Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

My question is to Senator Faulkner, representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Minister, do you accept that the Zimbabwe government is no longer a legitimate government because it has violated the rule of law, created millions of desperate refugees, inflicted starvation on its people, inflicted grievous harm on its citizens and thrown aside basic democratic principles by declaring war if the MDC was victorious at the ballot box? Is the minister aware of the International Crisis Group’s ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine, accepted as a general principle by the United Nations and others? I ask the minister whether he is aware of the ICG’s basic principle, and I quote:

... where a population is suffering harm, as a result of ... repression or state failure, and the state in question is unwilling ... to halt ... it, the principle of non-intervention yields to the international responsibility to protect.

Minister, now that it is obvious that the quiet diplomacy of South Africa and the SADC has failed, will the Australian government actively campaign for the implementation of the ‘responsibility to protect’ measures, meaning international and particularly African support for, to quote the ICG, ‘whatever measures—economic political, diplomatic, legal, security or in the last resort military—become necessary to stop mass atrocity crimes occurring’?