Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I present the report of the Australian parliamentary delegation to Cambodia and to the 116th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union held in Bali, which took place from 21 April to 4 May 2007. I seek leave to move a motion to take note of the document.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I want to very briefly speak to the report of the 116th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. I have attended these assemblies as a delegate of this parliament over the last 18 months. I will probably not be going to the next scheduled meeting of the IPU, given that we will most likely be in an election period at the time.

The work of the IPU is important. It is about parliamentarians meeting not to represent their governments but to represent their parliaments. The work of the IPU is very diverse. Some of the important work that I want to briefly talk about is its work with regard to human rights. In a world where human rights are not always as they should be, and not always to the standard that we and many other developed countries would expect in functioning democracies, it is critical that there is ongoing international scrutiny and an opportunity to exchange dialogue with parliamentarians from different sovereign states. While the assembly is concerned about human rights across the board, one of its major functions—a very important role—is to investigate allegations of human rights abuses of parliamentarians. This is not about parliamentarians simply seeking to look after one another. It follows quite logically that, if parliamentarians in working democracies cannot be afforded human rights, there is little or no chance that the general population will be afforded any level of human rights.

The IPU has a standing committee which works between assemblies. It looks at and investigates human rights abuses against politicians. People may remember recently seeing on their TV screens the leader of the main opposition party in Zimbabwe being beaten, nearly to death, by state sanctioned police violence. This is the kind of matter that the IPU attempts to investigate as best it can, but it often relies on the cooperation of the host government. There are many examples where politicians are elected to office, only to be jailed on trumped up charges, beaten, kidnapped or murdered. This is more common than we would like to think and the human rights committee works actively in this area.

I have spoken many times, for instance, about the abuse of a number of elected representatives in the Filipino government who coincidentally seem to get arrested on trumped up rebellion charges before elections are due to take place so that they are unable effectively to participate in the elections. One case I have spoken about many times here is that of Crispin Beltran, who was arrested over 18 months ago and charged with rebellion offences that were supposed to have taken place 20 years earlier. Of course, one of the problems for the state is that Crispin Beltran was actually in jail—jailed by the former and disgraced Marcos regime—at the time these rebellion offences were supposed to have taken place. Nevertheless, he spent 18 months in jail before finally working a way through the process of the law to be released after the last election.

Far too many countries are investigated by this committee. This committee currently has on hand investigations into abuse against parliamentarians in Bangladesh, Belarus, Burundi, Colombia, Ecuador, Eritrea, Honduras, Lebanon, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Pakistan, Palestine, Israel, Philippines, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Zimbabwe. This is hard work but it is very important work. Often international pressure, with the status of the IPU, leads to effective results or effective representation. The eyes of the international community being quite focused on some of these abuses leads to successful results, but unfortunately not always.

I commend this report to the committee. Many charges are detailed in the report. I commend the work of my fellow delegates: Ms Hull, Ms Moylan and Mr Jenkins from the other place, who participated actively in the debates in the assembly. They were not there to represent the government’s view but to represent the views of this parliament, which is quite different sometimes from the views of the executive. I would also like to thank Mr Neil Bessell, the delegation secretary, who does an outstanding job of organising the Australian delegation.

The IPU is a very worthwhile organisation. There are questions, from time to time, whether membership of such organisations is worth it. From my experience in serving my time—which is now coming to an end, I suspect—I can say quite strongly that this is an important organisation. Australians engage actively in it when we are there. I think this organisation, the Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, is very good value. It is good for our understanding and often it makes a real difference. I commend the report to the Senate.

Question agreed to.