Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is a great honour to second the member for Lyne's motion noting the forthcoming 50th anniversary of Amnesty International. I thank him for bringing this to the notice of the House. The date of 28 May 2011 marks 50 years of a movement that has championed the cause of human rights globally. The pursuit of basic freedom and protection of individuals across the divides of race, sexuality, citizenship, gender, nationality, ethnicity and ability has been unrelenting and the successes have been innumerable.

Since 1961, Amnesty International has conducted 3,341 missions to research human rights abuses around the world, including recently the treatment of asylum seekers in Malaysia. The member for Lyne mentioned Graham Thom's performance on Dateline and, listening to the briefing provided by Graham Thom to this parliament on that mission, one can only marvel at the enormous courage of those individuals who place themselves in difficult and sometimes dangerous situations to open the eyes of the world to the many inhumanities being perpetrated on the innocent. Graham Thom is one of those very courageous people.

Amnesty International has published over 17,000 reports and public documents, including the annual human rights report, which is now produced in 25 languages. On 10 December 1961, the first Amnesty candle was lit in the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London. This iconic event occurred following the first meeting of Amnesty International, at which delegates made a decision to establish a permanent international movement in defence of freedom of opinion and religion. That movement was inspired by British lawyer Peter Benenson, who witnessed the growing global trend of imprisonment, torture or execution of people because of their political views or religious orientation. Many of us witness things that disgust and alarm us, but Peter Benenson had the courage to act on what he was seeing. Indeed he gave his life to 'the vision of collective action that defines Amnesty International's work today'. Peter Benenson said at the time:

If these feelings of disgust all over the world could be united into common action, something effective could be done

Something effective has been done and today we are celebrating 50 years of that action to free people from violation, from having their freedoms denied. In 1973, members and senators in this parliament caught that vision and established a parliamentary amnesty group. Today, I pay tribute to the men and women of this parliament who kept that flame burning brightly for their dedicated work in ensuring that people's rights and freedoms, wherever in the world they are violated, continue to be a focus of their work. Today we acknowledge the many successful and notable campaigns Amnesty has conducted and pay tribute to all the people of the world who involve themselves day to day in the work of this great and noble organisation. I feel privileged to join with my colleagues to keep the flame of such a great organisation burning in the corridors of this parliament.

Amnesty's 50th anniversary provides a splendid opportunity to recommit ourselves to act as Peter Benenson did when he read about the prison sentences imposed on Portuguese students all those years ago. The Amnesty symbol of a candle wrapped in barbed wire is inspired by the ancient Chinese proverb 'It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.' May we again dedicate ourselves, as the member for Lyne said, to greater humanity and greater kindness in the carrying out of our duties within this parliament.

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