Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to speak on an issue of critical importance to our region, one that has been cynically dismissed by the Australian government. On 5 May 2013 our friend and neighbour Malaysia held its 13th general election. Despite securing only 49 per cent of the official vote—and I will get back to that issue of the so-called official vote later—the ruling coalition, Barisan Nasional, won 133 of 222 seats, which was almost 60 per cent of the seats, and is set for another five years in office.

The opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim described the election as, 'The worst electoral fraud in our history'. But it is not a case of sour grapes. In fact, in an interview on ABC’s PM program the week prior, Mr Ibrahim stated:

We're not asking [the Australian Government] to support any party. We're asking them to remain consistent with Australian foreign policy position in support of freedom and democracy.

Why do you make so much noise about Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Or Myanmar? And mute it with regard to Malaysia? Is it business interests or investments?

Mr Ibrahim could well have included Fiji in that list, or even further afield to Georgia where Australia sent official election observers last year. I note that Senator John Williams is in the chamber and was one of the official election observers.

Last November in Kuala Lumpur Anwar Ibrahim gave me a handwritten letter to pass on to Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr, which I duly did. That letter was an impassioned, personal plea for Australia to play its role as a leader in the region and as a beacon of democracy to ensure that the Malaysian elections were clean and fair. When you look at the history between our two countries it is a deep history of friendship and of close ties. It is a history where Australian troops fought side by side with Malaysians during the Malay insurgency in the 1950s. We have had strong cooperation in trade and in defence, and we have had hundreds of thousands of Malaysian students welcomed in Australia to study at tertiary institutions, and Australia has been better for that. Yet, we have ignored the pleas. Back then, Foreign Minister Carr was as dismissive over Malaysian democracy as he is today with the personal plea given to him by Anwar Ibrahim. He deflected the concerns of Malaysia’s opposition leader as being something that Australia could do nothing about. When pressed on ABC Radio he asked, rhetorically, of the journalist Sabra Lane:

Do you want an amphibious landing on the east coast of Malaysia?

Our Foreign Minister ignored the reality that Australia can and does have a role in the region and beyond as a champion of democracy. Foreign Minister Carr's statements about Fiji and other nations have been testament to that, in addition to Myanmar, Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, Mr Ibrahim’s fears were well founded with the election held on 5 May.

Ambiga Sreenevasan, the head of Bersih—the Malay word for clean—the independent umbrella group of dozens of civil society organisations in Malaysia campaigning for clean and fair elections, called the election and the ruling party's campaign as the 'dirtiest yet.' Bersih, the opposition and many others raised serious concerns about the conduct of the ruling coalition and Malaysia's election commission—meant to be impartial but it is anything but that—in the months leading up to the election, and on election day itself. These allegations included concerns of electoral roll and ballot paper irregularities, vote rigging and buying, a flawed nomination process and the use of indelible ink—and I use the word 'indelible' loosely—that could be easily rubbed off.

It has been reported in the weeks leading up to the election that at least 40,000 people were flown from Borneo to the government held states of Sabah and Sarawak to vote in these constituencies and elsewhere throughout Malaysia. It is interesting to note that in Sabah and Sarawak, because of a quirk of the Malaysian immigration laws, opposition members cannot have access to those states. They cannot travel within their own country. Ambiga Sreenevasan, the head of the clean elections movement, cannot travel to parts of her own nation to check issues of irregularities.

When it comes to the so-called indelible ink, voters were able to wash off the ink used to cast their vote—which is meant to be indelible to prevent double voting and fraud, a key feature of the election commission's trumpeting that the elections would be clean and fair—just by using soap and water, or if that did not do the trick a bit of Dettol certainly did.

These concerns are consistent with the findings made by the international observer group that I was a member of in April last year. The representatives from Australia included Professor Clinton Fernandes of the University of New South Wales—well known and highly regarded for his role as a leading academic on the region—as well as representatives from India, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines and Germany, unanimously made findings of the potential for widespread fraud and irregularity, as well as the gross gerrymandering of electorates with up to a 15 to one ratio—that is, some government seats had as few as 7,000 voters with many opposition seats having over 100,000 voters.

The observer group also made findings which cannot be credibly disputed that access to the nation's TV screens and newspapers was controlled by the government with no fair access by the opposition or civil society groups. And, as you may be aware, Madam Acting Deputy President, I am suing one of the leading newspapers in Malaysia for defamation for a disgusting slur. After a speech I gave in this chamber on the Church of Scientology, describing it as a criminal organisation masquerading as a religion, the leading English language newspaper in Malaysia, the New Straits Times, used that speech and replaced the word 'Scientology' with Islam, and portrayed me as someone who is anti-Islamic. I reject that slur absolutely. Despite their apology, I will be issuing proceedings against that newspaper and other Malay language newspapers for that slur. That is how dirty the ruling party plays it.

These elections were not free or fair under any reasonable measure, yet we have ignored the pleas of those representing the majority of Malaysians to speak out in international forums to protest at what has occurred. About an hour ago, I spoke to a newly elected opposition MP Rafizi Ramli, who I know and whom I see as one of the faces of the future of Malaysia democracy. He summed up how rotten the Malaysian electoral system is. He made the point that the No. 1 problem was the so-called phantom voters—which could number up to 10 per cent of eligible voters nationally—who are registered illegally. These include workers from other countries in the region who are given identity cards and a right to vote illegally. Imagine, here, if suddenly just before the election, we gave every backpacker the right to vote in our elections, but gave them very clear directions on how they should vote if they knew what was good for them, and real questions over whether the ballot would be secret.

In the state of the Sabah, where there has been a royal commission about issues of electoral fraud, it is estimated that 600,000 or 20 per cent of the voting population of three million are these phantom voters. Mr Ramli and others have also told me of the way electorates would be stacked with registering over 100 phantom voters living in a single home. Of course, there are also the dead people who vote—the many dead people who vote in Malaysia, people who have died whose votes have not been removed from the electoral roll or they are about 115 or 116 years old.

While the opposition is challenging the results in at least 30 seats, the election laws are stacked against them. In 1999, when the government had a two-thirds majority in the Malaysia parliament, they could change the constitution at will and they did. In 1999, the law was changed so that any electoral roll challenges could not be made any more. Mr Ramli told me that each petition to challenge the vote will cost them 50,000 Malaysian Ringgit, or $17,000 to file—a lot of money for cash-strapped opposition parties. This 1999 amendment to the constitution makes it impossible to challenge potentially over a million phantom voters on the electoral rolls.

I also spoke an hour ago to Ibrahim Yaacob, the chief of staff of the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, an unsuccessful opposition candidate who, before postal and pre-poll votes were counted, had 56 per cent of the primary vote. He lost the seat 25,419 votes to 26,809 for the ruling coalition because thousands and thousands of postal and pre-poll votes came to the ratio of 80 per cent to 20 per cent against him. It is extraordinarily corrupt. A lot of those voters would have been from the army.

When I was in Malaysia last year, I spoke to a retired general who had the courage to speak to the observer group. He told us in completely unambiguous terms that when soldiers were voting their commanding officers were standing over them to make sure that they voted for the government. That is not a secret ballot. That is not democracy.

The Australian government’s attitude towards promoting democracy in Malaysia has been consistently glib and cynical. I have got to say the opposition has not said much about it either. I think we should take into account what Minister Carr has said. He has maintained that the Australian government is not in a position to examine the election results or comment on the nation’s internal affairs, but this head in the sand approach is completely inconsistent with Australia’s pro-democracy policy in Fiji, Myanmar and elsewhere in the region. The minister has previously said:

Promoting democracy helps to secure peace, prosperity and stability in our region.

Let us look at the issue of prosperity. Last November, Anwar Ibrahim made a very telling point to me. One of the key platforms of the Malaysian opposition was to fight corruption, to bring the cronies of the ruling party in Malaysia to account. There is massive corruption—for instance, the many, many billions of dollars that have been stolen from Petronas, the state owned oil company, that have gone out of Malaysia into secret Swiss accounts and secret accounts around the world.

Anwar Ibrahim made a very telling point to me. He said that 40 years ago South Korea and Malaysia had about the same GDP. In fact, South Korea's GDP was below Malaysia's. Forty years later, despite the fact that South Korea is not blessed with the natural resources of petroleum and other natural resources of Malaysia, South Korea's GDP is four times higher per capita than Malaysia's. The point that Mr Ibrahim made to me was that without the corruption, without the cronyism, without the bribery and without the widespread malfeasance that goes on in that country, Malaysians citizens would be much better off. Yet we are silent as a nation. The government and the opposition have been silent on this.

We have signed a free trade agreement with Malaysia. I think we should have linked it to democratic reforms in that country. Malaysia seems to be excised from the Australian government's conscience when it comes to what has occurred there. Many in Malaysia have asked whether the legally thwarted but still seemingly dormant people-swap deal between Australia and Malaysia could be a reason as well as our business links with Malaysia. It is interesting to note that Mr Ibrahim and the opposition parties were against the proposed people-swap deal.

So why is the Australian government ignoring these massive allegations of fraud and corruption? There is no question our relationship with Malaysia is an important one. But our great relationship and enduring friendship with Malaysia should mean that Australia has an interest in ensuring the Malaysian elections are clean and fair. Given the weight of evidence that suggests otherwise, the Australian government must play an active role in supporting any investigations into the recent elections.

On 16 February this year I arrived in Malaysia. I was due to be met by my colleagues Senator John Williams, Mal Washer MP from the coalition and Steve Georganas MP, the member for Hindmarsh, a government member. I was detained and deported because I was perceived to be a so-called security risk to Malaysia. I have been a risk in that I was part of a group of people who have exposed the truth of what has occurred in Malaysia. The attitude of the Malaysian government shows a desperate authoritarian regime that will do anything to muzzle free speech and dissent in its country.

So what have we done and what have other countries done? Even the White House released a statement which raised concerns:

We note concerns regarding reported irregularities in the conduct of the election, and believe it is important that Malaysian authorities address concerns that have been raised. We look forward to the outcome of their investigations.

Even the EU issued a statement acknowledging the irregularities and hoping that the election commission will do something about it. Yet we have been silent. Yet our foreign minister, when he was asked whether he was worried about the irregularities in the election, said, 'It's not up to us to determine these things'.

The Australian government must support Bersih's call for an independent panel to investigate the extent of electoral fraud and irregularities. It must also note that the opposition, on the official count, gained 50 per cent of the vote but only something like 40 per cent of the seats. There is something seriously rotten with that election outcome.

Just a few minutes ago opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim called me. I had a brief conversation with him. Throughout the country he has been attending rallies. He sounded tired but he is determined. He asked me this question to pass on tonight in the Senate: 'How can Australia be blind to and condone such blatant fraud and massive rigging of the elections?' Well, how can we?

Anwar Ibrahim is in Kuantan state tonight. He is due to speak to a rally. That rally will take place in the next few hours. I hazard a guess that there will be tens of thousands of people at that rally. In Kuala Lumpur there are 120,000. Throughout the country, from Johore in the south to Kelantan in the north, in Perak, in Malacca, in Kedah, in Terengganu in the east and in Selangor in the west, there have been mass rallies. In Ipoh 30,000 people attended, a relatively small city compared to Kuala Lumpur. In Penang, a city the size of Adelaide with about a million people, 120,000 people attended a rally. What has been the response of the Malaysian government? It has threatened Anwar Ibrahim with a charge of sedition for telling the truth, a charge that means that he could go to jail for up to three years. He has already been in jail on trumped up charges and spent six years in jail in solitary confinement, yet he is not embittered. He is the Nelson Mandela of the region. This is now not the time to turn our backs on a close friend and neighbour. My personal plea to the Malaysian people is simple. To quote Winston Churchill:

… never give in, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

We must do all we can as a friend of Malaysia to ensure that the true will of the Malaysian people is accepted. We must do all we can to ensure that there is a peaceful transition of power to those who have been rightfully elected who should be the government of Malaysia. This is something that we cannot ignore. It will not go away. As Anwar Ibrahim goes around the country speaking to tens of thousands of his fellow Malaysians, this is something we need to take note of. We need to act and be a responsible citizen in the region, to promote the cause of democracy in our region.