Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Let me preface my remarks by saying there is no-one in this parliament who has more involvement and respect with Russian culture and literature than I do. In my electorate, we hold Victory Day every year with the Russian Ambassador to commemorate the great role that the Russian people played during the Second World War, and I have large Russian and Ukrainian communities in my electorate. However, I do not think, like others who have made great contributions in the debate today, that I have ever been angrier about an international incident involving Australia than the MH17 tragedy. I ask the hapless Russian Ambassador Morozov: Ambassador, please take a report to Moscow of this debate that has just taken place in this House and in the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition's remarks the other day. This is evidence and a reminder that international politics can intrude into the lives of ordinary people. In a global village, was it ever clearer that we can never adopt the attitude that Mr Chamberlain once said of Czechoslovakia: 'It is a faraway place of which we know little.'

Of those nearly 300 people on MH17, most of them were coming to Melbourne for holidays or an important international conference on AIDS, or returning home from travelling to Europe. No-one could have predicted that the imperial delusions of Russia would directly lead to their deaths. Let us be frank about it, it is the Russian leadership who are responsible for this terrible tragedy and its President Putin in particular. How directly responsible he or his military are remains to be seen. But without a doubt, it is he who sponsored and controlled the gangsters who shot this missile in eastern Ukraine who are responsible for this.

The Leader of the Opposition expressed the emotion of the Australian people yesterday, when he said:

… let me be clear, I have the gravest reservations welcoming to Australia anyone in the future who is engaged in this act of terror—and we will support the strongest possible reaction from the Government on this matter.

Belarus has finally done something useful in providing a place where Russian President Putin and Petro Poroshenko, the new Ukrainian President, are meeting today on political developments that will help with discussions that will hopefully avoid further conflict in that region. It is always good to attempt peace to prevent further tragedies like MH17. Mr Poroshenko being there at all is evidence that democracy is a common aspiration of all people and the fact that the Ukrainian people were able to hold an election in the middle of the military threats by Russia is a positive answer to such military aggression. It is because the Ukrainians have been increasingly successful in securing the autonomy of the Ukrainian state that Mr Putin and Russia and the thugs of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic have employed such brutal tactics, such as using ground-to-air missiles that have altitudes that can hit civilian airliners flying at 35,000 feet. Let us be clear: such weapons systems are normally operated after several levels of sophisticated command and control are exercised, and only by nation states—not by a motley gang of brigands. Whether that missile system was exercised by Russian military people or not, whoever gave that weapons system to the people who shot those poor civilians down is to blame.

I commend the Prime Minister for his behaviour during this crisis and, obviously, the Leader of the Opposition, whom I have quoted. I commend the AFP, the RAAF, the Governor-General and our colleagues in the Dutch government, including my friend the Dutch ambassador here. It is impossible not to say that Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has done a good job, particularly with the Security Council. It is great that the Australian Federal Police got to the crash site. I was very moved to hear that broad Aussie accent, when I was overseas, on CNN and the BBC, talking about what needed to be done at the crash site.

It has become obvious, after this episode, that Australia needs an embassy in Ukraine. Australia is the 12th largest economy in the world but ranks very poorly in terms of the number of our diplomatic missions—markedly smaller than both the OECD and G20 average for comparable populations. It is impossible to represent Kiev from Moscow. I commend our ambassador in Poland, Jean Dunn, for her incredibly hard work. She is responsible not only for the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovenia but also for our Australian embassy in Warsaw.

I commend the Prime Minister for the proposal of the memorial garden, which I assume will be in the same place as our memorial for the victims of the Bali bombings. I commend this motion to the House. I hope all the victims may rest in peace and that their families may have good memories of them.

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