Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens absolutely understand where Senator Patrick is coming from with these amendments. We deeply share his concerns about human rights abuses in China. We are deeply and passionately worried about the plight of the Uighurs in China, and the plight of the Tibetans over many years, and any people working for democracy in China; in fact, anybody within mainland China who dissents from the positions of the Chinese Communist Party, and the appalling attacks on them, the jailing and the torture. We are deeply concerned about the current situation in Hong Kong: the massive attacks on democracy in Hong Kong, the complete trashing of the 'one country, two systems' agreement, and, essentially, China just coming in with its might in Hong Kong. The question is what you do about it.

I think it is exceptionally important for Australia to be acting very strongly and, particularly, to be acting multilaterally—in fact, leading multilateral arrangements—because of our relationship with China and because it has been our largest trading partner. We know, with the situation we're currently at with China, that it's a very difficult and sensitive situation as to how you can apply meaningful pressure on China to get some meaningful action on the human rights abuses that are going on, without everything just escalating out of control. These are incredibly serious issues that the world needs to be grappling with, not just allowing Chinese expansionism and not just allowing the ongoing abuse of human rights in China.

That said, the question, as I said, is how you go about it. We do not think that this legislation, including this sort of mechanism in this legislation, is the appropriate way to go about it. In fact, our position on this legislation is that we think it is too far-reaching and there is far too much control, without the appropriate checks and balances, over universities. We've got an amendment, as you know, to remove universities from the scheme. We think that the level of control and the ability to negate agreements made by local governments is overreach. So we don't think this legislation would be an appropriate mechanism to include that ability of control over the Olympic Committee.

That said, I think the calls, as Senator Patrick said, for a boycott of the Beijing Winter Olympics are growing, and they are going to continue to grow because of the human rights situation in China. We really need to have the conversation about what we think of that call, because we know that the Beijing Winter Olympics are going to be a massive propaganda moment for the Chinese Communist Party. They are going to milk that for all they can, saying, 'No, we are a legitimate world player, a superpower on the world stage,' and trying to brush away what is going on, whether it's the Uighurs, the Tibetans or what is happening in Hong Kong. That is something the world is really going to need to grapple with and take a multilateral approach on. I can see over the coming two years that there will be countries that will decide their athletes should not go, and that will be supported by their countries. I also think it's incredibly important that, if there is a decision for Australia to boycott the Winter Olympics, it should be a decision that is supported by government. It cannot be left to the athletes to bear that decision themselves. I also reject the position that the Olympics Committee currently have that you need to separate sport from politics. That's never happened; and it never will. At this moment, the Winter Olympics are a political moment, and they are a critical moment for China on the world stage.

That said, we have got a very serious issue when it comes to human rights in China. It's a very serious issue, and the world needs to be dealing with it more appropriately than it is at the moment. But including the ability to deal with that within this legislation is not something the Greens support.