Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes:

(i) that 10 October 2017 marked World Day Against the Death Penalty,

(ii) that it is 40 years since the landmark Declaration of Stockholm, the first international abolitionist manifesto on the death penalty,

(iii) the important work of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty in campaigning for the universal abolition of capital punishment, and

(iv) that 40 years ago, only 16 countries had fully abolished the death penalty - now this figure stands at 105;

(b) further notes the recommendations made in the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, A world without the death penalty: Australia's advocacy for the abolition of the death penalty, including that:

(i) the Attorney-General's Department conduct a review of the current legislative arrangements for extradition and mutual assistance to ensure that they uphold Australia' s obligations as a signatory to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,

(ii) Australian approaches to advocacy for abolition of the death penalty be based on human rights arguments,

(iii) the Australian Government provide dedicated and appropriate funding to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, including adequate staffing, to resource the preparation and implementation of the Strategy for Abolition of the Death Penalty, and to fund grants to civil society organisations, scholarships, training, research and/or capacity building projects aimed at the abolition of the death penalty, and ongoing operational funds,

(iv) the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade coordinate the development of a whole-of-government Strategy for Abolition of the Death Penalty, which has as its focus countries of the Indo-Pacific and the United States of America, and

(v) the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade commit to having a publicly-releasable document finalised by mid-2017; and

(c) noting the Parliament's bipartisan support for the abolition of the death penalty:

(i) urges the Government to develop and release a public policy and strategy document to guide its efforts to promote abolition of the death penalty, and

(ii) calls on the Government to provide the Senate with an update on progress of the strategy.

Question agreed to.