Bruce Baird (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1)

notes with concern:

(a)

the increasing use of the death penalty as a criminal sanction in our region;

(b)

the execution of Mr Van Tuong Nguyen in the Republic of Singapore; and

(c)

the plight of all Australians who are currently on death row;

(2)

congratulates the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and the Australian Government and Opposition for their recent efforts on behalf of Australians on death row; and

(3)

calls on the Australian Government to:

(a)

advocate with our regional neighbours the abolition of the death penalty or, as an interim measure, the establishment of a moratorium on executions; and

(b)

encourage our regional neighbours to ratify the United Nations International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Second Optional Protocol.

The execution late last year of Mr Van Nguyen focused Australia’s collective mind on the horrors of capital punishment. For the first time since the execution of Barlow and Chambers in 1986, Australia collectively discussed the issue of capital punishment. Tens of thousands of Australians attended vigils, church services and observance ceremonies against Mr Van Nguyen’s execution. Within this parliament, more than 450 ministers, members and senators, together with staff, signed a petition that was presented to the Singaporean government pleading for clemency. At 9.07 am on 2 December 2005, Van Nguyen was executed. Around Australia, tens of thousands of people marked the occasion with solemnity.

Mr Van Nguyen was a criminal. He was a drug smuggler, a man who conspired to import 26,000 shots of heroin into Australia. His criminality was never disputed and his criminal actions were not supported by anyone who called for his sentence to be commuted. Our pleas for clemency were not in support of his actions but rather were a recognition that human life is sacred and that state sanctioned executions are anathema to human rights.

Life was never easy for the Nguyen family; money was tight when they were growing up and their stepfather was a violent man. Van Nguyen agreed to smuggle drugs to help his addict brother pay off drug related debts, a criminal and stupid decision, but one born out of love for his brother rather than criminal greed. After a lonely and nervous four-hour wait at gate C22 of Changi Airport, Van Nguyen prepared to board his connecting flight. As he cleared security, he inadvertently triggered a metal detector. Van Nguyen was so inexperienced as a smuggler that he began to shake and volunteered his crime to police. Nguyen pled guilty to possessing 400 grams of heroin, more than 25 times the amount at which the death penalty is mandatory. He was sentenced to death on 20 March 2004.

The Prime Minister, the Governor-General, the Leader of the Opposition and Australia’s ministers of the Crown should be commended on their efforts to help this young Australian. Appeals for a presidential pardon were made repeatedly at the very highest levels of government. Never before has an Australian Prime Minister lobbied so hard to save the life of an Australian. The official plea for clemency by the Australian government was rejected in October 2005. The Prime Minister, ministers, the opposition and this parliament continued to call for clemency, ultimately to no avail.

The execution of Mr Nguyen was a sad day, but his story is not unique. As I stand here today, there are at least four Australians awaiting execution: Mr Henry Chhin in China, Mr Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran in Indonesia, and Huu Trinh in Vietnam. Many others await trial on charges that could render them liable for capital punishment.

A few decades ago, capital punishment was used in almost every jurisdiction in the world. Over the past 20 or 30 years, many countries have abolished capital punishment as barbaric and having no deterrent effect. According to Amnesty International, 74 countries maintain the death penalty in both law and practice. Eighty-six countries have abolished capital punishment completely; 11 retain it but only for extreme circumstances; and 25 maintain it for ordinary crimes but have allowed it to fall into disuse for at least a decade. Within our region, many of our neighbours either utilise capital punishment or maintain its legal status as a sanction for criminal offences. China, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam all maintain capital punishment within their criminal codes. In the Pacific region, the Cook Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tonga have the death penalty enshrined in either statute or their constitution.

I call on the Australian government to harness the momentum from Van Nguyen’s execution. I call on the Australian government to lobby our neighbours, the countries with which we have strong aid programs or bilateral relationships, to abolish or at least place an interim moratorium on the use of the death penalty. In 1976, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights came into force. The covenant enshrines ‘first-generation’ civil and political rights; it enshrines the equal and inalienable rights of freedom, justice and peace, and the dignity of human life. The second optional protocol to the convention is designed solely to abolish the death penalty, which is inconsistent with the enhancement of human dignity and the progression of human rights.

I call on the Australian government to lobby our neighbours to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the second optional protocol on the abolition of the death penalty. As a member of this parliament, as a Liberal, as a Christian and as a man, I have a strong belief in the sanctity of all human life. I cannot support the ending of a human life as a suitable sanction for any crime. The death penalty is a hallmark of Third World nations, of countries with little respect for human life. I call on this parliament to support this motion. I call on the Australian government to actively lobby our regional neighbours to move forthwith to abolish capital punishment. I commend the motion to the House.

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Cook and the member for Pearce for again bringing this motion before the House. It concerns an issue that we cannot forget and that we should not let go away. The issue of capital punishment should not be lost with the death of Van Nguyen. As the member for Cook has rightly pointed out, there are at least four Australians sitting on death row at the moment waiting for their eventful day.

The death penalty is abhorrent and has never been shown to be a deterrent against any crime. Indeed, in countries where the death penalty is mandatory for certain categories of crime there has been an increase in the rate of the crimes for which enforcement of the death penalty is mandatory, particularly drug trafficking and murder. Van Nguyen was executed in Singapore last year. Singapore argues that it is the strict anti-drug laws, including the death penalty, that deter drug traffickers. Yet scientific studies of crime have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that the death penalty deters crimes more effectively than any other punishment. Amnesty International says:

We are aware of no evidence from anywhere in the world that shows a decline in drug trafficking which is clearly a result of the threat, or the use, of the death penalty ... The death penalty is the ultimate form of cruel and inhuman punishment, and a violation of fundamental human rights ...

That is what Amnesty International argues, and I wholeheartedly agree with it. Indeed, the execution of Van Nguyen did nothing more than send a message to the people at the top of the drug trafficking chain that, if you use poor, innocent, naive individuals like Van, they are the ones who will be executed, not the people who are actually funding and plying the trade; that it will never get up to the top of that ring if you knock off the people further down the line. Indeed, by executing Van before he could provide information about the ringleaders in the gang that he was working for, those people will never come to trial; they will actually be protected by his execution.

Sadly, the vast majority of the world’s executions today take place in our region. The death penalty is practised in China, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines and Japan. Amnesty International has recently released data on the death penalty. It has revealed that over 20,000 people across the world are currently sitting on death row waiting to be killed by their own governments. In its latest annual analysis of the use of the death penalty worldwide, Amnesty International also discloses that at least 2,148 people were executed during 2005 in 22 countries—94 per cent in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the US alone—and that 5,186 people were sentenced to death in 53 countries during 2005. Amnesty International cautions that these figures are only approximate because many countries, like China, refuse to publish full official statistics on execution, while Vietnam has never disclosed its figures. Indeed, one Chinese legal expert has recently been quoted as saying that the true figure for executions is approximately 8,000—that is, 8,000 people being killed by their own government.

To many these figures are just statistics, but for one of my constituents, Kim Nguyen, they are a tragic reality. I spoke to Kim last week. I often drop by her place, but nowadays she does not open the door too much. I spoke to Kim on the phone for quite a length of time. I also got a local interpreter to speak to her, and I want to thank that individual for doing that in Vietnamese. It was probably one of the hardest conversations that poor gentleman has had in a long time. Kim says she is okay but, as the tears flowed during our conversation, I know she is not. She feels that she cannot go outside nowadays. She has not felt that she can return to work. She feels that people everywhere are staring at her, that they know who she is and that they either quietly condemn her for her son’s actions or pity her. This is just tragic, but she says that staying at home is more horrific because everywhere there are reminders of her son who is now dead. Kim is extremely grateful to all those who supported her and her family during this tragic time, but now her life is just a daily struggle, a daily reminder of her lost son.

No-one ever argued that Van should not have been punished. No-one ever argued that he did not deserve some sort of penalty—indeed, a harsh penalty—for the crime he committed, but he should never have been punished by death. The tragic loss of Van’s life and the penalty that now hangs over other individuals who are on death row should give us a loud reminder that we in Australia need to do something. We need to lead the charge to ultimately end the death penalty. We need to send a strong message that it does not matter what your crime is, whether it is drug trafficking or terrorism: the death penalty is wrong. We need to send a consistently strong message that no life is worth this end, that execution has no place in society and that everyone’s life is sacred. Whether or not they are Australian citizens, Australia should be leading the charge to say that we want to end this barbaric practice because it diminishes all of us. (Time expired)

Judi Moylan (Pearce, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise in this place to support the motion by the member for Cook. I would like to acknowledge the work of the member for Cook for many years in this parliament on this issue and others, particularly his work as the chair of Amnesty International in the parliament as well as his work with the Australian Parliamentary Christian Fellowship group.

I also join with the member for Cook and the member for Chisholm in expressing gratitude to the Governor-General, in particular, to the Prime Minister, to senior ministers and to the many members, senators and staff in this place who made a tremendous effort to prevent the execution of Mr Nguyen, whom the member for Chisholm has so eloquently spoken about. I cannot help but note the increasing numbers of young people who are caught smuggling drugs and the vulnerability of young people in this regard.

I support the words of the member for Chisholm as to how much better it would be if all the authorities throughout our region, in particular, would concentrate their efforts on catching, prosecuting and dealing with those who produce the drugs and those who distribute the drugs at the top end. I understand that it is well known that the traffic is coming from countries close to Singapore, yet it seems to me that little is really done to deal with these countries that seem to continue to support this trade within their boundaries and do little to prosecute those responsible for it.

Our young people are simply recruited as mules, as couriers, in the distribution chain. They are way down the bottom of that chain. It seems to me that for Mr Nguyen and others to lose their lives for making a mistake as a young person is a terrible occurrence and an act that belongs in a barbaric age, not in the 21st century. So I also strongly call for our parliament, our government, to continue to advocate within our region and with our regional neighbours to abolish the death penalty—or, at least as an interim measure, to call for a moratorium on executions—knowing that, as the member for Cook has said, there are several young people awaiting the death sentence today. What a dreadful waste of young lives; what a tragedy for the families and for the communities. No crime really deserves the ultimate, which is the ending of a life.

As the motion says, I would like to ‘encourage our regional neighbours to ratify the United Nations International Convention on Civil and Political Rights and the Second Optional Protocol’. This is an important motion. I was made aware that, apart from the types of drugs that are grown, our region faces an increasing challenge in dealing with manufactured drugs—drugs that can be baked up in people’s kitchens, drugs that are much more difficult to deal with. I know that none of us speaking on this motion today sanction the trade in drugs, whether they are manufactured or whether they are grown, but we all agree that the death penalty is not—

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! It being 1.45 pm, the debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 34. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting. The honourable member for Pearce will have leave to continue speaking when the debate is resumed.