David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to briefly support Senator Steele-John's amendments and commend them. My office regularly has communications with the Iranian community, the Palestinian community, the Bangladeshi diaspora, the Pakistani diaspora and members of the Rohingya community, who have all at different times pressed this government and the previous government for sanctions against leadership in their home countries, which have been making decisions that abuse human rights, that imprison and torture their political leaders and that clearly would fall within the regime of the Magnitsky legislation. Yet it's a complete black box from the government. They make a submission, they send a letter and they get nothing from the government.

The US—you would think we could at least meet their standards for human rights legislation—has a procedure very similar to what Senator Steele-John is seeking to put forward, which has public consultation and a role not just for the executive but also for the congress to take a stance on their Magnitsky legislation. In many ways what Senator Steele-John is seeking to do here is to meet the minimum standards met by the US. That might give, for example, the Bangladeshi community an answer as to why, more than two years after the United States imposed sanctions on the leadership of the Rapid Action Battalion in Bangladesh, which has seen the disappearance of hundreds and hundreds of its political opponents, this government has refused to act. I could run that list down—the Palestinian community asking for sanctions, the Iranian community asking for sanctions. There needs to be a process and transparency, not black boxing the executive.