Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate, noting that:

(a)

Rwanda’s nomination to join the Commonwealth will be decided at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Trinidad and Tobago from 27 November to 29 November 2009; and

(b)

Rwanda’s ruling party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, has actively stopped alternative political parties from operating and has been implicated in electoral irregularities and restrictions on press freedom,

calls on the Government to review Rwanda’s record on human rights according to the standards agreed to by the Commonwealth’s 1991 Harare Declaration, before supporting its membership of the Commonwealth.

Question put.