Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, also on indulgence, I echo the comments of the Prime Minister. Obviously this is a great day for Aung San Suu Kyi, but it is a great day for everyone who believes in democracy anywhere in our world. She has been a symbol of the struggle for democracy in her own country and right around the world. Her party won the 1990 elections in Burma but, instead of allowing her party to form a government, the military junta cancelled the elections and imprisoned her. She has remained imprisoned for the best part of the last two decades. In that time she has not seen her children, and she has never seen her grandchildren. Her husband died without the chance of being with his wife. It was an utterly unjustified, completely outrageous act by the Burmese junta which has been rightly condemned all around the world.

Again, I join with the Prime Minister. I echo her words. I express the hope on behalf of the coalition that the release of Aung San Suu Kyi is not just a cynical PR exercise but might be the beginning of wider liberalisation and democratisation in Burma.

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