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

I thank the Senate. This motion, as I indicated, is similar to a resolution which the European Parliament passed on 25 November last year which reiterated the European Parliament’s longstanding objection to the death penalty under all circumstances, which recalled the work that Europe had done in abolishing the death sentence and which recognised the Chinese legal authorities but called for the abolition of the death sentence in China. I would have thought that if the government was dinkum in saying it was opposed to the death sentence in all circumstances it would get past this failure it has of utilising the suasion of the Australian parliament to put an end to the death penalty.

We have motions on all sorts of matters in this place which the government itself puts forward and expects to be supported. Here we have a motion on something as important as the death penalty, very often by summary judgment of courts, in China which has led to estimates of between 2,000 and 4,000 prisoners being executed, including political prisoners. There are two Tibetans and a number of people in East Turkistan—Xinjiang—who are facing the death sentence after political activities at the moment. One would have thought the government would have been very strong in supporting this motion, but apparently what the Europeans are prepared to do in their parliament this Labor government is not prepared to stand up for in this parliament.

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Bob Brown’s) be agreed to.