Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes the passing and recognises the inspirational life and achievements of Vaclav Havel, the dissident playwright and first post-communist President of Czechoslovakia, who:

  (i) as Warsaw Pact tanks invaded Czechoslovakia in August 1968, improvised resistance by setting up a clandestine radio station and distributing leaflets,

  (ii) resisted the corruption of communist rule with plays and essays dedicated to human dignity and independence,

  (iii) co-authored the human rights charter, called Charter 77, which brought him international recognition as the leader of opposition in Czechoslovakia,

  (iv) endured years of persecution and imprisonment,

  (v) in writings, for which he was jailed, warned communist leaders that by attempting to stifle the human urge for freedom, they were dooming their own system,

  (vi) led his nation through the bloodless Velvet Revolution that toppled the brutal Soviet-backed communist regime in the then Czechoslovakia,

  (vii) was elected President of his country on 29 December 1989, the day after Alexander Dubcek was elected speaker of its federal parliament,

  (viii) presided over his country’s transition to a free economy, steered his country into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and prepared the way for its entry into the European Union,

  (ix) guided his nation through the slow and difficult process of recovery from the spiritual damage caused by four decades of communist totalitarian rule,

  (x) received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Philadelphia Liberty Medal, the Order of Canada, the Freedom Medal of the Four Freedoms Award, the Ambassador of Conscience Award and many other distinctions,

  (xi) was a founding signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism that proposed the establishment of the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism, and

  (xii) advocated collective action to end ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo and supported democratic activists in Cuba, Zimbabwe, China, Burma and elsewhere; and

(b) conveys its condolences to the people of the Czech Republic.

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Leave is granted for two minutes.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Universities and Research) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Vaclav Havel, the first president of post-communist Czechoslovakia, was one of the most remarkable freedom fighters of the 20th century. He was a playwright; he was a writer; he was a poet; and he was an intellectual. He was imprisoned, beaten and brutalised by the communist dictatorship. Unlike far too many in the West, he never romanticised or made excuses for commu­nism. I hope all senators, including the Greens, understand that. Havel understood from painful personal experience commu­nism's horror, degradation and the cancer it is to the human spirit.

I had the good fortune to meet President Havel in New York in 2006. I handed him a copy of a book he wrote called Living in Truth. He was good enough to sign it for me using a green pen. Then he took out a red pen and he drew a little red heart underneath it. He winked at me and he said one word: 'Love'. I thought we had made some connection. What struck me was his apparent innocence, an innocence that even communism could not belt out of him. But his innocence was truly luminous. It lit his face, his smile, his native Czechoslovakia and all of central Europe and all those who love and yearn for freedom.

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

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) 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 very much support this motion. I was invited by a number of news organisations to respond to the president's death and did so nationally. I agree with the senator moving this motion that Havel is another example of a great soul who can inspire all of us. But he would not have wanted his death used for political or petty pointscoring in the Australian Senate. I thought the mover of this motion, a good motion and a good point of view to be put, demeaned this occasion by his comment on the Greens. It was very unworthy of him and he should have done better than that. Havel would have blown the whistle on that.

Question agreed to.