Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The ugly hypocrisy and gross duplicity of the left side of politics is exposed on a daily, if not hourly, basis. But rarely is this ugliness and grossness so brazenly and vividly displayed for us as on the occasion of the passing of Cuba's brutal communist dictator, Fidel Castro, a dictator who personally oversaw the imprisonment, torture and murder of thousands of his own fellow Cubans, who witnessed up to 20 per cent of his own population flee his cruelty and barbarity, who threw his manic insistence of implementing failed Marxist dogma, who condemned his people to lives of poverty and who, despite the poverty of his people, amassed fortunes for himself and his family. Such are the characteristics of a man that the morally bankrupt Left are now eulogising, be it the hapless Secretary-General of the United Nations, who described the brutal dictator as 'a social reformer'. Really! And we as a nation pay hard-earned taxes—or, indeed, borrowed money—to sustain such an organisation. Or be it senior Labor frontbencher Senator Kim Carr, who eulogised this murderous tyrant with a silly tweet suggesting Castro was an 'extraordinarily 20th century figure'. Really! Possibly, we should be thankful that he was not an ordinary 20th century figure, as that would have meant that most leaders would be anticipated to perpetrate horrendous carnage against their own people and impoverish them whilst enriching themselves. So much for Labor being the workers' friend.

Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon's comments were sadly, and boringly, predictable. But, really, how do the Greens seriously eulogise a man as a hero who imprisoned people because of their sexuality? They hail such a man as a social justice giant yet with a straight face and all the righteous indignation they can muster condemn those of us who seek to give the people a democratic vote in a plebiscite on whether to change society's foundational institution: marriage. For five long decades, at the end of the gun barrel Fidel Castro terrorised and oppressed the Cuban people.

The life story of Armando Valladares, recounted in his book Against All Hope, should be compulsory reading for all those that are seeking to pay tribute to the life of the Fidel Castro. Valladares was imprisoned and tortured for 22 years under Castro and, interestingly, as a young man Valladares actually supported the revolution but quickly became disillusioned. For eight of the 22 years he was imprisoned, he was forced to sit naked in a cell without facilities and often without water. And yet the UN Secretary-General tells us Castro was a social reformer. Valladares, in his book and in speeches that he has given since his release, has really shone a light on this very dark regime. Allow me to quote certain segments. For example:

Each night, the firing squad executed scores of men in its trenches. We could hear each phase of the executions, and during this time, these young men—patriots—would die shouting … Every night there were shootings. Every night. Every night. Every night.

Valladares, still early in his sentence, was offered the chance at political rehabilitation but refused to comply. He was sent to an even more brutal prison, as he recounts:

I spent eight years locked in a blackout cell, without sunlight or even artificial light. I never left. I was stuck in a cell, 10 feet long, four feet wide, with a hole in the corner to take care of my bodily needs. No running water. Naked. Eight years. All of the torture, all of the violations of human rights, had one goal: break the prisoner's resistance and make them accept political rehabilitation. That was their only objective.

And this great man, who we should be celebrating rather than Fidel Castro, withstood that for 22 years.

But yet, predictably, the ABC's coverage of Castro's death was straight out of the Left's intellectually bereft handbook. You know the type of bankruptcy, Madam Acting Deputy President: the dishonesty to which we have become accustomed from the ABC, who described him as a noble leader, airbrushing aside as of no consequence the sense of relief felt by the substantial expat community population that had fled his brutality. The EU President, the Canadian Prime Minister and others were all, in a similar vein, celebrating Fidel Castro's life, and yet, when you see and hear the story of Armando Valladares, you see the reality.

The good news in all of this is the overwhelming repulsion felt by so many freedom-loving people around the world. The Canadian Prime Minister has now been parodied and, quite rightly, ridiculed for his eulogy with a new hashtag on Twitter—#trudeaueulogies—which are mostly very witty but expose the outrageous nature of his initial eulogy from which he has now, thankfully, at least partially resiled. But whilst the Labor and Greens leadership fail to dissociate themselves from the grotesque eulogies of Senators Carr and Rhiannon we can only assume that the leadership of those two parties endorse and support those ugly eulogies, which in turn should serve as a timely reminder for all freedom-loving Australians who do genuinely believe in human rights why those parties should never be entrusted with the government of our nation.