Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

We are joined today by a very eminent group of Cambodian community and religious leaders, and I begin by welcoming them. We are joined by a number of venerables, firstly, who lead the spiritual and religious life of Cambodian-Australians from temples around the country: the Wat Buddharangsi, the Khmer Buddhist Centre and the Dhamaran Buddhist Temple are located in my electorate, but we also have venerables here from the Wat Monirangsi, the Wat Eysan Meanchey, the Wat Canberra and the Wat Bonyrigg in other parts of the country. We welcome you to our parliament and thank you for being here.

The Cambodian community in Australia is also blessed by some incredibly driven and passionate community leaders who are engaged in political life both at home in Cambodia and here in Australia. We have leaders with us today such as Hong Lim, the state member for Clarinda and parliamentary secretary, who is Australia's first Cambodian-born member of parliament—a fine achievement. We have Councillor Youhorn Chea in the gallery, a community hero, a City of Greater Dandenong councillor and a former mayor; and we have Councillor Meng Heang Tak, who is a current councillor, a younger leader and another former mayor who is already a respected and distinguished person. I want to acknowledge you in the gallery. I also acknowledge Mr Meng Bunglay, Mr Sarun Keo, Ms Sivorn Pung, Mr Samreth Sothi, Mr Korb Sao, Mr Drin Men, Mr Pheakdie OK, Mr Meng Eang Thae, Mr Thearak Boun and Mrs Darany Khiek. To all of those in the delegation who have joined us, thank you so much for being here, and sourn sva-kum—welcome to our parliament.

I want to express my very deep concern about ongoing human rights abuses in Cambodia, and the delegation today have talked extensively about what they see as a very serious deterioration in the human rights situation there. I make that statement on behalf of the people I represent in Hotham, and include in that the many thousands of Cambodian-speaking and Cambodian-born people that I represent. A lot of those constituents fled the Khmer Rouge, and members of parliament may not remember this but two million people died under Pol Pot's regime—a quarter of the Cambodian population at the time. But this is a community that came to Australia, and by God they have made good Australians. They have worked hard, sent their children off to school, to university, and right around my electorate and beyond we see extraordinary achievements being made by people from the Cambodian community. But what they see when they get back to their sovereign country is a deteriorating human rights situation which is of very deep and grave concern to Australian Cambodians.

Prime Minister Hun Sen seen and his ruling party have targeted Cambodia's opposition, activists, intellectuals, people working in human rights and those fighting for a free and fair democracy. The right to protest is routinely suppressed. Corruption is a cancer in Cambodia. The country now ranks 156th out of 176 countries on the corruption index. It is the single most corrupt country in South-East Asia. What chills us most is the suppression of democracy. We saw in the 2013 elections some very concerning things. Probably the worst incident was the shooting of five garment workers who were just expressing their civil rights and protesting in the streets. They were shot dead. I spoke out against the violence at that time, and since then things have deteriorated further.

I want to mention Dr Kem Ley, who was a prominent Cambodian political activist and in a sense became an icon of this movement of people who are fighting for fair and free elections in Cambodia. Dr Kem Ley came to Australia last year. He returned to Cambodia, he spoke out against the Hun Sen regime and days later he was shot dead in broad daylight near Phnom Penh—he was assassinated. This is an extraordinary violation of the rights of Cambodians to exercise their rights in a fair and free democracy, and we absolutely reject that. Dr Kem Ley's widow, Madame Bou Rachana, and their five children have been granted visas to visit Thailand. They have applied for refugee status in Australia and I have written to the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection asking that he look favourably upon that application.

I have sat with Cambodian leaders in the past and Cambodian leaders today, and I have felt their utter despair about what is happening in their country. Their message today to us was incredibly clear—they want us to stand up, they want us to say something and they want us to join them in this fight for a fair and free democracy. These fundamental human rights are what we should all expect as human beings. In closing, Australia trov te chhor cheamouy bong bron Khmer yeung knoung ka proynt samrab prochea thibathey yute tor. Thank you so much for being here today.

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