Janelle Saffin (Page, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank all of those people who participated in, helped to organise and supported an event, called ‘Stand for freedom’, that I hosted at the Sydney Opera House on 27 October. Five hundred people gathered at this event to show their support and solidarity for Burma’s Noble Peace Laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi. I want to give particular thanks to the following people: Therese Rein, Lucy Turnbull, Di Morrissey, Jenny Morris, Claire Mallinson and Nyein Aye Kyi. These were the special guests who each spoke at the event and, in so doing, demonstrated strong support from the Australian community, particularly from women in the Australian community. Each brought their own thoughts and dignity to the occasion.

All called for Aung San Suu Kyi’s release from incarceration. We know that she is still under house arrest, having been there for some 14 of the past 20 years as she has struggled to bring freedom and democracy to her country. Jenny Morris sang a song that was most apt. It was about the revolution. I commented at the time that Aung San Suu Kyi, a devout Buddhist, extols a revolution of the spirit, and the two resonated remarkably well. I also want to thank the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts for securing Jenny Morris at the event for me. Claire Mallinson, as National Director of Amnesty International—I am a long-term member of Amnesty International—made a plea for all Burma’s political prisoners; there are over 2,000 who are known.

I also wish to thank the team of people who all volunteered their time and professional skills to ensure the event’s success: the Sydney Opera House executive and staff and the newly appointed artistic director, opera singer and great artist and community person, Lyndon Terracini, who happens to come from Lismore, my home town—that was convenient! I also want to thank the national and international media for their coverage of the event. Radio Free Asia sent a senior reporter from their Washington head office, Mr Khin Maung Soe, who also visited our parliament. I particularly want to thank Alan Jones and Deborah Cameron, who covered the event so well and, therefore, the plight of Aung San Suu Kyi and that of the people of Burma. Some women came to the event after hearing me talk on Alan Jones’s program.

The major daily newspapers covered it, as did TV, radio, SBS and Radio Australia, which recently launched its coverage into Burma. I want to thank the Prime Minister for that policy initiative, which he promoted, announcing it on the day that Aung San Suu Kyi’s sentencing on these trumped-up charges was announced. There were three high schools represented as well by senior girls, and good on them for coming along. Jackie Laurence was there. She is one of our Olympic medallists and one of my constituents and also the Australia-Burma Campaign’s supporters. Kerri-Anne Kennerley came, as did New South Wales political leaders. The Australian Burmese community came out, as did the Australian Karen organisation and Aunty Pyone, as she is known, brought a huge photo of Aung San Suu Kyi, a photo which hit the headlines worldwide. She asked a friend to asked me if she could bring it. I said, ‘Of course, and don’t turn up without it.’ I hoped she would and she did.

Some of them were overwhelmed, coming from their motherland, knowing the tragedy and travesty which has beset their nation for a long time. Many still have family living there. As we know, on every indicator, the country scores poorly in terms of infant maternal mortality morbidity, health status, malaria, TB, HIV-AIDs, school rates of attendance and attrition, economy, food security—once a rice bowl, now a dust bowl—and we all know of the terrible cyclone and tsunami that devastated their nation.

I am also mindful of current political initiatives on the part of Australia-US friends groups, ASEAN, the secretary-general, and I watch with interest. There are the views expressed both ways, but everybody has to try. (Time expired)