Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate, noting the similar resolution of the European Parliament on 25 November 2009:

(a)

reiterates its longstanding opposition to the death penalty in all cases and under all circumstances;

(b)

recalls Australia’s strong commitment to working towards abolition of the death penalty everywhere and emphasises once again that the abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and the progressive development of human rights;

(c)

recognises the positive move by China’s Supreme People’s Court, in January 2007, to review death sentences but deplores the fact that it has not led to a significant decrease in the number of executions in China and remains concerned that China still carries out the greatest number of executions worldwide;

(d)

urges the Chinese Government to adopt a moratorium on the death penalty immediately and unconditionally, this being seen as a crucial step towards abolition of the death penalty;

(e)

strongly condemns the executions of the two Tibetans, Lobsang Gyaltsen and Loyak, and of the nine persons of Uighur ethnicity following, respectively, the events in March 2008 in Lhasa and the riots of 5 July to 7 July 2009 in Urumqi; and

(f)

calls on the Chinese authorities to suspend all the other death sentences passed by the Intermediate People’s Courts of Lhasa and Urumqi and to commute those sentences, in the case of persons duly found guilty of acts of violence, to terms of imprisonment.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for two minutes.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government’s consistent approach has been that complex international relations matters should not be dealt with by means of a formal motion. It is also the government’s view that it is counterproductive for motions of this kind to single out any one country when Australia’s opposition to the death penalty is universal. According to the most recent available Amnesty International figures released in 2009 and in 2008, at least 2,390 people were known to have been executed in 25 countries and at least 8,864 people were sentenced to death in 52 countries around the world.

The Australian government’s policy on the death penalty is clear and consistent. Australian acceded to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 2 October 1990. In keeping with the government’s policy of encouraging universal ratification of the second optional protocol, we call on all countries to abolish the death penalty. Australia advances our universal opposition to the death penalty through the United Nations, including advocating for the death penalty’s abolition. We have consistently called for the abolition of the death penalty during interventions in the course of the Human Rights Council’s universal periodic review and we encourage the abolition of the death penalty in our bilateral human rights dialogues with China, Vietnam and Laos.

Australia, through its overseas missions, is currently making global representations against the death penalty to all countries that carry out executions or maintain capital punishment as part of their law. I want to say clearly and categorically and without question that the government is committed to working with the international community to achieve the death penalty’s universal abolition.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make, similarly, a short statement.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for two minutes.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the Senate. This motion, as I indicated, is similar to a resolution which the European Parliament passed on 25 November last year which reiterated the European Parliament’s longstanding objection to the death penalty under all circumstances, which recalled the work that Europe had done in abolishing the death sentence and which recognised the Chinese legal authorities but called for the abolition of the death sentence in China. I would have thought that if the government was dinkum in saying it was opposed to the death sentence in all circumstances it would get past this failure it has of utilising the suasion of the Australian parliament to put an end to the death penalty.

We have motions on all sorts of matters in this place which the government itself puts forward and expects to be supported. Here we have a motion on something as important as the death penalty, very often by summary judgment of courts, in China which has led to estimates of between 2,000 and 4,000 prisoners being executed, including political prisoners. There are two Tibetans and a number of people in East Turkistan—Xinjiang—who are facing the death sentence after political activities at the moment. One would have thought the government would have been very strong in supporting this motion, but apparently what the Europeans are prepared to do in their parliament this Labor government is not prepared to stand up for in this parliament.

Question put:

That the motion (Senator Bob Brown’s) be agreed to.