Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 24 November last year, in the evening while we in this House were occupied with the election, the Burmese Medical Association of Australia and the Burmese community jointly hosted a fundraising function at the Ukrainian Hall in Lidcombe in response to recent events in Burma. Several hundred people attended the function and a petition was taken urging the Australian government to assist those most in need, in collaboration with like-minded nations and under appropriate supervision. Dr Raymond Tint Way, the Vice-President of the Burmese Medical Association of Australia, brought the petition to me and asked that I present it to parliament. I will read some of the petition onto the record today so that members of the Australian Burmese community can speak to this House in their own voice:

We, the undersigned representatives of the Burmese Medical Association of Australia and the Burmese community in Australia, respectfully address the following concerns . . .

We refer to the recent disturbing events in Burma which involved the revered Buddhist monks in a crisis, although they do not usually concern themselves with worldly affairs. The monks have stood side-by-side with the people in their economic hardship, deprivation of liberty, and inadequate health care. They have prayed with and for the people peacefully, and for a resolution of their impasse. The people’s suffering intensified as they witnessed the helplessness of the revered monks in resolving the crisis. The conscience of the world was moved by these events. An editorial in the prestigious British Medical journal the Lancet (vol. 370, 27 October 2007) pointed to the ailing health system of Burma, which has not coped with the demands placed on it, with the disastrous consequences that Burma has been ranked 190th out of 191 nations in health care provision. The editorial also stressed the urgent need to address the root causes of both the health system failure and the widespread suffering among the people, as well as the necessity to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches those in the most desperate need by preventing it from being siphoned off.

The following account, which we received from sources inside Burma in recent weeks, gives a true representation of the suffering of the great majority of the Burmese people … Prices of food and bare essentials continue to rise sky-high. There is no adequate medical treatment for the sick. Unless you have money you cannot get treatment at all. If you can get into a general hospital you have to supply even cotton wool. Blood is auctioned and only the highest bidder can get blood in hospitals.

We thereby call upon the Australian government to take a lead in forming a network of like-minded nations to provide humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, to those most in need, both within Burma and at the Thai-Burmese border area, to be accompanied by technical, medical and surgical teams, with the distribution to be monitored and supervised by United Nations agencies.

And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.

I seek leave to table this petition, with the attached 176 signatures.

Leave granted.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Casey and wish him a happy birthday.