Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support the member for Page’s motion.

In the Quiet Land, no one can tell

if there’s someone who’s listening

for secrets they can sell.

The informers are paid in the blood of the land

and no one dares speak what the tyrants won’t stand.

In the quiet land of Burma,

no one laughs and no one thinks out loud.

In the quiet land of Burma,

you can hear it in the silence of the crowd.

In the Quiet Land, no one can say

when the soldiers are coming

to carry them away.

The Chinese want a road; the French want the oil;

the Thais take the timber; and SLORC takes the spoils …

In the Quiet Land …

In the Quiet Land, no one can hear

what is silenced by murder

and covered up with fear.

But, despite what is forced, freedom’s a sound

that liars can’t fake and no shouting can drown.

That poem is called In the Quiet Land, and it was written by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

I thank the member for Page for her important motion regarding the release from house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi, who I know is a close personal friend of hers. The Nobel peace prize winner and Burmese democracy leader has been the conscience of the nation in the oppressive society of Burma and a source of inspiration to people all over the world for more than two decades. The Nobel prize committee chairman, Francis Sejersted, called Aung San Suu Kyi ‘an outstanding example of the power of the powerless’.

The woman who challenges one of the world’s most repressive military regimes stands only five foot four inches tall, weighs 45 kilos and has the gentlest of manners.

See this speech in context