Alex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the House:

(1)

commends the people of Hungary as they mark the 50^th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, which set the stage for the ultimate collapse of communism in 1989 throughout Central and Eastern Europe, including Hungary, and two years later in the Soviet Union itself;

(2)

expresses condolences to the people of Hungary for those who lost their lives fighting for the cause of Hungarian freedom and independence in 1956, as well as for those individuals executed by the Soviet and Hungarian communist authorities in the five years following the Revolution, including Prime Minister Imre Nagy;

(3)

welcomes the changes that have taken place in Hungary since 1989, believing that Hungary’s integration into NATO and the European Union, together with similar developments in the neighbouring countries, will ensure peace, stability, and understanding among the great peoples of the Carpathian Basin;

(4)

reaffirms the friendship and cooperative relations between the governments of Hungary and Australia and between the Hungarian and Australian people; and

(5)

recognises the contribution of people of Hungarian origin to this nation.

It is my great pleasure and honour to move this motion today, and I am pleased that my jet-lagged colleague Michael Danby, the member for Melbourne Ports, is going to second the motion. This motion mirrors a similar motion debated in the US congress earlier this year. I recommend that people read Mr Danby’s article in last week’s Financial Review and also the Hansard record of Prime Minister Menzies and Dr Evatt’s responses in 1956 to get a proper historical context. I acknowledge all members of the Hungarian community present in the gallery, many of whom have travelled a long way to be here today. I know that my friend Laci Kovassy has travelled down from Noosa.

As the motion indicates, the people of Hungary and Hungarians everywhere are commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Last week, the member for Melbourne Ports and I attended a special commemoration ceremony in Budapest organised by the Hungarian parliament which involved tributes by 21 speakers representing parliaments around the world. Following the ceremony in parliament all participants travelled by bus to a wreath-laying ceremony at the national memorial. Delegations laid a wreath at the memorial and on two graves: firstly, on the grave of former president Imre Nagy—the heroic leader of the revolution, who was executed by the communist regime—and, secondly, on the grave of the unknown heroes. As we lined up to lay the wreaths, we took an emotional walk past scores of graves and headstones depicting dates of death in the years immediately following 1956. It is estimated that over 2,500 Hungarians lost their lives in the revolution. They became martyrs in the cause of democracy and freedom. A further 1,200 Hungarians were executed by the post-conflict communist government.

The events of 1956 are well documented, and time does not permit me to go through the chronology of events of the revolution. Two hundred thousand Hungarians escaped the country—and probable imprisonment and possible execution—as refugees to be resettled in host nations worldwide. Australia agreed to accept 14,000 Hungarian refugees, a most generous humanitarian response. The people were the second wave of Hungarian refugees from communism to migrate to Australia. My own family was part of the first wave that escaped communism in Hungary in 1948 and came to Australia on the USS General Harry Taylor, one of the many wartime vessels used to transport refugees from Europe to other places in the world. One of my earliest recollections as an infant is of being inside a refugee camp in Italy looking at the outside world through a barbed wire fence. My family was one of the thousands from the first wave of refugees who settled in Australia before 1956.

1956 was a significant year in Australia. It was the year of the Melbourne Olympics. It was the year when television was introduced. That was an era when news came to people via print or radio. As a 10-year-old child in 1956, I remember the impact on Hungarians in Australia of events in Budapest in October. There was an air of joy, excitement and anticipation as many people prepared themselves, some to return to Hungary to join those who stayed to rebuild their nation. That joy and anticipation turned to despair and disappointment. Instead of Hungarians returning, as I said earlier, Australia indeed resettled some additional 14,000 refugees of the second wave, after the Soviet repression of the brave and courageous revolt.

In 1956 the world of communications was different from 2006. For Australians, the only visual media in relation to international events was the film news in movie theatres before the showing of the feature film. I remember vividly sitting in a theatre in Sydney with my mother as tears rolled down her face as we watched the film of the Soviet tanks rolling back into Budapest, the city she loved passionately. Hungarians in Australia were angry with the West for not intervening. The people of Hungary felt betrayed. I know the Hungarians in Australia felt betrayed and felt, as a consequence, that many sacrifices had been in vain.

There are about 23,000 Hungary-born people in Australia. There were two major waves of Hungarian migrants, post World War II and in 1956. It is my pleasure, on behalf of the parliament, to convey our warm wishes to the people of Hungary. (Time expired)

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion.

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the honourable member for Melbourne Ports, I recognise in the gallery the Hungarian ambassador, His Excellency Mr Lajos Fodor.

Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the presence of the mover of this motion, my friend the member for Fairfax, whom I joined in the Hungarian parliament last week for a very moving ceremony to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the uprising of the Hungarian people against the brutal communist regime of Matyas Rakosi. I also acknowledge the presence of the Hungarian Ambassador to Australia and the people in the gallery for the large number of Hungarian refugees who came to this country. Australia, as might be expected in those dark days, show generosity towards accepting refugees. There were about 14,000 Hungarians who came in that wave of immigration, and I think that was part of the reason why the Hungarian parliament thought it was important that there be representatives of Australia at last week’s gathering in Budapest. The member for Fairfax, as the head of the delegation, officially signed some papers with Katalin Szili, the Speaker of the Hungarian parliament and, as he said, we were both present at a very moving ceremony at the cemetery where we laid flowers on the grave of Prime Minister Imry Nagy, so cruelly murdered by the Stalinist thugs who took over Hungary on 4 November.

This is the 50th anniversary of the unsuccessful revolution against the Soviet occupiers. Few countries have had a more traumatic history than Hungary. As I said in the Australian Financial Review, its history through the 1930s as a semi-authoritarian country under Admiral Horthy is well known. The tragedies of the Second World War, particularly the period in 1944 when the Nazi oppression of Hungary grew worse, are also well known. The Red Army liberated Hungary from the Nazis and from the Arrow Cross and then sought to impose its own form of totalitarianism on that country. Just a few days ago I went to one of the best museums I have seen throughout the world, the House of Terror in Andrassy Street in Budapest. At this new museum, Hungary commemorates the evil deeds of both the Arrow Cross and the Hungarian communists—especially the role of the Hungarian secret service. To see the kinds of tortures and depredations that were brought to the Hungarian people was very, very moving. The extreme brutality against members of the church, against all members of civic society and against intellectuals was very well documented. At the commemorative meetings for the 1956 Revolution in the Hungarian parliament, where many international representatives were present, as delegates saw the most dramatic and passionate black and white film which courageous young Hungarian filmmakers had made in the days before the Soviet tanks rolled back into Budapest on 4 November. That film had not been seen in the 50 years since it had been shot, because the young filmmakers had been seeking to show it in Budapest on that very day, 4 November. Of course they were not able to show it in Hungarian movie theatres because the Soviets were back in control of the country.

One of the things that the member for Fairfax raised, which I think now has widespread acceptance, is that the Hungarian Revolution was not betrayed but that many people in the West might have done more. The fierce anti-communist John Foster Dulles—the then American Secretary of State—and President Eisenhower made what many people now would consider very anodyne comments. Perhaps the world was distracted and divided by events in Suez, but I am reminded very much of the theme of that cult American film Three Kings, that it is very unwise to call on and support people to rise up against authoritarian or totalitarian regimes if you are not prepared to follow through and help them. The Hungarian people were very grateful for Australia’s support at the time. Australia was one of the countries appointed by the UN to investigate the reasons for the suppression. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to carry out the UN mandate because of the Hungarian communist regime’s refusal to accept Australia in to investigate the events of 1956. But, after 40 wasted years for Hungary, ultimately the Hungarian people are now free; there has been a democratic government there for 15 years. I think the people of Australia and this parliament are very pleased that we were represented in Hungary last week and that we could celebrate the freedom of Hungarians with a people now free to demonstate their vital role in European history. (Time expired)

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have always been a great admirer of Hungary. Many people would ask why, but as a young person I had some really good Hungarian friends who used to regale me with stories of what happened in Hungary both before and after the 1956 uprising. They introduced me to Hungarian cuisine, and I must confess that I suffered in the sense that I enjoyed it far too much.

Hungary is a country where, as the honourable member for Melbourne Ports said, we have had 40 wasted years, but now Hungary once again is free and once again is able to take its part in the world. It seemed to me for a long time that the essential genius of Hungary and Hungarians was smothered by the wet blanket of communism. Now that has been removed, of course, the opportunities for Hungary and Hungarians in central Europe are really unsurpassed and unlimited.

It always touches me how, throughout world history, the concept of ‘freedom’ has provided such heightened motivation for the people who do not have it. People who have been denied freedom, stable government and security are prepared to risk much in order to attain these things, if not for themselves then for their children and others who will come after them.

This was the case some 50 years ago in the Hungarian Revolution. It was an event in which the people of the nation spontaneously came together to launch a powerful and united offensive against Soviet rule and against communism. What had started as a well-meaning march by students captured the imagination of their fellow frustrated citizens. It was such that the inner anger of many individuals, suppressed for so long by the hand of communism, was simultaneously released to become one united force. One man—and I am going to blame my friend the member for Fairfax if my pronunciation of this name is incorrect—Arpad Szilagyi, a student at the time, wrote:

… It was a revolution in the true sense of the word: A fight of the whole nation against repression and tyranny in the name of creating a better and more just society …

In 1956, optimism swept through Hungary. Hopeful 13- and 14-year-olds enthusiastically joined the movement, using Molotov cocktails and small-calibre rifles to attack Soviet tanks and play their part in attempts to overthrow the occupiers and end years of communist rule. Yet, despite this reckless courage and desperation, the revolution understandably was soon crushed by the Soviet forces. The two-week uprising, from 23 October to 10 November 1956, left 3,000 dead in the capital, Budapest, and around the countryside. But the desire for change was not dead. As is most often the case, failure was to turn around to become a seed for future success. As George W Bush noted, of the event:

Liberty can be delayed, but it cannot be denied.

The winds of change, some theorise, had started with the death in 1953 of one of the fathers of communism, Joseph Stalin, and the appointment of Imre Nagy as Prime Minister. Mr Nagy immediately began to introduce reforms that were more in touch with the real needs of Hungary and the wishes of its people. However, he was dismissed from this position in 1955 and Hungary was quickly steered back onto the old path—the path that was not supported by the people of Hungary.

The student procession in October 1956 aimed to present a petition of grievances to the then leader, Erno Gero. However, his confrontational speech in response to the students, together with shots fired towards the crowds by the state police, sparked riots that became the Hungarian Revolution. As one writer noted, the revolution was:

... a stark reminder throughout the Cold War that the nations of Eastern Europe were not communist by choice.

Although short-lived in relative terms—just 18 days from start to finish—this uprising set the environment for the eventual end of communism some 33 years later. In Hungary, reforms initiated in 1989 led to the sanctioning of a multiparty system and competitive elections. The reforms that swept through eastern Europe culminated in the collapse of communism in Poland, East Germany and other states, and also, ultimately, in the Soviet Union.

I wish to place on record in this House my condolences to the families who lost loved ones in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and in the years following when Soviet administrators punished a number of Hungarian loyalists with execution for their involvement. These people gave up their lives in the hope of achieving better things for their country. In February this year Hungary’s ambassador to the US said:

... the sacrifice of 1956 was not in vain and Hungarians ended up achieving more than the heroes had ever dreamed of.

I salute Hungary and Hungarians. (Time expired)

Michael Hatton (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nothing is certain in life but death and taxes; but, in this instance, we could add a third: the eventual end of communist regimes, whether in Europe or in the rest of the world. I commend the member for Fairfax, Alex Somlyay, for bringing this motion before the parliament. His motion recognises the 50th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution and the fact that that failed revolution was the first major expression of massive discontent and the willingness to break free of the Warsaw Pact which had been imposed on eastern Europe. It was an attempt to break through the Iron Curtain which had descended between eastern and western Europe—as Winston Churchill intoned at Fulton, Missouri, in 1949. That Iron Curtain separated the peoples of the east and west, and separated the Magyar peoples who had formed the central core of the Austro-Hungarian empire. It separated those people in the east in not only Hungary but also Czechoslovakia, where they had their uprising in 1968, under Prime Minister Dubcek. They, like the people of Hungary, were put down through the use of steel and bullets. They, like the people of Hungary, said they wanted to be free people and that they did not want to live under the yoke of serfdom in a communist dictatorship. They were willing to put their lives on the line.

It is just the same this very day for the people in Vietnam and those people who signed up to the Bloc 8406 group. In April this year those people said they wanted freedom. They wanted democracy just like the Hungarians did in 1956 and the Czechs did in 1968. They did not want to be subjected to a one-party dictatorship and a form of totalitarianism which says that you can only think in one way—in a way that is measured by your adherence to a philosophy based on Marx, Lenin and Stalin, in a way which admits no other thought at all.

The Hungarian people have demonstrated in the 17 years since 1989 just how good they are at doing business and just how excellent they are at building on the native capacities of their people to build a modern, new and vibrant country that has been at the very leading edge of the Eastern bloc countries that have emerged from the grip of the Warsaw Pact and moved into the full light of freedom. These days, under the Bush doctrine, it is easy to say that freedom and democracy should be there for everyone in the world, but it is enormously hard to construct. Historically, the first thing that people had to do was to break free from a tyranny that was not only exercised throughout eastern Europe; it was a tyranny that had its adherents throughout the rest of the world.

The movement of communism worldwide as an ideology was extremely broad and very deep. The year of 1956 was the year that Nikita Kruschev made his speech to the Communist Party congress in Moscow. He laid open the nature of Joseph Djugashvili Stalin’s regime and the fact that it had murdered tens of millions of its own people and had subjected people across Europe to an absolutely unnecessary brutal regime. The people in Hungary were some of the first victims of the attempt to escape from that. The depth of feeling that was around then was expressed by what happened during the Melbourne Olympic Games. In those Olympic Games in the water polo arena, Hungary came up against the Soviet Union. That pool ran with blood, as the streets in Hungary ran with blood when the Soviets subjected the Hungarian people to their revolution being crushed out of existence.

The member for Fairfax has done the parliament a great service in bringing to our notice the 50th anniversary of this revolution and the fact that people can strive in the darkest conditions. As Arthur Koestler put it in Darkness at Noon: it is what prevailed in those communist societies, where there was no other way to see the world but what the regime imposed. It took enormous courage to stand up against the regime, just as it takes enormous courage this very day and these very months for the people in Vietnam to continue their fight to run their own country in their own way. I absolutely commend this motion to the House.

Michael Keenan (Stirling, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Somlyay, in your capacity as the member for Fairfax I commend you for bringing this motion before the House today. As I listened to your contribution I had visions of your parents bringing you to Australia in 1949 and how terrible the decision must have been for them to leave everything in their homeland, flee in order to be able to provide a better life for their family and spend time in a refugee camp before arriving in Australia as refugees. What a great Australian story it is that people can flee their homeland as refugees, arrive in Australia, rise to represent people in this place and be a minister within the Howard government. It is a great tribute to you and your family. It is a vindication of what they did all those years ago. Australia continues to have a very proud record of welcoming the world’s refugees, many of whom now end up in my electorate of Stirling.

The Hungarian Uprising was of course a stark example of the brutality of the communist system as it was imposed on eastern and central Europe at the close of World War II. It is also an example of courage. It was a real David and Goliath battle that pitted the might of the Warsaw Pact, with all its tanks, artillery and war planes, against the ordinary Hungarian people, who were fighting with Molotov cocktails and small-calibre rifles.

In 1956 there was a feeling that the monolithic power of the Soviet Union might be crumbling. Khruschev, the new leader of the Soviet Union, had denounced Stalin in a so-called secret speech earlier in 1956. This led to what was initially a student revolt that was brutally put down by the Hungarian state security police. The disgust amongst the population at that act led to a general uprising that toppled the hardline regime that had been installed in Hungary after the war. The new government of Imre Nagy formally disbanded the state security police. They pledged to conduct free elections, released political prisoners and declared that Hungary would no longer be a member of the Warsaw Pact.

The Soviet response to this was a full-scale invasion that, as I said, included tanks and artillery. To ensure the loyalty of the Soviet troops, they were brought in from Central Asia and were told that they were fighting the German fascists in Berlin. They were resisted, extraordinarily courageously, by pockets of the Hungarian army, none of which sided with the Soviets, and rebels who were fighting with nothing more than Molotov cocktails and small arms. Obviously, this resistance had no hope against the might of the Warsaw Pact, although the resistance did continue sporadically until mid-1957. Two and a half thousand Hungarians died, thousands more were executed and imprisoned afterwards and 200,000 fled the country as refugees.

In what was a stunningly crude move, the Soviets granted Nagy safe passage from his refuge in the Yugoslav embassy. After granting that safe passage, they seized him, imprisoned him in Romania and Russia and finally executed him in 1958 after he refused to denounce his actions and endorse the new Soviet-sponsored regime that was installed. These events are extraordinarily important in showing us the true face of Soviet communism. Many in the West flirted with the ideals. At that stage, in fairness to them, the monumental evil of that regime was not as clear as it is today, but, after the events of 1956, no thinking person could look at that system and believe that it offered anything for mankind. There is no question that those events contributed to the ultimate collapse of that system.

Today in Hungary we have a nation transformed: it is a member of NATO and the EU. I have visited the country twice, and after 1989 you could not possibly be anything but impressed by the vibrancy that has been unleashed there. Hungarians have made a sizeable contribution to Australia. I would like to acknowledge that by acknowledging members of the Hungarian community in the House today. (Time expired)

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Consumer Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The genesis of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution was, as some members noted earlier, the 20th Congress of the Communist Party speech by Khruschev. Unfortunately, some Hungarians are under the impression that his denunciation of Stalin’s methods actually meant that the Soviet Union would tolerate national independence. In fact, with that suppression it became very clear, if it was not already clear, that the Soviet Union utilised the international communist movement to basically conduct Soviet foreign policy. The brutal suppression drove home to many in the West the realities of the Cominform and Soviet policies.

In 1989 a major gesture by the Hungarian people was to rebury Nagy, who, as an earlier speaker indicated, was jailed and killed two years after being given safe passage. In 1989 his skeleton, with bound feet and hands, was reburied at Uj Koztemeto, a cemetery in Budapest. His situation in life was indicative of the suppression of thousands of others.

This motion has many other ingredients. It talks about the Hungarian contribution to this country. The quarter of a million people who fled suppression found homes in many countries, and one of them was Australia. Today, in the area of 150,000 to 200,000 Australians are of Hungarian extraction. Some of the realities of this community should be driven home. With regard to their English ability, the situation is that 85½ per cent who are Hungarian born say that they speak English well. The rate of citizenship at the last census was 97 per cent—unparalleled by many communities in this country.

Whilst 52½ per cent of Australians are in skilled trades, in the Hungarian community it is 61½ per cent. A total of 46.2 per cent of Australians say that they have educational or occupational qualifications, while in the Hungarian population it is nearly 60 per cent. The median age, of course, is radically different from the Australian population and that reflects the fact that migration to this country was very much suppressed during the Soviet period. The median age for Australians today is 46 years and for Hungarians it is 62.2 years. Similarly, we have a situation where 42½ per cent of Hungarian-born people in this country are over the age of 65. This is a matter that affects many eastern European communities. In the past I have argued that this country should be more lenient with regard to family migration for members of the eastern European community, many of whose siblings—brothers and sisters—died in the intervening period. We should look to nieces and nephews to support older eastern Europeans in this country.

As we know, there is a significant number of Australians of Hungarian extraction who have made major contributions in this country. In New South Wales politics, of course, there is Nick Greiner, who I was privileged to be with in the state parliament. I heard Les Murray on national radio during the World Cup talk about his biography and the realities of growing up in Wollongong as a young Hungarian. In the business sector, there was Peter Abeles and others.

The other aspect of this motion is the entry of Hungary into NATO in 1999 and into the European Union in 2004. It is worth noting that many of the problems that we have spoken about concerning Bulgaria and Romania and the degree to which they can be accommodated in Europe were not present with Hungary. It had already advanced in human rights and there were no significant questions about its appropriateness in entering Europe. That is also an important point to drive home.

In speaking to this motion, I think about my experience in Prague a few years ago on a study tour when I had the privilege of seeing the Samizdat exhibition at the national museum. I also saw the horrific scenes of Slansky’s show trial and watched the prosecutor demanding the death penalty for him and the other tortured defendants. It was a show trial that had basically been contrived around anti-Semitism and to reinforce the power of Klement Gottwald. In Hungary five years later, of course, we had Rakosi and the same kind of measures to suppress the rights of the people.

In conclusion, I congratulate the member for Fairfax for driving home the realities of the contribution to Australia of those Hungarian people who fled and what they have done in this country, and for recognising the change in Hungary towards a Western liberal democracy after the defeat of communism.

Alex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.