gallery today. I support this motion with all sincerity, humility and ongoing sorrow, perplexed by the all-too-evident human ability to show astonishing disregard for human life—to deliberately, purposefully and even comfortably administer death, irreversible and eternal, to tens, hundreds of thousands, millions and tens of millions of Ukrainians, our fellow human beings. I also acknowledge the 75th anniversary of the Holodomor, the Great Famine of 1932 to 1933. It was a genocide orchestrated by the then Soviet leadership of Joseph Stalin for the decimation and subjugation of a people, the theft of their land, the fruit of their toil, their hope of a future and any chance to live.

The Soviet claimed as state property the Ukraine’s farming land and its produce on which Ukrainians relied to live. Ukraine’s breadbasket was targeted for state theft; it was exported and dumped in Europe. Stalin’s policy of bleeding every last head of grain from the regions literally left the local populations to starve. Ukrainians, showing due regard for their own survival—spiriting away and hiding what food they could find for themselves and their families—if caught with so-called state property, were sent to show trial, Siberia or executed.

The Soviet exploitation of the Ukraine’s harvests was devastating. The three harvests of 1931 to 1933 produced 18.3, 14.6 and 22.3 million tonnes of grain—easily enough to feed the population, but not enough to satisfy both the demands of the Kremlin and the needs of the Ukraine people. Millions of Ukrainians died of starvation as a result. Sources vary in their estimations—perhaps seven million or eight million from 1932 to 1933. Stalin told Churchill once of 10 million dying, and it is suggested that up to 14 million died in the six years to 1937.

Survivors’ accounts conjure up mental images of food confiscators returning again and again to deprive families of identifiable sustenance. There are stories of children slowly and painfully assuming gargoyle characteristics, of bodies swollen with hunger and leaking fluid, of bodies lying in the street wrapped in children’s blankets—town after town, region after region, million after million. It is suggested that throughout the 20th century Ukraine lost 50 million human souls—almost as many as all of those lost in World War II, more than the Ukraine’s total current population and equal to two deaths for every man, woman and child currently resident within Australia. Such figures surely put Holodomor as one of the most heinous events in human history.

I support the motion before the House in honour of the lives of the millions who were murdered by the Soviet state, to honour the Ukraine nation that continues to mourn their deaths and to encourage all peoples and nations to identify the need for such human induced horrors to be remembered as genocide. I would support such evils being identified within the context of the United Nations General Assembly, should the opportunity arise.

The parliament should note that 2007 marks the 75th anniversary of the Ukrainian Great Famine, known as the Holodomor, of 1932 to 1933, which was caused by the deliberate actions of the Stalinist communist government of the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There are many, many Ukrainians who found their way to Australia and have made their home here. Many of them had no hope of survival or of seeing a better future in their homeland. We see many Australian Ukrainians today who have gone on to make a commitment to this land. They certainly contribute to this great multicultural country that we call home—Australia. This motion marks their astonishing deeds, leaving their homeland in such tremendous poverty and amid such destruction. I would like to acknowledge all those people. (Time expired)

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