Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

to move:

That this House:

(1)

notes that:

(a)

10 December 2010 is Human Rights Day;

(b)

Human Rights Day marks the anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and is the most important commemorative day of the human rights calendar;

(c)

the theme for Human rights Day 2010 is ‘human rights defenders who act to end discrimination’; and

(d)

human rights defenders act against discrimination, exclusion, oppression and violence, often at great personal risk both to themselves and their families;

(2)

acknowledges that:

(a)

there are Governments and regimes in the world which do not afford their citizens the fundamental human rights that we freely enjoy in Australia;

(b)

one such Government operates in Vietnam, where there are more than 400 people imprisoned for exercising their fundamental human rights and who have been accused of crimes such as supporting political groups not recognised by the state, criticising government policies, calling for democracy, giving interviews to foreign journalists and providing legal advice to other dissidents on trial;

(c)

as a nation we should be doing all that we can to urge the Vietnamese Government to adhere to the International Bill of Human Rights, which Vietnam ratified in 1982; and

(3)

calls on the Government to:

(a)

use the full weight of its diplomatic relations with Vietnam to strongly lobby for substantial reform when it comes to basic freedoms for its people; and

(b)

continue its commitment to lobby and advocate for human rights in all countries.

See this speech in context