Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take the opportunity to rise today to support the sentiments that have been expressed so far by my colleagues but also to add my voice to the growing global movement against the death penalty. I want to begin by thanking the member for Fremantle for bringing this motion to the House.

I express my condolences to the families and loved ones of Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, the two Australians executed in Indonesia by firing squad on 29 April 2015. I also extend my sympathies to the families of the six other prisoners who were similarly executed alongside Andrew and Myuran.

The eight executed human beings did not deserve to die in this manner. As I said previously in this place some 10 years ago, when Australian Vang Nguyen was executed in Singapore, no-one has the right to take the life of another human being under any circumstances and in particular by state-sanctioned execution. In the wake of this tragedy and with regard to the continued practice of state-sanctioned killings in a number of countries, Australian parliamentarians have an opportunity to be an example of a strong bipartisan commitment supporting the global abolishment of the death penalty. In this vein, I would like to congratulate the member for Berowra and the member for Fowler, who co-convene the Australian Parliamentarians against the Death Penalty group. I have joined this group and I am very much committed to its aims and objectives. Our aim is to raise the issue of the death penalty in the media and in bilateral meetings, as well as parliament to parliament; to express opposition to the death penalty in meetings with ambassadors, elected officials and foreign dignitaries; and to converse with advisory groups and legal experts about approaches to end state-sanctioned killing worldwide.

In line with joining the parliamentary group, I take this opportunity today to express my strong opposition to the death penalty and to suggest some proposals Australia should adopt to see an end to the barbaric practice. One frequently mentioned argument against the death penalty is the lack of evidence supporting the claim that it effectively deters crime as opposed to other punishments. Professor Jeffrey Fagan, Professor of Law at Columbia University in the United States, who previously appeared as an expert witness for Andrew and Myuran, maintains that there is 'no credible scientific evidence that the death penalty deters criminal behaviour'. He argues that 'even when executions are frequent and well-publicised', as was the case with Andrew and Myuran's executions, 'there are no observable changes in crimes.' The absence of any scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of the death penalty compounds the more fundamental moral argument that state-sanctioned killing diminishes the value of human life. Simply put, it is never justified for the state to take human life.

There has been growing global support for this perspective, and it appears that we are on the right path. Whilst 100 countries around the world have the death penalty, only 21 continue to use capital punishment. And of those countries that continue to carry out executions, using the death penalty as a punishment for crime has decreased by more than a third in the last decade. There has been growing global support for this perspective, and it clearly appears that the debate today is in line with that support. Whilst 100 countries around the world have the death penalty, only 21 continue to use capital punishment. Of those countries that continue to carry out executions, using the death penalty as a punishment for crime has decreased by more than a third in the last decade, and that is indeed a welcome sign of perhaps heading towards the beginning of the abolition of the death penalty.

With the decline in use of the death penalty worldwide and the current global push to abolish the practice, it is time that parliamentarians around the world demand a moratorium on capital punishment. Parliamentarians for Global Action, a non-profit, nonpartisan international network of parliamentarians, established a global parliamentary platform for the abolition of the death penalty. Their aim is to support the individual initiatives of parliamentarians worldwide and to launch and coordinate targeted actions in selected countries, as well as bring awareness to the issue. As a parliament, I think that we ought to support the efforts of the PGA and that we should use every opportunity we have, certainly in our parliamentary duties, to raise awareness, especially with colleagues in our regional neighbourhood, because I think that is the best way to begin this dialogue and to pursue the abolition of capital punishment.

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