Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes with concern the ongoing violence and political instability in Chile, driven by rising economic inequality;

(2) condemns the use of lethal force against peaceful protesters and calls on all parties to refrain from violence;

(3) recognises the importance and right to peaceful protest in any democracy and condemns the use of violence to repress the democratic right of Chilean citizens to protest;

(4) calls on the Chilean Government to include all parties, namely, civil society, unions and indigenous peoples in addition to business leaders in the process for drafting a new constitution;

(5) encourages the work of the Chilean National Human Rights Institute and authorities to investigate human rights abuses and hold those responsible to account; and

(6) calls on Australian companies that do business in Chile to play a constructive role in the solution to end the political instability.

I rise today to speak in solidarity with so many Chilean Australians in moving a motion on this issue. The instability that has been occurring in Chile since October last year, initially over a rise in metro fares, has since spiralled out of control over the decision to call in riot police and the national army in response. As independent observers, we've seen violent and repressive responses to peaceful protests by Chileans standing up for something as basic as public transport fares, standing up for the right for all Chileans to fair wages, standing up for the right to a pension, standing up for the right to make basic cost of living, standing up for the fundamentally fair and more equal distribution of their nation's economic wealth.

Since I was first elected in 2016 as the member for Wills, I've spoken in this place in support of many fundamental rights—human rights and democratic freedoms—for many different peoples across the globe, whether it be the Rohingya, the Kurds, the Somalis, the Uygur more recently and the Baha'i. It was heartbreaking to hear the distressing accounts of police crackdowns on protesters in Chile, many of whom have family and friends here in Australia, who've relayed their concerns to me. These protestors are on the streets because it costs a third of their wage to catch a bus, and wages aren't going anywhere. It's not right in a wealthy country like Chile that the government would turn to a violent response to peaceful protest. It is a fundamental right to have peaceful protest, and that should never be violated by a violent response. We need to call that out, and that's why I decided to move this motion.

I know that, for many Chilean Australians and many Chileans, what's happening in Chile right now must be a very terrifying reminder of the violence that they themselves or their parents and grandparents fled from during the Pinochet regime. I'm here in solidarity with them. In the past, former Labor governments—under Prime Minister Gough Whitlam through to Prime Minister Hawke—have supported refugees who fled the Pinochet and other regimes in Latin America throughout the 1970s and 1980s. We're here in parliament to say we support our Chilean Australian brothers and sisters. And I'm here to say we'll speak for them in solidarity with them. As a democracy and country that values human rights, and as a Labor Party that fights for those rights, we have a responsibility, as good international citizens, to speak out against violent actions, to hold governments to account and to play a positive role on the global stage. If we don't, who will?

If you look at the situation in Chile, the protesters have every right to go out there and speak their minds about the injustice they're facing. One per cent of Chileans who are the richest have 33 per cent of the wealth. We recognise with concern that this peaceful protest, driven by the rise in economic inequality, is being met with ongoing violence and political repression. This is a country that has had steady economic growth of something like five per cent, on average, for two decades. But most of that wealth hasn't gone down to the people. It hasn't been distributed fairly at all. It has been concentrated amongst the one per cent, the wealthiest.

We are here to condemn the fact that peaceful protesters in Chile are being subject to detention, persecution, torture and killings. We emphasise the importance of peaceful protest in any democracy around the world and condemn those actions by the government in using violence and aggression to repress the right of Chilean citizens to express themselves through freedom of association and freedom of their own speech. I ask as well that the Australian government call on the Chilean government to include all parties, including civil society, unions, Indigenous peoples and business leaders, in the process which is being undertaken for the new constitution. I encourage the work of the Chilean National Human Rights Institute and of authorities investigating human rights abuses and holding those responsible to account.

The many Australian companies that do business in Chile—there are over 100—have a role to play as well. They should be held to account and should play a part in the solution for the future of Chile. It's also very important that we remain resilient and strong for our brothers and sisters who remain in Chile and that we stand in solidarity with Chilean Australians.

Sharon Bird (Cunningham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member. Is the motion seconded?

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. I thank the member for Wills for bringing this motion to the House. I have a friend. Let's call him Jose. He's Australian Chilean. I had a beer with him in January to catch up. We ended up talking for ages about the situation in Chile. I'd heard of some unrest—you know, you read the papers—but I hadn't really focused on it or thought much about it. I thought it might be some ratbag protesters or a political issue. The headline was about protesting against a rise of, I think, 30 pesos, which is four cents, in the public transport fees in Santiago. Jose said, 'Yes, in a narrow sense it started as that.' But he explained to me that it's much deeper than one issue or just one city and that these protests have now spread like wildfire across the whole country. The Australian Chilean community, many of whom I've now spoken to, believe that it will not stop until the people force major systemic change upon Chile, that the unrest will spread across Latin America and that there are lessons for the rest of the world that we must heed.

Jose explained to me that, in many key respects, the neoliberal system began in Chile under the brutal, murderous Pinochet dictatorship in the 1970s. I didn't know this history. It is a history of privileging private interests and extreme wealth over welfare and the common good of people, and they embedded it in the constitution of Chile. It's a system which has, since then, unduly constrained democratically elected progressive governments from implementing real reform. They actually can't do it, because they're hemmed in by the constitution that protects vested interests. This has led to massive, entrenched inequality, which has become a cancer on the whole society and now threatens the political stability of a country that has been largely stable for decades, since the military dictatorship fell.

It's funny, of course, that there are no members of the government, no Libs, who want to come up and talk about inequality and what it does to a country when it gets out of control. But it is a paradox for those who watch the economic statistics. It's confusing because, to much of the global community, Chile, with it's economic orthodoxy, is the poster child of Latin America. It has the highest growth rate in Latin America. It's the country that has joined the OECD. It's now a developed country, and you think, 'That's okay.' They've implemented decades of market based reforms and privatisations. It has the highest GDP per capita in Latin America. So, on paper, Chile is the miracle child of Latin America and is the country that everyone is supposed to aspire to: 'Be like Chile. Look at what they've done.' It's evidence of what's possible, apparently. To numerous visitors to Santiago the place looks prosperous—First World modern.

I am embarrassed to say I was one of those people in 2015, when I went there on a work trip in my previous role. I was in Santiago for a week, with universities and TAFEs, building education and research partnerships. I stayed in a lovely hotel and went jogging in the mornings, and it looked great. But I realise now that I never crossed Italy Plaza. I never ventured to the other Santiago, where most people live, where there are slums and shanty towns, where people are barely able to exist. For millions of Chileans the entire system is rigged and has been rigged for decades. Despite the headline growth statistics, they don't see the benefits of this rise in national income and wealth. The reason for this is the profoundly entrenched and unsustainable inequality. Chile is one of the most unequal countries in Latin America. I want to read into Hansard three paragraphs from a recent New York Times editorial:

The distribution of income before taxes is highly unequal throughout the developed world; by that measure, Chile sits roughly in the middle of the 36 developed democracies that constitute the membership of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. What makes Chile an outlier among those 36 nations is that the government does less than nearly any other developed nation to reduce economic inequality through taxes and transfers. As a result, Chile has the highest level of post-tax income inequality among O.E.C.D. members.

… … …

Chile is not suffering from a lack of resources but instead from an unsustainably narrow conception of its obligations to its citizens. The military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1973 to 1990 rewrote the nation's laws and economic policies and reshaped its institutions to encourage free-market competition and to minimize the role of government. Its legacy endures. Even after increases in recent years, the Chilean government still spends a smaller share of total economic output than every other nation in the O.E.C.D.

Correlation is, of course, not causation, but no-one can believe it is a coincidence that, in the most unequal country in the OECD, the world has witnessed an outbreak of civil unrest. There are lessons from that for Latin American countries, but also for other developed nations that, as inequality rises and gets out of control, this is what can happen. Governance will break down and civil unrest will emerge.

I hope that things are resolved. I hope that the constitution imposed by the military dictatorship is rewritten from scratch by the people, and that ordinary people can peacefully take back their country from the oligarchs without even more serious violent unrest. I stand with the Australian Chileans in wishing that for their country.

Debate adjourned.