Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the member for Canberra for speaking to this motion. I too would like to commend and congratulate both sides of parliament for the work that has been done on this issue. Obviously the minister has been mentioned many times, but indeed the whole leadership team on both sides of politics should be congratulated. The language used—and more importantly the language that was not used—and the diplomatic approach that was taken to this effort was very bipartisan and showed just what a wonderful result we can get. Also, as has been previously mentioned, departmental officials put a lot of work into this ongoing effort to get this result. So I commend everyone involved in that process.

I had the pleasure of meeting Peter's brother Andrew two or three months ago. I had a wide-ranging conversation with Andrew about the circumstances of what happened to Peter, about how it happened, and about the emotional rollercoaster ride. Andrew and his family—Peter, his mother and father, and the whole extended Greste family—experienced a bit of a rollercoaster ride for the period that this happened; the 400 days that Peter spent in detention. So it is a wonderful result for the family and a good result for the diplomacy of the government.

Obviously Peter's situation, in the sense that he was 400 days in detention, proved interesting to look at—the reasons it happened, and I think there are lessons to be learned here. For the vast majority of Australians the detention of a journalist for doing simply what they perceive to be their job is at odds with our core values of freedom of expression. We have pillars in our community; the separation of church, state and judiciary, and the press is an important part of that separation as well.

The situation in Egypt in the past four years has been characterised by enormous political and social upheaval and grave national security challenges, and I think Peter's case needs to be seen through that rather than being seen in any way as a hostile action directed against our country. I think Peter would admit as well it was almost being in the wrong place at the wrong time. His arrival in Egypt coincided with the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, which was branded a terrorist organization. Al-Jazeera, Peter's employer, was seen by the Egyptian government as a key part of the problem. As one of the employees of al-Jazeera English, Peter was unfortunate to be caught in what was a wide sweep by Egyptian security authorities of all groups considered to be sympathetic to the Brotherhood.

Peter was detained in December 2013. He was extended all appropriate consular assistance by officers of the Australian Embassy in Cairo. This was critically important in ensuring his family were reassured that he was safe. His family used to have a catch up with him once every three to four weeks. They were not long meetings but it was very reassuring to the family that every few weeks a member of the family was sitting down with Peter and eyeballing him—seeing that he was alive and well and that he was keeping himself in good spirits.

Peter and his colleagues were, as we know, charged with colluding with the Brotherhood. His trial commenced on 20 February 2014. There were a total of twelve court sessions, culminating in the delivery of the verdict on 23 June 2014 when he was convicted and received a seven-year prison term. Lawyers for Peter announced in August that they had lodged an appeal, which was heard by Egypt's highest appeal court, the Court of Cassation, on 1 January 2015. The appeal was successful. As we know, Peter was subsequently released and has since returned to Australia. His parents, Juris and Lois, and his brothers Mike and Andrew were pillars of strength. They travelled regularly to see him. They are obviously a very tight and loving family because they maintained a public campaign to make sure that Peter's situation was not forgotten by anyone in this chamber, our media or the wider Australian public, which was an important part of this process.

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