Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This motion before us is extremely important to the over 800 Sudanese Australians living in my electorate and I know it is extremely important to many members in this place. It has attracted a huge amount of interest in the community, as evidenced by the attendance in the gallery tonight. I want to acknowledge some people who have helped to drive this motion, namely Mr Sascha Nanlohy, president of A Billion Little Stones, an organisation dedicated to preventing genocide and mass atrocities around the world; Father Peter Confeggi, the parish priest at St Patrick's Parish in Blacktown; and Father Martin Ochaya Lino, secretary-general of the Catholic Archdiocese of Juba, South Sudan. These people and many others have worked with me in my local community to shape this motion and I would like to personally thank them for their respective contributions.

Since South Sudan's independence last year we have seen continued conflict around the newly crafted border regions, with hundreds of thousands now displaced from Sudan's Blue Nile and South Kordofan states since the Sudanese army's offensive began in May 2011. Something must be done to stop the bloodshed, to stop the displacement and work towards a long-lasting, sustainable peace. I strongly believe that the international community has a responsibility to foster peace in the region. I believe that Australia as a good international citizen has a responsibility to do all we can to empower the peacemakers and help to end this suffering. We in this House all have a responsibility to drive political will, not just token support but hard political will, for effective policy and tangible results. With knowledge comes responsibility.

When American journalist Nicholas Kristof visited the Nuba Mountains in June he told the story of Katum Tutu, a 28-year-old woman who had lost her two-year-old daughter to starvation and had no food for her four remaining children. Her children, like many of those who remain in the Nuba Mountains, try to live by eating mice, leaves and roots. They do not have the strength to reach the refugee camp and believe 'it is much better to stay and die here'.

With the humanitarian crisis now resulting in child mortality four times above emergency levels, Australia must be ready to contribute rapid humanitarian efforts in delivering food to internally displaced persons and refugees in South Sudan and Ethiopia. We must lobby for the creation of humanitarian corridors and safe havens.

While few may have heard of the conflict in Sudan, many more struggle to see any interest that Australia might have. But I point to the decision of the government of South Sudan in January this year to shut down oil production in part of a long-running stand-off with the north over the sharing of oil revenues accrued in the pipeline. As a result of that shutdown, the price of oil rose and the price of petrol hit the hip pockets of Australian families. In the words of Kofi Annan, 'Ours is a world in which no individual, and no country, exists in isolation.' Quite apart from the economic consequences, these conflicts do not exist in a vacuum, and we have an interest in peace beyond the simple moral compulsion to act.

I would like to highlight in this motion:

That this House … notes that the International Criminal Court has issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudan’s President, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, on five counts of crimes against humanity (murder, extermination, forcible transfer, torture and rape), two counts of war crimes (attacking civilians and pillaging), and three counts of genocide.

I feel it is extremely important to note that, despite this warrant from the ICC, there are countries that continue to harbour al-Bashir and allow him safe passage throughout the world. Prior to the genocide in Darfur, for which he is charged, al-Bashir and his inner circle were responsible for the genocidal campaign in the Nuba Mountains in the early 1990s, where the tactics later used in Darfur were honed.

It is not too much to say, even as we see the devastation wrought by Bashar al-Assad in Syria, that President al-Bashir's 23-year reign has been the most deadly and brutal of any head of state in the world today. Currently Australian sanctions only cover those who have been active in the Darfur region of Sudan. Given the horror and calculated destruction that is clear in the intentions of the Sudanese government in the Nuba Mountains, Australia must work with the international community and broaden individual travel sanctions and asset freezes and push for an International Criminal Court investigation into the conflict. It is also appropriate for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to strongly lobby its counterparts in Africa and the Middle East to commit to their responsibilities under the Rome statute and arrest President al-Bashir and other indicted war criminals should they set foot in a signatory country.

In my electorate of Greenway, there are some 826 people who identify as Sudanese or South Sudanese, and in the wider Blacktown LGA, also represented by my colleague the member for Chifley, who is here this evening, there are over 2,000 people. The Sudanese community I represent in this place are active participants in Australian society and contribute greatly to the vibrant multicultural nature of the Greenway electorate.

In closing, I believe it is appropriate to reflect on the question asked by General Romeo Dallaire, who led the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Rwanda as the world turned its back and 800,000 people were slaughtered in 100 days. He asked: 'Are all humans human or are some more human than others?' When we hear of these conscience-shocking acts, we must all ask ourselves this question. We must recognise we are all human and we are all endowed with indivisible and inalienable rights. We in this House have a responsibility to shine light on places where people are forced to flee from their homes and live in caves, their fields burnt and their lives destroyed, all because of the colour of their skin.

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