Michael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since coming to this parliament I have had a consistent interest in exposing the Gulag-style system in North Korea and its widespread abuse of human rights. In 2009 my office took on the ambitious task of running the ninth international conference on human rights in North Korea, held in Melbourne, together with the Citizens Alliance, a support group of North Koreans living in South Korea. This was the first of these international conferences to be opened by a foreign minister and was attended by 250 domestic and international delegates, including government officials, human rights activists and MPs from around the world.

Last week we welcomed the release of a 372-page report by the United Nations commission of inquiry into human rights in North Korea, official chaired by Australia's former High Court Justice Michael Kirby. According to Kirby, the purpose of the report was so that 'We can't say we didn't know.' Fairfax reported that David Hawk—a former UN human rights official and leading researcher into North Korea's prison camps—said that legal scholars, human rights lawyers and non-government groups have previously concluded that there were crimes against humanity taking place in the DPRK, but that 'this was the first time,' he said, 'experts authorised by UN member states have made that determination.' 'This unrivalled and damning report, a year in the making, has presented evidence of countless abuses by the North Korean government and military that shocked the conscience of humanity,' according to the Wall Street Journal, 'including arbitrary detention, torture, starvation, denial of thought, denial of freedom of movement, abductions and discrimination.'

Kirby said the panel would recommend that the situation be referred to the International Criminal Court where hundreds of North Korean officials, including Kim Jong Un himself, will be held accountable for their crimes. However, it is suspected that China, a long-term ally of the DPRK, will block this in the Security Council. Kirby hoped that this report will refresh a dialogue on the atrocities committed by the North Korean government and that 'the international community will be moved by the detail, the amount, the long duration, the great suffering and the many tears that existed in North Korea,' according to the New York Times of the 18th of this month.

It is clear that for years we have needed more discussion of the practical steps that can be taken by the international community on this matter. This is why I thought it was important to publish a map of the places where these concentration camps are located. You can find this map on my website. We have seen in the past the international community willing to stand up to despotic rule. It is not difficult to see the parallel between North Korea's crimes and the crimes committed in the 1930s. During a press conference on the report's launch, Kirby concluded:

When you see that image in your mind of bodies being burned it does bring back memories of the end of world war two, and the horror and the shame and the shock. I never thought that in my lifetime it would be part of my duty to bring revelations of a similar kind.

I honour Mr Justice Kirby. I think the report is a great achievement for both him and the United Nations. (Time expired)