Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Senate is about to vote on congratulating his Holiness the Dalai Lama on celebrating his 75th birthday. That is a complex foreign policy matter if ever I heard one! I did not hear anything in the minister’s statement that contradicts what is in this motion. Nothing that is in this motion contradicts Australian government foreign policy, as far as I am aware, expressing our hopes for a peacefully negotiated settlement between the Tibetan people and the People’s Republic of China. There is nothing at all in this motion that contradicts to my knowledge Australian government foreign policy or indeed the foreign policy of the opposition. So why are senators lined up to vote it down? This has happened three or four times in a row and I am absolutely at a loss to explain why it is.

I take the minister’s point that we do not want to send the wrong signals to the international community by just knocking through motions like this. What kind of signal does it send to vote against a motion expressing hopes for a peacefully negotiated settlement between the Tibetan people and the People’s Republic of China? That to me is rather more awkward than either negotiating with the Australian Greens on the wording of the motion, which we are always happy to do, or simply voting for it. I do not understand quite how it is that senators and members from both of the old parties can stand up and have their photos taken with the Dalai Lama when he comes to Australia and yet sit on this side of the chamber and vote against something like congratulating him on his 75th birthday. I leave it there because I think senators are well aware of where I am going.

Question put:

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