Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Justice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on behalf of my Vietnamese-Australian constituents in Hotham and the Vietnamese-Australian community Australia-wide. I do so because today we have 100 incredible Vietnamese-Australian community leaders here in our parliament visiting us, and they are listening to these speeches in the main committee room. To the delegation, I say: 'Kinh chao. Chao don quy vi den quoc hoi lien bang Uc Chau.' I want to thank all of you for taking the time to be here for this very important discussion.

The reason that this delegation has come from, really, all corners of the country is to raise the urgent situation of human rights in Vietnam. We have a community of people living in this country who have worked so hard to build an incredible life and an incredible community here in Australia, but, when they look back to Vietnam, what they see is a very tragic deterioration in the human rights situation for their cousins, their brothers and sisters, and their family members that they've left behind.

We heard some incredibly important concerns about religious freedoms not being protected in Vietnam. We heard about a new draconian cybersecurity law, which we're very concerned to hear will be used to surveil the Vietnamese. We heard about some very concerning issues around the use of police powers, particularly in preventing people from engaging in peaceful protest, and some appalling treatment of people who are in prison, including deaths in custody.

The Australian parliament must do more about these important issues that affect so many of our friends here in Australia and in Vietnam.