David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I must have struck a nerve because senators from the Australian Greens appear to be quite upset. I will read what the press release says:

Senator Brown told the ambassador that the Greens utterly condemn yesterday’s nuclear test and that North Korea’s action has made the region and the world a more dangerous place.

Nowhere in the document is the North Korean government, the North Korean state, the Marxist system under which North Korea operates condemned by the Australian Greens. In fact, when I read from the web the Green Left Weekly, citing a book by Mr Bruce Cumings, North Korea: Another country, it appears that the Green Left Weekly, which, I take it, has some broad political affiliation with the Australian Greens, apologises for the North Korean regime. Let me deal with what it says, in citing Mr Cumings book:

North Korea does not exist alone, in a vacuum ... It cannot be understood apart from a terrible fratricidal war that has never ended, the guerrilla struggle against Japanese imperialism in the 1930s, its initial emergence as a state in 1945, its fraught relationship with the South, its brittle and defensive reaction to the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union, and its interminable daily struggle with the United States of America.

It is clear that in terms of left-wing green politics in Australia there is a strong apologist approach to the North Korean regime. What I want Senator Milne or Senator Brown to do is tell the Senate and the Australian people that they utterly reject the North Korean regime, that they utterly reject the Marxist fundamentals and principles upon which North Korea is based. I want them to stand up and say that.