Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. What is the government’s response to the conviction and sentencing of Burmese democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi?

Stephen Smith (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fremantle for her question and for her interest in this matter, an interest which I know all members of the House share. As members would be aware, Burmese democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi was convicted yesterday under the so-called Law Protecting the State Against the Dangers of Subversive Elements. She was sentenced to three years detention with labour, and that was reduced to 1½ years home detention. That sentence, of course, removes any prospect of her taking place in the proposed Burmese 2010 elections and will further detract from the credibility of those elections. Aung San Suu Kyi now faces a further period in detention, having spent almost 14 of the last 20 years in detention.

Australia condemns this verdict and this sentence. Yesterday and today we have again called upon the Burmese regime to release Aung San Suu Kyi, as well as the 2,000 other political prisoners in Burma, from detention. That should be done unconditionally and immediately. I relayed these messages to Burmese Foreign Minister Win in person when I saw him in Phuket, Thailand recently for the ASEAN related meetings. I emphasised Australia’s disappointment that Burma was again seeming to go down a path of further isolation from the international community. The Burmese foreign minister heard this message not just from me but from other ASEAN foreign ministers and from those foreign ministers who attended the ASEAN Regional Forum, some 26 foreign ministers, and the European Union.

We welcome overnight the unanimous international condemnation of the decision. On my instruction today the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade called in the Burmese ambassador at lunchtime and relayed these strong messages on behalf of the Australian government and the Australian people. Our ambassador in Burma is doing likewise. When I met the Burmese foreign minister, I told him that Australia very much regretted Burma’s continuing isolation because Australia and the international community wanted to assist Burma’s economic and socially deleterious circumstances. But it is of course impossible to effect that unless Burma moves back to democracy. As a first step, I will contact my Thai counterpart, Thai Foreign Minister Kasit, in his capacity as ASEAN chair, to speak about the action which the international community can take.

Australia, of course, in addition to supporting international measures, has for some time taken autonomous measures. Australia will soon renew its autonomous financial sanctions, introduced in 2007 and updated in 2008, that target senior members of the regime, their associates and their family members. As a result of Aung San Suu Kyi’s trial, conviction and sentencing, when these sanctions are updated I will now give consideration to including senior members of the judiciary as being subject to these sanctions.

Since 1991 Australia has maintained and supported a ban on defence exports to Burma. Australia would support any action before the Security Council to place a global arms embargo upon Burma, as urged by the United Kingdom Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. I am also considering other policy responses on behalf of Australia to place additional pressure on Burma.

Last night the Prime Minister announced that, in solidarity with Aung San Suu Kyi and the Burmese people, the government and Radio Australia had agreed to establish a Burmese language service to open up a new channel of international contact for the people of Burma. This is a further demonstration that Australia, now and for a considerable period of time under governments of both political persuasions, has stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Aung San Suu Kyi and has stood shoulder-to-shoulder for the restoration of democracy and respect for human rights in Burma.

I commend the initiatives that I have outlined to the House and I know that they will have the support of all members of the House, all members of the House having for a long period of time supported Australia’s efforts on this matter.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On indulgence: may I, on behalf of the opposition, associate the opposition entirely with the comments of the foreign minister on behalf of the government. The world can only ponder how much better the lives of the Burmese people would have been had Aung San Suu Kyi been allowed to take the prime ministership of that country after the 1990 elections, when her party won almost 90 per cent of the vote in the election. This recent action on behalf of the Burmese regime effectively removes Aung San Suu Kyi from the next election, thus delegitimising that election. I applaud the government on the steps it has taken and the announcements it has made in terms of sanctions against the regime, and the activities in relation to Radio Australia.