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

s VAMVAKINOU () (): Last Friday I attended the annual Jerusalem Peace Prize, Al Quds, awards, held in Melbourne. The Jerusalem Peace Prize is an initiative of Australians for Palestine and the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network, and it recognises the inspirational and extraordinary contributions and devoted efforts of Australians seeking to work alongside Palestinians in their quest for justice.

This year's recipient was my friend and former colleague in this place the Hon. Melissa Parke. In the time Melissa served as the member for Fremantle, including as Minister for International Development, we worked closely together on our shared advocacy of many human rights issues. Melissa came to this parliament after working for many years with the United Nations as a human rights lawyer. In this capacity, she served in Kosovo, Lebanon, Gaza and New York. Since retiring from parliament, Melissa has been appointed an ambassador to the Nobel Peace Prize winning ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and was also appointed by the UN high commissioner to the group of eminent experts on Yemen.

I want to congratulate Melissa on receiving this very important award. Melissa is a highly principled person who believes that in the world's most difficult areas of conflict we need witnesses and advocates to defend truth and the values which protect and uphold international and human rights law.

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