Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It should be the collective duty of all of us, as members of a great democracy, such as Australia is, to stand up in this place for human rights and to speak up when we see those rights diminished or abused, whether it's speaking up in support of democracy in Myanmar or Hong Kong or against the religious persecution of the Baha'i or the persecution of the rights of the Palestinian, Rohingya and Kurdish peoples or the persecution of Christians in Iraq or the Copts in Egypt. We should because what we say in this place has meaning and real impact. As representatives in a democracy that comes with a responsibility. Alongside many of my colleagues I have and will again speak up against the persecution of the Uighurs in Xinjiang.

Thank you to the member for Menzies for bringing this motion to the House. For our part, Labor has publicly and strongly condemned the human rights violations against the Uighurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang. This includes the mass arbitrary detention of Uighurs, forced labour, forced sterilisation, sexual assault and restriction of movement in Xinjiang and across China. According to a recent report published by Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, between one million and two million people have been detained in extrajudicial internment camps across Xinjiang by the Chinese government since 2014. The report details allegations of psychological torture, cultural brainwashing, interrogations and indoctrination, forced sterilisation. People have been forced to renounce their culture and language. There have been mass forced labour schemes and family separation. Few people from the camps have been able to share their stories, but, of the stories that we have heard, of the few stories that have made the light of day, they are simply harrowing. Detainees in the camps are so deprived of their basic human needs that suicides have become so pervasive that they've had to be forced to wear suicide safe uniforms. In February the BBC reported that women in the camps are systematically raped and subjected to sexually based torture. Women are forced by guards to assist in this abuse.

In 2020 the Australian Strategic Policy Institute reported what it has described as the new phase of the Chinese government's ongoing repression of Uighurs, reporting that more than 80,000 Uighurs were transferred out of Xinjiang to work in factories across China between 2017 and 2019. Some of them were sent directly from the detention camps. ASPI's research identifies about 82 foreign and Chinese companies potentially directly or indirectly benefiting from this forced labour of Uighur workers outside Xinjiang through abusive labour transfer programs as recently as 2019.

All of this horror is happening right now, as we speak these words. Parliaments and democratic nations—our friends like Canada, the UK and the Netherlands—have spoken out, passing resolutions that call out what is happening as consistent with United Nations General Assembly resolution 260. Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has determined the Uighur people are being subjected to genocide, and his successor, Antony Blinken, has supported that assessment.

I asked our foreign minister: 'How does the Australian government characterise what is happening to the Uighur people in China? What assessments do our security and intelligences agencies make of the situation?' I also asked the foreign minister: 'What action is the Australian government taking to address this situation? Are we working with our allies as much as we can—the UK, the US, Canada and others—who share our concern and commitment to human rights, coordinating with them on a plan to end this unacceptable situation? Are we doing everything we can to ensure that Australian businesses and consumers are not buying products made through the forced labour in these camps?' Australia cannot sit back, watching on in horror, and still do nothing. This motion is a small but important part of the collective effort that we as a parliament have to make. The international community must take action, and this motion is part of that effort.

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