Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted to have this opportunity to commend my colleague the member for Banks, to warmly support the remarks of the member for Fremantle and to support the remarks of my colleague Mr Ciobo about the importance of this motion.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on this motion because, as a long-standing member of Amnesty International, I know that this is one of its core interests and one which I am particularly pleased to support. I am delighted to see that they have focused on this interest in the way they have.

I have before me the report of Amnesty International, Death sentences and executions 2010. It notes that this is the occasion that Amnesty International is able to draw attention to this particular issue of executions. It also notes that after the creation of Amnesty International in 1961, it began sending appeals to prevent executions of prisoners of conscience. Then, over time, its work on the death penalty expanded. Recognising that as a punishment the death penalty is cruel, inhuman and degrading and an affront to the right to life, Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception.

I am pleased, as a member of Amnesty, to be able to support that statement very strongly. I am delighted, also, to note that somebody whom I had some adverse comments to make about, in terms of their priorities, the chair of the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, made some remarks on the universal abolition of the death penalty, as early as December 2009. I am glad to see that she was taking this matter up because I think it deserves priority. When marking the 20th anniversary of the death penalty optional protocol, she said:

I am opposed to the death penalty in all cases.

I hold this position for a number of reasons: these include the fundamental nature of the right to life; the unacceptable risk of executing innocent people by mistake; the absence of proof that the death penalty serves as a deterrent; and what is, to my mind, the inappropriately vengeful character of the sentence.

It is important to note some of the observations that have been made. The member for Fremantle highlighted the fact that China executed more people than the rest of the world put together when it carried out executions involving more than 1,000 people. I found that an astonishing figure. Closest to it was Iran with 252, North Korea with 60, Yemen with 53 and, regrettably, the United States of America with 46. When President Bush Sr visited Australia I was glad that the parliament, through the Parliamentary Amnesty Group, saw fit to raise this matter with him. I am sorry that things have not changed.

Amnesty's report also notes that four countries in the G20 executed people in 2010—China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and the United States—that 23 countries carried out executions, that 58 countries are classified as retentionist, with fewer than half of them actually executing people in 2010, and that 138 inmates sentenced to death in the United States of America had been exonerated since 1973. It makes note of the methods used, including beheading, electrocution, hanging, lethal injection and shooting.

I note that the honourable member for Fowler is going to follow me in the debate. No doubt he will make mention of Scott Rush, an Australian sentenced to death in Indonesia. Like him, I am glad that that sentence has been commuted. It would have been a real tragedy if it had occurred.

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