Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I don't want to interrupt the flow of questioning, but, if I might just indicate Labor's position—if that's alright with Senator Rice—Labor is not supportive of these amendments. I do want to just make two points, though. The first, in relation to Myanmar, is that we have taken a different view to that which Senator Payne has outlined, and we do believe that—given the attack on the democratic transition, given the violence that has been perpetrated against citizens, given the participation in and the execution of a coup against the government of the day and given Australia's length of engagement in the democratic transition—there is a case for additional targeted sanctions against those responsible for the violence, and I placed that on the record in the second reading debate.

Having said that, really the way to understand Senator Rice's amendments on sheet 1502 is that they go to the relative roles of the executive and the parliament. On this, we do have a different view to that of the Australian Greens. We may not agree with the government's decisions in relation to which sanctions it seeks to impose or not impose, but we do think that, in our system, the government of the day has to make that decision, considering all of the information which is available to government. So we are not supportive of the schema that is laid out in Senator Rice's amendments, which essentially provides to the parliament a much greater engagement on what we think is really the responsibility of executive government. It's a responsibility which, at times, governments may not exercise in the way the opposition thinks it might, or, if the shoe were on the other foot, the coalition, the now government, thinks is correct, and certainly the minor parties. But these are significant decisions, they are important decisions and they are not decisions which are made for symbolism; they are decisions which are made soberly around how we progress Australia's national interests, which include, as this deals with, ensuring that we seek to shape the world for the better through what we do in foreign policy.

I do think there is a place for consultation, which is one of the themes of the amendment that Senator Rice has moved. Certainly we gain a great deal from our consultation with human rights NGOs. They have participated in discussions with us which have informed our amendments. I would assume any party of government would do so. But, ultimately, we do believe these decisions are matters which ought be made in the best judgement of whoever is responsible—executive government—at the time they're being made.