Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. It relates to the UN-supervised Act of Free Choice in 1969 in West Papua, when 1,022 hand-picked voters chose integration over independence in a process that the West Papuans call the ‘Act of No Choice’. Is the minister aware of the comments by the UN undersecretary responsible for monitoring the event, who said:

It was just a whitewash … Nobody gave a thought to the fact that there were a million people who had their fundamental human rights trampled. How could anyone have seriously believed that all voters unanimously decided to join Soeharto’s regime?

Does the government accept the 1969 Act of Free Choice as the legitimate expression of the will of the West Papuan people, and will the government support calls for the United Nations Secretary-General to review the status of the Act of Free Choice?